With the popcorn harvested, I needed to find someplace to put the box cover. While removing the chicken wire, I figured out a great spot for it.
The onions had a cover simply because I had one. It made weeding impossible, but with onion tops growing through it, it couldn’t be conveniently moved aside.
Since these covers are all 9’x3′, it fits perfectly on top of the box cover. This would be an ideal set up to protect taller plants! I just used the twist ties that were holding the chicken wire to fasten the two covers together. The onion bed is basically a storage spot for them, but now I can access the onions for weeding!
And yes. Those are new squash blossoms in the compost ring in the background!
While checking the other garden beds, I had a little surprise.
The largest melon had picked itself! 😆
I even found a pattypan large enough to harvest.
That’s the size we enjoy the patty pans best.
My daughter gets back from house sitting soon. We will save tasting the melon for when she gets back. 💚
In other things…
When feeding the outside cats, I tried to do a head count. It takes a while for them to all show up. I eventually counted thirty – then three more kittens ran into the yard!
After my rounds were done, I did a dump run. The car was already loaded, because when I tried to do it 2 days ago, it was closed.
I was glad to be able to air out the car, later!
As I was returning to the house, I spotted Nosencrantz slinking away from the kibble under the shrine, and disappear behind the pump shack. She is looking big and fluffy, and is acting incredibly shy. I wish I knew why! At least we know she’s still around.
Now, if only Butterscotch and Marlee would show up!
While feeding the outside cats today, I spotted a large cat at the food bowl, under the shrine. I couldn’t get closer, though. It acted quite feral. But…
… could it be?
Is it she?
I couldn’t see any of the more brown fur colors Nosencrantz has, and yet… it does look like her. The patterns match, if not the colors.
I hope she comes back soon and I can get a better look.
While we’ve let the kittens out of the isolation ward (my bedroom/office) a time or two, with not the best of results, we haven’t been letting the adults in. Mostly because we’re trying to control their diet more, and the kittens always have food available.
Some of them, like Tissue, are not friendly to the littles. David, however, is one of the adults that sees a kitten and immediately starts grooming them. He is also not one of the adults that will eat until he pukes, then eat some more. So we’ve started letting him in.
He and one of the tabbies (Tweedle Dum, I think) have really hit it off and will snuggled together for naps. Last night, though, some of the older kittens decided they wanted nip. They tried it with Toni, who generally let them, but at least she had been a nursing mother for a while.
David… he just puts up with it.
We’re going to need to shave him. He’s got too many matts hidden in that fluff, including one huge one developing on his chest. He will not let us brush him, and it’s even harder to cut any of the mats out. He just will not tolerate it.
But he’ll tolerate kittens trying to nurse on him!
I was a bit later going outside this morning, so there were lots of hungry kitties, waiting for breakfast. I managed to do a headcount.
Twenty eight, plus Sad Face, who I discouraged from coming around. I do wish he weren’t so aggressive, even with the female cats. Otherwise, I’d have no problem with him. But then, I guess a big ol’ tom like him doesn’t last this long without being a scrapper.
This was a rare combination.
You can just barely see Brussel on the far right, under the grapes. At the bowl is her sister, Sprout, and two older kittens that I’ve started to see more often. The one looking over the heads of the other two is a muted calico. I think the both of them are Sprout’s babies, but I don’t know for sure.
Then there’s this little fur ball; one of the litter of eight.
I totally understand, little one. I’m not a morning person, either!
Just a little while ago, my daughter and I headed outside for a bit (more on that in a separate post) and had to go into the old garden shed. My daughter spotted a kitten on the log pile that I completely missed!
We have never seen this kitten before!
What a face!
What a pancake cat! 😄😄
No idea which of the older litters this kitten is from. I’ve been expecting more kittens from the shyer moms to slowly come around and discover where the food is, even if their mothers aren’t quite willing to bring them over. With those litters, there’s no way of knowing how many have survived long enough to start coming here on their own.
I hope this one gets comfortable enough to start coming around for food in the mornings, and maybe even enjoy the shelter and safety of the cat house and sun room!
I’m happy to see that Brussel’s two super shy kittens are now not only regularly coming to the house, but getting more used to our presence. I was actually able to stand right by the cat house while taking the above photos, and only the orange and white one moved away. Since it then posed for me so nicely, I couldn’t complain!
