Critters

Catching up

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Well, it took a while to make a dent in clearing storage space in my computer. It seems to have made a difference already. It looks like most of the volume wasn’t even photos or video I take casually. It’s all those trail cam files. I keep way more than I need to! At some point, I’ll have to go through a major delete session. Especially with the files going back a few years. I really just need to keep any files that have our vandal in them, but he has so many vehicles, I don’t recognize them all. Plus, I do like to keep the files that caught wild life, too!

I have some morning cuteness for you to start with, though!

When I first took the cat bed out of the cage and set it next to the one the cats were all crowding into, they ignored it for quite a while. Eventually, though, the cat puddle spilled over, and now they are using it. As I was coming in from my morning rounds, I spotted these two on it and had to take a picture! The black and white has now named Patience. The tortie still needs a name.

Anyhow. Time to catch up on yesterday!

I headed to my mother’s early (checked the truck’s tires first; they’re down a bit, but not enough to need topping up), stopped long enough to go over her shopping list, then did her shopping for her. 

I usually bring food for us to have for lunch, and my mother insists on paying me back, even though I tell her she doesn’t need to. She’s been increasingly fussy, though. The best fried chicken and wedges she loves so much, she’s decided are the cause of her “heart” problems (it’s not her heart, but she doesn’t understand anatomy and refuses to believe all those test results showing her heart is incredibly healthy and strong), so she now refuses to eat them. The Chinese food she loved, she now refuses to eat because she’s decided they serve cat meat, and the family that runs it is… well… Chinese. There’s a chicken restaurant that she used to go to regularly, but she said their food always gets to her cold (not an invalid complaint; at least for their chicken dinners). She did love their pizzas, but the last couple of times I brought pizza, she was aghast at the price. Which has gone up quite a bit, and she is convinced it’s because they’re cheating people and the government should make it so all pizzas cost the same. She also thinks restaurants all buy their pizzas frozen from the same place, apparently. Basically, all the options in her town have been slowly eliminated for one reason or another. The last time I was there, I brought a couple of croissant sandwiches and a Chef’s Salad from the grocery store for lunch. I asked if she wanted me to do that again, and she said no. It costs too much (it didn’t cost much at all), and she had food.

Well, I hadn’t had breakfast yet, and I don’t want to eat her groceries, so after I picked up what was on her list, I was going to pick up a submarine sandwich. It was big enough to share, if she changed her mind. Then I remembered the have a hot food display with whole rotisserie chickens, chicken pieces, nuggets and the like, so I decided to see what was in there, thinking maybe there was some hot food I could bring back.

I’ve never seen these in the display before, but they had complete meals available! A big piece of chicken and thigh, a generous quantity of mashed potatoes and a generous quantity of vegetables, for $6.99 !!! I put back the sub sandwich, then grabbed one meal with beans and carrots, and one with peas and corn.

When I got back to my mother’s, I found she had been busy heating up leftovers and putting together a lunch for us – breakfast, for her also! I’m glad I picked up the dinners. Her list was short, but as I put things away, I found her fridge pretty empty. It’s not that she can’t afford to buy groceries. I think it’s more because she keeps cutting more and more foods out of her diet, because she’s suddenly decided they are bad for her! At least she did have some hamburgers made with beef my sister gave her (beef is one of the foods she’s decided to stop buying, opting instead for more processed meats!), so I sure as heck didn’t want to be eating a protein she needs for herself! 

She actually did seem happy with the dinners, too – especially when she saw the price tags on the containers. So we had ourselves a good lunch, and she was all set for supper, too.

My sister had visited my mother yesterday, and changed her bedding for her. I got an email letting me know she found bed bugs. *sigh* My mother’s building is run by the province’s public housing department, which subsidizes rents, so there is one provincial number to call. They did have a separate maintenance number, which I made sure to add to my mother’s phone list, since calling the main office is an exercise in frustration. The automated system just punts you to voice mail, but the voice mail boxes are always full, so you can’t leave a message, anyhow. The maintenance number gets you to a real, live human being – eventually.

The head office for public housing is located in the smaller, closer city, rather than the big city, where the legislature and most government offices are. When I mentioned that this office is for the entire province, my mother refused to believe me, saying it had to be just for our region, because if it was for the entire province, it would be in the bigger city. She simply could not accept that a government department’s head office could exist outside the capital city of the province. I tried to explain, but she was getting herself worked up, so I dropped it. A very strange thing to get upset over!

It was shortly after noon when this was all done, which means we had a couple more hours before her phone appointment with the doctor. I knew where was a chance she’d call early, though, and sure enough, she did. In fact, from the time, I think she was making these calls on her lunch break!

