This morning, I went ahead of my daughter to visit with Ginger, so I could first give the outside cats some warm water.
There was a slight delay on that.
Since we took the extension cord that was providing power to the cat house, so it wouldn’t be in Ginger’s way, the heated water bowl is no longer heated. And it got chilly last night!
So I decided to quickly pop into the sun room to give Ginger some warm water first, and the little bugger actually managed to get outside!! Thankfully, he didn’t get too far, and I was able to get him back into the sun room. His food bowl was empty, so I topped that up to tempt him away from the door.
We can give him normal amounts of food and water now, too.
My daughter joined me with his medications and we took care of that, then she stayed with him to make sure he didn’t run outside while I fed the critters, returned the containers, and got her to pass me one of the 100ft extension cords, before she could finally close up the outside doors to the sun room and safely leave.
I then plugged the 100ft extension cord to the outlet on the side of the house, ran it across the entry, making sure it was tucked under the door, and plugged in the cat house.
We shouldn’t need to keep power into here for much longer!
That done, I quickly finished my rounds, then headed into town. We decided to go ahead and buy a surgical shirt for Ginger, rather than make one.
Which is when things got weird.
When I opened the door, I was immediately greeted by a dog in the doorway. His two humans were just finishing up and on their way out, so I held the door for them to come out.
The dog insisted on more pets, so that took a little while.
Which is when one of the staff came over. She had recognized me and was all “this is the person I was telling you about! The one with the poster…” They still have posters with the kittens we have for adoption on there. The woman held up a paper where I could see a hand drawn map, saying “we were just on our way over there!”
Now, the first thing that came to mind is, who at the clinic knew where we lived enough to draw a map?
The next thing to come to mind was, having people suddenly show up at our gate might not work out too well. So I quickly suggested they wait until I was done, then they could follow me, which they agreed to do. As soon as I was done getting the surgical shirt, I sent a quick message to the family, letting me know someone would be following me to look at cats to adopt. I didn’t have time to tell them any more than that!
So off we went, with them following me, until we reached the gravel road. It’s incredibly dusty, as well as lots of rocks showing through the gravel, so I drove slower than usual. Even so, I noticed after a while, that they didn’t seem to be following me anymore.
I stopped on the side of the road and waited for the dust to settle and, sure enough, they were well behind, and looked like they were in the process of turning around.
??
They seemed to see that I had stopped and starting heading my way. They caught up to me and we stopped alongside each other to talk.
Her first comment was, “I think I’m following the wrong person!” They thought they were going to somewhere in town, to the humane society. That’s where their hand drawn map was for.
What we eventually worked out is that, while at the clinic, the person at the counter had told them about us having cats to adopt, as well as the humane society. I mentioned we’d never been able to get through to the humane society, and she said they’d told her that at the clinic! So it looks like they thought the staff member was telling them I was with the humane society. After confirming that yes, we do have fixed female cats up for adoption, they continued to follow along.
The gentleman was older and not up to getting out of the vehicle, so I quickly went in to talk to whatever daughter was around. Susan was near the door, so I took her out while my daughter went looking for Two Face.
Susan hasn’t been outside since she’s been fixed, other than one very brief escape attempt in the winter.
She really wanted to be outside! I ended up having to put her down, hoping she would be too nervous to go far, but nope. She was ready to explore! I managed to catch her again, but had to bring her inside at that point.
My daughter had Two Face, so I grabbed her and headed for the door.
The woman saw us through the window and her immediately response was, “oh, I like her!!” One look at that beautiful face, and she was in love.
Two Face was also a lot calmer, and we were able to bring her to the car for the gentleman to see her.
The main problem was, they had their dog in the back. I have no doubt the dog would have been fine, but Two Face would probably be too nervous.
We spoke for a while, and figured things out. Two Face is due for her annual shots, and their dog has to go back to the clinic in three weeks. They’ll make an appointment for both of them, then call us to let us know when that will be. They have a cage they can put Two Face in, so they’ll come here first, with the cage, then take her to the vet for her shots. Since the clinic has Two Face on file, they can transfer her file to them at the same time, and they will take her home from there.
