Well, I’m happy to say that the winds died down yesterday, by the time I headed out to do my evening rounds. It felt warm enough that I actually did some shoveling, including paths to the fire pit and wood piles. We haven’t been able to use the fire pit in the summer, due to drought conditions, but I’m hoping we can use it in the winter!
This morning was technically colder, but without that wind, it wasn’t too bad at all. It’s still snowing lightly and is expected to continue, off and on, throughout the day.
When feeding the outside cats and getting to the catio shelter, I spotted a grey tabby inside the self warming cat shelter under one of the floating shelves. I’m so glad it’s being used! Unfortunately, it was one of the more feral cats – Slick, I think – so my approach scared it out. It was starting to panic inside the shelter, so I made sure the door was wide open, with plenty of room for it to run out.
Later on, I saw the feral white cat with grey tabby spots in the catio shelter, and even Sprout.
I had to zoom in from across the yard to take this picture. I didn’t want to scare her away from her warm nest in the straw. I’m happy to say that both of the most feral mamas seem to be hanging out more in the catio shelter. These two have hiding places somewhere in the outer yard – or beyond, for all I can tell – so this greatly improves our changes of socializing them, or at least trapping them for spays.
I counted 35 or 37 cats and kittens this morning. I’m not sure exactly how many kittens were mashed into their favourite cat cave, but I figured at least four. I’m not sure if I double counted any. I spotted the big tom that’s started to visit us as I was going back into the sun room. I may have already counted him as a “grey tabby in the distance”, but I’m not sure.
With today’s slightly improved weather, if there is any errand running to do, I want to get it done today. I think the only trip I need to make is to the post office. There’s a couple of packages ready to pick up now.
While checking the status on the Back to Basics book I’d ordered on Cyber Monday, I saw it hadn’t shipped yet – but I also saw that the kindle edition was on a 1 day sale. $1.99 for the digital version, instead of $24.99. So I got that last night and was able to start going through it. Much of it is exactly like the older edition I have, but there are some obvious differences, too. For example, in the section on how to build various houses, it no longer has a cordwood house, but an adobe house instead. It should be interesting when I get the physical copy (I just checked this morning, and it has finally shipped) to go through both editions at the same time, and see the changes.
I’m expecting today to be another quiet day, mostly indoors. It’s hibernation season. 😄
Today was supposed to be warmer. Technically, it was. When I headed out to feed the yard cats this morning, it had warmed up to -13C/10F, which was already warmer than yesterday’s high.
The wind, however, had other ideas.
Today, we’re supposed to have winds of 30kph/19mph, with gusts up to 50kph/31mph This morning, it was coming from the south, which means it was hitting us almost dead on. Yes, we have trees to the south, but the wind funnels between the barn and the trees, and the rest is pretty open.
It. Was. Brutal.
When I got inside and checked, the windchill was at -33C/-27F. As I write this, we’ve warmed up to -11C/12F with a wind chill of -29C/-20F
When I got into the sun room, I found that all the kibble trays on one side – where the heat lamps are – were empty, but the kibble trays on the other side still had lots of kibble. We have both the inner and outer door to outside tied off so that there’s just enough room for a cat to squeeze in and out, but when the winds blow in from the south, it still gets through the doors – and right over the kibble trays. Plus, those trays are on concrete. So are the other ones, but we have pieces of rigid insulation scattered around, and the heat lamps, in the area.
Outside, I found there was still kibble on the cat house roof and all the kibble trays in the kibble shelter. From this direction, the wind actually swirls around between the three shelters forming a U shape, and snow was dusted over all the kibble. The water bowl house didn’t have snow in it, but the heated water bowl had a thick later of frost around the rim.
The food bowls at the shrine feeding station had snow in them, of course; there’s not much shelter there, so I knocked them empty and added more kibble. Not much. I want to encourage the cats to use the catio, which is quite sheltered in comparison. There was still kibble in that bowl, too. The water bowl is frozen, but it’s a metal bowl now, so I could easily knock the ice out for refilling. The cats are definitely using the catio. I just with the more feral cats would use it more, and not run away when I come close. I didn’t see Sprout this morning, but the white with grey tabby spots had gone into the catio for food, only to run away when I came back with hot water. Except it wasn’t hot anymore, by the time I was filling the bowl!