I set us up on speaker phone, and the first thing the doctor asked was, why did we have this appointment? I told her about the tests results that were supposed to be sent to her, and she said she had nothing on file. The last tests results she had for my mother were from September. !!! Then she said she would check online. Our province’s patient medical records are all digital now, but they’re sort of all over the place. She had to log into a system outside the clinic to find the test results.

They came back normal.

All of her tests and scans, including the one the test that needed 5 days to complete, came back normal.

My mother is ridiculously healthy, as far as their tests go.

So we went over my mother’s symptoms again, and mentioned the prescription she gave my mother to test out made no difference. We talked options and possibilities. One of them is to have my mother referred to a specialist, which is my mother’s choice.

The doctor, however, would have to see my mother in person and do a physical exam before she can make a referral.

My mother was starting to lose it at this point. With so many holidays over the next while, it was either making an appointment very soon, or in January.

Given the test results, this is not an urgent situation, so we’re going with January. I will call to make an appointment, later.

The whole call took less than 10 minutes.

As soon as it was done, my mother was all “I don’t want to see this doctor! I’m not going back there!” This time, however, her reasoning was legitimate, and not just her racism emerging again. She even said, she’d apologize to the doctor, but between her own English and the doctor’s strong accent (plus, she talks fast), my mother simply can’t understand what she’s saying. As it was, I was struggling to understand her at times, too, and kept having to ask her to repeat herself, and I can’t even blame my auditory processing issues for it, this time. I had the same problem when we were talking to her in person.

I still need to find myself a new doctor, too, so I’ll have to make some phone calls to various clinics and see if any of them have doctors open to new patients that would be willing to take both me and my mother.

My mother was also frustrated that we had two days with this waiting, for just a few minutes call! 

As we were talking after the call, I got a 1 hour reminder from my phone, for the appointment.

I’m glad we set the new appointment for the afternoon instead of the morning, so that this time I was actually there when she called early!! My mother could not have handled this call at all, on her own.

But it was done, and we have some next steps to take. 

I spent some time looking things up related to some of the other options the doctor mentioned that she can do herself at home. Some of what I found, she physically cannot do, but there is enough that she can do, that it’s not much of a concern. Then she started to talk about what other foods she should stop eating, and I had to play interference on that one. For starters, there is nothing diet related when it comes to her symptoms, but in her mind, everything comes back to whatever food issue she’s developed, based on something she saw on TV, read in a “women’s” magazine, or hear from her neighbours. It’s all pretty messed up. Even now, she will sometimes randomly tell me, I need to eat more soup (she has no idea how much soup I do or don’t eat). Why? So I will lose weight. She saw some guy on a daytime talk show, decades ago, saying something about eating soup to lose weight. I recall that particular fad, and this was a very long time ago! But it’s in her mind and, because some self proclaimed expert said it on TV, that magically makes it true, and she believes that if I just ate soup, I would lose weight.

Funny. She complains about her own weight, but doesn’t apply this magical advice to herself!

The thing is, she hears and reads all this stuff and latches onto it, and has decided that any ache or pain or whatever she’s dealing with, is directly related to a food of some kind, therefore she must cut it out. She could break her leg, and think that means she ate the “wrong” thing for breakfast. Very frustrating! Especially since she should know better. A lot of stuff she now believes is “bad” is stuff she helped grow, raise and process for almost her entire life. We butchered our own cows and ate lots of beef when I was growing up, but now beef is bad? 

Anyhow. I’m getting distracted.

Once we were done talking about the call and next steps, I was more than happy to head home, and my mother was more than happy to send me on my way, so she could go for a nap!! She did give me some Christmas cards to mail for her at our post office, because she no longer trusts the staff at the post office in her town. I was okay with that, as I turned out to have a parcel in the mail, anyhow. I’m glad I looked at her cards, though, because she had a wrong address for my nephew. I’ve since confirmed the correct address, fixed the envelop, and need to go back to the post office after I’m done this.

As for my parcel in the mail, it was a different brand of lysine for the cats. The previous brand we tried was more granular, instead of the fine powder we were getting before, from a supplier that seems to no longer supply lysine at all anymore. The granular is fine if it’s being mixed into wet cat food or dissolved into water, but it doesn’t stick as well when tossed in dry kibble.

This new brand is a fine powder, and I’m quite happy with it. It dissolves very quickly in their water, and when tossed with the dry kibble, sticks to it much better. Hopefully, this means the outside cats will actually eat more of it, instead of it falling off the kibble when I set it out! It’s working out so nicely, I think we’ll be putting this brand on a subscription. It came in a 500g bag, which is bigger than what we had found previously. We’ll see how long a bag lasts, first.

Now it’s time to grab a food of some kind, and see what other maintenance I can do on my computer! 

