We’re supposed to get pretty warm today, with a predicted high of 2C/36F, and a combination of rain and snow. It was already just under freezing overnight, which should have meant a pleasant morning to do my rounds. I wasn’t expecting those winds, though! It was warm enough that snow on the roof is melting, and immediately freezing again. The downspouts are full of ice, so it’s dripping all along the eaves-troughs. I broke icicles, just opening the sun room door! :-D
The kitties were very happy for food and warm water!
I only counted 17 again, but they move around so much, I can’t tell which three were missing, which means even if they came around by the time I finished my rounds, I wouldn’t be able to tell.
There are deer tracks crossing all over the inner yard, and here you can see where they milled around the crab apple trees. Sadly, there are no crab apples for them this year. At least they’re getting a bit of food from the black oil seed we put out for the birds. This is just our first snowfall of the winter, though, so they are not at all in dire straights.
They did appreciate the sunflowers I left behind for them! There isn’t a single leaf or underdeveloped seed head left.
I just love this corridor along the spruce grove, created when we cleared away the lowest branches (many of which were dead). It makes for such a nice, sheltered walkway. As you can see by the tracks, the deer seem to prefer it, too!
My older brother planted these trees, sometime in early 70’s, I think. I would have been just a wee one, and don’t remember them ever not being there, but I do remember being able to climb some of them with my late brother, when we were little. :-) There was one tree that had branches lined up so that I could lounge on them like in a reclining chair. My late brother, on the other hand, could climb trees like a monkey, could climb any tree he wanted and go so much higher than I could, with or without branches handy! Of course, in my memory, they were absolutely huge. They would have been a fair bit smaller than they are now, but in my memory, they seemed bigger! :-D
Once I was done my rounds, I quickly checked the trial cam files, then headed out. I wanted to hit the post office, then to into town to refill our big water jugs and get a flat of eggs. By the time I headed out, however, the winds had picked up even more, and it was raining. Though the gravel roads had been plowed, they were still in rough shape, and driving on them was like driving on a wash board! The paved roads didn’t seem much better, so decided to pick up what I could when I picked up the mail. It’s in a tiny little general store, and they don’t have a lot of selection, but manage to have a good variety of groceries, at least. They do carry the big jugs of water, so I asked about that. Normally, one would pay a $10 deposit for the jug, then $6 for the water. After that, it’s just an exchange of empty jugs for full, for just the cost of the water. I checked, and they looked the same as our own jugs, and the store owner ended up calling the company about it. They were okay with taking another empty, as long as it was clean and the same size/type of jug. So I traded one of our empties that didn’t have a label on it and just had to pay for the water, and not a deposit. It’s more expensive than if I’d gone into town to refill them myself, like I usually do. Likewise with the cartons of eggs I got (we really need to get chickens!), but that’s a small trade off to avoid making the drive on rough, icy roads in the rain and gusting winds.
The closer I can stay to home, the more content I am! :-D
I spotted the most adorable furry spice girl in a plant pot this morning.
When I walked past the living room and saw Saffron in there, watching the birds out the window, I just had to sneak off and get my phone for some pictures!
I’d dug up this old plant stand – I remember my mother had a massive Christmas cactus in it, when I was a child, which means it’s probably older than me – for one of our re-potted aloe vera, hoping the cats would be deterred from digging in the dirt. I was wrong. The plants are now safely in the aquarium greenhouse, but I hadn’t put the plant stand back in storage yet.
Yesterday, I roasted some chickens for the next few days and, since I had to get up earlier this morning, I had and early supper. I set out a bowl for the “bones and oogy bits” and labelled it before going to bed.
This is what I found this morning.
My younger daughter asked if “oogy” was a technical term, so which my husband said yes, while my older daughter added the headless chicken carcass.
What a great thing to find in the morning, when I was so dreading heading out!
I made sure to feed the cats before I left, but I was gone so long, the outside cats needed a top-op.
They were very appreciative! Another cheerful sight. :-)
As for my court date… it went as well as could be. It’s on our vandal to respond now, but I’ll get to that in a bit.
The session was booked for 9am. I planned to leave by 7am, if not earlier. I took the time to actually eat breakfast, which I normally never do that early in the day, before heading out, and when I started the van, the clock read exactly 7am. The drive to the town my mother lives in, where I stopped for gas, was not too bad, though there were parts of the highway that had been blown over and covered with ice and snow. Bad enough on their own, but it was starting to melt a bit, too, which added another level of “gotta be careful!”
Once back on the highway after getting gas, I thought things would be better, as that part of the highway is busier, but nope. It was quite a lot worse, which made for slow driving for a while. By the time I reached the divided highway, though, it finally cleared up… just in time to hit the construction zone, where four lanes with a ditch in between bottle necked into two lanes on one side.
Still, by the time I reached the city, I was making good time. While I knew where to go from checking on the map, I had my phone’s map on navigator, so I had a voice telling me when and where to make my turns, just to be on the safe side.
That worked well, right up until I reached the street the court offices were on, and I was to make a left turn. As I reach the lights, I see a sign under them.
No left turn.
Okay, I’ll just go to the next intersection and drive around the block.
As I drive through, the navigator auto adjusts and tells me to make a right turn at the next street. Which I can’t do, because I’m in the left lane during rush hour, and changing lanes was just not an option, never mind trying to move 3 lanes over.
Next intersection?
The sign says, no left turn.
No left turn.
No left turn.
No left turn between 7am and 9am.
One way only.
No left turn between 7am and 9am.
One way only.
By this time, I’ve crossed the river and the navigator is telling me to make U turns, which I could not do.