Unless something happens in the between now and then, Two Face will finally be adopted out!
It was really weird, but it worked out in the end!
He seemed very happy to be out of the carrier and in familiar territory. He is quite active – a little too active! and moving around better, now that he doesn’t have that leg dangling off his shoulder.
Did I mention he’s being too active?
He’s already been caught on the shelf in front of one of the windows, about 4 ft off the ground. The girls tried moving my husband’s walker, because he was using it to climb up there. Not down, though. He was jumping straight down from the shelf.
When he was caught up there again, even after the walker was moved, the girls made it safer for him to get up and down, rather than try to stop him. The walker is back and open, with it’s nice, padded seat, and the carrier in front as a “step”.
And to think I was worried about that extension cord being in his way. That cord is for the ceramic terrarium heat bulb in the cat house outside. It should be warm enough now, that it isn’t needed, so I put the cords away. I did, however, bring the frame of the mini-greenhouse back into the sun room, and it is now holding the spare heat bulb safely above the space in front of his box nest.
Right now, he is on limited food and water, as we monitor if he starts getting sick. Tomorrow, food and water goes back to normal. He is to get the medication he was on already, once every evening, and has two other medications that he is to take twice a day, starting tonight.
Tomorrow, I’m going to go back and pick up one of those surgical shirts. We were going to make him one, but realized that the materials we have would likely get snagged on the sutures.
Speaking of which…
He is to return to the vet in 2 weeks for a follow up examination and removal of the sutures.
Until then, we keep him in the sun room, monitor him, and pamper him like crazy.
These are the bills, with a grand total of $1,316.48 Today’s bill is the two page one. Interesting to see how much the neuter cost, without anesthetic charge. The list of drugs is also interesting to see. I know people on several of them! :-D
The bill on the far right is his examination, x-rays and medications from a few days ago.
Seeing how Ginger is acting right now, I think he’s going to do really well. I think, in the time it took to get him to surgery, he already got used to using only three legs, and this amputation is just making it easier on him.
The girls have been to check on him several times already, arranged things a bit as they felt he needed, and plugged in the heater bulb. It’s not particularly cold in there yet, but the surgical site and shaved areas would still get colder, faster.
This post falls into the full disclosure and transparency zone.
I just got a call from the vet clinic, this time about the bill.
They were able to give us two estimates, depending on how long the surgery took and how complicated it might get. Those estimates included the examination and x-rays we’d brought him in for, which we had to pay before bringing him home (just over $230). What neither estimate included was the cost of having him neutered at the same time, since we requested that later.
So we were hoping for things to be at the low end, plus the cost of neuter. Thanks to the generosity of those who donated through the Ko-fi page, and through direct donations, we had that covered. The transfers are still incomplete, and one of the donations is still on hold, but we could use the funds from my tax return, set aside for garden soil and chainsaw purchase/repair, as a buffer until they came through. If it was on the high end, it would have been a bit harder to come up with the total, but we would have found a way.
Well, it turned out to be on the low end of the estimate – and that was even with the neuter! Which, of course, would not have cost as much as usual, since he was already there for surgery. The total bill for the amputation and neuter will be a little over $1000.
At that amount, we’ll only need to use the chainsaw purchase/repair money as a buffer, and not touch the garden soil money, until the transfers are complete.
One of the things that was brought up during the call is that he might want to scratch at the wound. There are medical “sweaters” available for sale. We will look at some, but we could also just make him one. My daughter and I both crochet, and we could whip some something like that in very short time. If nothing else, it’ll keep the shaved area and wound warm and dry.
With this good news, I’ve made some changes to the Ko-fi page. To start, the fundraiser goal graph is removed, now that the surgery is complete.
For quite some time, I have had people suggest I include a donation button, and some have even offered to make donations, to help with the kitties. I resisted, because I have a really hard time asking people for money! I know how tight times are, but for Ginger’s injury, we had no choice, and the kindness and assistance offered has been humbling and generous. We will leave the donation buttons up and the donation page active. If anyone wishes to help with the kitties, these donations will be used to help buy cat food and litter, pay for spaying and neutering, and any other vet bills that come up. Nothing else.
