Author: Re-Farmer

Doing all right

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Today was another quiet day of mostly indoors.  I did manage to do the morning cat feeding outside, for a change.

They are enjoying a different cat soup for now.  We are out of the donated wet cat food.  What’s left is for the indoor cats, and we are running low on that, too, sunce we didn’tdo a Costco trip yet.  We had a freezer burned whole fish in the freezer – the packaging got torn.  I ground it up, bones, skin and all, then boiled the grinding in a small amount of water.  It got me 6 little Tupperware containers, about the size of our usual cans of cat food.  That’s what we are now using to make cat soup, and the outside cats love it!

I counted 14 this morning.  A bit higher than usual.  I found ice on the water bowl in the isolation shelter, so I plugged in the extension cord.  I did the cat feeding in the evening, too, and remembered to turn the heat lamp on for the night.  It’s warm enough that we can shut it off during the day.

I spent a fair part of the day working on a hat and scarf set in bulky yarn.  The hat is done, and I’m more than half way on the scarf.  I will finish it after I’m done writing this.

My younger daughter was able to bring Butterscotch into the living room with me, so she is not harassed by other cats for a while.  She is such a bundle of anxiety, and my not sleeping the my bedroom has stressed her out.  She wanted back into the living room so much, she actually left my bedroom last night and greeted my older daughter in the hallway before it got too much for her and she ran back into my bedroom.

She was so excited to be back in the living room with me today!  I had to stop working to give her some love, so she would stop trying to climb me.  Eventually, she settled for a while, and I could finish the hat I was working on and start the scarf.  As I write this, she is loafed behind my head above the couch.

At one point, she got very restless and I tried getting her near a litter box.  Unfortunately, even though I tried distracting the other cats with kibble, some chose stalking her over food.  She didn’t try running back to the bedroom.  She ran for the living room!  I opened the wire mesh door that keeps the cats out, and she bolted in.

I ended up bringing her personal food and water bowl in.  Then found a spot for a litter box for her that I hope works out.  It seems she will be spending the night with me!  A few times, she has gone to the door, only to run off in a panic because another cat walked up to it to look in.

Tomorrow is supposed to be quite a bit warmer during the day, so I hope to at least give the haskaps a deep watering.  Then see what else I can work on, within my restrictions.  The day after, I think we will be doing a trip to the nearer Walmart.  I’m not sure we will manage a Costco trip this month.

Ah… my daughter just let us know supper is ready.

I wonder how Butterscotch will be when I bring my supper in.  We have smoked pork chops tonight, and they smell amazing!

The Re-Farmer

An indoor day

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Today’s high was just a bit above zero, so it was pretty much a completely indoor day. I spent most of it working on a crochet experiment that, in the end, I was quite happy with, even though I had to modify my plans because I was running out of the yarn I was using.

I did get outside at least a little bit, though, to get a meter reading. As I went to the pole in the outer yard, I spotted a cat toy from the isolation shelter I’d forgotten about. I’d washed it with the others on the sidewalk, but never noticed it was missing. It’s a round pink ball that lights up when it bounces. I grabbed it and tossed it back into the inner yard and Midnight, who had been following me, ran after it like a puppy playing fetch! He was quite hilarious.

I got my reading and started back to the house when I saw it in the grass and decided to toss it towards the sun room door and kibble house set up. As soon as I threw it, there was an absolute stampede of 5 cats, thundering after it! I don’t even know where they all came from. They just exploded after it! It was so funny!

On another note, I heard from my brother and SIL today. They were on their way to my mother’s with a new wheelchair for her. She has the one that was my late father’s and she wanted a new one. My brother had talked to her about what she wanted and ordered one from Amazon, and they wanted to get it to her as quickly as possible.

She hated it.

My brother, thoughtfully, took video of her trying it out and was able to send it to me after they got home – with the new wheelchair that they’ll be returning. On seeing the video, I understand why she wasn’t happy. She couldn’t use the armrests at all! It’s made for a smaller person. My mother is pretty tiny, but overweight, and it just wasn’t right for her. She needs a bariatric wheelchair. Not because of her the number on the scale – as I said, she is tiny, so “overweight” for her is still below the weight limits of non-bariatric chairs – but for the dimensions.

