Author: Re-Farmer

A visit and an unexpected $138 stock up shop

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Today, the plan was to meet my brother to help set up my mother’s air conditioner for the summer. Since I was going to be out anyhow, I planned to go to the grocery store after, and pick up some eggs.

Since I was out anyhow, my daughter asked if she could bribe me into picking up some stuff for her, at which point it was worth the gas to go to the town we usually shop at.

Of course, nothing quite goes to plan, does it? I like it when that turns out to be good, which is how it worked out, today.

My brother and I pre-arranged to meet at a gas station before going to my mother’s together, so I left early to tank up, first. Once we connected, we both headed over to our mother’s place. My SIL was a sweetheart and sent a lunch for us all, with enough extra to feed my mother for at least another day. She is such a saint. She no longer visits my mother, because my mother has been so incredibly cruel to her, but she still loves her and does stuff like this. Which makes her a much better person than me. My mother has literally thrown away food my SIL made for her – frozen in individual meal portions – so she wouldn’t have to cook while recovering from surgery, because she decided it wasn’t “fresh”. She actually gave it to me to give to the cats. It wasn’t until later that I found out where it was from. I’ve tried to bring my own cooking to my mother as well, but got nothing but complaints, so I’ve given up completely. Now, she complains because I spend money on food, which makes me bad with money in her eyes. We can’t win, no matter what we do, but my brother and his wife just keep being so sweet to her! Which is a big part of why I was happy to join him today. Not only do I get to see him, but my mother behaves differently when both of us there, compared to how she treats him when he’s there on his own.

Setting up the AC didn’t take long at all. It’s one of the portable AC’s, not a permanent window one. Basically, it just involved removing the Styrofoam insulation that’s set in the window for the winter, and hooking up the duct from the machine. He’d taken the original window out and replaced it with a board the exact same size, and the window part of the AC set up installed in the middle, then cut 4″ wide Styrofoam insulation to fit on the inside, taped in place, for the winter.

Of course, once it was set up and plugged in, we had to test it. The outlet it’s plugged into has its own switch on the wall, which he taped in the On position, and even wrote “AC” on it, so no one would flick the power off from that outlet.

And… someone did. The tape was still there, but the switch was off. He turned it on while I was next to the plug, which has a reset button on it that I heard beep… but the AC would not turn on. If the switch was pushed in further, it would beep again, but that was it. So there’s clearly a connection problem in there, but not something we could deal with. That’s something my mother should call for a maintenance request for, though she won’t do that, of course. My brother could fix it, another day – and knowing him, he probably will – but technically, he shouldn’t. At least not without getting special clearance from Public Housing.

What we found, however, is that once the tape was put back over the switch, it was enough to hold it in place and keep the power on, and the AC was working fine.

That done, we had lunch, which was way more difficult than it should have been. My mother had delayed her breakfast and made “extra” for us, so she kept trying to make us eat her toast and cheese chunks, while trying to not eat the food my brother brought, because she made breakfast… As we were setting up lunch, my brother went into the fridge and found it almost empty. Oh, yes, my mother says. I’m running out of things… but I’m good for a few more days.

*sigh*

It took both of us to convince her to take advantage of the fact that we were there and could do it right away, instead of having me come back later in the week. So once we finished lunch, I started making a list with her. That’s when she said she wanted bleach, for her bathroom sink.

???

The sink was draining very slowly, so she wanted to use bleach to clear it.

So we explained that bleach won’t fix something like that. She would need a drain cleaner – maybe. My brother went over to take a look, filling the sink to see how bad it was. It turned out to be pretty bad!

Then we took a closer look, and there was all sorts of gunk visible. So my brother got a wire coat hanger, turned it into a small hook, and started pulling stuff out.

While he did that, I did my mother’s grocery shopping.

By the time I got back, the sink was draining like a dream, and my brother was “fixing” her TV. She was complaining about how the picture was too small – she was seeing black borders around the images. The problem turned out to not be the TV or its settings at all. Her cable provider recently upgraded, but not all the channels she gets are HD, so some channels automatically fill her screen, while others don’t. There was nothing wrong with her TV.

Meanwhile, as I put away the groceries, my mother was checking out the receipt and suddenly said, I told you I didn’t want lettuce.

???

I took a look and sure enough, there was iceberg lettuce on there – and it was voided, then her cabbage was listed. The cashier had put in the wrong code, then fixed it. My mother, however, was convinced that she was charged for a head of lettuce because she once got charged for a watermelon she didn’t buy, some 10 years ago (which I’m not sure actually happened; I think she mistook a promotion on the receipt as a sale item, which she once did with shipping I helped her with). So once everything was put away, I got out my phone with its calculator and added it all up. The total I got, minus the lettuce, matched the subtotal on the receipt. When to told her this, she gave me a look we all know too well. She didn’t believe me. She then tried a different tactic and implied the change she got was wrong. Well, I’d given her her change with the receipt, and it was still on the table, so I added that up and it matched the receipt, too.

You’d think that would have made her happy.

It didn’t.

Instead, she now thinks that not only is the store cheating her, but I’m lying to her about it.

*sigh*

Still, we dropped that.

As always, my mother tried to bring up all sorts of things in the most negative way, even trying to twist things to make it so that her behaviour is not a problem, but that everyone else is – including a nasty dig at my brother’s wife in the process.

*sigh*

My brother was way more gracious than I would have been, by that point!