I will be sure to post photos and more updates when we bring Ginger home, and during his recovery.
We just got a call from the surgeon at the vet clinic.
The surgery went very well. His heart rate was steady the whole time, and there was minimal bleeding. When she called, he was starting to try and lift his head.
And yes, he got snipped too, so when he is all healed up, he will also be safe around the ladies.
We will get more instructions when we pick him up, which should be about 4 hours from the time I am writing this. I mentioned that we will be keeping him isolated in the sun room and asked for how long we should do that, before bringing him in with the other cats. She said to wait until the wound is fully healed, which should be about 2 weeks. That will give him time to get used to the leg not being there anymore, and puts him at less risk if there are any altercations with other cats. I mentioned we were thinking of slowly introducing other cats to him, in the sun room, and she thought that was a good idea.
He will be coming home with more the pain killers we have already been giving him, plus another that had me laughing. My husband is on the same medication! She said it might make him groggy, and I just had to add, “it does that to humans, too.”
We will be getting another call with what the final bill will be (it wasn’t finished at the time she was calling me), so we know what to expect when we come to get him at the end of the clinic’s day. It sounds like they have just started to open on Sundays, because the doctor had to actually look up what the “end of the day” meant. :-D
The main thing is that all is well with the Ginger bug!
I made a mistake, when writing about these trees, yesterday.
In this photo, the red lines mark the dead spruces. Counting the one by the garage, that makes a dozen trees on this side of the spruce grove, to take down.
I missed one. It can’t actually be seen in this photo, because it’s behind other trees. I didn’t notice becase I had the right number of trees that I’d counted before, not realizing that when I had been in the spruce grove, counting the dead trees, I missed the one that is in the far right of the photo, because I could see if from where I was standing at the time. It has a live tree growing next to it, and has some live branches wrapped around it.
This is one of the clusters of three trees that I’d mentioned (the broken tree in the foreground is the one that’s closest to the house). When my daughters and I were walking around in this area, I clued in that one of these dead trees is the one with the extension cord wrapped around it.
You can see what the extension cord is there for. There is a wooden star with lights on it, facing the roads. At Christmas, we would run a cord from the house to this tree to plug it in.
My late brother put that there. Best guess, I’d say it’s been up there for as long as 40 years.
My daughters and I joked about plugging it in to see if it worked, but we’d never do it. With how many breaks there are in the cord, just where we can see it, plugging it in could very well cause a fire!
So… that’s 13 dead trees on this side of the spruce grove that need to come down, plus the other 5 I found at the other end, that can wait.
It’s getting so that there aren’t that many spruces left in the spruce grove!!
As I write this, Ginger has been dropped off at the vet, and should be in the middle of surgery to amputate his busted up arm.
He was in very good spirits this morning, though I don’t think he was too happy about being on a fast!
A spice girl, checking out the spice boy! Saffron, meet Ginger! :-)
He wasn’t too happy with all the other cats circling around him in the cage, though!
After his surgery (if all goes well, he will also be neutered), he’ll be isolated in the sun room for however long the vet says he should be kept there. We’ll take the opportunity to introduce him to some of the inside cats, since they are going to be his new family.
Right now, we are waiting for a call from the vet to let us know how things went, and to come and get him. I will update as soon as I can!
Thank you, again, to everyone who was able to help out!
A while back, I used a satellite image to plan where we could plant our garden this year.
Getting a gasp of dimensions was difficult on this, though, but at least it could be used as a guide. Things need to be pretty flexible at this point, anyhow.
With the snow clearing away, we have been getting into the areas and realized that there was a lot more room to the West of the existing beds than there appeared to be, in the satellite image.
Here is the areas with the existing beds where we had planted squash last year.
The perspective makes it look a bit strange.
Two years ago, the area where the green marked beds are was mulched with straw, then covered with black … tarps? Possibly landscaping fabric? Whatever it was we salvaged when cleaning up the old wood pile. That log marks one of the corners of the area we mulched. This made a HUGE difference in the workability of the soil when we planted last year, as well as killing off a lot of the grass and weeds. This area was no longer hard as concrete, and could actually be worked, though we did still dig out pockets to fill with a soil mix that we could transplant into, because of all the rocks.