I just love that face.
I also love that triangle marking over the nose of his sibling!
I’ve been trying to do head counts, and have generally seen anywhere from a dozen to two dozen cats and kittens at a time. Some have simply disappeared. The small orange and white kitten, for example. I haven’t seen it in quite some time, though his ginger brother still hangs out in the sun room a lot. I can’t tell if I’ve seen One Eyed Jack of late, since we have so many tuxedos this year and I don’t usually get a good look at their faces when they’re around.
The inside babies are doing quite well, in general.
The older kittens are great bundles of energy, and the littles sometimes almost manage to keep up. Except the tiniest one. That one is not as healthy. She has gotten used to being handled, though, so this morning I took her to the bathroom and finally gave her eyes a proper wash with warm water. She also had some waste matter stuck at her nether regions. I was able to clean it enough to be sure orifices were not plugged, but couldn’t get it off. It took a fair bit of soaking her nethers in warm water while I washed her eyes, but I was finally able to get it off – and finally confirm that she is a she!
She handled the whole thing rather well, though she did finally tire of the whole thing and try to get away. Ideally, we’d be taking her to the vet to be checked and likely be put on antibiotics, but our vet budget all went to Toni’s amputation, and it’ll be a while before it gets built up again.
As I write this, she and Pom Pom are now curled up with Tweedle Dee on my bed, snoozing.
Speaking of snoozing!
I actually got sleep last night.
That cat nip mix, with the valarian and honeysuckle, seems to have worked!
Yes, they did wake during the night, and they did run around and play for a while before going back to sleep, but they didn’t get the insane and destructive zoomies. Which meant more sleep for me, instead of constantly being awakened by their crashing and banging, or having them stampede over me, etc.
I don’t know if it made a difference with the adult cats or not, since I slept through most of the night (yay!) and my door is still kept closed. They don’t even try to get into my room anymore, which is nice. No more scratchy scratchy! Even Toni has zero interest in coming into the room. She’s more interested in wanting to get outside.
The next vet trip will likely be to get her spayed!
Meanwhile…
Still no sign of the missing ladies that broke out of the house – or that lost dog that’s in our area. Until they find that dog, I think it’s unlikely the ladies will come back here. Too much traffic and commotion. There’s also still no response in regards to adopting the kittens. I will avoid anything to do with that with the Cat Lady for the next while. They’re expecting to be moving soon, with 5 kids, 27 cats and a dog. They’ve got enough on their plates right now!
Hopefully, today, I’ll hear back from the financing company with good news about pre-approval for a vehicle with monthly payments we can actually afford. Pre-approval is no use if we can’t make the payments, even if the banks are crazy enough to think we can pay $800 a month. I mean really. Who can afford payments like that? Especially anyone on a fixed, disability income?
The main thing is for us to get a new-to-us vehicle that is accessible for my husband, before winter. I don’t care about make, model, colour, whatever. We need something that runs reliably, that my husband can get in and out of without hurting himself, and that has room for his walker, as well as our monthly shopping. Especially for the larger, heavier stuff, like the litter pellets and bags of kibble. That alone will save us so much on fuel, since we currently have to make extra trips using my mother’s little car. Still, beggars can’t be choosers. We’ll take whatever our mechanic finds for us. He knows what we need, and will find the best he can for us.
When I came out to feed the outside cats this morning, I spotted these three. The tabby was curled up and asleep when I came over. I reached in to pet them, and the other two started purring before I even touched them! I got to pet the tabby while it was asleep, but once it woke up, it would not tolerate pets and ran off – though I did manage to pet him more while he was trying to get out of the bin and onto the shelf above!
As I was finishing my morning rounds, I decided to pick the potato berries from the large volunteer potato plant from last year’s potato patch. The frost has killed the plant off completely, which is interesting, because the potato plants in the grow bags are still undamaged by frost and barely dying off for the end of their growing season.
Potato berries are toxic, but these all should be full of potato seeds. I will do a bit more research on what to do with them, but during one brief search, I read that the seeds need to be fermented, much like tomato seeds. Which makes sense, since they are related.
For now, though, they are tucked away in the cat proof living room.
This morning, my husband had his meet and greet medical appointment with a new doctor. That went better than he expected, and he now officially has a new primary care doctor. The paperwork to transfer his medical files have been signed, and he’ll need to update the pharmacy and disability insurance company.