The Re-Farmer

Computer issues

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After getting back from my mother’s, I tried to settle at my computer to watch some videos while I had supper, then do a blog post. Found myself having all sorts of images and videos not wanting to load. I thought it might be a browser issue, but it was just as bad when I tried others.

The rest of the family is not having any trouble, so it wasn’t our internet. While going through my computer, trying to find a cause, I realized I had almost no storage left, and almost all of it – over 1.7 T – was taken up with image and video files! I only have 2 T of storage.

[correction: I have 1.79T in storage. 1.29T was taken up with image and video files.]

I emptied my trash, which was mostly deleted trail cam files, and I’m now transferring things to my external hard drive. Later, I plan to do some clean up and clear temporary files out. I hope that makes the difference!

I take a lot of pictures.

My daughter, however, took this one, while I was out.

That’s Beep Beep, enjoying my bed. 😁

I’m so glad we could “retire” her indoors!

The Re-Farmer

A day of progress – finally!

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First, the cuteness!

I counted 35 this morning.

Of these ones, the two tuxedos on the left will watch as I pause a few feet away to take a picture, but as soon as I move closer, the start moving away.

Syndol, posing pretty in the middle, and the white and grey in front, LOVE attention. I can pick those two up and cuddle them, and they can’t get enough of it.

Hypotenose and the two orange cats are “touch and go”. I can touch them, but then they go! I am sometimes able to pick up the almost all orange cat and hold him for a bit, but he doesn’t like it and wants down quickly.

In other things…

I didn’t have anywhere to go today, which means I finally got some progress in the living room. Since it has been turned into a cat free zone, we’ve developed the terrible habit of shoving things in there, just to protect them from the cats. The girls even keep their laundry baskets in there, because when they have the baskets upstairs, cats will pee in them! 

The girls and I have been taking turns doing a little bit and a little bit there, but we’ve not had a day when we can just focus on it. The problem is, we don’t know where else to put a lot of things. There’s a reason they’re in the cat free zone! However, we’ve decided we’ll be doing our Christmas celebrating in the living room this year, and that includes any decorating.

We’ve done no decorating at all. Normally, we’d have the tree up on the door in the dining room by the Feast of St Catherine’s (Nov. 27) and decorations around the dining room by now, but with the kittens we have now, even having the tree hanging against the door (which we don’t use), several feet off the ground, it not going to be enough. 

For our non-traditional Wigilia feast on Christmas Eve, we’re planning to have all finger foods and do a Columbo marathon. For New Years, we’re planning on doing a fondue. It’s been ages since we’ve done fondue, and we have two pots. One is suitable for lower temperature fondue over a candle, like a cheese or chocolate fondue. The other has a gel fuel burner and a stainless steel pot for high temperature oil fondue, so we can cook meats or do tempura vegetables.

So however we arrange things in the living room, we need to make it so there is room for the food and fondue pots, all four of us can reach the food, and all of us can see the TV. We almost never use the TV – we’ve got an antenna and can pick up a few channels, or we can use the Roku, but we usually end up watching things on our computers, instead.

As I write this, my daughter has taken over and is now vacuuming, but I interrupted her. I checked out the bathroom window and saw a great pile of cats trying to squeeze into the cat bed under the platform. The thermometer in there is at 0C/32F, so it’s warmer that outside, but they’re enjoying the body heat. There is another cat bed inside the cage, but they aren’t using it, so I popped into the sun room to move it next to the bed they’re trying to all fit into. Most of the cats ran off while I was doing that, but not the one fluffy black kitten with the white blaze on his face. This one is more socialized, and learning to enjoy cuddles, so as I backed out from under the platform, I picked it up to hold.

And promptly got a wet hand.

He back end was wet and looking wrong, so I brought him inside. I held him while my daughter gloved up and did a thorough washing of his nether regions. As near as she can tell, he got a matt in his fur over his urethra that has fallen off, leaving a bald spot. She was able to clean other matted fur and found a small wound in the process. We put some antibiotic cream on it and put him back in the sun room, after drying him off as best we could.

If we didn’t already have so many cats in the house, we could have kept him inside to keep an eye on him, and called the rescue. The Cat Lady and her family, however, are in the middle of moving. Their house finally sold! I don’t expect to have any rescue related activity until next month, and certainly don’t want to send another sick cat their way! The vets keep finding all sorts of other problems when they get checked over.

Oh! I just got a message and some photos from the Cat Lady! One of her daughters has the flu, and she’s being cuddled by Muffin (who now has a new name) as she’s laying on the couch! So adorable!