Finally, I found a street I could turn left onto – with my phone telling me to take a U turn again – drove around the block and made my way back. When I got to the street the court offices was on, I saw a parkade just up the block and went straight there, as I no longer had time to search for parking.
By the time I parked, walked back to the street I needed and found the building, it was just before 9am. I also just managed to get into the doors to stand at the back of the line to pass through security.
Thankfully, I had the phone number for our vandal’s lawyer, so I called him and told him where I was, and he said he would pass that on to the judge for me.
Thankfully again, the line moved quickly.
Our province is in an odd situation right now. With the pandemic response, emergency status was lifted a while ago. The mandates, as far as I know, expired as well. But the province is still enforcing mask rules (there were signs for distancing all over, which were being ignored by everyone). Also, as many expected, they brought in more restrictions after Remembrance Day, but most apply only to churches in the south of our province (where not a single case of Schrödinger’s Virus has been traced to) and kids from 12-17 who want to play hockey. There are others as well, that make just as little sense.
I expect them to implement another illegal full lock down before Christmas.
Anyhow, I didn’t have the energy for a hassle, so I wore my Mingle Mask and hoped for the best.
No one said a thing to me while I was in line.
As the line was moving forward, I remembered I had a pocket knife in one of my parka’s pockets, so when I got to the security station and put my things into a bin, I started reaching into my pocket to give it to them. The security guard, who didn’t bat an eye at my Mingle Mask, started to tell me I didn’t need to empty my pockets, my parka would go through Xray, until I pulled out the pocket knife and told him I’d forgotten about it. He was quite happy with that and took it aside while I went through the metal detector (none of this procedure is in the court offices we’d been going to in the smaller city!).
I fully expected to lose the knife. I’ve been through court security in another province before moving here, and they even confiscated the metal travel chopsticks a friend of mine had in her purse. Happily, I was wrong. When I got to the other side, another security guard had a Ziplock baggie with a form on it, got my name and got me to initial it, then told me where to go as I left, to retrieve it! I was quite pleased by this, as my husband gave me that knife, and it is a very good one. It got quite a few admiring glances from the security guards.
After getting directions, I found my way to the courtroom our session was going to be in. Just the lawyer and court clerk was there, and the court clerk left, probably to let the judge know I had arrived. It was about 10 past 9 when I got there, and it took another 5 or 10 minutes before the judge came in, so the lawyer and I had a chance to talk.
The first thing I asked was if our vandal was there. He didn’t actually answer, but started asking me about what conditions I might be willing to agree to.
Smart man, not having our vandal there. He would not have been able to shut up.
I actually feel sorry for the lawyer. Nice guy. Doing his best for our vandal, of course, but I think he’s figured out his client is a problem.
Then the judge came in and things got started.
He wasn’t wearing a mask. I could actually see his expressions! It was wonderful!
I think we spent about an hour in this session, and covered a lot of ground. The judge started by asking the lawyer about where our vandal was, and he explained that he’d told our vandal he could stay home, since the lawyer was there to represent him. The judge then began grilling the lawyer, before having a lot of questions for me. Much time was spent clarifying things like what our role was on the property, who actually owned it, when the ownership was transferred from my mother to my brother, and so on. Our vandal’s civil suit came up, even though it is a federal matter, not a provincial one, but the two files are so connected. The lawyer brought it up briefly and tried to move on, but the judge had a lot of questions. His expression when he clarified that the suit was against me – who doesn’t own anything here on the farm – and not my brother, was something to see. The lawyer is not representing our vandal on this case, but he did make a comment on how this was not the wisest of moves on the part of our vandal. Civil law is not the specialty of either of them, though, so they couldn’t say much else.
After much discussion, what I was willing to accept was a no-contact order, coupled with a restriction on drinking; our vandal (who does not believe he has a problem with booze) can drink all he wants at home, but he can’t leave his property while under the influence. The lawyer got an extra week to have time to bring the proposal to our vandal, so two weeks from now, he will have to show up in court. The lawyer had the option of calling in. If he accepts the conditions, we have a de-facto “peace bond”. A court order that expires in a year. If he does NOT accept it, it will go to trail. The judge made sure to explain that, if it goes to trial, then I take on the role of prosecutor and have to present evidence to justify my application. That would be a year from now, at the earliest. Of course, I have to give copies of any evidence I want to present to our vandal’s lawyer. The only issue is that, if I want to use the phone messages my mother got, my mother has to actually be there in court to confirm that yes, these are from our vandal and yes, these were from her answering machine.
Which my mother is willing to do, but she’d be 91 by then, and who knows how mobile she might be in that time?
I have no doubt the lawyer is going to impress on our vandal, the wisdom of accepting the conditions.
Whether our vandal is smart enough to do it is another thing.
The judge even knew where we live, more or less, so when he started to explain to me how to get a copy of the order (if our vandal accepts), he stopped and said he would just get them to send it to me, and made sure to have my mailing address to do it.
Once an order is in place, things then fall into the jurisdiction of the RCMP.
Which is about the best outcome we could have gotten out of this session.
So that is done for now. The lawyer will inform me of what our vandal decides.
After that, we’ll just have the civil suit to deal with, and the court date for that is in the summer. Unless our vandal is smart enough to drop that one, but I highly doubt it. I don’t know what he thinks he can accomplish. Not only do I not claim ownership of anything he says is his, but I told him long ago that he could take his stuff, if he could prove ownership. He never responded, and didn’t file suit until after he was served in regards to our restraining order application, more than two years later. He has no case, and just doesn’t seem to understand that.
Ah, well. All we can do is hope for the best and prepare for the worst!