My brother had told her yesterday that he couldn’t stay long, as he had an event to get ready for later today, but as we were getting ready to go, my mother kept trying to make us have tea, or eat something, or… I had already told her I needed to run errands, too, and she started giving me a hard time about how I’m always running errands. I told her, if I’m going to be going out anyway, I want to do as many things as I can, so I’m not going out several times a week. Of course, we’d already been there for a couple of hours, so it’s not like we were rushing off. Then she tried to make me take a little jar of “keys” home. Why? Well, she doesn’t have room for them. I looked in the jar and didn’t see any keys. Instead, I saw a mix of all kinds of objects; the sort of stuff you’d find in a junk drawer. Any keys that might have been in there were completely buried. I asked her, why are you giving me your junk? Oh, there’s lots of room at the farm.

*sigh*

That’s the problem, I told her. There’s too much stuff at the farm, including stuff people gave to her and Dad 50 or 60 years ago!

So she tried to tell me that I could sell the metal to a scrap dealer.

…

At that point, my brother stepped in to end the conversation, because it just wasn’t worth trying to explain it to her.

I didn’t take her jar of junk.

Then we both had to leave.

Which just made my mother angry, saying we were leaving because we didn’t like what she was saying (at that point, she was into a completely different rant about a topic unrelated to any of us), and we were like, no, it’s time to go, that’s all!

Sadly, while that was true, we were both glad to be gone. I’ve tried to explain to her that her behavior towards people drives them away, and she just excuses it with “I just say what’s on my mind.”

*sigh*

While my brother had to rush off to get home, I was able to make a quick stop at the hardware store, where I finally picked up a bale of peat moss for the garden, first. Then it was off to town and for what was supposed to be just a few items.

Ha!

I didn’t get a picture of what my $137.99 looked like, though. Just the receipt.

My daughter had requested the energy drinks and coffee creamer. The cases of energy drinks were quite a bit cheaper than most of their sales, so I got two. Usually, it’s just maybe 50¢ off per case, but this time they were $1.30 off per case.

My husband requested the Coke, which was also on sale, so I got two 12 packs of those. Not much of a sale, but better than nothing. He requested the Sweet Chili chips and corn chips, which were not on sale… good grief, they are expensive these days! That came out of his budget, not the main budget, though. 😄

The flats of eggs were not on sale, but they are about 3 dollars per flat cheaper than at my mother’s grocery store – if they have any flats at all.

Pierogi were on sale as well, so I got a couple of bags.

One of the big savings was the butter. I haven’t seen butter for less than $5 each in four years! The other was the chicken, which was a buy one, get one free, deal. It was a mix and match option, but I chose two whole chickens instead of parts and pieces.

So while I ended up buying more than expected, we’ve got more butter and extra chickens in the freezer, and that’s always a good thing!

Once I got home and everything was put away, I really needed to just sit down and decompress for a while! Visits with my mother – even good ones like today (yes, this was a good visit!) – really take a lot out of me.

While I was out and about, we got hit with passing rain several times, so things are wetter out there now, then when I left this morning. The next two days should be cleared and warmer, so I’m hoping to finally get some work down outside – including working some of that peat into various prepped beds, and finally planting my potatoes! I’m hoping to get another bed of peas, spinach and carrots planted, too.

The rain has delayed getting other beds ready, but most things won’t be planted until after June 2, so we’ve got the rest of May to get those done, and build new ones.

If the weather holds out!

The Re-Farmer

Another damp morning

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It rained steadily through most of yesterday, and continues today. No downpours, but constant enough that we’re getting quite a bit of standing water in the usual places.

Also, the rain is light enough that the cats don’t mind being out and about in it!

I think I counted 30 or 31 this morning, but they were milling around too quickly. Then something startled them and they exploded in all directions, at which point, I gave up trying! 😄 Sad Face was in the sunroom when I first came out, and I was even able to pet him briefly while he was outside.

I haven’t seen Judgement in a while. Hopefully, he’s just out exploring his territory and will be back soon. I also didn’t see Broccoli. She would be somewhere with her babies. Hopefully, there will still be kibble left when she does finally come to eat!

While doing my rounds, I was joined by Syndol. While petting him, I spotted what looked like blood in a patch of white fur. He let me check, and it looks like he got into a fight and a tuft of fur was pulled out at his neck.

While checking that out, I also found a wood tick, right next to the bald patch!

Syndol was patient about letting me get a grip on it and pulling it out. Not easy, in that long fur!

While going through the maple grove I paused at an old willow that is half dead. Something about it looked… different. I’m not entirely sure what the change was, but it was enough to make me grab hold of it and give it a shake.

At which point, I brought the camera out…

I was easily able to pull that dead trunk down with one hand. I honestly don’t know how it stayed up for so long!

This was basically two willow trunks against each other, and the other trunk also has some rot on it. I’m not sure if it’ll keep going for a few more years, of if it will come down, too. It leans quite a bit already. With willow, though, you just never know. The big willow nearby has been slowly dying for years, and it’s center, where it splits off into several trunks, is fully rotted out. Yet, year after year, it keeps going!

I could see more snow crocus flower buds this morning, and the tulips are growing nicely. I’m seeing more garlic coming up, too, which is a bit of a relief. I was starting to think most of them hadn’t survived the winter.

Once again, it’s too wet and muddy to do the outside work I need to do. This afternoon, I’ll be making a trip to the post office. Yes, more packages for my husband to pick up, but also one to return. He had picked up a video card for his desktop computer, in hopes of getting it working again.

He had the tower open to work on it, when a cat came in and knocked it to the floor, and onto his foot. No injury, thankfully, but … well … he now has a big, expensive paperweight.

He is not a happy camper.

The video card is not much use now. I’m not sure he even finished getting it out of the packaging.