The covered greenhouse is doing much better. The thermometer in there showed about -10C/14F, and there was almost no wind getting in at all. The water bowl in there is a large, double walled plastic bowl that used to be a heated water bowl. When it died, I just cut off the cord and kept using it. With that one, I took the bowl outside and used a hatchet to chip out a “bowl” in the ice before putting it back in the covered greenhouse. When I came back with the jug of hot water, I found a fluffy kitty at it, trying to “drink” the broken bits of ice that were still in it.
I’m happy to say, I saw that kitten coming into the sun room later. It almost ran off again when it saw me, but I backed off and gave it a chance to go into the warm zone, where it stayed.
Before going inside, I did a head count. I counted 25 cats and kittens – then two more came in! So 27 cats in the sun room alone, all crowded around the three food trays and heated water bowl, with kittens jamming themselves into a pile in one of the cat caves they like so much better, and in various beds and perches. There would also have been 3-5 cats in the isolation shelter, plus 2-4 ferals that disappear into their hideouts in the outer yard. With that cold wind, they were spending as little time outside as possible!
When we have a chance, we need to open up the roof on the cat house. I think the heat bulb in there has stopped working. It could have been unplugged or something; I can’t see well enough through the windows to tell. What I can tell is that the snow on the roof above where the heat bulb is, has not been melting away. The cats take full advantage of the warm spot, but there doesn’t seem to be one right now. Not that we can open it up today. The wind would be blowing right against the inside of the roof if we open it now.
When adding straw under the shelf I added to the water bowl shelter, I took out a cardboard box the cats loved to hang out in. I’d set it on a shelf outside the bathroom window, and they quite liked going in there, but it kept getting knocked down. Today, I flattened it and put the cardboard under the big kibble tray on that side of the sun room, as insulation from the concrete floor.
Yesterday, I cleaned out the litter boxes in the sun room and today, I’m seeing they’re actually being used. At least when there’s digging involved. I’m still finding hidden messes frozen to the concrete floor in places, but they are figuring out how to use the litter. That’s a pretty big deal, with so many of the cats being more feral than not.
There’s a benefit to this!
I sent some pictures from this morning to the rescue chat group, including this one.
I soon got a response asking if the fluffy orange one – Colby – is friendly, because he would be easy to place. I explained their status as ones we’ve been able to sneak pet at times, but no. Not socialized. We have, however, made more progress with them than three years of trying with their mother!
They’d previously mentioned that long haired calicos like Kohl are quick to place, so I mentioned that she is very friendly – and that she needs someone who can take care of that glorious coat! I can feel the matts forming when I pet her. If they felt she could place her, we could grab her any time.
In the end, it was worked out that as soon as she (the same person who took other cats from us already) has her isolation room freed up after an upcoming spay, she can take Kohl, some time before Christmas. Kohl is already spayed, so that makes things easier, too.
It’s taken me quite a long time, with many interruptions, writing this post. It’s now almost 1pm. We’re up to -10F/14F right now, with a wind chill of -26F/-15F. It’s supposed to keep snowing for most of the day, too. A light snow, but we should have a few centimeters accumulated before it stops.
One of the books I ordered on cyber Monday has reached our post office. The “40 Projects for Building Your Backyard Homestead” one.
I’m not going anywhere today. Tomorrow is supposed to be a more pleasant day to head out.
I’m going to have to remember to untuck the block heater plug and start plugging the truck in!
For now, I’m going to hibernate as much as I can, and work on some crafty projects. I have my Christmas decorations to work on but with the state of my hands right now, I’ve started to make a hat on a circular knitting loom, instead. It’s been a long time since I’ve done loom knitting, so it’s going to be a practice hat. 😁
My daughter has been working hard at organizing the cat free zone, aka: the living room, as it will be pretty much the only part of the house we’ll be doing any decorating and celebrating in. It’s where I’ve had saved seed set out to dry before processing them, and today I took them all down to my basement work area (another cat free zone) to process.