As for me, I’m going to go debone some chickens, so my daughter can make some stock for a nice chicken soup later on. :-) Life goes on!
Yesterday was a recovery day for me, so some things waited until later, and the girls took care of others for me – like shoveling the snow boulders from the driveway clearing out from in front of the garage. :-D I’ve asked the renters how much we owe them for the awesome driveway clearing jobs, and was told to just forget out it! They are so sweet. It also snowed lightly for most of the day, so when I headed out this morning, I did some more shoveling.
But not here! At least, not yet. This is our feeding station, and you can see that the deer have dug into the snow to get at the sunflower seeds. We haven’t started buying deer feed yet, so the next time we pick up feed, I think we’ll get a couple of bags of deer feed, instead of the black oil seed we get over the summer months. The deer feed we get locally is basically just grain and sunflower seeds, though if we went into town, we could get feed that includes more stuff in it, including corn. The deer – and birds – seem to be happier with the simpler mix. The fact that it’s also cheaper is just bonus. ;-)
My husband was a sweetheart and had already given the cats food and water. He had used plain tap water, however, and with ice already in the bowls, by the time I came out, the surface was frozen over already, and the cats were licking ice, even though it was only -9C/16F I had started a kettle going before I left, however, just in case, so my husband was able to bring out a jug of water – half tap water and half boiling water – for me.
Since the water was still pretty hot, I didn’t knock the ice out of the bowls completely before topping them up. The cats were drinking it before I could finish pouring! I even added some to the bird bath. I’m not doing like I did in the past; chopping the ice out with a hatched and filling it with water. The basin is already cracked and I’m amazed it hold any water at all, anymore, though we do now keep a smaller metal basin in it, and that’s what I’m putting the warm water in.
When I came back later, there was even more of kitties, taking turns drinking!
They really do seem to appreciate the warm water.
With so much deep snow, my morning rounds are less extensive, though it now includes trekking to the corner of the property, by the new sign, to make sure it’s still there and undamaged, and switch out the memory card on the trail cam. This morning, I also worked on clearing some of the walking paths, including the one to the kibble tray under the shrine.
As anyone with glasses knows, working in these sorts of conditions means working mostly blind, as the lenses fog up and then freeze over. So I was mostly looking over my glasses, and not seeing a whole lot. Even so, I could see something… odd… near the base of the shrine. A strange dark patch in the snow.
This was not there when I topped their kibble up, last night!
Something has dug a new burrow under the shrine!
I don’t know what digging critter we’ve got around here that isn’t hibernating right now. I’ve seen a little skunk in the kibble house recently (we usually just see the one big one, these days), so maybe it was a skunk? I don’t know.
Making my way back to the kibble house, I spotted our newcomer. I’d seen only flashes of her yesterday. I’m happy she weathered the blizzard all right, wherever she was at the time.
Then, because I am a suck when it comes to the cats, after I shoveled all around the cats’ house, including opening up gaps so the cats can get under it, and a path to where they go under the laundry line platform, I dug the cat path to the storage house, which is what they are in, in the above photo.
Looking at the 5 day forecast, we are supposed to reach a high of -1C/30F tomorrow, with a bit of snow, then 2C/36F with rain and snow, the day after. Which means all the areas we are digging out should melt down to the ground, or close to it. It also means that when I drive into the city, early tomorrow morning, to the courthouse for Case Management in regards to our restraining order against our vandal, it’s going to be potentially dangerous driving. The van has good snow tires, though, so that should help, but I’m really not looking forward to the drive at all.
On the plus side, when I checked the trail cam files this morning, I saw the snow plow go by twice, so I know our gravel roads are completely cleared.
Oh, I just remembered a recent conversation I had with my brother, when we were scrambling to get things done before the snow came. Particularly the garden beds. I’d mentioned wanting to get some manure, when he brought up the manure pile that used to be behind the barn. I remember that pile. We used to have a pig pen beyond it, too. The pile is gone, and there is no evidence of the pig pen, with its shelter for the pigs in one corner, left. Not only that, but there are hollows in the area, where the ground has been dug deeper, that has had me wondering. I’d say they were made with a small front end loader, like what would fit on a small tractor or the Bobcat that was here. It’s all grown over now, so it’s been like that for a long while, but… it looks like our vandal even stole the manure pile! Probably for his own fields or garden, but… who steals manure??? Of course, we don’t actually know who took it, when or why, but there’s no one else that would have done it.
On a completely different topic, we finally got to try our first Ginger Bug Pop last night! It took a week to fully ferment, in our fairly chilly dining room. We all gave it a try, and all of us found it quite tasty. It definitely worked, though I found it really sweet. I haven’t been able to get a good photo of it, yet, but I’ll make a separate post about it when I finally do.
I notice the cats outside have been really appreciating the digging of paths around the yard!
I counted “only” 17 in total this morning. I did not see the newcomer. Hopefully, they are all doing fine in their little shelters all over, when they’re not using the ones in the yard.
Rolando Moon had been posing like an adorable loaf, but in the time it took me to dig my phone out of my pocket, she decided to come over for pets.
I’ve had some frustrations with the indoor cats and the repotted plants that are finally inside. Though they have been liberally – even excessively – doused in cayenne pepper, we seem to have one cat that is not at all bothered by it. I think it’s Cabbages, but I’m not sure. They do their dastardly deeds when we are not around to see them. Yesterday morning I into the living room and found two of the aloe vera had been thoroughly dug into, with soil scattered all over. My daughters cleaned that up while I was outside, thankfully.
Last night, our vulnerable pots went into plant prison.