Then, in the video, she started talking about her current wheelchair. My late father’s wheelchair.

She is absolutely convinced it’s not the same chair. Someone “traded” it (something she accused my father of doing for as long as I can remember). She thinks someone took the chair at one of the TCUs she was in before finally getting to the nursing home and replaced it with an inferior one.

That chair had been stored here for some time. I brought it to my mother. Before I did, I cleaned it, oiled the moving parts and conditioned the vinyl. One of the foot rests had been stuck and I had to fight with it, and some WD40, to get it moving again. I recognize that chair very well. It has not been changed.

I now regret removing my late father’s name tag that had his picture on it, that the nursing home put on it while he was there.

I ended up sending a link to my brother for a bariatric chair in a style that would suit my mother better – and suggested getting anything but black (which would be hard to find), so the chances she’d believe someone switched chairs on her would be almost nil. We’ll see how it works out. He’ll have to return the chair and get his money back, and I don’t know if he’ll be able to order a bariatric one before then. Those things are not cheap!

On another note, I was rather taken aback by my mother’s appearance. Her face was quite grey, and she has dark circles around her eyes.

As I was writing this, I checked the sun room critter cam and noticed both a skunk and a raccoon in the sun room. I headed out to chase them away, and found not one, but two giant, fluffy raccoons (they have their winter fur and look massive, this time of year). As I chased them out, I noticed a cat bed had fallen off a shelf and went to put it back. Gouda and Fluffy had been snuggling in another cat bed and came out for pets. I got to give Fluffy some thorough pets.

It wasn’t fluffy. It was the one the girls call Lady Grey. She looks like Fluffy, but has a white chest. She had always been one of the more feral cats, but the girls have been working on her. She kept looking like she wanted to run away, but still let me pet her! That is just huge!

Now, we’re not 100% sure she is a she, with all that long fur hiding things, but the girls are convinced she’s female. If she is now allowing pets, even when it’s not feeding time, we should be able to finally get her spayed!

Or neutered, if Lady Grey turns out to be Lord Grey.

Anyhow…

That’s how today went. Rather quiet. We’re supposed to get a fair bit warmer over the next few days, so I hope to get more stuff down outside.

I know I’ve said this quite a few times already, but I am so appreciating this mild weather we are having this year. It’s allowing us to slowly get things done out there, as we are physically able to.

Next year, I suspect, is going to be a lot more productive in comparison!

The Re-Farmer

Got it done!

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It was another lovely day, and I was feeling well enough to finish winterizing the cat isolation shelter.

They are so happy!

My brother had been able to do a bit of leveling of the patio blocks, but they some of them are still a bit off. I had to put something under one of the front wheels of the shelter to keep it from wobbling. The weather blocking box also needed something put under the front legs, with one needing twice as much as the other.

One of the things I would normally want to do is put rigid insulation under the roof for the winter again. Unfortunately, the cats REALLY love that insulation. They love to scratch it, more than they like to scratch the hemp rope scratching board that serves as a ramp between the levels. Before cleaning up, I had pieces of insulation I’d been cutting from nearby, including a fairly large piece. The cats were all over it – and trying to burrow under it, too!

So while I’d love to put insulation under the roof to create a ceiling, nothing lasts the winter. It gets destroyed.

We need to figure something else out, because it really does make a difference to have an insulated ceiling. Thankfully, it’s still warm enough to not be an issue yet.

Other than that, it was a mostly quite day. My daughter and I did run into town this evening for a quick little grocery run. When we got to town, we found gas prices as dropped to $1.599 at two stations, and the Shell station I normally go to was $1.539

I filled the tank. With my CAA card discount, I paid the equivalent of $1.509

It was full dark before we even finished shopping. It’s been a long time since my daughter has driven at night. She had forgotten how much she enjoyed it. Except for oncoming vehicles forgetting to turn off their brights.😕

I’m feeling really good about getting at least one major thing finished today!

The Re-Farmer

Doing so much better today!

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While the temperatures today are cooler than yesterday, the rain has stopped and the sun has come out, so I was very happy to finally get outside!

While there is a lot to do all over, I am wanting to prioritize getting things winterized for the cats as much as possible. Today, that meant working on the isolation shelter.

Yes, I moved it by the house.

Yes, I moved it by myself.