The long bed in the back has bamboo poles marking where I’d stuck the seed potatoes found last fall that, for some reason, didn’t sprout but still looked completely fresh. There is one more potato than I had poles to mark the spots with. :-D When the garden was prepped for winter, that bed was actually widened a bit, so even if the potatoes do miraculously start to grow, there is room for something in front. Which will probably not be use this year, but it’s an option. If we are unable to get rid of that row of self-sown trees, then we will likely create a series of long, narrower, bed with trellises on the North side, for any climbing plants we decide to grow in the future.
Then there are the three beds down the middle, which used to be pumpkin mounds, with longer beds on either side. The three beds down the middle are all the about same size, while the two on either end are almost exactly the same size as each other. With our current plan, the three smaller beds in the middle will have our three varieties of spinach, while the larger beds on either side will have two of our varieties of onions, which in turn will probably be interplanted with other things. Possible kale and kholrabi, as the onions will help protect them from insects. We shall see.
In the back of the photo is a purple block which is where we are planning to plant the Montana Morado corn. That leaves a surprisingly large space (in orange) that didn’t get marked on the satellite image, where we can plant something else. Perhaps one of the three bush bean varieties can go there.
After we dig out the huge rock that’s half buried in there. When this area was plowed last, the person who did it went around the rock, creating a hill in one area, and a low spot in the other. :-/ This is one of the roughest areas of the entire old garden space. Even where the Montana Morado corn will be planted in ridiculously rough.
As you can see, there is a substantial area in shadow, so there is quite a bit of space that can only have shade loving plants. Most of what we have requires full sun, and even the cool weather plants still need more sun than those areas get. An unplanned consequence of my parents crowding more and more trees into what used to be part of the garden.
Still, it is here that we are intending to make permanent, accessible, raised bed gardens. The plots we have now do not have the dimensions needed for that (which must include the paths as well as the raised beds), so even here, everything we do is temporary. One of the reasons this area was chosen for permanent gardening is its nearness to a water source, and to the house itself. Accessible raised beds will also be high enough to address the shadow problem, at least somewhat.
Now to the other side…
In the foreground is one of the old squash beds marked off in the earlier photo. The smaller two beds are where we had potatoes last year, and where we hope to plant the shallots and bunching onions, if the seedlings survive. Those two beds are a bit under 4″x8″ in size (or a little more than 1m x 2m), to give you some perspective.
All the orange area will be for new garden beds. Most of it was part of the old garden that had been plowed before we moved here. Of that space, the only area that has seen and mulching was where we planted the sunflowers. As with the squash, we dug holes and filled them with a soil mix, in which we planted the sunflowers, because of how hard and full of rocks the soil is. As we were able, we added grass clippings around the seedlings for mulch.
The furthest we’d planted the sunflowers are almost to the very end of the row of crab apple trees. Again, for perspective, we could just barely reach those ones with 260′ of garden hose – almost 80 meters.
Way in the back, at the corner, there is a large L shape inside the orange area that has never had any garden in it. We will be working this area for gardening for the first time. I would estimate the orange area, along the edge on the right, near the old potato beds, to be probably 250′, or about 76 meters, long. The far end, along the fence line, is probably 300’/91m.
Funny. It sounds so much bigger when I write that down. When I’m standing in the middle of it, remembering the garden of my childhood, it feels very… small.
The orange area gets full sun, up until you get close to the crab apple trees that are beyond the right edge of the photo. It gets very hot and dry, so we will have our work cut out for us to grow the corn, sunflowers, beans, peas, melons, radishes, summer and winter squash, and gourds we intend to plant there. Getting water that far out from the house is going to be the biggest challenge.
Part of the goal in breaking soil here is for the future planting of nut trees. Many varieties do very well in poor conditions, but not all. Any improvement of the soil will give them a better chance of survival, and when we’re talking about something that may not produce for at least ten years, any losses have much longer term effects.