Most of the processing involved gently rubbing the pods and tufts between my hands to separate the seeds out, then very carefully blowing away the chaff. Some of the plant matter was heavier than the seeds, but I don’t mind a bit of chaff in there. The blue plastic bottoms from distilled water jugs I cut to use as protective collars in the garden came in handy. The divided bottoms and curled sides did a good job of holding the seeds, so most of the chaff could be blown away.
In the first photo above, bottom left, are the memorial aster seeds I was able to collect. Top left corner are the Jebousek lettuce seeds. Top middle are Uzbek Golden carrot seeds, and the top right are mixed red and yellow bulb onion seeds.
The tray in the middle has the purple asparagus seed berries I’d collected. Those had to be done a bit differently. Some of the berries were not completely dry, yet, but could still be opened up for their seeds. I just had to tear them open with my fingers.
Some of the seed berries were obviously damaged one way or another, and the seeds inside didn’t look too good. After getting as many of the seeds out as I could, I ended up using tweezers to select out the best, healthiest looking seeds, which you can see in the second picture of the slide show above. Since they weren’t all completely dry, once I got cleaned everything else up, I set the seeds back on the parchment paper and have left them out to finish curing. The new part basement, where this is set up in, is pretty cold as well as dry, so that will be good for the seeds.
Later on, I should test germinate some of these to see if they are even viable. I know asparagus has male and female plants, and this patch has both. Looking it up, it seems they can both self pollinate or cross pollinate. It would be nice we could start some from seed. Especially since the purple asparagus we planted this past spring did not come up.
Speaking of which, it’s that time of year when I do my garden analysis on how things went this past year, and how that affects our plans for next year. I’ll be doing a series of posts about that over the next while.
Until then, here is another bit of Christmas music, to help get into the mood for the season! Something much more traditional than yesterday’s selection.
As I write this, it’s just turned 9:30, so it’s been 2 hours. We’re at -20C/-4F, and the wind chill is now at -36C/-33F, so it actually feels colder now than it did earlier! Our expected high is supposed to reach -17C/1F, then we’re supposed to get warmer over the next couple of days.
Kohl’s long fur may be getting matted, but it sure it good insulation. In the next couple of pictures, you can see the cats and kittens congregating around the heat lamps. The wall thermometer in the sun room was reading about -10C/14F, which would be a bit colder than the ambient temperature, due to where it’s located. The cats have their warm spots to hang out. In the last picture, you can see the isolation shelter crowd. The thermometer in there was covered, though, so I couldn’t see what it was reading.
With all the stuff going on, I completely forgot to do my usual posts for the start of Advent. We haven’t even dug out any Christmas decorations yet. I started crocheting this year’s hand made decorations but I might have to start doing that in the living room. The cats have stolen some of the pieces. I found one, this morning, but there’s another that’s still missing.
So, to try and get into the Christmas spirit, here’s a bluesy version of We Three Kings for you to enjoy!
Some time ago, the Cat Lady gave us one of their older cat water fountains. About a year later, they gave us a second one. We’d never used such fountains before, and the cats quite liked them, and have kept it up.
Unfortunately, the motors have been giving out and both of them died not long ago. We’d already replaced the motor on one of them, and it just didn’t seem worth it to do it again. These were the kind with the water flowing through a daisy, and the water reservoir has a clear window to see what the water level is at.
They were pretty difficult to clean, though, and our well water is very hard, making it even more of a challenge. With that in mind, my husband found a very different stainless steel design and ordered it.
This is what we got in the mail today. An Orsda Cat Water Fountain (not an affiliate link). It comes in 2L and 3L sizes. We got the 3L size.
In the first picture, you can see the different areas in the lid. Around the spout is an area water can pool in, but it also flows into a shallower pool area that drains through the filter at the opposite end.
First things I liked, right off the hop: The super tiny cleaning brushes included. That little white piece sticking up (with the yellow label on it). That’s a handle to lift the lid off. The smooth stainless steel design, with two different “pools” for water to collect.
In the second picture, you can see what was inside the fountain. There’s a sealed package with extra filters. There’s a replacement water spout. There was already a filter in the cover – I really like that design – and another sponge filter already in the motor.
Another thing I liked right away. The power cable comes in two pieces. You don’t have to unplug it from the wall when it’s time to clean the fountain. You just separate the cable.