Some of the medications my husband is on are not at all familiar to her, so she’s going to be doing some research. We will probably do a follow up appointment with her in the near future, if only because some of the blood test results from yesterday are not in yet.
My husband was happy with her. More so than the interim doctor, that’s for sure. I had my issues. The first being, she was the only person I saw all day wearing one of those useless masks. After years of being surrounded by mask nazis, being treated like trash, and having an ever shortening list of places I could go without risk of being physically or verbally assaulted, either by customers or staff, spending so much time around a faceless person is still something that triggers anxiety. That we still have medical professionals, who should know about the mountains of data and research showing how wearing them are more harmful than beneficial, also immediately lowers my opinion of their competency. There were a few other things that came up when I asked questions about medication that are red flags for me, such as her response on my husband being on statins (he should not be on statins) or Ozempic (the side effects can be very… messy), neither of which have actually done anything to improve his health. But, this is a first time visit, and beggars can’t be choosers.
After the appointment, I did ask at the desk about any other doctors taking patients, which my mother in mind. It turns out that no, even this doctor we just saw is already closed to new patients. My husband is basically the last one. Not that I would ever make an appointment with her for my mother. She has a hard enough time with a doctor that is black (and has an accent strong enough to make it difficult for my mother to understand what she’s saying). This doctor may be the “right” colour but, in a passing comment, she mentioned her wife, and that would just be too much for my mother to handle!
The receptionist suggested I ask again in a few months about doctors taking new patients. Which is much the same situation in the other clinic. As much as I’d like to have the same doctor as my husband, since I go to all his appointments, anyhow, I’ll see if I can have the same doctor as my mother for the same reason. It’s just convenient to have the same doctor.
After the appointment, we were going to try and get my husband’s photo ID, since he has no up to date photo ID right now. Unfortunately, there’s a public sector union strike going on right now, so he decided against it. Even if we got the ball rolling locally, who knows when the processing will actually happen. So he decided to skip that – though I think the state of the streets might have had something to do with his decision. They are rougher to drive on than our gravel roads, and his back feels every bump!
Our daughter was a sweetheart and send money for take out. We were going to get Chinese food, but the place was closed today, so we ended up getting a whole lot of fried chicken, instead. It’s good, but we got less food for her money with that. Ah, well. It was still delicoius food that someone else cooked for us!
After we got home, I found a couple of messages from the financing company. I called her back and she told me everything is proceeding well. We have a conditional approval, and there are two banks vying for our file. She will choose the one that gives us the best deal, then negotiate the best contract for us. Meanwhile, we’re at the stage where we have to send in our ID, income confirmation, etc. She had tried to email us already, but the emails bounced back. Turns out she misheard part of mine, and had the wrong language spelling on my husband’s – pretty common problems with our emails, to be honest! 😄
One thing I’ve never heard of before is that they want an “ID selfie”. Basically, a photo of ourselves holding our photo ID next to our face. Which does make sense, with everything being done electronically, but it’s the first time I’ve heard of that being requested.
I mentioned that my husband does not have current photo ID, which may be a problem. He does have his old driver’s license, which is expired, but still a government approved photo ID. He also has his Metis card from when we lived in this province before. That has no expiry date, but I don’t think it counts as government approved. So for him, we got pictures of the fronts and backs of 4 different IDs, when only 2 are needed, plus a picture of him holding both his old photo IDs next to his face. I had to get one of those for myself, too. Then there’s the proof of income, which was his annual letter from the insurance company saying “yes, you’re still disabled, yes, we’re still paying you!” , etc.
So that’s all sent in. Hopefully, it’ll be enough. One bit of info I did include was that the vehicle will be in my name only; with all his medications and pain levels, my husband simply doesn’t drive. Even when he still had his license, he voluntarily stopped driving, long ago. That might also make a difference. It did with a previous company, and my husband’s name was removed from the application completely.
Either way, we’re one step closer to approval, and getting a replacement van.
Which we really, really need. The check engine light on my mother’s car has turned on again, plus I had to pull over at a gas station to top up the air in one tire. It might have a slow leak, and will need to be checked. I did a cursory check, myself, but could see nothing. I’m so paranoid about tires. We’ve had way too many problems with tires, on three different vehicles, over the years!