Very slowly. Very carefully. Even with the rain, the ground was not too soft, and none of the wheel sank too much. Once I got to the sidewalk and could keep at least 2 wheels on the concrete blocks, it went a lot faster and smoother.

I had been working on it for a while when my daughter came out, having remembered we needed to pick up a package at the post office. We headed out together and it’s a good thing she interrupted me. After sitting in the truck for a while, my body started letting me know that I really needed to stop for the day, before I pushed things too far. So when we got back, I went over what I’d done so far with her, and what I was working on when I stopped, so she could take over for me, if she got to it before I did.

After cleaning up and putting things away, I decided to take a short video, instead of photos.

Before moving it, I took out the sliding windows, emptied it and cleaned out the bottom as best I could. The litter box had been tipped on its side, long enough ago that all the sawdust from the litter pellets was dry. I have a car bush/squeegee/scraper combo with a telescoping handle and a brush the rotates 90° that works really well for that. The scraper end broke long ago, but the brush/squeegee end has been so very handy when it comes to cleaning the and isolation shelter and the catio roof. I was able to brush most of the sawdust through the mesh floor. If it were spring or summer, I would have hosed it down, too, but I wasn’t going to do that this time of year.

When my older daughter and I removed the plastic (vinyl dining table covers, actually) from around the bottom earlier in the year, I made sure to label all the wood lath pieces with where they came from, and kept their screws in the wood, so I could put them back in the same places without making new holes in the wood frame. The vinyl is two pieces that overlap at the back. Their bottoms were pretty damaged from last winter. One of them was a lot more damaged at one end at the back than the other. While against the house last winter, there was enough space behind it that the cats can fit on top of some things I had stored behind it, and they sometimes slipped, clawing the plastic in the process. With that one, I folded the most damaged part in on itself. The vinyl table protectors are folded in half already, so the overlapping part in the back now has 6 layers in the middle, instead of four.

While we tried to store the vinyl as smoothly as possible, it was still pretty wrinkled, which made securing it with the wood a bit more challenging. On one end, the bottom was torn up enough that I had to use my clear repair tape before I could secure it with the wood lath.

I’d also had a length of wood lath at the back of the roof, joining the roof supports. It had been nailed in place and kept popping off, so I finally tucked it under the roof panels. Today, I put it back with tiny screws, instead of nails. This is to keep the roof supports from wobbling unevenly when it’s lifted. It’s not an issue at the front, where the hinge is. Two more supports were added under the roof panel to stop some sagging. I’ll need to bring the little step ladder out, and then I’ll add some more screws to secure the panels directly to the added supports in the middle, where I can’t otherwise reach.

One of the things I made sure to do was put rigid insulation on the walls of the upper level. The piece that was in the side over the hammock, however, was rather loose and kept falling down into the hammock, or even down to the lover level, before finally breaking. Cats in the hammock would use it as a scratching post, too, and kept pulling it loose. That panel is nothing but wood lath, with some pieces bowing a bit. Wind can get through it quite easily, so I wanted to put new insulation in there. This time, I used my measuring tape calipers to figure out the dimensions properly. When I’d added the insulation before, the front window hadn’t been put on yet, so it was easy to access. I basically just held the insulation to the space and cut it mostly by eye. Which would have worked fine, if there was no wind or cats to make it fall out. I had just finished cutting the piece to fit around the corner brace and the small piece of wood that’s screwed into the inside corner at the top. I had tried to fit in in place, and it is just the tiniest bit too wide. I could force it in place and it would hold very well, but I want to cut a second, matching piece, first, to make a double layer of insulation. The inside one, right up against the wood, can be trimmed to fit without being forced, and I am thinking the outside one can be left without trimming, and be tight enough to not be pulled out by the cats too easily – and if they do, there will be a second layer beneath it.

Not today, though. I’m glad my daughter came out when she did and distracted me. Otherwise, I would have kept going for quite a while and potentially injured myself before realizing it.

Speaking of injuries, once I’ve had my follow up appointment, and our doctor is at her new location, I need to get that left shoulder checked. It is starting to be a problem. The arm is strong, but range of motion is increasingly limited.

All in good time.

I’m just really happy with how much I was able to do today, while the weather is so lovely right now!

The Re-Farmer

A nothing, day…

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Well. For me, at least.