The big aquarium greenhouse set up has been repurposed to house the aloe. The two on the right were the ones that got dug up. We’ll see if they survive! My daughter’s orchids will be going in here, too, because the cats keep going after them, even though they are all hanging kokedama.
We brought in the aquarium lights yesterday evening, but I didn’t turn them on until today. They had been in the sun room and were pretty cold.
It didn’t take long for Saffron to rediscover her favourite butt warmer!
It’s a good thing she is such a tiny little thing. :-D
We’ll be using the aquariums as greenhouses to start our onion seeds in a couple of months. Hopefully, by then, the aloe will be well established in their pots, and we’ll be able to move them out to make room.
When I tried to make my last post using my phone, I hoped to get enough of a data signal to publish a text post.
I never did.
After about an hour of trying, our internet started to come back sporadically, and it finally posted.
Our internet continues to go in and out, but I did manage to upload photos and am daring to make a proper blog post!!
While this year’s kittens have seen some snow a little while ago, this is the first time in their lives that snow has actually accumulated on the ground for any length of time. I’m sure it’s been a bit of a shock to them! It was sunny to see one using my foot prints to get around.
The kibble house was nice and dry, though I had to knock snow out of the tray on the side, and the one under the shrine. Then I had to dig out the water bowls, knock out the slush inside, and refresh them with warm water.
Then I shoveled some snow to make paths from the sun room, around the kibble house, to the shrine, to the bird and deer feeding station (we have yet to see signs of deer coming around to the house) and the sidewalk to the small gate. Later, we will need to shovel a path to the power pole so we can read the meter, and the burn barrel. But not yet. The snow is incredibly wet and heavy, and still coming down.
Then I went to check on the gate and switch out the trail cam memory card.
Not going to get too many files off of this one!!
It’s not going to be easy to clear the driveway. The snow is so wet, and there is water under it. We’re doing to have to do something, though, because I need to be able to get out of our driveway very early on Monday, for my court date in the city. And it’s supposed to continue snowing trough Friday and Saturday!
This sheltered area is going to be such a nice place for a little sanctuary, once we clear out the dead trees and set up some seating.
Butterscotch caught up with me as I was using my walking stick to knock snow off of low hanging branches so they wouldn’t break.
I did find some broken branches, too.
There wasn’t too many of them, but the few there were, were rather large!
This one is more “piece of tree” than branch! I could clean up the others, but this one will likely wait until spring.
This is on the north side of the house, reminding me once again of just how glad I am we were able to get those trees cut away from the roof and power lines!!!
The snow is so wet and sticky, it even stuck to the wire mesh on the squash tunnel!
This was a disappointing find. I’d left the gazebo tent out to cover the picnic table and BBQ, set as low as it could go, but it couldn’t handle this wet, wet, heavy snow and just collapsed. The canopy even tore, too.
I used a garden hoe to clear as much of the snow off as I could, but we will likely leave it here. It is still serving as a cover for the BBQ (the cover it came with was torn to shreds by the wind, already), the picnic table, and any critters to take shelter under them.
Before heading in, I took the snow off the roof of the cat’s house, since we will need to lift it to replace the smoke detector in the near future. Then, since I was shoveling around it for access, anyhow, I went ahead and shoveled the cat path to the storage house, too.
Right now, we continue to have wet snow falling. It’s only 0C/32F with a wind chill of -7C/20F. It’s not snowing especially heavily, but it is constant. Looking at the live feed on the security camera, I can’t see the road past our gate. My brother’s field across the road is just a while blur. A lot more branches than usual are in view, hanging down from the weight of the snow. By Sunday, the snow is expected to stop and we will have our coldest day, at -5C/23F, but amazingly, we’re not predicted to reach 1C/34F by Tuesday!
For today, we will be staying indoors, except for topping out the kibble and water for the outside cats later on. While I had my baking day yesterday, my younger daughter wants to do her own baking today, too. A day of quiet domesticity is going to be much enjoyed!
It was a lovely morning, as I did my rounds, with nothing at all to suggest we were going to be hit by a storm, later today!
As is now usual, I had a whole crowd of kitties waiting outside the door for breakfast. :-D
I counted 19, but it’s possible I missed one of the ‘icouses. They were milling about so much! I did get to pet a few furry butts, including several of the kittens that normally would have run off already, plus our newcomer.
Creamsicle Baby was battling it out with Agnoos for special attention. :-D
Butterscotch followed me while I was doing my rounds. She really likes that I now go to the corner of the property to check if the new sign has been vandalized yet, and switch out the memory card on the camera. She has taken advantage of the set up and uses the various posts to climb up and jump onto me, making it very hard to switch out the memory card!
While going through the yard, I spotted a few summer yard tools we missed putting things away, and brought a couple of our snow shovels closer to the sun room door. They are normally kept by the main entry, but we are avoiding using that door until we can get the door and frame replace; something we’d hoped to get done before this winter, but the budget for it just didn’t happen. I wasn’t even able to get the estimate done; I was going to call the same company that did the windows here, before we moved in, but I can’t find them! I do hope they haven’t gone out of business, like so many others have done in the past year and a half. :-(
When I was ready to come inside, I found this handsome fella waiting for me.
He even let me pet him and scritch his ears!
I think this one is Chadicous, but I’m not sure.
I love that pink little nose!
The general store the post office is in closes at noon on Wednesdays, so I headed out shortly after they opened. I wanted to get the battery we needed for the cat’s house smoke detector that I forgot to pick up yesterday. While there, I picked up another bag of flour, just in case.
I had a few general things planned for baking today. One of them was muffins, but I hadn’t settled on any recipes. After doing some searching, I found a couple of savory recipes I wanted to try.