*sigh*

As much as we need this rain, it’s really doing a number on the gravel roads. The road running past our driveway isn’t too bad. It gets a bit more maintenance, since it gets a lot more heavy traffic than some of the other side roads. A lot of dump trucks, tractors and heavy equipment use this road to get to the fields to the south of us, including our own that is rented out. I was talking to the guy who delivers our prescriptions, and he was telling me some of the gravel roads he has to take are in really bad shape. Some of them even have grass growing on them! Nothing can really be done about it right now, though. If the roads are too wet and muddy, the graders can’t go down them without causing more damage.

The main gravel road that runs past us, which we take to go to town, is constructed for heavy traffic, and is considerably wider than any of the side roads, but there are still patches of it that break up, every year. It’s actually in worse shape than the section of road that goes past our driveway!

All in all, we’re doing pretty good, while getting some much needed moisture. Which will continue for a couple more days! When I looked previously, we were supposed to get a break over the weekend, then a couple more days rain. Now, that rain is expected to hit us over the weekend, instead. We’ve got some decidedly cool days in the upcoming week, too. [update: the forecast has already changed! Now we’re not supposed to get rain over the weekend again. LOL]

Meanwhile, my brother is coming out tomorrow, to set up my mother’s air conditioner. I’ll get joining him to help out – and enjoy his company. She won’t be needing to use in for a while! Still, it’s good to get that done now.

There is no hurry at all in getting the AC they gave us set up. We’ve got the living room set up for transplants right now, so the outlet is blocked. Once we no longer have seedlings in the living room, we can move the shelves away again, and hook it up. It should be interesting to see how much of a difference it will make in the household, come summertime. When he set it up for us last year, the summer was almost over, so it didn’t get much use before being set aside for the winter. I suspect the living room is going to become a favourite place to hang out this summer! Especially for my husband. I would not be at all surprised if he ends up linking his laptop to the TV to use. His south facing bedroom gets pretty warm in the summer, and he does not tolerate heat well, at all.

We’ll find out in about a month or so!

I’m still wrapping my brain around the idea that we’re in May already. This year is just flying by.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: 100% melons!

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I left the Summer of Melon blend of seeds until evening before planting them. By then, the last few seeds were sending out their radicles!

I had to be careful with some of the bigger ones, and their roots has made their in between the layers of paper towel.

All 21 of them got planted into the larger cell trays we’re testing out this year. Even the last one that just started to germinate. While I made sure to plant the seeds so they were not completely buries in the seed starting mix, the vermiculite added to the top does hide most of them. Which should be fine. They’ll still get light, and it’s so light, it won’t hinder their growth at all.

To make room in the aquarium greenhouse, the last tray of Wild Bunch winter squash got moved into the mini greenhouse frame at the window, and the remaining containers of seeds set to pre-germinate were moved over to that side of the aquarium.

Getting the tray with the planted seeds in it is always a pain, though. These trays are a bit longer, and the aquarium has a support running across the middle. The tray needs to be carefully tilted to get it in. It means waiting until after it’s set up before adding water to the bottom tray. The freshly planted seeds did get misted with a spray bottle, after the vermiculite was added, and the seed starting mix was pre-moistened, too, but once it’s on the heat mat, things will dry out quickly. The smaller celled trays we used before – the ones designed for the small Jiffy pellets – had openings in two corners, where water would be poured through. These larger celled trays fit the same base trays, but are quite a bit taller. Normally, that gives space to add water to the base tray from the side, making use of the gaps between cells. That can’t be done with it set up in the aquarium, so I had to move the tray of cells off to the side, add water to the base, then put it back.

I need to find a better way to do that. We have a funnel that is long and flexible that we use to put drain cleaner/maintenance stuff into the washing machine drain pipe. I think that would be long enough to work. The next time I’m at Canadian Tire, I’ll see if I can find another one.

I might be planting more in the next couple of days, though! The watermelon seeds look like 4 out or 5 have germinated, and the Sarah’s Choice melon seeds just sort of exploded. None were germinating when I checked this morning, and now all 5 are sending out little radicles! Even the Zucca melon seeds look like they will soon germinate. Nothing on the Pixie melons yet, though. When it comes time to plant those, they can all go into another of the large celled trays that I have. If the 100% germination rate keeps up, that will be another 10 melons, 5 watermelons, plus the 4 Zucca. That will leave a couple of cells to spare, which will make it easier to keep track of them.

Oh!! While doing a quick search to get the link for the Zucca melon, I found an article about some people in the Canadian prairies, like us, that successfully grew them! That’s encouraging, considering we’ve had I think 2 … or is it 3? … failed years with them. Last year was the most successful, but the developing fruit all suddenly started to rot on the vine, and I don’t know why.

Well, we’ll see how they do this year. Hopefully, we’ll have 30-100 pound/14-45kg melons this year!

The Re-Farmer

Broccoli is first, and growing things

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I was a bit later than usual when I came out to feed the yard babies, so there was quite a crowd.

I immediately noticed Broccoli’s back end was looking bedraggled.  As she milled about, eating ravenous, I could confirm.

She has had her litter.  Possibly just hours before. 

She has her “nest” somewhere in the outer yard, so we likely won’t see them until they are old enough to bring them to the kibble houses. 

*sigh*

This would be the first litter of the year.  Out of the 33, at most, that we see, I have been able to spot possibly 5 in total that look pregnant, including Broccoli, with one tuxedo I think might be female and is probably pregnant, plus the tiny fluff ball that hangs put in the sun room that I think is female, but is from the youngest litter from last year.  I’m working on socializing her, but have had little success.