The orange area closest to the green areas may become part of the permanent garden beds on this side of the house, but that has yet to be determined. Our plans still need to be very flexible at this point.
After taking these photos this morning, I also took photos of the spruce grove areas we need to work on.
Here are out garlic beds. Another bed will be created to the left, near the current compost ring location. There will likely be beets grown there.
The mess of little trees beyond the garlic beds all need to be cleared out. The ones with whitish trunks are poplar trees, and there are many, many, MANY more of them growing towards the garage, and then down towards the road. They also keep trying to come up in the yard. I had not realized how invasive they could be! These will become the materials to build trellises and arbors for our climbing plants.
The darker colours stems that you see are mostly cherry, from a parent plan from Poland. Something we saw happen since we’ve moved here, and probably happens often, is that the cherries start to bloom quite early in the spring, as soon as it warms up. This, however, is Canada, not Poland, and they got hit by a late frost. This killed off the trees that had bloomed. New shoots, however, come up from the base. So what we’ve got is a lot of dead cherry trees, surrounded by immature new growth.
Cherry trees, we’ve learned, also spread by their roots. I had to deal with that while clearing out the area under the old wood pile, so we could plant carrots, beets and parsley here, last year.
So we’ve decided all of that is going to be cleaned out, as far back as we can. It’s a huge area, and the clean up will likely be done in stages over several years. We don’t want to take too long on that, though, because this is where we would like to plant berry bushes and fruit trees.
Then there’s this area…
Every red line marks a dead spruce tree. The two on the left, by the junk pile, are the ones closest to the house that we were already looking to hire someone to take down for us, along with the dead spruce by the garage and outhouse. Counting that one, there’s a dozen dead spruces that need to be taken down, before they fall down, in this area. There are also plenty of fallen trees that need to be cleaned up, along with the junk pile and the spirea (which is hiding at least one, maybe two, fallen trees). There are Saskatoon bushes beyond the junk pile that we want to clean up around, including removing some chokecherries, which will provide them with the air flow and sunshine they need to thrive. So far, none of these has shown signs of disease.
In the middle of the photo, tucked into where there are so many dead trees, is where we planned to plant the mulberry tree that’s set to arrive later in the spring, in time for planting in our zone. We chose this location, because it’s a zone 4 tree and needs the protection the other trees will provide (the ones still alive, anyhow), and still get a lot of sunlight. With so many dead trees to take down first, however, I’m almost thinking we might want to put it in a pot until next year!
In the foreground, behind the compost ring, is where we intend to build the cordwood outdoor bathroom. I had been upset that we were not able to at least get started on leveling a foundation for it last year, due mostly to the excessive heat, but now that I’ve realized how many dead trees there are, I’m glad it didn’t happen. Any one of those trees could come down in a storm or high winds. Can you imagine doing all that work to build a cordwood shed, only to have a tree fall on it?
Oh, and along with these, I was able to make my way through the spruce grove near the fence line and take a closer look. I found five more dead trees. Those ones are not as urgent to take down, though. It’s the ones near the house and garage that have priority. Of course, there are the trees that have already fallen that need to be cleaned out, too. Focus that far out, however, will be on the south end of the spruce grove, along the driveway, where there are almost no spruces left. Lots of little poplars to take out, and probably some larger ones, too, and lots of underbrush, fallen trees and dead branches to clear away. Only then can we figure out if the crab apple trees my mother planted in there can be salvaged. They’re not as overshadowed as the other ones I found near the maple grove, but last spring, I only saw one branch bloom, and no apples produced. I think I would rather take those out and transplant more spruces in that area, and save the fruit trees for better locations. There are a number of little, self-sown spruce trees that I would rather transplant than get rid of. I’ve had to kill enough trees while cleaning up, already, and will have to do more. If transplanting some is an option, I will be happy to take it!
He was very happy to see me this morning. So happy, he flung himself onto the ground at my feet, rolling around so I could pet his belly!
Right. On. His. Injury.
*shudder*
He was moving around so much, it was hard to get pictures!