The whole day of baking was about timing! The first thing I did was cook a package of bacon in the oven, until dry and crumbly, for one of the muffin recipes. Once that was cool and crumbled, I started a double batch of bread. I didn’t use our dough baby, because I forgot to set it to soak overnight. Instead, I used our basic bread recipe, which gets modified with whatever we have on hand. This time, it included oatmeal and chia seeds, with molasses for the sweetener.
While that was sitting for its first rise, I had time to make a double batch of apple bacon muffins.
Half of them were for the freezer, and half to have on hand. This recipe as a surprising amount of cinnamon in it, which accounts for the darker colour.
There is an entire package of bacon and two Granny Smiths in that double batch! The recipe sounded amazing, but it didn’t live up to expectations. Don’t get me wrong; they were quite tasty. However, I really expected to at least taste all that bacon! The predominant flavour was the apple. I’d definitely make them again, even if they didn’t life up to their hype. ;-)
When the muffins where done and cooling, the girls quickly took over the kitchen to make lunch for everyone. That gave me a chance to take a break – and see that the snow had finally arrived!
It has just changed from rain to snow when I took this photo. They’re hard to see, but there is at least one chickadee going for the sunflowers as they disappeared under the snow!
By the time we finished lunch, the bread was ready to be shaped into loaves and left for a second rising, which gave me time to make another double batch of muffins.
This time, they were cheddar cheese muffins. They were supposed to be smoked cheddar, but what we had on hand was sharp cheddar. The recipe included cornmeal and cayenne pepper. For a double batch, it would have been 1/2 to 1 tsp of cayenne, but there was no way I could use that much. I enjoy the flavour of spice, but have no tolerance for the heat. Still, I did add some. These turned out very nice. Better than the apple bacon, I’d say. Another keeper. Especially for the next time we get smoked cheddar. :-)
Once these were done, the bread loaves were ready to go into the oven. While they were baking, I started another double batch of bread. This one had oatmeal in it, too, (more specifically, rolled oats, softened in boiling water for a few minutes) and some hemp hearts I had left.
Also, I’m glad I got that extra bag of flour. We had just started a new bag, and I’ve already gone through half of it!
These are the oatmeal, molasses and chia seed loaves. I’m rather pleased with how they turned out! I’m a terrible one for using too much flour, and taking them out of the oven too soon, but I’ve gotten better. ;-)
Then, while the second batch of bread was rising, I made a batch of double chocolate cookies. Double as in, it has two kinds of chocolate (cocoa and chocolate chips), not a double recipe. A single recipe was enough to fill four baking trays. For so many, I had to get a daughter to tend the oven, as they baked very quickly, while I had to start shaping the bread for their second rising. This time, I made them into large buns instead of loaves. The timing turned out perfect. By the time the last cookies were coming out of the oven, the buns had risen enough to go into the oven.
I didn’t bother taking photos of the second batch of bread, nor the cookies. The cookie batter was the kind you drop onto an ungreased pan by spoonfuls, then they spread flat while in the oven. I ended up having to increase the cooking time, and they also turned out to be very fragile. Which is okay. Broken cookies taste just as good as not broken one! They just don’t look pretty. ;-) As for the buns, even with the oatmeal and hemp hearts, they just look like white bread. :-D Those were the ones we started on tonight. While two of the loaves of the first batch went to the freezer, along with half the muffins, I decided not to bother freezing any of the buns. Those are going to disappear very quickly!
In the middle of all this baking, I got a call from my mother. She was wanting to know if we had snow, too. By this time, it was coming down pretty heavily. She sounded so excited, and started going on about what a good thing it was we got her shopping done when we did. I agreed, mentioning that unfortunately, we didn’t get all the things we wanted to get done finished. She was completely oblivious. Instead, she started saying that, as long as the septic was covered, it was fine. She had seen the insulated tarp we had ready to cover it, the day she came out here, so she started giving me instructions on making sure it was weighted down so it wouldn’t blow away. I told her it was pegged to the ground. Apparently, she didn’t know that tarps have grommets on them, than can be used to fasten them down. She kept on going, telling me about how important it was to cover the septic tank. I ended up asking her, how long have we been living here? She thought three years. I said four, and we’ve been covering the septic every year we’ve been here. I know my mother thinks I’m stupid, but you’d think she would have noticed that the winterizing has been getting done, every year.
What I find strange, though, it that she was also talking about covering the well. In fact, she was talking about the septic tank and the well interchangeably, and then saying that if the well freezes, we’d have no water, and how terrible that would be. This was something she brought up last year. She insisted that the well cap had been covered with straw, every year, just like the septic tank. Which has never been done. Not only was it never covered with straw, but I know that even the accumulated snow was removed, likely with the Bobcat our vandal stole, as evidenced by the chips in the concrete, and one of the handles on the cover being broken right off, while the remaining one has been bent flat. Hidden by snow, it’s been hit and run over. Plus, the well cap is at least 12 feet down. It’s never been a problem in the almost 50 years since it’s been dug. She also had nothing to do with any of this sort of maintenance, so I don’t know where she is coming from on this.
It was a short phone call. I mentioned I was in the middle of baking, and she happily let me go. She just wanted to talk to me about the snow. It felt so weird. She’d been so nasty to me when she was here two days ago, and she has no awareness at all about it. I’d talked to my brother last night. My mother had just called him. I had filled my siblings in on how things went when she came out here, so he was in the loop. When my mother started talking about coming to see the sign, she was going on and on about how great it looked, how great everything looked here at the farm, and what a great visit it was. To which he said, no it wasn’t! He spent time time trying to encourage her to be kind and build people up instead of always tearing them down, to which she replied, “I’m not going to lie.” Apparently, the opposite of being cruel is to lie? She had said something about not saying that everything looked beautiful. Which isn’t what anyone is expecting and has nothing to do with simply treating people nicely. I’m grateful my brother stuck up for me, but we are both left rather perplexed by her inability to understand what it means to treat people kindly.