Why are the ladies all the most feral ones?

We are also getting a regular stinky kitty visiting.  A very small skunk, too, and only by itself.  The cats are completely indifferent to its presence!

On a different note, while doing my rounds this morning, I’m see8ng more snow crocuses blooming… but not very many plants. Hopefully, more will cone up.

Speaking of which, my daughter’s tulip patch has lots coming up, including a surprise.  I found some working their way through the mulch I moved aside from the saffron crocuses.  I planted them there because the tulips planted nearby didn’t make it.  At all.  Now, after at least 2 years, there are tulip leaves visible!  These should be the Bull’s Eye tulips, with their unique blossoms.  Hopefully, they will actually bloom, and we can confirm that. 

We had lights rain, off and on, yesterday, and should be getting more, today and tomorrow.  The weekend should be clear-ish then a couple more days of rain.  Which would be great, if it were more than just a fine mist that just makes surfaces damp.  We could really use some good downpours.  We are still being affected by the strong El Nino, though, so our area is unlikely to get much. 

Today, my main goal is to plant the summer mix melon seeds.  I gave them a extra day in their containers.  In checking the others last night, I saw my first watermelon seed germinating. 

If the seedlings remain as successful as the pre-germination, after transplanting, we will have a massive amount of winter squash and melons this year!

The Re-Farmer

All the things…

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… and it’s barely past noon!

First the fun stuff.

I counted 31 yard cats this morning! Likely because it’s a rather chilly and damp morning – and I was a bit later than usual for bringing food out!

With the chill and that damp, I don’t expect to get much done outside, but I might get some seeds planted into cells this evening. I might wait another day, but when I checked the mixed melon seeds when shutting down the lights last night, I saw a whole bunch of radicles peaking out! None of the other seeds are showing them yet, but almost all the mixed seeds were sprouting. I checked again this morning, and it looks like we’re at not quite 100% germination with the mixed melons, already! This was the packet that had 21 seeds in it. The large celled trays I am trying out this year have 21 cells, so that works out, if they all make it. I don’t want to put them in soil too quickly, though. A bit more time in the warmth and dampness above the heat mat will be good for them.

Speaking of dampness…

While checking the status of the basement, I was able to shift the new blower fans to focus more on the stairs. The space under the stairs is looking pretty dry, as well as most of the concrete floor, but it’s going to take longer on the steps.

We should probably remove that carpet that’s nailed to the stairs. Most likely, it’s scrap carpet salvaged from somewhere that my parents acquired and added during the years we lived out of province. Likely to make them less of a potential slip hazard? Or just because they felt like it. I don’t know. I think, in the near future, we should pick up a gallon of durable paint, get rid of the carpet, and paint the stairs as soon as possible, so there aren’t any exposed holes in the wood. The girls have plans for fixing the basement up a bit, including painting the ceiling – the exposed floor beams and joists – white, to brighten up a really dark area. I’d like to get more of those shop lights that we are using as grow lights. I prefer them to the lights that are already down there and, to be honest, I’m not too keen on replacing the existing wired in fixtures just yet.

But those are plans to slowly work on over time.

I checked the root cellar floor as well, and it’s mostly try, so the box fan remains. The hydrometer I’ve got in there was at 60% humidity still!

We might later need to move the new blower fans to the counter shelves. The pedestal fans are still aimed at them, and there is significant improvement, but there’s a lot of stuff blocking air flow. We’ll probably need to move some things out – and it’s a good excuse to finally drag out the old door from our old van that my brother was able to replace for us, shortly after we moved out here. Yeah, it’s been sitting there all these years, just in case parts were needed. Now that we no longer have the van, there is no reason to leave it there.

Other than the weight and how awkward it would be to get it up the stairs and out the door!

Anyhow.

After I did my rounds this morning, I called my mother. She sounded better, but she told me she was preparing to head out to the clinic. I asked how she was feeling, and yes, the Pepto seemed to really make a difference. We talked a bit about that, and then she went back to talking about going to the clinic today.

Why, if she’s feeling better?

She kept jumping back to my brother telling her that she needed a doctor to say she could move to the nursing home, and I eventually figured out that she believed she could just show up at the clinic, have a doctor say she needed to move to a nursing home, and basically start getting ready to move.

She has gotten really eager to move out of where she is and into the nursing home! Specifically, the one in town, where her sister and my father spent their final time, as well as many old friends and neighbours of hers.

Once I figured out why she still wanted to go to the clinic, I told her it doesn’t work that way! I told my mother she would need to make an appointment, then told her I would call the clinic about it right away, and get back to her.

Which I did, and had a great conversation with what turned out to be an unusually knowledgeable receptionist on the topic. It turns out she also does home care and is quite familiar with the process.

One of the things she told me is that we need to give the doctor a “top 3” of nursing home choices, not just the one my mother wants to live in, and they all have to be in the same region.

My mother’s doctor, however, is on holiday for most of May, so the earlier appointment I could get for my mother was at the end of May. She booked my mother for a longer appointment, since it is for a long term care assessment, and made sure the appropriate forms were attached to the appointment file.

I really like the people in this clinic!

Then I called my mother back with her appointment, and explained things to her, including how this just puts her on a waiting list, so the whole thing can take months, and she might not end up where she wants to be. We talked about other towns with nursing homes, and even the smaller, nearer city, which is in the same region (the bigger city is its own region, by itself). When we’d talked about assisted living previously, she was adamant she never wanted to live there, but now that we’re talking nursing homes, she actually seemed quite okay with the idea of living there. Particularly since it puts her closer to both my brother and sister. It’s roughly half way between us and my brother’s, so our trips to see her would be about the same length of time. My sister would be only maybe 15 minutes away, at most.