The plug end of the power cable came with a USB adapter, so it can be plugged directly into an outlet, or into a USB port.
If you look at the length of cable from the pump, there is a white piece. That’s a plug. You can sort of see, next to Ghosty’s head, the opening the cable goes through. Once it’s through, the white plug on the cable can be pushed into the hole, creating a water tight seal. The plug has a split in it, so it can be easily popped on and off the cable.
The inside of the fountain is completely smooth. No corners or ridges, so this is going to be very easy to clean. Where the pump goes is slightly indented, and marked where the suction cups will go.
We got it washed out and set up as soon as we could! The cats were very, very curious about it, that’s for sure!
First thing to note is a problem we recognized immediately. The cats would be able to get that cover off, very easily. We’ve got cats that can open up all sorts of things (we’ve had to put knobs and child locks on our cupboard doors, because they figured out how to open them). This was a problem with our previous fountains, too. We had to tape the covers on.
Once I had the fountain up and running, it was less than a minute before the cover got pulls askew! That convenient handle to lift the top off? The cats immediately started chewing and pulling on it.
I’ve since added tape at each end and, so far, it has held!
Something I really appreciated as soon as I plugged the power cables together is, it’s almost completely silent. Basically, you hear water flowing. I hear nothing from the pump itself.
Looking at the reviews, some people have had issues with the pump, but we already had pump issues with our previous fountains. It wouldn’t hurt to pick up an extra, along with more filters, in the near future, as it’s not that expensive. In fact, some of the filter packs cost more than a new pump.
So far, I’m quite happy with it. It will be some time before we see how well it does, with our hard well water. However, if we keep up with the weekly cleaning, including parts of the pump, I think it should work out well.
Most importantly, all the cats seem to be okay with drinking from it.
I could see getting another of these in the future, for my bedroom, which Butterscotch still refuses to leave! 😄
I counted 26 or 27 this morning. In this picture, a well fed group is under the higher wattage heat bulb. When I did the evening feeding, I noticed none where hanging out under the lower wattage heat bulb, which is closer to the floor. I checked it and there was no heat coming off of it. It was plugged in, the switch was on but, nothing.
No. It wasn’t burned out.
Somehow, it was unscrewed, just enough to cut power to the bulb! The heat cover was also loose from its threads. I’m not sure how the cats manage to do this!
I headed to my mother’s earlier than usual, as I wanted to get her grocery shopping done before the home care aid arrived for her lunch assist. When I got there, she had actually started some vegetables cooking on her own. She does things in stages, so she can sit down frequently.
After double checking and modifying her list that we put together when I was there on Saturday, I headed out. There wasn’t much on it, so I was done quickly. Fast enough that I took the time to stop at a little department store along the way. I know my mother won’t be able to do a Christmas tree, and very little decorating, if any, so I wanted to get her something festive. I ended up finding a little tree set, complete with a string of lights, small enough to sit on her dining table. Then, spur of the moment, I got her a Hickory Farms set with a sausage, crackers, cheese and mustard.
When I got them out and showed them to her, making sure she knew that these were gifts from me, not something I got with her grocery money (because that would have been her first thought), she got all angry with me for getting her gifts. Especially the Hickory Farms pack. With that one, I opened the box and showed her what was in it, and saying it was something to go with her tea, if she wants, or to bring out if she has company. She was still angry with me.
Which is what I expected, really. My mother has never known how to accept gifts graciously, that I can remember. I know that she will eventually enjoy them, but will likely never admit it. At least not to me!
As I was putting her groceries away, the home care lunch assist worker arrived. Since I was there anyhow, she didn’t stay and I took care of making my mother’s lunch for her, and finishing off what she had started cooking, doing all her dishes, etc. At one point, she asked me to look for something in her cupboards (we never found it), but she has a bunch of stuff that she would like to take. These are things she brought from here at the farm – glasses, bowls, etc. – but had never used. They are, however, vintage things that we would actually keep and use. Especially my younger daughter, who really appreciates such things. They are fragile and just out of my reach, though, and we decided today was not a day to drag out the stool and start taking them down. Mostly, she’s just happy to know that they are claimed and won’t end up disposed of in some way.