Today was overcast and rainy all day, as predicted.

Which meant I was feeling sleepy all day.

This is on top of already getting tired quickly and sleeping a lot more than usual since the surgery. A double whammy of sleepy. I didn’t even make it outside to do any cat feeding, or even doing my usual walkabout.

I did get a couple of things done. We had taken one of the turkeys out of the freezer and my older daughter roasted it last night, for us to enjoy today. She set aside the neck and bag of innards for me. Last night, when I found myself awake and ended up writing a blog post, I stayed up until past 6am. Before going back to bed, I got out the meat grinder my younger daughter and I had picked up at the second hand store earlier this summer and used it to grind the set aside turkey bits. It came out to quite a decent amount, which I packed up in a take out container and set in the old kitchen (which is uninsulated and currently refrigerator cold, even in this mild fall) for my daughters to use to make cat soup with. That seemed to work out rather well.

No one has succeeded in getting close to Sweetie to treat that horrible ear of hers. It’s probably the worst case of ear mites I’ve seen – or the worst damage from scratching. Yet none of us can get close to her, even while she is eating. We used to be able to pet her! Sending her to the rescue for spay and trying to adopt her out has really set her back. It’s been months, and still no progress.

I didn’t even get any crochet done today. Instead, I’ve been trying to catch up on my desktop. I haven’t been keeping up on visiting my blogs as regularly. I don’t do it on my phone, as I find it so much harder to read anything on there, never mind constant issue with tapping on a screen. I haven’t been keeping up on my emails, either, which is mostly newsletters and subscribed stuff, including bloggers I now follow on Substack. Personal communications are more often through text or Messenger, not email, these days. It’s remarkable, how quickly those emails build up. I won’t be able to catch up on them all today, that’s for sure.

Tomorrow is supposed to be chillier, but we should be getting some sunshine. I look forward to getting outside, even if it’s just for a little while!

I got a call from my mother today. I have to say, her calls have been wildly difference since I got my cancer diagnosis and surgery. She actually sounds cheerful. When I ask how she’s doing, she just says “the usual” in referring to her long list of maladies she likes to blame on some food or other, or on the staff for trying to kill her by giving the wrong meds, but doesn’t actually talk about them with me anymore. She saves that for my brother and sometimes my sister.

She has been refusing to dress for the day, staying in one of three long, thick nightgowns she has. She has suddenly decided that she needs more of them, but my sister has not been able to find any that my mother will like. She tried going at my brother about getting her clothes, because she has soooo much money (she doesn’t), and she’s entitled to new things. My brother, meanwhile, knows nothing about her clothing. That’s my sister’s specialty. She knows my mother’s measurements and will usually tailor store purchases to fit my mother. So when she started telling me about talking to my brother about clothes, I told her he’s not the one to talk to about that! That’s when she mentioned that my sister had said she would buy fabric and sew something for her. My sister used to sew all her own clothes, for many years, including clothing of her own design, so she is definitely the right person for that. In hearing some of what my mother was saying she needed, I told her that there are places that specialize in clothes for people with mobility issues. I’m sure there’s one such place in the city where the nearest Walmart is. My sister works at that Walmart, as lives just a 15 minute or so drive away. My mother liked that idea and I promised to pass the message on to my sister.

My mother has been at the personal care home for 5 months now, and has been basically living in those thick nightgowns the whole time. From how she was talking to me, I get the impression that she is seeing how other people living there are always dressed so nicely, and she would like to do that, too. If that’s what it takes for her to stop insisting on not dressing for the day, I’m good with that!

Hopefully, my sister will find – or can sew – things that my mother will like. She is very hard to please, but also doesn’t give much information about what she actually wants!!

It’s coming up on time for me to take my evening med and supplements.

I don’t think I’m going to finish going through the tabs of things I’m trying to catch up on tonight. I might just grab some supper to go with my meds, then go to bed!

I can’t remember the last time I went to bed before midnight so often – and actually slept! Even with waking during the night, I’ve been sleeping for about 10-12 hours a day.

That is so very unusual for me.

The Re-Farmer

I forgot!

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I think this is the first time in 9 years blogging here, that I outright forgot to make my daily post!

So here I am, at past 2am, making up for it. 😄

Actually, it’s past 3am.