But, who knows? We have to get her assessed first, and we now have an appointment to get that ball rolling.

My mother updated, I then updated my siblings. While we can all help out, ultimately, it’s on my brother, as Power of Attorney for my mother, to finalize things on her behalf.

After all that, I was finally able to take a breather, have breakfast and start this post – at lunch time! 😄

I’m glad to have gotten that done, but I’m also glad to NOT be making a trip to the clinic with my mother, nor anywhere else. I don’t even have to go to the pharmacy; my husband’s refills are going to be delivered today.

Between all the phone calls and writing, and the cool, damp weather, what I’d really like to do now is go for a nap. Weather like this always makes me so sleepy!

The Re-Farmer

Good grief, what a day!

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Today, I would normally have done our second stock up trip to the city. I did the Costco trip last week, so this week would have been our non-Costco run through several stores all along one route.

With all the running around into town I had to do, however, I was able to take advantage of some excellent sales at the local grocery store. The only things left to pick up are more cat food and litter pellets, and we don’t actually need to do that immediately. Those can also be done in the smaller, nearer city, instead of dealing with the big city traffic. I was thinking of leaving the trip until later in the month.

Then yesterday’s flood happened.

We need to replace that old, metal blower fan in the basement with something safer and more efficient.

I had looked at one in Costco last week for $80 and almost bought it, but decided it could wait another month.

After talking about it with my husband, he decided to try buying it online. He found the same fan on Amazon, but it was over $100, so he went to the Costco website. They had two versions – white and not white. The not-white is what I saw in the store. They were otherwise identical, but the white one was cheaper. Still more expensive than what I saw in the store – about $85 for the white one, almost $90 for the not-white one. So my husband was going to order two of them. The only option was for delivery, though, not in store pick up. Slower, but saving us the gas to drive in.

He couldn’t order it. They don’t ship to postal boxes, and there was no alternative to the mail to have it shipped.

Okay, then, I would just head into the city and buy them direct.

Then I got a phone call.

From my mother.

Of course, she acted as those what happened the last I saw her, didn’t happen at all.

She started off asking how I was doing, but in a tone I recognize to mean “can you do something for me”. I also recognized her “I’m dying” voice.

Sure enough, when I asked how she was doing, she said she was terrible. She started to say how she couldn’t sleep for the past few days – then launched into an attack on my brother. She had called him first, but there was no answer, so she was saying that he blocked her number, or he was ignoring her calls, or he cancelled his number… It was well into the conversation before she finally mentioned that she got a “the customer is not available” automated message.

I had to cut her off and really press to get her to tell me what she was feeling, and what she wanted me to do about it. I finally got her to describe some of her symptoms. Basically, the same ones she’s been complaining about for a while now, but she says it’s worse. She can’t sleep more than an hour.

Aside from talking in circles about a dozen barely related things, she also brought up about wanting to move into the nursing home. She really wants to move into the nursing home, now! My brother told her about her needing to get a doctor to say that’s what she needed, and she mentioned that, vaguely, but she still didn’t quite understand the whole process. I started to get the impression that she thought that if she saw the doctor today, and the doctor authorized it, she’d move in right away. I told her, if she does get the doctor’s authorization, that just puts her on a waiting list. After that, it’s basically waiting until someone died and frees up a bed – and then they work their way through the waiting list.

I think she understood that, but didn’t agree with it, or something. I couldn’t quite get the gist of her thoughts.

Given the time she was calling me, I asked if she wanted me to take her to the emergency, reminding her that if we did, we’d likely be there all night, or to take her to the clinic as a walk-in, tomorrow. She really didn’t want to make the decision, but it eventually came around to, she would try to sleep in her recliner chair tonight, then call me in the morning to let me know how she as feeling.

So much for my trip to the city to get the new blowers.

At least the fans and the old blower we have now has made a big difference. By the time I checked before heading to bed, most of the floor was dry. Dry enough that I could plug in the box fan and not be standing in a puddle! I aimed that one partly towards the root cellar’s open door. The floor there has some odd low pockets that held puddles, but it was mostly dry all around them. I was able to move one of the pedestal fans and aim it right at the low spot of the floor under the counter shelves. Those are slightly elevated, so at least there’s a bit of air circulation under them.

This morning, expecting to get a call from my mother, I didn’t even do my morning rounds. I just fed the outside cats, and stayed close to the phone.

When she didn’t call by about 9 or 9:30, I called her.

She did actually sound a bit better, but she was still wanting to go to the clinic. She was getting ready. We talked a bit more about how she felt. She didn’t sleep in the recliner; she couldn’t get it to recline more than a tiny bit, and it was too uncomfortable, so she stacked up pillows to sleep more upright. It helped. The more she talked about how she felt, the more it seemed to me that she was having really bad indigestion. With the stuff going on in her building, that could easily be a stress response, too. Since she was clearly doing better, I suggested trying Pepto before bed and giving it another night. She didn’t have any and wasn’t sure what I was talking about, but she wanted to go to the clinic. She was even packing a bag, in case she was admitted to the hospital.

I told her that I could call the clinic ahead of time, so they’d know to expect her, before we left her place. After I got off the phone, though, I went ahead and called the clinic sooner.

It’s a good thing I did.

My mother’s doctor doesn’t work this clinic on Tuesdays, but the clinic, which is in the hospital building, was down to only one doctor today, and she was all booked up. They couldn’t do walk ins. There wasn’t even a doctor in the ER. The clinic and the hospital were down to this one doctor!!! There would be a doctor available tomorrow, though.