I wasn’t in any hurry to leave today, as my husband messaged me to let me know there was a parcel to pick up. The post office was almost closed for 2 1/2 hours over the lunch period. Which meant I had time to do all my mother’s dishes, make room in her fridge, and prep containers of food to cool down before they would go into the fridge.
I did remember to go through my mother’s lock box. I knew there would be one bubble pack with her Sunday bedtime meds still in it. Those turned out to be the only ones in the pack. Another pack had only a Monday morning bubble with meds in it. I took both out and set them into a pill organizer she has, so the packs could be thrown away, and left a note in the lock box for the next med assist person. My mother will be getting her refills soon (which the pharmacy will no longer deliver to her, at my request; I will pick them up), so the lock box was going to need the space.
For some reason, the home care aids keep locking more and more of my mother’s pens into the lock box. They have a form to fill out, with each med assist. There should be one pen with their folder. Instead, it seems they use a pen from her table, then lock it up into the box. I’m guessing the pens fall to the bottom while the next care aid moves it to unlock it, so they don’t see it and grab another one… which gets locked into the lock box. There was one time I wanted to make my mother’s shopping list, but couldn’t find any of my mother’s pens in the container she has for them on her table. On a hunch, I went into the lock box. I found six pens in there!
While doing my mother’s shopping, I noticed some very good sales at the grocery store, so after I was finished at my mother’s, I went back to do a bit of shopping of my own. I actually bought beef today! They had a sale on tri tip that was at $6.99 a pound. That’s lower than ground beef is right now. I got a few other things, as well.
I was at Costco, yesterday, and their Kirkland brand chocolate chips were over $30 for a 2kg/4.4lbs bag. What gets me is not only how much more expensive the Kirkland branch chocolate chips are here, but that they are more expensive than the name brand chocolate chips – both are semi-sweet – in a 2.4kg/5.3lb bag.
I recall, two or three years ago, that there were predictions of the price of chocolate going up, due to things like weather damage, pests and disease. Add in everything else involved in production and processing going up and adding to the price, it’s really gotten insane. It takes a few years for the increase in prices of cocoa beans (they tripled) to affect retail prices, but now I’m seeing that there is a recovery and supply is increasing. Prices might start to ease a few months from now, though probably not by much. The beans may not be as expensive, but all the other costs are still going up.
That done, I still had time before the post office reopened, even with how long the drive it, so I ended up going to the local Chinese restaurant for a late lunch.
The store the post office is in is an old style general store that includes a liquor section, right next to the post office window. As I was waiting for my parcel, I started looking at the nearest display and spotted a new wine, with the label stating it was from our province. The postal clerk saw me looking and told me that the wine is actually produced locally. As in, just off the highway that runs through our little hamlet! There was a semi-sweet and a ginger and lemon, both sparkling white wines.
I ended up getting a bottle of ginger and lemon. It only cost $20. Technically, my mother bought it, since she gave me $20 in cash for gas. 😂😂 (It costs almost $30 a trip to go to her place, with the current local prices.)
I’m now debating: do we taste test it now, or save it for Christmas? 😁
With the extra stuff, I sent a message home and my younger daughter was sweet enough to come out and open the gate for me, then help bring the bags to the house. It was a bit early but, once everything was in and I still had my boots on, I took care of feeding and watering the outside cats, and doing my evening rounds, while my daughter put stuff away.
Then, opened up our parcel and go it set up, but I will write a review on that in my next post!
I took advantage of some Cyber Monday deals on Amazon and ordered a couple of books on my wish list, last night. Just now, I placed an order for some trees that will arrive in the spring. (None of the links below are affiliate links. Links will open in new tabs.)
First up, the books.
One is Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills. Fourth Edition. I actually have a 1981 Reader’s Digest edition, Back to Basics: How to Learn and Enjoy Our Traditional Skills. I don’t know that these are connected, as the one I’m ordering has an Abigail Gehring listed as the editor. No Reader’s Digest listed anywhere. Looking at the preview of the one I ordered, it does seem to be an updated version of what I have. Which is an excellent book.
Both of these are supposed to arrive before Christmas but Canada Post hasn’t exactly been reliable of late. I believe they are technically still on a rolling strike. We shall see. I look forward to going through both of them over the winter!
