$364.05, to be exact. Plus the stuff I didn’t get photos of.

My daughter did the morning routine again. This morning, she found all six kittens – plus the older singleton! – playing together near the shrine feeding station. She startled them and they ran off, but when she came back with cat soup, she said all seven of them were eating out of the same bowl!

More progress on that later…

We headed for the city around 10am or so, crossing over towards town and stopping at a gas station to pick up drinks for the road, first. We chose this route because the highway goes straight into the city and turns into the street that all our stops are on.

That was a mistake.

While no construction workers were on the highway, there were still limits in places that required reduced speeds. Mostly because of the drop off at least a foot deep where the shoulder used to be! Then we got into the city itself and there was even more construction, with the first intersection we needed blocked to turns, so we had to pass it then turn around.

By the time we got to where the Canadian Tire is, it was lunch time, so we popped into the mall to eat, first. We ended up both going to A&W for some double mozza burgers – it’s been ages since I’ve had one. My daughter had poutine with hers and I chose sweet potato fries, plus we both had medium fountain drinks. It ended up costing just over $42.

*sigh*

This mall has a Dollarama, and I wanted to go there before we headed to the Canadian Tire. I was looking for the 10% acid vinegar in gallon jugs. We didn’t find any; just in smaller spray bottles. So we skipped that, but we did get a few other things. We’ve somehow lost track of a couple of spray bottles we use for water – mostly to use on the cats! – so we got two more. I also picked up two more pet odor remover pucks to keep near litter boxes. I also spotted some absolutely adorable little sauce dipping bowls in a set of four. My love of tiny bowls is a bit of a running joke, but we do actually use them a lot. My daughter noted that they were a very good size and shape, too, so I got a set. While going past the hats display, my daughter went digging and found a hat with the front and visor in rainbow glitter.

I now have a new hat in my sparkly hat collection.

The grand total came to $21.28

From there, we headed to the Canadian Tire. The main thing to get there is the litter pellets, however we also went looking for some other things and found stuff to pick up that we normally would not.

We got two 40 pound bags of pellets for litter. They also had a whole bunch of gallon jugs of 10% acid cleaning vinegar! We got two. Then we headed to the paint department. While there, I found a display of 30% acid vinegar! That one had all sorts of corrosion warnings on the label. 😄 A 4L/1gallon jug of 10% acid cost $4.99 each. The 30% acid vinegar cost almost $30 for a gallon. !!

I also found a new SeptoBac product to try. We have the powder that gets flushed down the toilet to add bacteria to the septic tank. This stuff is meant to be used monthly to help clear and maintain the pipes. We plan to use it from the kitchen sink, as it’s the length of pipe that runs from there to the corner under the bathroom that is of primary concern.

I found and picked up a roll of Tucktape outdoor repair tape, because the one I’d picked up before has simply disappeared, after a single use. I am a complete loss as to what happened to it, as I’d made a point of putting it somewhere in the open, with plans to use it again soon. When I came to get it, it was gone. It hasn’t shown up again in a few months, so I just bought another one.

Then we got a couple of wood conditioners. For myself, I picked up some Butcher’s Block finishing oil, designed for food handling surfaces. Aside from conditioning our wooden cutting boards, I have some elm rounds from the tree that was in front of the kitchen window that I plan to chainsaw into thinner rounds. They’ll be made into live edge, round cutting “boards” to be used with our outdoor cooking. Once the rounds are cut, cleaned and sanded smooth, they will get treated with this oil.

My daughter, meanwhile, wanted something to use on our tools and other outdoor items, and chose a teak oil. The blend has linseed oil in it, but she can work with that. We had been talking about various products during the drive in and she mentioned the warnings about linseed oil they got when she worked at a Home Depot and was paint trained. Be extremely careful with the rags when you’re done, because they have a tendency to spontaneously combust!!!

The oils were both pretty expensive, and they brought the total bill up to $123.48 (it would have been so funny if that 8 had been a 5…)

That done, our next stop was a Walmart, and I managed to get a photo of that cart. 😄

This is what $191.35 looks like.

Not a lot of stuff, really, but there are things I plan to pick up tomorrow after my doctor’s appointment that we didn’t want to bother picking up today.

That done, we headed to our next stop at the international grocery store.

Which took a lot longer than it should have, since we were driving back through that construction zone again.