My mother wasn’t going to the clinic today.

When I asked about alternatives, the receptionist mentioned a quick care clinic in the nearer city. I wasn’t sure my mother would be up to that, so I called her before looking it up.

She was surprised that there were no doctors at the hospital and just one in the clinic, and I had to explain to her, there just aren’t enough doctors.

In the end, she decided she was willing to wait until tomorrow, though I will phone the clinic again, before I head to her place.

This meant, however, that I could go to the city, after all.

So I offered to swing by, pick up some Pepto, and bring it to her to try. Just in case. At worst, it won’t do anything at all. When she found out I was going to be going to the city anywhere, and wouldn’t be making a special trip, she agreed.

When I got there, even though she knew I was on the way to somewhere else, and said I would stay long enough to explain the directions to her, she still expected me to sit and stay. I told her, I was going to be doing plenty of sitting in the drive to the city! We went over the instructions, and she even took some right away, as she was planning to rest.

She was actually looking and sounding much better. Even between the two earlier phone calls, she sounded better.

Oh, there was one other thing, though… After all the phone calls I made, I got another one – this time from the person with senior’s support that had visited my mother for an evaluation not long ago. She had promised to follow up with me, after she filed her report.

In a nut shell: there are two question-tests she does in these visits. One is for the “big stuff”. This is where they determine if someone might start doing things like forgetting the stove on, wander off, or start forgetting who the people are around them. There was pretty much no change at all in that area, which I was sort of expecting. The other is for the “little stuff” – and for these, there was a substantial decrease. This is the area where we were noticing issues. So we talked about that for a while, and there are medications for cognitive improvement that can be prescribed (the report was sent to my mother’s doctor as well as the doctor they work with), but my mother is already messing with her pills now, because she’s taking soooo many pills (she isn’t), and would likely refuse to take any new medication. I mentioned about her now wanting to move to the nursing home, and we talked about that for awhile. It can definitely be a help for her. Especially when it comes to making sure she takes her medications.

So the cognitive issues of concern I’ve been noticing have been confirmed, and we are already taking what would have been the next steps, anyhow.

Anyhow.

After dropping by my mother’s, I made the trip to Costco to get the blower fans – with turned out to be cheaper than I remember from last week! They were $75 each.

I am so happy with them!

They’ve got 10′ cords (the old blower fan’s cord is barely a foot long), and can be plugged into each other in a series, if desired – or something else can be plugged into them. They have four positions they can be set at, and three power settings for the fan. They automatically shut off if they start to overheat, and have a reset button.

Both of them are now aimed at the stairs, and maximum settings. One mostly at the bottom steps, which are the wettest, while the other is blowing into the corner under the steps; the first area water was pooling at, and still one of the wettest areas.

The old blower fan is now unplugged. I left it otherwise untouched so the motor can cool down, before I try picking it up to set it aside, into retirement!

What a day it’s been!

I’ve got no idea how things will turn out tomorrow, with my mother. I’m really hoping she’s feeling better because, honestly, I don’t think any doctor’s visit or hospital stay can help her. She has too hard of a time explaining her symptoms, skips things, conflates things and, if I have to be honest, I strongly suspect she’s more interested in the attention than anything else! She’s cried wolf too many times in the last few years. It’s not that I think she’s faking her symptoms, but more that she doesn’t understand them and is making assumptions based on what she wants the problem to be, and wants other people to do something about it. No idea what. Just “something”. We’re all supposed to be able to magically know exactly what her problem is and fix it, and she sometimes gets quite angry when we aren’t also mind readers, knowing exactly what she means to say, even when she doesn’t say it. Very frustrating!

Meanwhile, it’s the time of year when we have the most work to do outside, that we need to get done when the weather is good. My brother, for example, didn’t get her call because he and his wife were outside doing yard work. He did eventually get through to her after she spoke to me, but that didn’t make her any happier. These days, he can’t do anything right by her, and it’s really starting to get to him. *sigh*

Ah, well. It is what it is. We do what we have to do, and that’s all there is to it.

I just wish it wasn’t so frustrating at times!

The Re-Farmer

Oh, man, when I screw up…

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… I don’t go half way.

With the issues we’ve been having, we’ve made a point of using the biological drain maintenance stuff regularly. Mostly, it’s through the toilet or the bath tub. The kitchen sink isn’t done as often, since that section of the main drain got augered last year. More rarely, we do the drain for the washing machine. That one is more because of how the drain and taps are protected by a 2×4 box with a shelf above. Putting anything down that drain requires the use of long, flexible funnel.

With plans to do laundry today, I remembered to pour some of the drain maintenance stuff into the washing machine drain last night.

This morning, after making my trip to the post office, I started a load of laundry, then started working other stuff while my daughter started doing the litters. Since we use stove pellets as litter, it goes into buckets that gets dumped into its own compost pile behind the outhouse.

I heard my daughter head to the main entry to put the first full bucket outside, which got interrupted by an alarmed exclamation.

The entry way was flooded!

This is what happened when the main line was blocked before. It could handle the slow drain of a kitchen sink, but not the fast drain of a washing machine, so the water backed up the drain and all over the floor. This time, though, there was way more water than before! How could the drain have blocked so badly??

While my daughter went for the mop, I sloshed my way to the basement, where I could get the extra sump pump hose. Water was pouring down the stairs, and there were huge puddles all over the concrete floor.

I found the hose, though. This is what we used before, attaching the drain from the washing machine to the hose, and running it out the window on the storm door, which is missing its screen.