Next are the trees.
One is a bundle of five Bleu Basket Willow. I’ve been considering for some time, where the best place to plant them would be. Willow propagates easily, so the plan it to expand them. The source, Prairie Hardy Nursery, also has two other varieties of basket willow in different colours that I plan to get, when the budget allows. The plan is to coppice them so that they can be used for things like wattle weave fences and, yes, weaving baskets. Thinking long term, these will be planted beyond the outer yard, and will need to include protection to keep the renter’s cows from crushing them by accident, until they get bigger.
The other is a single bare root seedling, as part of our food forest; a Manchurian Walnut. While we have black walnut planted, they may or may not have a long enough growing season here for fully mature nuts to form. Normally, they wouldn’t, but the ones I got were from a nursery in our province, so they are probably acclimated already. The Manchurian Walnut is hardy to zone 2b. It’ll be 10-12 years before they start producing. As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago. The second best time is now! They are also described as fast growing, so we should be able to enjoy the tree for its beauty before it starts producing. As with the black walnuts, these will be planted in the outer yard. They are self fertile, though it is recommended they be planted in pairs for better production. Which we might do, when the budget allows.
The nursery opened for the sales season in November, and the dormant seedlings will be shipped in the spring. I’ll get an email in April to work out the best shipping date based on our last frost date. If I am able to order more trees between now and then, they actually have a code to include to combine orders, so as not to increase the shipping fees, and everything gets shipped together. The shipping costs are relatively high, but they include insurance. Most places don’t.
It’s slow going, but little by little, we’re getting it things done!
Today, my daughter and I made it into the city for our Costco shop, where we checked out a new location.
First bonus about this location is that we don’t need to drive through the city to get to it. It’s actually outside the bypass highway around the city. No city traffic, no frequent stops at lights, etc.
First down side: it’s near some pretty major event infrastructure, as well as some new apartments that weren’t there the last time we drove by here, years ago, so it shares entry lanes. Which includes two roundabouts.
I really dislike roundabouts. Yes, I understand efficiency of the design. I just have no faith at all in other drivers. The city we lived in before moving here had several roundabouts we had to go through regularly, much larger than the ones we had to use today, and they sucked when traffic was high.
Thankfully, traffic was not high.
When we first drove in, the parking lot looked really full. Our first stop was the gas station, which had more pumps than the other locations we’ve gone to. That went really fast.
Also, gas there was $1.139/L, instead of the $1.299 everywhere else. It cost me “only” $46.47 to fill my tank from a little over half.
As for the crowded parking lot, that turned out to be just the area closest to the entry. Once we got past a certain point and could see the rest, we found there was plenty of space to park.
The location is somewhat bigger than the others we’ve been to and, while they matched the layout of other locations pretty well, a few things were changed up. One of them was where the cat supplies were set up! We finally found it, pretty much opposite of where they are typically kept.
The shop itself was… well… okay, I have to admit. I hate shopping and I hate crowds, not that it was particularly crowded today.
I really hate it when people with half empty carts expect me, with my flat cart, to stop on a time to avoid hitting them as they wander and weave, not paying any attention to what’s around them.
Having said that, I was ready to abandon my flat cart only twice this trip.
My daughter is a sanity saver.
One of the things they have that’s different is their sushi bar, which was added on to where they have their in store made heat and eats, like Shepard’s Pie and chicken pie. I wasn’t able to check it out too thoroughly, though, because there was a lot of cart traffic and looky-loos. When pushing a flat cart, I’m just not flexible enough to get around everyone, though I still couldn’t see much even when I left the cart with my daughter and tried looking again.
Their food court menu was also different. They had sushi on the menu, but they also had their Montreal Smokes Meat sandwiches, too. The other locations dropped those from their menu, years ago. I was really looking forward to doing lunch after we finished our shopping.
It didn’t happen.
This is what $563.72 looks like.
That really isn’t much on there at all.
So, this is what we got today, starting with the non-food (at least, not for humans) items. There’s two 9kg bags of kibble – we have a good supply, but this should ensure we don’t run short at the end of the month – one case of wet cat food, a case of puppy pads, toilet paper and a dish detergent refill jug.