Our province no longer does daylight savings time, but not all our devices are connected to services that have figured that out. I have an old tablet that’s used only to display the weather, time and date. It, and my desktop, think we’ve changed time. Our phones, however, didn’t change. In theory, we should be able to manually change the time. The old tablet was my husband’s and we both tried to change it. It didn’t stick. I haven’t even tried on my desktop.

The funny thing was when I went online to confirm the time for our province – and got two different official answers!

Too funny!

Anyhow…

It was a lovely day outside tod… er… yesterday, and today is supposed to be even warmer. It’s also started to rain in the evening and it supposed to continue all day today. Most of the prairies right now is also under a fog advisory, with near 0 visibility in places.

I had a nice surprise yesterday, in the early afternoon. I got a message from my brother letting me know he’d just visited our mother and would be coming out here. I had a chance to go out and talk to him for a while. My mother, he told me, was once again complaining about the internet radio he got for her, because it’s all just one station.

Yup. She reprogrammed the buttons again.

He went over it with her again, explaining to just push the buttons, don’t push and hold. She isn’t even holding for long. He told me he’d actually contacted the company he got the radio from (again; he’d needed to talk to them quite a bit while trying to get it to connect to her favorite radio station), recommending a firmware update. He suggested that they make it so you have to hold the button for 5 seconds to program it, rather than the 1 second or so it is now.

He’d also spent some time working on her wheelchair. She says the staff is saying that it’s hard to push her in it. This is the same folding wheelchair that was my late father’s when he spend his final months in this same nursing home. The front wheels, my brother told me, were very wobbly. He thought they had always been like this, but I remembered cleaning the wheelchair before taking it to my mother, and oiling all the moving parts because they had become stiff and, in some places, starting to rust. So there was probably some play in the wheels, but nothing like what he was finding. He ended up McGyvering it for now, but he thinks it’s the bushings that need replacing. My mother has been asking for a new wheelchair, though, so he had showed her some pictures and I think she picked one.

Of course, she gave my brother a hard time about a lot of things, and he’s very worried that she’s going to do something stupid that he’s going to have to fix. I tried to reassure him by reminding him of our conversations with doctors while she was still at the hospital, then later with the nurses at what should be an annual meeting at the personal care home. It is officially noted that my mother no longer has the cognitive ability to make legal decisions or sign any legal papers. If she does, nothing is legally binding. I think the reminder helped him relax a bit. She had already stabbed him in the back so badly a few years ago, and there is nothing he can legally do to fix it. She still doesn’t understand how badly she screwed herself up at the same time. As her PoA, all he can do is try and hold the pieces together, while she remains oblivious to how much he does for her.

One of the things he did as we were talking was clear the maple suckers that had regrown behind the pump shack. Power to their caravan is sourced through that back wall, and he wanted to make sure it was all clear. He was going to clear the stump at the other end, but I asked him not to. I had “harvested” those in the spring, so they were a lot smaller, and I told him that is my coppice and I’ll take care of it in the spring and use them. So he left them for me.

After a while, I had to head inside, though I did get out again to do my walkabout before the rain started. At one point, I started getting all sorts of gate camera notifications and discovered my brother, sweetheart that he is, added some new fence posts to replace a couple of rotted ones that wouldn’t stay up anymore. When they brought their stuff out here after selling their property, it included a whole bunch of fence posts. He has a post pounder, too, which we don’t, and that made the job a lot faster. Even with an injured arm! He told me he got an MRI recently, and I got the story behind it. He had torn his bicep – three years ago!!!! – and only now was able to get to a doctor to have it checked. Not sure what his next steps are, but he’s been using that arm in pain all this time. To see him moving around, you’d never know the arm was injured.

My family is notorious for that. It’s partly why the girls are so severe with making sure I stick to my recovery restrictions. 😄

My brother was able to finish what he’d come to do and head out before the rain started up in the evening, though we’d had light rain on and off before then. We’re not getting anything heavy, but it should be enough that we won’t need to water the haskaps and the little spruces still in pots. It also means we’ll continue to have much warmer temperatures, including overnight. As I write this, we’ve been at our high for today of 11C/52F, and it’s supposed to stay like this all day. Overnight temperatures are supposed to stay above freezing for a couple more nights, and even after that, in the 10 day forecast, we’re expected to just barely dip below freezing overnight.