As I was preparing to set that up, pausing the washing machine, I suddenly realized…

There was no hose in the drain pipe.

When I took it out to pour the maintenance stuff into the drain, I forgot to put the hose back. At some point a cat must have knocked it behind the machine.

The load was about 3/4 done, which means there was at least two drain cycles that had gone completely onto the floor behind the washing machine.

I pulled the hose up from behind the washing machine and put it in the drain pipe.

*sigh*

So my daughter and I have just spent the last couple of hours mopping up the mess, filling mop buckets repeatedly. We got the bulk of it out of the entry way, then I left her to that and started on the basement. My daughter did set the hose up to drain out the window, though, before restarting the laundry, just in case.

As for the basement…

Well, it sure does show us how uneven the floor is down there!

The root cellar is directly under the entryway, and a lot of the water flowed into there. From there, it flowed to one side of the middle of the basement.

The side where there are counter shelves on the floor, of course.

Since we don’t let the cats down there anymore, I’d moved the screen barrier between the new and old basements. After much mopping and several runs up the stairs to empty the mop bucket outside, I went to turn on the light switch near the opening between the two basements, and discovered water had flowed along the wall and into the old basement, too!!

That basement doesn’t have weeping tile, so it’s set up for wet. There wasn’t enough to bother doing any clean up there.

Once I got to the point where it wasn’t practical to keep mopping up the water, and there was no way we could get to the water pooled along the wall, it was time to set up fans. We have the blower fan that’s used to keep the old basement floor dry – not a problem this year, since it’s too dry – as well as a couple of pedestal fans. Those are now set up where the floor is still dry, aimed at the wet areas. I also brought down a box fan and set it up so it could blow towards the new basement stairs – they have carpet nailed to them, so we really need to get that dry! We have extension cords set up all over the place, all hanging from the ceiling, but I wasn’t willing to plug in the box fan yet, since I would have to stand in a puddle of water to do it! I’d like to find another fan and set it up, facing the root cellar, too.

I also got the Styrofoam insulation out of the basement windows to open them up and allow more air circulation. Only one still has a screen, though. I opened the south facing one, just a crack, but the second east facing one not only doesn’t have a screen, but the plastic part on the glass that is pulled on to slide the window open is basically disintegrated. Since I wasn’t about to move out the shelf that’s under the window to fight with it, I left it be.

With the nights still chilly, we haven’t switched the old basement winter window to its summer screen window, but I might just have to do that early!

What. A. Mess.

Meanwhile, the package my husband was expecting wasn’t among the 4 I brought home – one of which was for my daughter. We finished in time for me to change out of my wet clothes and start another load of laundry, before heading back to the post office to see if the postmaster had processed it, yet.

I’m happy to say that at least that went well. His package was there – along with three others that came in early!

So for the next while, we’re going to have to keep checking on the basement and the fans. I’m not happy using that old blower fan. I imagine it’s something that was acquired through salvage somewhere. The cord to plug it in is clearly not original, and it starting to look old and worn to me. So does the motor itself, to be honest. Costco has industrial blowers at a really good price. They are also plastic, not metal. Since we’re using them for wet floors, I’d much rather not be using a metal fan! We might have to invest in a couple.

We’ll have to set up a fan in the entry way. My daughter was able to mop up quite a bit, but not move the washer and dryer out. There just isn’t much space in the entry.

All because I forgot to put a hose back into the drain pipe.

What a mess I made!!

The Re-Farmer

Morning beauty, first garlic, and apparently, I’ve been hardening off wrong.

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First, the cuteness!

I counted 28 yard cats this morning, and Driver was really wanting attention, following me the entire time I did my rounds. I even picked him up a couple of times, though he didn’t like it much and quickly jumped back down – then demanded more pets!

Of course, I’ve been checking the garlic beds daily. I spotted what might have been our very first garlic, maybe 2 days ago, in the tiny raised bed. It’s now big enough that I can be sure that it is, indeed, a garlic sprouting. Today, I could finally see more emerging.

This one is in the long, rectangular bed closer to the house. The last garlic cloves were planted all down the middle of it. The first ones in the bed along the retaining wall are starting to show, and I think I even saw one or two in the short part of the wattle weave bed. In the long part of the bed, I’m seeing fresh green leaves from some of the strawberries we started from seed, too.

Of course, I checked on the trays and bins of transplants that spent their first night in the sun room. They are all exactly as I left them; no cats (or racoons, or skunks) have gotten into them. While the outside temperatures dropped to just below freezing, the sun room’s thermometer stayed hovering around 10C/50F. Our living room, where they were moved out from, typically stays around 15C/59F during the day, so while the overnight temperatures may be cooler in the sun room, they’re going to get a lot warmer during the day. I’ll have to remember to turn the ceiling fan on for at least a few hours.

Doing a quick look and video channels I follow while having my breakfast, I enjoyed this new one from MI Gardener, about hardening off transplants.

I’ve been doing it wrong, of course. 😄

Actually, what I’ve been doing is closer to how he describes in the video, mostly because it’s such a pain timing things to bring them in and out. The main problem I have is that the only accessible and level space we have that also allows us to keep the cats out, is right outside the sun room. Which means the transplants are getting that peak period of sunlight in the middle of the day, and are at risk of getting sunburned – something that happened to quite a few tomatoes transplants, last year. We did make use of the old market tent to keep some of them shaded at the hottest part of the day. Ideally, we’d put them on the East side of the house, but it slopes quite a bit on that side. The West side has the old kitchen garden. The North side gets no sun. So that leaves the south side.