This trip was not quite as planned, but that’s okay.

This is what $172.69 looks like.

There was one thing I was hoping to pick up, but we never found it. The big blocks of frozen ahi tuna were on sale, but it looks like they were completely sold out of the frozen ones.

I made up for it with a brisket.

Last of all was a package of cheesy bread to snack on during the drive home, as we were starting to get pretty hungry again. Once done, we popped over to a gas station next to the grocery store and added $40, which just barely filled the tank. Gas in town when we stopped for drinks on the way in was $159.9 In the city, it was $154.9

Thankfully, on the way out of the city, there wasn’t as much construction. We did cut across to take another highway home, though, so avoid all the construction that slowed us down on the way in.

Which meant we drove through the town my mother used to live in, and saw gas prices at $147.9 !!! It is very unusual for the smaller towns to have better prices than the city.

Ah, well.

Both my daughter and I took our time about the whole thing, but were starting to struggle by the end of it. I brought my walker along and am glad I did, as it allowed me to sit down any time the pain levels started to creep up. My daughter was caning it by the time we hit Canadian Tire. I absolutely credit my daughter’s help for my feeling as well as I did when we got home!

In the time we were gone, I was getting messages from my brother and SIL. Their grandchildren went back home yesterday, as they start school tomorrow. Today, my brother was able to stop to visit my mother and take care of a few things for her before they headed here, just long enough to drop something off. By then, my younger daughter and I were on the road home, and my older daughter took care of feeding the outside cats. I’d let the family know my brother and SIL would be popping by, but she hadn’t noticed they were already their. Totally startled her while she was feeding the kittens in the catio!!

After we got home, put everything away and had supper, I cut the brisket into four chunks, then processed those further. One chunk got cut into stewing meat, another into “steaks”, and the last two into roasts. Three of the packages went into the freezer. These will be something to use the Instant Pot for!

Then I headed outside to check on the kittens. I had started getting messages asking how trapping the kittens was going. I know they are officially closed to intakes right now, but they really want those kittens! I updated them a bit, but they were pushing to trap them right away. Which I can understand, but they don’t seem to be quite understanding how it can’t really be done that way.

The food bowl in the catio was completely empty again, so I put out some distraction cat food in other bowls, then added more kibble with cat milk in the catio.

No sign of kittens.

I then went around the yard to check on things before coming back.

I found three kittens playing around the junk pile area. No kittens at the branch pile.

Time to move the catio!

I took the items on and in the catio and set them in the wagon, then walked the catio over until it was close to the junk pile, then set everything back up again. I kept seeing the three kittens playing around, with one of them even going all the way to the main door on the house! As I was finishing up and checking one last time before going in, I saw a little black kitten at the food bowl. I went over and, instead of running away, it ran into the huge cat carrier in the corner, which its cat bed inside.

Where there were already two other kittens.

!!

At that point, I could have just closed the door, but that would have left them without food an water overnight. I could have closed the catio door, but that would have prevented other kittens from coming in and having access to the food and water bowls near the carrier. So I left things be.

Once inside and at my keyboard, I started answering messages from the rescue group. I explained to them that the catio is our trap, and how we’d used it before to get Pinky’s two kittens closer to the house and socialized to the point we could just put them in carriers and bring them in, with no fight and no trauma. These kittens are much younger, so that will make things a bit easier. Especially with Slick gone, so they rely completely on use for food and water. Normally, they would be too young for weaning, I think. I don’t think they are 6 weeks old yet.

After explaining the progress made, I asked for instructions on what to do for the next time I can just close up the carrier door with kittens inside. I now have some available days and times. On any of those days (including, potentially, tomorrow after my doctor’s appointment) I will close up the carrier on any kittens inside, then contact the rescue group and one of them will be able to meet us to take in the kittens. One of them is making space in her house for them now.

I don’t expect to be able to get more than three kittens at once, and it’s three kittens that are braver and more playful. Once they have been taken in, we’ll have a better chance of getting the shier ones and – hopefully – the older white and grey singleton.

So, that’s where we stand now. Second stock up shop is done. All of it together, with lunch, gas and three different stores, came to $467.33

Those are some of the emptiest shopping carts for a stock up shop we’ve had for a while, but we did get some unusually expensive items on this shop that we likely won’t need to do again for some time.

The Re-Farmer