Which means we don’t need to put the hoses away yet. We just need to make sure the water is shut off and the spray nozzles are open for the night.

I am so appreciating our very mild fall, and holding out for an equally mild winter. I don’t mind the snow so much – we need that winter moisture for the spring – but I could really do without the sub-arctic temperatures!

Thank you, Super El Nińo!

The Re-Farmer

Cuddle session

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We tried something today.

Since I’ve been convelescing in the cat free zone, my bedroom has been mostly cat heaven.

Which is cat hell, for our elderly Butterscotch, since she won’t leave the room, and they often go after her when she tries to use a litter box.

When we go into the bedroom, we can tell how much she misses the pets and cuddles.   Typically, at night, she would be sleeping on my face or head.

Today, with the help of my daughter, we brought her into the living room with me.

She was so happy.  So many cuddles! 

Then she curled up against my hip and went for a nap.

We can’t leave her with me.  Partly becayse there us no place for a litter box and partly because she’s one of the cats that likes to jump on my abdomen when I’m in bed.  A big no-no right now.

I think bringing her in with me will become a daily thing, though.  She needs the break!

Beyond that, it’s been a good day.  It was gorgeous outside.  My younger daughter and I were able to do a dump run, though I was banned from handling anything.  After, we made a trip to the general store and post office.  My husband had something in he thought would fit in the mail box, but there was just a card.  We will have to come back on Monday.

My older daughter gave me her wallet to pick something up, then both my younger daughter and I got a couple more things.  I was not “allowed” to carry the bag of combined purchases but I was happy to at least go into the store.

Tonight, however, I just got hit with a wave of fatigue.  Sleepiness enough that I’m having to be careful not to drop my phone as I tap this post.

It’s not even 7pm yet.

I’m going to bed.

The Re-Farmer

Quiet

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Today has been a day of quiet rest and recovery for most of us.

The girls took care of the usual outside cat stuff.  The yard cats are unhappy with their cat soup.  We are out of the donated cat milk and canned cat food we’d been using, so it’s basically just softened kibble.  We aren’t in a position to buy more right now.

My older daughter is pushing hard on commissions with end of month deadlines.   My younger daughter has been dealing with pain issues after pushing to get things done outside, yesterday.  My husband’s pain levels have been pretty bad lately, too.

I discovered the cats had done much destruction in my bedroom during the night.  By the time I got it fixed up, I was pretty drained.  Besides getting tired fast, though, I’m doing well.  The last of the medical tape and stitches at the incisions on my abdomen have come off.  I have been taking painkillers only before bed, and it’s been for my ridiculous shoulder pain, not anything surgery related. 

My younger daughter accompanied me when I did my walkabout before things got too dark.  She was caning it and having more pain issues while walking than I was.

We are coming up on 9 years, here.  This blog just had its 9th anniversary.  My younger daughter and my husband were already here, while my older daughter and I finished getting ready for the movers before driving out. 

I have to admit, things have not panned out as expected, but then, who could gave expected all 4 of us ending up having serious health challenges?

It’s been quite a ride.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2027 garlic is done, and look who’s there…

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Today, my daughters got some progress outside.  The last 4 haskaps have been planted, and all 144 of them got a deep watering.

The garlic bed also got a deep watering, before a straw mulch was added.  If all goes well, the garlic should start growing under there, before the ground freezes.

Over time, the haskaps need to be mulched, too, but with so many, that will be done slowly, over time.

I was able to head outside for my daily walkabout, before things got dark.  Of course, I checked on things and did what little I could.  I even remembered to move the trail cam and it’s stand away from our sign at the corner of the property, since we no longer have to worry about the sign being vandalized.   I’m hoping to find a way to use the stand to hold the solar critter cam to monitor the isolation shelter, once it’s set up under the kitchen window for the winter.

While looking at where my daughter planted the last haskaps, I noticed the spade was forgotten, so I took it to the sun room.

Where I promptly startled four skunks

!!!

I left the sun room, since the cats and I were blocking the exit.  Three left.

One stayed and looked like it was settling down for the night. 😆

There’s really no way to persuade it to leave from there.  Too many things between it, and the door.  Namely me and swirling cats, wanting their evening feeding!