We may not have caught up completely, yesterday, but we did get the essentials necessary for winter, at least. This is our first real snowfall of the year, and while we will continue to be relatively mild, this is a snowfall that will stay. It is still coming down, and now the forecast says the snow will continue to fall through to Saturday, too. Our temperatures remain above freezing, so sleet is a major concern on the highways right now. We’re expected to get 10-15 cm of snow today (4-6 inches), with another 10-15 cm tomorrow, though the weather alerts say that our area might actually get more, due to the lake effect. It’s past 9pm as I write this, and we haven’t reached anywhere near the predicted levels, so who knows what will actually happen.
The forecasts do still say that today’s storm will become tomorrow’s blizzard. I was just looking at our weather history, and the record high for today was 13C/55F, in 2016, while our record low was -20C/4F, in 1991 – but our average high is 0C/32F and average low is -7C/19F, so the temperatures we’re having right now are not at all unusual. It just feels like it! Funny how that works.
Either way, it turned out to be the perfect day to stay inside and do a whole bunch of baking!
Today turned out to be a lovely day. Sunny, and at a high of 8C/46F, warmer than predicted. It made it very hard to believe that there is a storm and blizzard coming our way, starting tomorrow! While my phone’s weather app has been saying a blizzard was coming since yesterday, it was only until early this afternoon that my desktop app changed its forecast and began giving weather alerts.
After losing so much time yesterday, today was a day to scramble and get the essentials done. The rest will wait until spring.
Last night, the girls lifted the roof on the cat’s house, cleaned it out and replaced the old straw with fresh. Unfortunately, the heated water bowl had to be removed; the cord’s sheath had cracked, right where it contacted the bowl itself, exposing wire. That is unfortunate, as the heated water bowl made a huge difference last winter! So far, however, we are still expected to have mild temperatures, so we won’t need to plug in the electricity to the shelter. Which is good, because I forgot to buy a new 9V battery for the fire alarm we have in there. The ceramic terrarium bulb we have in there for warmth is well shielded, but we still want to have the alarm functional as a safety precaution.
I don’t know of the cats are happy with the clean up. I haven’t seen them in there, yet!
When I headed out this morning to do my rounds, I counted 20 cats.
But only Nosencrantz was willing to pause for a photo! :-D
One of the things I took care of while doing my rounds was to finally scatter some wildflower seeds.
I had two packages of wildflower seeds that were meant for the area outside the yard, in front of where the new sign is. Eventually, I want that entire strip to be filled with wildflowers for the pollinators – and so I don’t have to mow it anymore! I used a bulk sized spice shaker and some soil to scatter the seeds evenly.
This was something I expected to do in the middle of September, but it was just too warm. I didn’t want to risk the seeds germinating too early, and getting killed off when winter temperatures arrived. With the storm coming, these will get covered with snow and should be good to lie dormant until things melt in the spring.
Last night, the girls also used the insulated tarp we found in the garage a while back and used that to cover the septic tank, instead of straw. It’s large enough that it could be used, folded in half. It was full dark by then, so they just weighted it down with some fence posts. This morning, I shifted it a bit to get it right up against the house, then pegged it down.
As you can see by the two pegs on the right, I hit some rocks in the process!
By the time I pegged that down, I was done my rounds and headed inside to go through the trail cam files while eating breakfast. It was rather funny to see all the files of my mother and I, when I took pictures of her at the new sign. It feels so weird to see myself on video! :-D
By the afternoon, things had started to warm up nicely, so I headed outside.
The first thing I wanted to get done was scatter a different wildflower seed mix in the yard.
This one was an alternative lawn mix, for shade and partial shade, of flowers native to Western Canada. This double row of trees is really hard to tend, so I settled on this as the location for the seeds. Unlike the area in front of the sign, though, this one needed to be raked, first.
The first raking was to remove the leaves and debris, then it got raked again to loosen the soil surface a bit. There were some maple and willow suckers coming out of old stumps that needed to be pruned as well.
Then the packet – one larger packet of seeds – got added to the shaker with some soil and thoroughly mixed before being scattered on the raked ground.
Then, the leaves got raked back, as a mulch. I look forward to seeing if this works in the spring!
One of the priorities on our to-do list was to finally repot our house plants. They’ve been hit with overnight frost, but amazingly, the aloe vera was still alive! They were overgrowing their post, though, so most of them ended up in the trench of the third low raised bed, to break down, except the biggest one that was too big to be buried in there, so it went to compost. I ended up transplanting 4 or 5 strong, healthy little aloe vera for the girls to bring inside later. The umbrella tree looked dead, but I pruned it back and repotted it, because it does actually seem to still have life to it! I would hate to have lost that thing. It had been doing so well, even with the cats constantly trying to get into it!
One of my daughters was working on commissions, so she could only come out to help briefly. My other daughter tried to help, but she was feeling sick and looked so horrible, I sent her inside. Poor thing felt so bad! She did, however, get the last hose put away for me, and was kind enough to run into the basement to shut off the water to the taps.
Once the water was shut off, I opened the back tap and put one of the new insulated hard covers for the taps on it, then finished putting up the rest of the insulation we put around the bottom of the house. This area had been left until we were done with using the taps, and the septic was covered. The front tap still needs its cover, but it is much more convenient to get at, so it can wait a bit.