For drinks, there’s a case of Monster – yay! Finally in stock again! – a case of Coke Zero and a 3 pack of Oat Milk.
For meats, I got two rotisserie chickens, because it was cheaper than buying any of the uncooked chicken options. The fresh made sausage section was bigger and had new varieties, so we picked up a pack of Greek sausage, and one of Gouda and Cranberry. I also got two panini packs for sandwiches. That was it for meat. Beef prices were heart stopping. I should know better than to even look!
For dairy, we got a 4 pack of cream cheese, sour cream, 5 pounds of butter and a 2 pack of goat cheese. My daughter also grabbed some grated Parmesan, which I’ll be paid back for. We normally get blocks of cooking cheeses, but we still have plenty. I was sorely tempted to try new cheeses, though, as their cheese selection in much larger and more varied! Not in today’s budget.
In the frozen stuff, we got a box of perogies and a bag of mixed vegetables.
In breads, we got two 2 packs of rye bread and two 2 packs of tortilla wraps.
In the odds and sots, we got two large containers of mayo, a box of mixed instant oatmeal, a double flat of eggs (60 eggs) and a sushi platter to be supper for the girls. I meant to get something for my husband and I as a quick, heat and eat supper but I couldn’t find anything that both my husband and I can eat. More and more foods make him feel sick after eating, as if he were having a lactose intolerance reaction, even if there’s no dairy in the food. So I ended up not getting anything. It’s getting much harder to get food for him.
I was still thinking of going to the food court but by the time we were heading for the check out line, not only did I not want to have refrigerator/freezer items sitting out so long while we ate, I had basically lost all patience with being around people. In fact, we didn’t even finish going through all the food aisles. Aside from the usual cart traffic issues, I kept getting stuck behind one older couple that kept weaving back and forth in the middle of the aisles, stop suddenly, or split up and be doing the same thing in two aisles at the same time. We even ended up blocked by them again, while trying to get the the checkouts. At least I was able to get past them, though someone else was blocking the aisle from the other direction that I had to get around. We weren’t any any hurry, but I get really tired of trying so hard to not be in the way with my big flat cart, only to have to deal with people who are oblivious about being in the way. Even as lightly loaded as ours was today, flat carts are not easy to maneuver!
So… yeah. That’s all we got today. A whole 35 items.
Once we were loaded up and heading out, things went smoothly. The only down side was my not eating yet. On the way out, we’d stopped to pick up some energy drinks and I got a bag of beef jerky. That was all I’d eaten all day, and it was about 1pm as we were leaving the city. On the way home, my daughter insisted we stop for food. I was thinking a quick stop at the gas station in my mother’s town that we had to pass through; the one that has the best fried chicken, but she was thinking an actual sit down restaurant. There’s a restaurant right on the highway that is under new ownership and completely redone that she hasn’t been to yet, so we ended up stopping there and she treated me to breakfa… lunc… an early supper?
By the time we were done, it was late enough for the post office to have reopened for the afternoon, so we made a quick stop there (my expected items have not arrived, including something that got mailed more than a month ago. Thanks, striking Canada Post.) before finally getting home. Just in time to feed the outside cats after unloading the truck!
No more softening the kibble. It’s just too cold. Some of the trays still had frozen kibble from yesterday stuck to them!
Today, we reached a high of -12C/10F. Which isn’t too bad, except even the slightest breeze made it feel much colder. Tomorrow is supposed to be slightly warmer, which is good, because I’m going to my mother’s do to her grocery shopping. Overnight lows over the next while are expected to drop below -20C/-4F Looking at the long range forecast for December is just an exercise in crazy. This morning, I was seeing some pretty nasty drops in temperature over the next couple of weeks – but then seeing expected highs of up to 5C/41F before Christmas! Looking at it again now, those days are now forecast as being below freezing, but warmer than -10C/14F Around and just after Christmas, they’re now saying we’re suppose to reach highs of -1C/30F
I highly doubt that will happen.
Anyhow. That is our Costco stock up shop for today!
Now it’s time to go through and look at what got missed, because we never finished going through the store, and what we’ll need to get locally.
For now, though, I just want to stay home and not be around people.
The Re-Farmer 