So I took care of that and left the skunk alone.

Aside from that, I’ve spent most of my day in the cat free zone, doing little crochet projects.  I’m trying to use up two colours of mill end cotton I’ve had for quite some time.   We now have more dish cloths and coasters, and I’m working on another bowl.

I’m hoping to have a better night tonight.  Last night, I went to bed early, and promptly became wide awake.  At one point, I gave up trying to sleep, got up and made another pot holder in Tunisian stitch, because why the heck not?  I’d love to do more than drift off and wake up, over and over, all night again, though.   Not something surgery or recovery related, as far as I can tell.  In that respect, things are going quite well.

Normally, tomorrow would be our second stock up trip to Costco in the city.  That will be delayed.  If we need anything over the next week or so, we can make a short trip into town.

For now, my forced convelescence continues!

The Re-Farmer

First Stock Up Shop; this is what I got for $400

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$405.85, to be exact.

I didn’t get a picture of the cart this time, though. My daughters both came along and had their own shopping, and everything was in one cart.

It was just a trip to the nearest Walmart, not the big city trip where we would go to multiple stores

I also don’t know when we’ll be able to do the Costco shopping. It might be a couple more weeks. So this is a larger shop at the Walmart than we usually do on stock up day.

With both girls along for the ride, they secured my walker in the box of the truck, since there was no room for it in the cab.

We did get gas long the way, and we took the route through multiple towns along the lake, as our usual route is still construction hell. In town, two gas stations were at $1.829, but the Shell station was $1.799, where I get my 3¢ off/L with my CAA card. I didn’t pre-pay, so that came off as a discount, not as more fuel. $50 filled the tank.

Along the way, we saw prices ranging from the $1.829 to $1.719

The shop itself was all right. Physically, I handled it well and needed to sit on my walker only a couple of times. The only problem was other shoppers blocking the aisles, cutting me and my walker, off, etc. The usual. The staff restocking shelves had inventory carts, etc. that partially blocked aisles but they, at least, saw me and made a point of making space for me and our cart to get through.

It occurred to me that, when I say I hate shopping, it’s not really the act of shopping I hate. It’s other shoppers. There’s a reason retail jobs tend to be a revolving door. So many customers are just awful. We encountered some great staff, though.

Anyhow, this is what I got for my $400.

For cat supplies, we got two 9kg bags of kibble and a 32 pack of wet cat food, plus a 100 count case of XXL pee pads.

In other non-food stuff, we got a bottle of CLR, a spray bottle of bathroom cleaner, some personal hygiene product, a bottle of hair conditioner and a total of 9 cans of Monster energy drinks for the three of us.

As my husband’s request, we got him a couple of bags of Doritos and some Ginger Snap cookies as a treat. We also got two bags of frozen chicken wings for myself, and two of chicken strips for my husband, that were almost half off. Not the brand we usually get but, I suspect, I better brand.

I got a package of sliced deli chicken and another of turkey for sandwiches. Those are something that have been very much a “shrinkflation” thing, where there’s barely enough for a couple of sandwiches. These ones had quite a bit of meat in them, and the price was what I remember it being before, so I got them.

In dairy, we got 4 pounds of butter, a 2L of 3% milk, along with a big block of Old Cheddar cheese. I notice Oat Milk is not on the list, so it looks like the girls paid for that, themselves.

There’s a flat of 30 eggs in there, plus 4 loaves of sandwich bread. We picked up a 10 pound bag of russet potatoes; we’re pretty much our of our own, and these were under $5 a bag. There were also double packs of fresh ravioli pasta at under $5 a pack, so we got two. We also got a case of frozen waffles – something we haven’t bought in years, because we didn’t have a toaster. We now have my mother’s toaster, which we keep in the cat free zone. We lost our own toaster when we discovered a cat had peed on it!!!!

There we have it. A total of 41 items that cost $382.22 before taxes.

Not a typical stock up trip but it should be enough to last us until we can do the Costco shop, which might not happen for 2 or 3 weeks, depending on how I feel.

Which is, overall, good. I did feel twinges at incision sites when I started to get tired, but that’s about it. I definitely would not have been up to doing multiple stores, like we usually do on this first trip. I’m glad that we were able to at least do this trip.

Another month or so of taking it easy.

The Re-Farmer