Along with some other clean up, I did finally make it to the squash tunnel to prepare it for next year, but was only able to do one side before I had to go in for an expected phone call. The rain barrel was turned on its side and weighted down, the long tools and rolling seat went into the old garden shed, and the storage bin we kept to hold shorter tools and various other things we might find handy, went into the sun room. The things we have left undone are all things that will be okay if they wait until spring. It was just time to finally put the tools away!
Then I made a quick run into town to get a few things we thought we might run out of. The predicted storm is supposed to hit the south of our province, but it’s hard to know if we’ll get hit by it as well, or just catch the edges of it. At the very least, we expect to lose internet more often. That happens any time there is bad weather to the south of us. Though it is supposed to start with rain, we might get about a foot of snow, over two days, at which point we won’t be going anywhere for a while! I had already planned on tomorrow to be a baking day, and the last thing I wanted was to runout of ingredients in the middle of something!
Meanwhile…
I got an email from our vandal’s lawyer asking if I were available for the case management session on Monday. That went back and forth for a while. It turns out it will not be with just me, him and our vandal. It will be with the same judge that we’ve been in front of, this whole time.
My brother will not be able to make it, but we don’t want to delay this any more, so I took it. I feel more confident knowing that the judge will be there. The unfortunate thing is that it is going to be at 9am – in the big city, not the closer, small one we’ve been going to all this time. Worse; the court offices are downtown. So not only will I have to leave unfortunately early, just to make sure I have time to get lost among all those one way streets, but it’s going to cost more in fuel, and I’ll have to pay for parking. Minor things, but with costs going up, there just isn’t much wiggle room in the budget! Very annoying. But, it’s that, or wait a year for a trial. :-/
So that has been confirmed.
I am both looking forward to getting it done so quickly, and dreading it.
At least, by then, wherever snowfall we get from the storm will no longer be an issue. There will be plenty of time for any road clearing needed to be done by then!
As for our scramble to get stuff done, no, we weren’t able to finish it all, but the essentials are done, and the rest should be all right to wait until next year.
Speaking of next year, we’re made progress there, today, but that will be the topic of my next post! :-)
I had a very enthusiastic crowd waiting for me this morning. Including the new edition. I was even able to pet her a few times, though she kept moving away when I did.
But yes, I was able to confirm. Our new addition is a she.
I just hope that, wherever she came from, she’s already fixed.
In the end, I counted 19 cats this morning. Only Rosencrantz was missing. :-)
My morning rounds now include going to the very corner of the property to check on the sign. No vandalism! (yet?)
What I found interesting is that the squash tunnel was shaded. It is only this time of year that the shadows from the spruce grove reach this far. In the summer, the squash tunnel gets full sun, all day. The main garden area’s beds, meanwhile, are now in pretty much full shade all day. What a difference, time of year makes!
The transplanted mint is looking just fine; not at all droopy from being moved.
One of the empty blocks, however, seems to attracted a critter. Possibly a skunk digging for grubs. Whatever it was, it lost us some of the soil in those openings around the edges! I want to fill those with sand or gravel.
After I finish my rounds, I spend some time going over the trail cam files. We had a long list of things to work on outside, while it is still relatively warm in the afternoon. I was going to head out right after having lunch, then calling my mom to arrange to bring her to see the sign tomorrow.
She called me first.
She wanted to come today.
I told her I was thinking of tomorrow, because it’s such a warm day, and we have lots to do outside. She said the warm day was why she wanted to come today, because it would be harder for her when it was cooler. And I could spare an hour for her, couldn’t I?
Which would mean just driving her over to see the sign, taking some photos of her next to it, then driving her home. Was that what she was wanting to do?
Yes.
Okay.
So off I head to the town she lives in, and when I get there, she is cleaning out her purse and preparing a list of things she needs.
Since I’m there with her car, anyhow…
Okay, so we’ve added grocery shopping to the list. No worries.
We head back to the farm and as we come to our driveway, my Mom suggests we go straight to where the sign is from the road, not in the driveway. As we get closer, however, she suggested we keep going to look at the other quarter section, first. Just a drive by. This was something she had talked about wanting to go before, so I was expecting it. We did the drive, saw that it looks like the renter has moved his cows to that quarter, since there is a hay bale, salt blocks and a feeder set up near the gate. At the far end of the property is an intersection I can turn around at, then back we went to the sigh. I pulled over on the road, and there was thankfully a nice level spot she could go over with her walker. We got several pictures, and then back to the car.
Did she want to see what I did with the outhouse? I ask.
Oh, yes! was her enthusiastic reply.
I am such an idiot.
First, we drove over to the old workshop that is now completely filled with all my parents’ stuff we cleared out of the house. There was an old framed print she wanted. This was something else that had come up in past conversation, so we too the opportunity to grab that. Then we drove into the yard, and I backed up towards the outhouse.
My mother being ticked off that I did that, instead of parking further ahead, as usual, should have been my first warning.
To make it short, because I really don’t want to relive the experience, my mother decided to tour the inner yards, starting with the newly finished brick lined bed where the tomatoes were (she liked that, at least), but not until after making snide comments about the newly framed low beds where we have two types of garlic planted (so this is where you’re putting the garden now, is it? Uhm… no, Mom. It’s just the garlic).