To refresh his water, I decided to quickly open the doors to outside and toss out the old water, he actually made a run for the door! This boy wants to go outside!
I’m sure his misses his brothers, Nutmeg and Creamsicle baby! But he will have his sister, Cabbages, and a whole lot of other cats to play with, when this is over.
This morning, I called the vet clinic to ask about having him fixed while he is with them tomorrow. The last thing we’re going to do is get him all patched up, then send him back outside where the coyotes and other predators can get him. She talked to one of the doctors who said that yes, they can, but first they will see how the amputation surgery goes since, obviously, that’s the priority. If that goes well, he’ll get a quick snip while he is still under.
We also talked about the financing.
Full disclosure and transparency, here.
Thanks to the generosity of so many, both through the Ko-fi fundraising, and direct donations, we have enough to cover the lower end of the estimate. Ko-fi works through PayPal, and I set up new accounts for both at the same time. The PayPal account is linked to completely separate bank account from our personal stuff. The down side is, PayPal takes several business days to transfer funds. Plus, they went and put the first donation we received on hold. Apparently, that’s a normal thing for them to do with new accounts, but it may be another 7 business days before the hold is removed. Only then can it be transferred, which can take several more days.
So we will also be looking into the third party financing option. We may not need it if the total is on the low end of the estimate, but if it’s on the high end, we will.
With that in mind, if you do wish to support Ginger Snap’s surgery, you can do so by buying him a coffee (donations can be as low as $1 Canadian), sharing or reblogging this post, or the Ko-fi fundraising page.
Many thanks!
The Re-Farmer
Update: Well, I tried to go through the pre-approval process with the third party financing. It didn’t work! I got stuck right at the beginning, with our address. It seems we don’t exist. Their system couldn’t even accept our little hamlet, never mind our box number or our physical address. I wasn’t even getting any error messages. It just kept looping back to the address input area.
I called the clinic to let them know it wasn’t going to happen. It turns out, we’re not the only clients they’ve had, who have had this problem.
This was just in case things did not go well and the bill ended up on the high end of the estimate. They are aware of the situation, and have been really awesome about it. In fact, they’ve been pretty awesome, all around!
It won’t be worked on today. The mechanic was missing some information on file to be able to order a new tire. Which is fine. I’m just glad I had my daughter follow me in the van!
I talked to him about what happened, and was saying the tires were maybe 2 years old. He told me they couldn’t be that old, because he hasn’t owned the garage for 2 years yet! He’s the one who replaced all 4 tires for us. I think he had just taken over the garage at the time; I remember the signs on the building still had the previous owner’s name. They have definitely seen two winters, though. So they are, at most, a year and a half old.
One of the things that I told him was that I had not hit anything, and the tire had been fine, previously. He thought perhaps the extreme cold we had might have had an effect, but I don’t think so. I mentioned the guy changing the tire thought it might be defected. Either way, I asked him to do an inspection of the other tires, just in case! Which he will do.
That done, my daughter and I headed to a nearby small town where we could drop off the paperwork for her taxes. We tried to do her taxes last night, using TurboTax, but weren’t able to Netfile it. We couldn’t tell if the problem was with TurboTax or the CRA. I actually think it was both. We figured it would be easier to just take them in and pay someone to do them. Our first year back, we’d gone to someone in town that had done my parents’ taxes for many years. He screwed up badly; my husband ended up owing thousands of dollars, and he didn’t even file a return for me, because I have no income. The next year, we went to another company in another town. The person who did our taxes has a disability herself, so not only did she fix the previous year’s taxes, but told me I qualified for the caregiver tax benefit, and was able to fix my husband’s file to reflect his disability tax credit. He still ended up owing money from the previous year, but that’s just part of moving back to this province. We’ve ended up owing money every time we’ve moved back here.
So I knew this was someone that we could trust!