This year, though, I might be able to set things up across the yard, so the transplants can be shaded by the willows and white lilacs during peak sunlight hours.

We’ll figure it out.

Meanwhile, I was just informed that a package is in at the post office, so I’m off to get it, before they close for a few hours at lunch time.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: making room, and starting melons

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We got some progress with our transplants today!

We now have various melon seeds set to pre-germinate above the heat mat – indirect, so they don’t get too warm.

As with the Wild Bunch Mix of winter squash, I wanted to do all the seeds in our Summer of Melons Blench, There were four more of the Wild Bunch winter squash ready for potting first, though. There were still some seeds left, but I put those in the compost bucket. Some were looking like mold was starting to grow on them, and others were looking slimy, so I figured they were done for. Which is fine. We have so many from the Wild Bunch mix that successfully germinated, we won’t be starting any other winter squash this year, as much as I’d like to. We just won’t have the prepared space for that many large plants, even with trellises.

All of the smallest and not quite emerged Wild Bunch Mix squash are now together in the one half of the aquarium greenhouse. The larger ones got moved to the mini greenhouse frame at the window. The larger ones that were already in the mini greenhouse frame in the window were tucked into a bin and, together with the bin that had peppers and herbs in it, are now in the sun room. The cats like to sit on these shelves to look out the window, but the bins should protect the transplants.

The tray with the hot peppers and eggplant is now on the shelf between two windows in the sun room, along with one of the tomato trays. There’s also space for a cat to sit by the door, as a few like to do. These trays will get plenty of light through most of the day. I’m taking a chance on putting them there, but last year the cats were good about leaving the transplants alone, for the most part. They were more interested in getting at the window, so as long as they can still do that, the transplants should be okay.

Once the space was made in the mini greenhouse frame and the aquarium greenhouse, I made some decisions as to which melons I wanted to start.

The Summer of Melons Blend was the only for-sure choice. The package had 21 seeds, and I set all of them to pre-germinate.

For the others, I decided to try the Zucca melon again. It’s been rough going for these, even though we’ve had success starting them out, so I’m hoping to actually get some this year. They are supposed to get quite massive in size. The seeds are pretty huge, so they got where the only ones to be scarified to help with germination. I decided to try only 4 seeds, with plenty left to try again next year, if it doesn’t work out this year.

The Pixie melon is one we’ve grown successfully before, during a drought year, which is what we’re supposed to be getting this year, too. They are a small “personal size” melon. I set out only 5 seeds, which left another 4 in the package. If we have the space, I might try direct sowing the last seeds, since they only need up to 75 days to maturity. The plants are very productive, though, so even if we only have a couple make it, that should still provide us with a decent amount of little melons.

The Sarah’s Choice is one we tried last year, but I think only 2 seedlings survived to be transplanted. They were planted together with some other melons and, to be honest, I’m not sure which variety was which, the vines were so interwoven. The plants did well, but they didn’t start producing both male and female flowers at the same time until quite late in the season, so we didn’t get very many that fully ripened before frost hit. So I want to try them again. This year, I’ll make sure we plant them away from other melon types, so we can tell them apart. Again, I started only 5 seeds, which was a little under half was what was in the package.

I had two types of watermelon to choose from, and I decided to go with the Cream of Saskatchewan. Both were short season, cold climate varieties, but I only had one container left. 😂 Again, I picked out 5 seeds, which was half the package.

The 7 day forecast has changed, and we’re now looking at a cooler day tomorrow, with possible rain, and only slightly warmer days after that. We won’t be back into highs in the double digits (Celsius) until next Monday, if the current forecasts are anything to go by. Which I don’t mind too much. Unless the winds are a problem, the cooler days make it more pleasant do to manual labour in, and we’ve got garden beds to prep, and new ones to build! We need to make room for all those transplants, plus the stuff we want to direct sow!

The Re-Farmer

Morning finds!

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Doing my morning rounds this time of year can be so much fun.

Of course, all year, I get to play with the yard cats.

Well. The ones that allow me to, anyhow.

The face Hypotenose is making… too funny!

I even got to pet Broccoli!

You might need to click through to Instagram to see the above video. Some of the boys really fight for attention! Broccoli decided to get in on the action, which was nice. Still not to the point that we’d be able to get her into a carrier and to a vet. I’m trying to think of some way we can isolate her before she has her kittens. She has her nest somewhere in the outer yard, or possible across the road, so we don’t see her kittens until they’re old enough to follow her to solid food. In the past, we’ve used the basement for this, but the set up down there has changed and is going to change some more, so that’s not an option anymore.

We’ll figure something out.

Meanwhile…

Look what I found!

Again, you might have to click through to Instagram to see the photos. Our first snow crocus flower buds have appeared!

We’ve also got a crowd forming in the tulip patch.

I counted at least 21 tulips coming up. Some, I can’t quite be sure if what’s poking through the leaf litter is a tulip plant, or something else.

I can see something has been digging in the leaves, but not into the soil. Skunks will dig for grubs, but there are no divots of soil pulled up, so I’m guessing it’s cats. They can get in and out of the fencing around this patch fairly easily. That’s not much of a problem. We just need to keep the deer out!

As for the day, I forgot something I should have picked up for my husband at the pharmacy yesterday, so I’m going to have to go into town again, after they open at noon. I checked on the remaining pre-germinating Wild Bunch squash seeds, and there are more ready to pot up. Time to get some of the melon seeds pre-germinating, too, and maybe some other winter squash that need the extra time.

Ah, spring is most definitely in the air!

The Re-Farmer