I tried several times to redirect her to the outhouse, and she ignored me every time. As she worked her way around the yard, she made sure to give me a hard time about the garbage pile, which we need to hire someone to haul away for us (she didn’t have much to say when I pointed out this was garbage we found all around the yard that’s now in one place), acted surprised about the tire planters being moved, even though she’s been here since they were moved, and had just walked past the one that isn’t wrecked and could be used again), made sure to tell me to leave the spruce tree she planted at the chain link fence (I’s talked about transplanting it, before it gets so big it tears the fence apart, shortly after we moved out here, and she went ballistic on me, so I didn’t say anything this time). I commented on the second one that had been there dying, and she lectured me on how I should have watered it (it was killed by the cold, two winters ago), made numerous comments about the things I should have done around the yard (things I would have been doing, if she hadn’t asked me to bring her over), asked why I’d cut down the crab apple tree by the old compost, and when I told her it had died of diseased, lectured me about watering things again. Because, in her mind, if you water the trees, they won’t get disease. Then she mocked and laughed at me for building the high raised bed, the squash tunnel, the trellises and the low raised beds. No one does things like that, you see. They just plowed the whole thing.
Then she nagged me about various other things as she worked her way around the yard. When I thought she was finally going to the outhouse, she ended up going to the back door of the garage. She wanted to see the wood chipper.
That door leads to where her car is parked.
I tried to get her to go around, but she wrestled her walker through to door, so she could snoop in the garage. Which was have not even come close to cleaning up. I got the chipper out for her to see, and she really liked that, but then complained because there were still branch piles. Then she complained about how ugly they looked, and how ugly the post pounder my late brother built looked. I’d covered it with a tarp I’d found in the barn that was big enough, but after several years, the wind has torn it to shreds. We don’t have anything else big enough to protect it. But it looks ugly, and people can see it from the road, so it needs to be covered.
Eventually, we made our way back into the yard and…
She went to the car to leave.
By then, I’d opened the door to the outhouse, but hadn’t put the mat back because I wanted her to see how nice the floor looked, too.
She wouldn’t go near it. She just glanced over and said she could see it through the door. Then got into the car.
So, I put the mat back, closed up the outhouse, put her walker into the car, then we headed out.
Along the drive home, I tried to chat and mentioned the electric chainsaw we got. She mocked me about it, but in such a way that I didn’t understand her “joke” at all. Which then led to a whole slough of mockery.
I shouldn’t be using a chainsaw. I shouldn’t be doing men’s work. I need a man. Also, I’ve done nothing at the farm at all. Apparently, I’m a weak, useless, stupid woman who shouldn’t do actual work, except for the stuff that she used to do on the farm (while everything else magically did itself, apparently), which I am not doing right, because I haven’t done it yet, but she thinks I should have done it by now, or I’m not doing it the way she did, therefore I’m doing it wrong.
Oh, I forgot. At one point, when I told her that I’d lost a day of work by having to drive her around, she told me, what work? I don’t have cows to milk! What work am I doing? I don’t have any work.
Well, I called her on her behaviour, and pointed out that she shows no appreciation, gratitude or kindness. To which I got a sanctimonious, “yes, yes, get that off your chest” response. Because, clearly, I’m the one with the problem, and her cruelty and insults are neither cruel nor insulting.
*sigh*
Still, when we got back to her town, we were civil. I helped her with her grocery shopping, though she brought up getting an apple pie to have with tea when we got back to her place. I told her I didn’t have time to stop for tea, but she could get one if she wanted.
She didn’t.
Once at her place, I put her groceries away and she was going to give me some money for gas, which I do appreciate. She then brought out a bill (almost enough to cover the amount of gas spent in driving, but I do still appreciate it!) and told me, if I’d invited her inside for tea, I would have gotten more.
I told her, I didn’t realize that was an expectation.
By the time I left and put some gas in the tank, it was so late, I couldn’t even stop at the post office to pick up a package. My day was wasted. There was no time to even start anything when I got back, because I wouldn’t have enough time to finish before the light was gone.
I’m just so ticked off right now. After talking with my husband and telling him some of how it went, his response is, not to have her back here again. And at this point, I can’t disagree.
My mother is why we are living here. We came here to take care of the place for her. Now that the ownership has been transferred to my brother, I still try to respect her wishes as much as possible, and keep her informed of how things are going. In the end, though, she doesn’t own this place. My brother does. And he is very happy with what we are doing, and with our various plans for improving the place. He is our “landlord”. Not my mother. She has no actual say in how this place is run, and she certainly has no right to verbally abuse me.
I am lost past the stage where she can actually hurt me anymore, but my goodness, she can drain every bit of energy out of me. I feel more exhausted from a few hours with her – and it wasn’t even an unusually bad visit! – than I would have felt if I’d spend those same hours doing manual labour. Mental exhaustion is far more difficult to recover from than physical exhaustion. Still, to look at the bright side, at least there wasn’t a single racist rant or shouting about political issues she doesn’t understand, either.
Thank God my brother now owns this place. He and his wife more than make up for all the trouble my mother causes. They are such awesome people, and make it all worthwhile.
When I headed out this morning, along with the usual crowd of yard cats swirling around in front of the sun room door, was our new furry visitor! The stranger is still with us, but not acting like a stranger at all!
In fact, after I refilled the kibble trays, I was even able to pet a furry butt, before he realized he was being touched, and jumped out. Which is more than I can say for most of our own cats!
Except…
He, may actually be a she. It’s hard to tell with the black fur and fast moving body!
This is clearly a cat that is no stranger to humans, even if a bit shy. This could mean it’s a cat from one of the surrounding farms that is expanding territory, but if it’s a female, I find that less likely. The other possibility is that this is a cat what got lost or dumped in the area. Which means that he or she may already be fixed.
Either way, it looks like this cat has been absorbed into the yard cat family!
The Re-Farmer 