I called her this morning and explained our situation. Which is when I found out that TurboTax has been really buggy this year. She had tried to use it to file her own personal taxes from home, and ended up doing them in the office, because she couldn’t get it to work! Plus, there is the CRA issue. There was some sort of security issue (but not a security breach) and they suspended the secure login information for 800,000 people. I got the email notification about that, but was able to log on through my bank (which is how I usually log on), and was able to reset things on my own file. My daughter, however, kept getting error messages, instead. We couldn’t even print out her file to mail it, because the printouts had a watermark saying, “Duplicate copy: do not mail” on them. We couldn’t get the proper forms for mailing in, anywhere! In the end, it just wasn’t worth the hassle.
With the crazy doing on right now, the tax preparers just ask people to drop off their paperwork, and they’ll call for pick up when they are done, so that is what my daughter and I did, after dropping off my mother’s car. It’ll take longer for her to get her return, but at least it’ll be done. Her sister is going to try the software first, but if it messes up for her, we’ll do the same for hers. After talking to the tax preparer, I don’t expect it to work, to be honest. The software couldn’t handle a bare bones return, never mind a self-employment one.
We took the opportunity to run some errands, and even remembered to go to the post office.
There was one odd thing that happened when we were heading out. After my daughter backed the van out of the garage, I started to close the door…
… and something fell, hitting me on the way to the ground.
I found a large screw.
I quickly popped into the garage and closed the door the rest of the way
Above the door, there is a part of the garage door mechanism, held in place with a plate. That plate is now sticking out, behind held in place with only one screw at the top.
The garage door is larger than usual, and I was thinking it looked like it’s starting to sag in the middle. My guess is that that’s exactly what’s happening, and as it sags, every time we opened the door, it was hitting that piece, pulling it further and further out, every time, until the screw finally fell out. Of course, this can only be seen if we are inside the garage, while it’s empty, and the door is closed. Which pretty much only happens when we’re trying to repair things (or get rid of wasp nests).
So for now, the door is going to stay closed, so as not to damage things even more. We’ll need to drag out the A-frame ladder from by the building my parents’ stuff is stored in, and see if we can simply screw it back on again. It’s really windy right now, so while it’s a marvelous 12C/54F right now, I’m in no hurry to be carrying a ladder across the outer yard …as I watch the trees out my window suddenly start waving around even more, in an especially strong gust! This is a day when I’m going to be checking for broken branches, and seeing if any new trees have fallen down, as part of my rounds. I might even skip the evening rounds and save it for morning!
Not knowing how quickly we’ll be able to get it done, I decided to park the van in the inner yard, where it won’t be visible from the road, in case our vandal decides to take a walk past our place again. With my mom’s car in town, that means the garage is actually empty right now! This would be a good time to take a rake to the dirt floor and tidy up a bit. :-)
After the plate is fixed and we can open the door again, though. Otherwise the dust will be insane in there! :-D
Little by little, things will get done.
The Re-farmer
Obligatory fundraising promo! Ginger’s surgery is scheduled for 2 days from now. If you would like to help support him, you can buy him a coffee (donations can be as little as $1 Canadian), or share the Ko-fi page on your own blog, or social media.
So this lends weight to the “defective tire” theory.
I checked the trail cam files from yesterday. With the one camera, there just isn’t a view of that tire, but with the other…
I cropped this from a screen cap of the video. It’s the best I could get.
Even taking into account that the tire is sunk in mud, it looks really low!
The last time the car was used was then I took my mother grocery shopping about a week ago. It has been sitting in the garage every since. The only reason I took it out at all is because my sister helped my mother with grocery shopping, so I wanted to make sure the car got some time on the road.
I’ve just taken it out and checked the rest of the tires as much as I can. I’ll be asking the mechanic to give them a quick inspection once he has it up on the lift.
I was telling my brother and his wife about what happened, and they had the same immediate thoughts I did; could it have been deliberate? In their case, they actually know someone who had … issues… with someone else, and that person vandalized the inside of their tires. All four of them!
I don’t think our vandal did anything, though. Not just because it would be physically difficult; where the car is parked is so cramped, there is no way anyone of his size and lack of mobility could have gotten to that tire. Plus, he wouldn’t have been that subtle. If he was going to damage our tires, he would have just slashed our tires. So I don’t think this is the result of an act of vandalism.
It should be interesting to hear what the mechanic has to say when he finally sees the tire this afternoon!