I already posted a photo of the new kitten on the block. This is a photo I took, just before I caught it.
The kitten in the back is the one I caught. The puff ball in the front is also on the list for kittens that are so tiny, they need to come indoors.
It is not at all cooperative.
There are two more black kittens with white spots on their chests from this litter (plus a much bigger one from another litter that is more catten then kitten, now). One of them should be fine and is bigger, but the other is staying teeny tiny. I don’t know why there is such a difference in sizes in the same litter, but the littles are at far greater risk, so if we can snag them for indoors, we will.
In other things…
My husband and I headed out fairly early today to get our blood work done. The results should be ready in time for his appointment with a doctor, tomorrow. Hopefully, this is a doctor that will take him on as a new patient. Once of the requirements for his disability income is to be under the care of a doctor, and he doesn’t have one right now.
These were fasting blood tests, so after it was done, we had to go for breakfast. With all the medications my husband is on, he doesn’t feel hunger anymore, but I was at the “getting dizzy and nauseous” stage of hunger. There was one restaurant we’ve been to before that I thought would be open, but it turns out to open just before lunch, not for breakfast, so we stopped at a hotel café not far away. This is one of those places that has been around forever, and where locals go to regularly for breakfast. I haven’t been there in years!
It’s not accessible, though, so my husband had to cane it up the stairs. Once we were there and settled, looking at the menu, I happened to glance across the room and saw a familiar face I hadn’t seen in years! It was an old friend of ours from high school! The last time I saw her was before she’d moved up North to one of the territories! It was really great to run into her like that!
After breakfast, we made a stop at the pharmacy to pick up prescription refills that would normally have been delivered today, then headed home.
My husband told me to go ahead and park in the garage, rather than drive up to the house, once we got home.
Then he fell, trying to get out of my mother’s car.
Well. More like a half fall. He ended up with one knee on the ground, one leg still in the car, and stuck in a most awkward position. After some struggling, he managed to get himself up. There was little I could do to help him.
He thought he was fine at first, but after a few hours, that knee that hit the ground (we have a dirt floor in our garage) was starting to really hurt.
Thankfully, he has plenty of really powerful pain killers, including one that’s “take as needed”.
I had intended to wait until closer to the end of the month but, after this, I sent a message to our mechanic, who also used vehicles available for sale. It’ll be 6 months at the end of September, that I’ve been using a low limit credit card to rebuild my credit score. Which means I should be able to apply for financing on a vehicle and have payments we can actually afford. The last time I applied for financing, the terms and interest rates were insane, they wanted a high down payment, plus the payments would have been $700 a month!
We messaged back and forth for a bit. He actually has a truck available right now. I had walked over to see what he had available, the last time I was at the grocery store across the street, and it’s a really nice truck. We could certainly use one but, for our primary needs, we need another minivan, though we could possibly get away with a SUV. He told me he would look for something for us. He knows our needs by now.
Not long after, I got a call from him. He told me he was with a new financing company now. One that specializes in helping people rebuilding their credit. He’d talked to her about our situation, and that we were living on a disability income. She told him that they could do pre-approved financing. That would go a long way in helping him know exactly what he could find for us, and not be stuck with a vehicle to sell to someone else, if we can’t afford the financing.
So I gave him permission to pass on my contact information and I got a call from the company already. The initial process has been started. The next step at our end will be to send in our ID and probably proof of income, etc., like we had to before. We should know in the next couple of days, what we can get for financing. From there, our mechanic will be able to look for something that meets our needs, and falls into the financing parameters.
I pray this all works out. As much as I appreciate having my mother’s car to use, it meets my mother’s needs, not ours. Plus, that thing needs to be replaced, too! My mother has already told my brother and that we should just sell it, but it’s too difficult for her to get into a larger vehicle, so a small car is needed for her. She won’t buy another car, though. She doesn’t drive or even have a license anymore. She’s got no problem with the idea of us buying another car for her, though… Not that we could afford to have two car payments!
My computer was misbehaving, and I think I discovered the cause. There was an operating system update waiting for me to power down the computer.
So while that’s doing it’s thing, I’ll just use my phone to share this bit of adorableness.
Can you spot the new face?
There are now 8 kittens in there. I managed to snag the tiniest outside kitten. This is one of the 8 that were born in the barrel, almost 2 months ago. Some of them are really tiny, still. We now have 3 of them indoors.
I was able to catch Pom Pom only because of a dislocated arm that, thankfully, reset itself.
I had been able to catch and hold Soot Sprite before, so he was a bit more used to human contact. He adjusted to indoors faster than Pom Pom.
The new baby (in the top middle) was a providential catch. I managed it shortly after I headed outside to get some work done, so it was just a quick drop off in my room.
It almost immediately found the food bowls.
When I came in again later, all 8 kittens were curled up in a pile on my bed. It took a while before I could get a picture.
Not only was the new kitten immediately absorbed into the creche, when I walk past, it allows me to pet it, along with the other kittens, as I go by!
They are all solidly asleep right now. Which likely means another sleepless night of mayhem and destruction by the older kittens, while the Littles watch in stunned disbelief!
There are at least 2 more really tiny kittens that need to come in. In time, I will take photos of all of them to pass on to the Cat Lady to share among her contacts for adoption.
It took forever to go through the trail cam video files this morning! There was a constant stream of activity triggering the motion sensor – and that’s just the stuff that it catches. There was clearly more activity, beyond the range of the motion sensor, that I could see happening in the background when something closer triggered the camera.
I was chatting with the Cat Lady this morning, and mentioned how all this activity would be driving away our missing cats. It probably isn’t helping bring that dog home, either. I was able to identify two pick up trucks, two minivans and a car, all involved in the search. She told me that it’s being shared all over Facebook right now. I haven’t seen anything, but I’m not in the groups it was being shared in. She sent me a screen cap. The group was a missing pet group for the city! That’s an hour’s drive away. Her thought was that the dog was probably stolen and taken up north. Apparently, that’s a common thing. I was able to let her know that the dog has been sighted here, so not stolen, at least.
I also shared with her my experiences with the owner, who was nice to my face, but not so nice behind my back. It probably never occurred to him that anyone would hear what he said about me, but all sounds from that direction really carry to the house, and the windows facing that way! My daughters hear way more than they would like.
I ended up sending an email to my brother that lives across from us through his wife (he doesn’t do tech very well. LOL), just in case they didn’t know what was going on. Their main driveway is a quarter mile up the road. The driveway across from us is just to the field, and they wouldn’t necessarily see or hear. I also mentioned our own lost cats, in the off chance they show up at their place. They are the closest home that’s occupied, and have plenty of their own yard cats. Butterscotch would remember their place. Maybe even Nosencrantz. It’s Marlee that would be completely out of her element, and we haven’t see any sign of her at all.
While talking about cats…
TTT has been at the small window in my room, squeaking away (what a strange, quiet meow she has!), wanting out. I’ve been trying to let her out of the room, but the kittens try for the door, instead. She’s so high strung, she backs off rather than goes through.
This morning, she was on my bed and accepting pets. Sort of. She spins and moves around so much, it’s really hard to pet her! However, I was able to pick her up and, while the kittens were distracted, take her out of the room. She’s been out before, but not for very long. It went rather well, so I just put her down and watched for a bit.
She’s still out.
We’ll see if she wants to stay out for good! I may be down to just the kittens in my room.
While doing my rounds this morning, I took some footage for a garden tour video, so that will be my project for today.
What I really want to do, though, is go for a nap. The kittens are actually sleeping right now. I might be able to get some sleep for a change!
We’ve been hearing a lot of commotion on the roads lately. Some of it is expected. It’s harvest time and the renter’s corn is being done, so they’re big equipment and trucks are going by. Other farmers are bringing in their hay bales, or just plant going back and forth between home and fields.
On the trail cams, however, I’m also seeing a lot of regular vehicle traffic doing strange things. We’ve also been hearing lots of voices and shouting. The gate cam is set to record stills and video, so I’m seeing vehicles drive slowly, then reversing, then going forward again, etc. During some night time shots, a vehicle driving by triggered the camera and, in the background, I could see people walking around my brother’s field (the younger of my brothers) with flashlights. If I hadn’t also seen my brother’s wife in some of the images, I would have been more concerned.
It does mean I’ve got a lot of files to go through when I switch out the memory cards!
Late this morning, I was having an early lunch before heading outside to get some work done when I got a phone call from my mother. She was struggling, physically, today and wanted to know if I could come over and help her with some house work that was getting too much for her.
So of course, my plans changed.
As I was getting ready to head out, I walked over to open the gate before opening the garage, so I would only have to get out of the car once, to close the gate behind me.
Which is when I saw a guy set up in my brother’s driveway into his field, across from ours. That driveway is rarely used, so it’s quite overgrown. The guy was in one of those folding chairs with a canopy, half hidden in the tall grass, with stuff that looked like blankets on the ground beside him, and a gorgeous Great Pyrenees at his side.
As soon as the dog saw me reach the gate, it got up, all excited to see another human, and started barking.
This did not go over well with the guy, who started trying to shush the dog.
I started to call out and ask if everything was all right, but he started trying to shush both me and the dog at the same time, and asked me to back away. Then he saw something down the road and started talking into this phone (I’m amazed he had enough signal to use it!), saying things like “I see him! He’s right there!” and telling someone they should be able to “see him” right at that moment. The someone turned out to be his dad, and I was not impressed when he started swearing at his dad for not seeing what I figured out was another dog, and telling his dad he needed to come get the dog because someone (me) had come out, the dog started barking, and the other dog got scared away.
While that was going on, I opened the gate as quietly as I could. I even tried to open the garage door as quietly as possible, and that thing gives off metallic screams, squeals and squeaks like nobody’s business!
Then, of course, I had to drive out and close the gate, which I tried to do quickly, so as not to scare off this other dog, if at all possible. Thankfully, I needed to go the opposite direction from where he’d seen his dog.
When I stopped at the intersection, I saw a new sign not far from our own, so I took a picture.
I removed the phone number, of course.
The next time I stopped, before getting on the highway, I sent the photo to the family and let them know what was going on, then continued on to my mother’s.
When I got there, I checked my messages.
My family was not sympathetic to the guy with the lost dog.
It seems there was a lot of shouting after I left, loud enough for my daughter to hear me being referred to as a “stupid fat f*****g b****”. Apparently for using my own driveway and scaring off an already scared dog.
I wonder what he thought about the big harvest trucks, trailers and combines that had to go down that road to the fields the dog was hiding in!
The shouting they heard was enough for my daughter to warn me to be careful when I got home, and for my husband – my broken husband! – told me to let him know I was on the way, so he could meet me at the gate.
Things apparently calmed down by the time I was done at my mother’s. The guy was no longer set up across from our gate, and they weren’t hearing shouting anymore.
As I turned the corner to get home, though, I did see a truck parked on the side of the road, not far from our driveway. As I drove past it, I could see an older gentleman in the driver’s seat, but there were too many reflections on the glass to see if someone was with him. About a quarter mile down the road, though, I could see the canopy on the folding chair set up.
After I opened the gate and started back to the car, though, guess who came out of the truck?
Yup. It was the same guy, coming over to talk to me.
He was quite polite to my face!
Turns out his 8 month old Great Pyreneese that he recently acquired broke out of their house, along with the other one I’d seen earlier. That one, they caught quick enough, but the other was apparently quite happy to be running around outside, and not wanting anyone to come close. They’ve seen him eat the food they left out for him, but still wouldn’t let them come close, disappearing into the corn field, instead.
He mentioned my cameras and asked about them. I let him know that the motion sensors are set on the gate and the sign, so while I can see things on the road, it’s limited. He asked if he could set up cameras, indicating the easement between our fence and the road, and I told him to go right ahead; that areas is public land, anyhow. I did say he could use a fence post or something, if he wanted to.
He also mentioned where he lived, should we happen to see the dog. Turns out he’s right in the middle of our little hamlet, a littler more than 3 miles away. Which makes me wonder about his dog being out here!
Since they were all over the place, looking for the dog, I mentioned we had 3 lost cats and described them. So far, though, he’s only seen a black and white one – likely Adam – crossing the road. Unfortunately, their being all over the place looking for the dog, they are likely scaring the missing cats away completely.
Turns out he’s a cat person, as well as a dog person. He asked me if I knew someone, who turned out to be the guy that found Potato Beetle, last winter! It turns out they are great friends, so I asked him to extend my greetings, and let him know that Potato Beetle is now an indoor cat. 😁
So it was quite a friendly exchange we had.
Not bad, considering I’m such a stupid, fat f*****g b****.
No, I’m not angry or anything like that. More amused than anything else!
The Re-Farmer 