She still won’t let the Cat Lady touch her, and will hiss and bite her, instead! She’s bonded with the Cat Lady’s husband, goes out to job sites, has strangers coming up to her in her fancy truck seat all the time with no issues, cuddles with the kids, but will NOT accept the Cat Lady, even after all these months!

Anyhow… I’ve been distracted!

Time for me to get back to work and help my daughter in the living room, and figure out what to do with the space!

Oh, that reminds me…

I finished setting up the “plug” for the air conditioning vent. My brother had cut a piece of 4″ Styrofoam for it, but it still needed to be trimmed. The vent pipe itself worked rather well to “cut” the edges as I pushed it in, then cleaned it up more.

Since my brother used a hole drill attachment to install the pipe, I had the round pieces from the wall, each with a pair of drill holes in them from when my brother first marked out where to make the opening. One of the holes is right in the centre. The circles fit perfectly inside the vent pipe. One of them is a piece of panelling from the inside. So once the foam was trimmed to fit in the vent, I used a small, round curtain rod that happened to be in the living room, to make a matching hole in the middle of the foam. I took a piece of doweling left over from when I made the outdoor kitchen model and flattened one side, then carved a recess in the middle. I looped some paracord around that, then strung the ends through the centre hole of the “ugly” disc, then threaded that through the foam. I used some double sided foam mounting tape to secure the disc of panelling onto the inside end of the foam, with the paracord threaded through the middle hole. The cord got knotted against the piece of panelling to hold both discs tight against the foam, then I made handle out of paracord ends. The whole thing fits perfectly into the vent pipe, and I can line the disc of panelling up with the wall behind it. I’m rather pleased with how it turned out!

When that was done, I checked on the luffa that was drying over the heat vent. It had started to get mold on the outside, before it got too dry for mold, but when I broke the outer skin off, I found the mold went straight through. No sponge, and no viable seeds. 

Darn.

It just didn’t have a long enough time to grow!

Ah, well. We’ll be trying again in the future, after I get fresh seeds!

Now… time to go help my daughter!

The Re-Farmer

Looking white out there again

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Overnight, yesterday’s rain turned to snow.

I’d say it’s a good thing I changed my mind about going into town! I was keeping up with the chatter on a local highways conditions group, and things were getting really dangerous out there!

It’s still warm enough that the pools of water collected under our gate aren’t completely frozen. Those sections of ice on the main gravel road near us would be much like this, still. Thankfully, we don’t need to go anywhere for a couple of days.

While our current temperatures are still mild – we are at -5C/25F right now – the winds were absolutely brutal while I was doing my rounds. From what I can see in the trees outside my window, they haven’t died down, either. The wind chill is currently at -18C/1F

The outside cats were not enjoying it!

I counted 33 this morning, and 18 of them were in the sun room. Some pretty much never go into the sun room, no matter how cold it gets. As I was finishing up my rounds, the some of the ones outside were taking shelter under the kibble house.

We tried to arrange the shelters in such a way that they, and the house, would cut the wind, but somehow the wind always gets into there, blowing snow into the kibble house and their food trays. It doesn’t seem to get under the kibble house as much, and with that sheet of insulation on the ground, and more insulation under the floor of the kibble house, forming a ceiling under there, it is a favourite spot for them to hang out.

The water bowl shelter’s floor is quite a bit higher off the ground, and we’ve got another kibble tray under it, as well as pieces of insulation on the ground. At some point, I want to use some scrap carpet – we might have some usable pieces in the barn – and make a sort of wind break. I want to cut a piece long enough to go around three sides of the water bowl house, then cut it into strips, except for a solid band that will be attached to the base of the water bowl house. The cats would be able to easily push their way through the strips of carpet, and the carpet would shelter from the bulk of the wind and snow. My brother put something like that over the door of the dog house they gave us, except he added two layers of carpet, and the strips were cut so that they overlapped, cutting the wind even more. Unfortunately, the cats have been scratching at it, so it needs to be replaced.

Today is going to be a good day to stay inside and catch up on things!

The Re-Farmer

Not who I thought it was!

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While feeding the outside cats this morning, I spotted the kitten with the cloudy eye.

At least, I thought I did.

It ended up under the kibble house, but I managed to get a picture.

Which is when I discovered there was another cat already under there! The kitten had been right at the edge and backed up as I tried to take the photo, which is the only reason I saw the other one, hidden under there!

You can see the cloudiness in the kitten’s left eye in this photo.

However…

This is a photo I posted recently.

I thought we had two almost identical kittens from this litter – yet now that I can compare photos, I can see they are the same kitten.

There is no cloudy eye in this photo from a few days ago!

There is another tabby from that litter that’s seen even less frequently than I thought, now that I know I’ve been mistaking this one for it!

Yes, that left eye looks a bit darker in the photo, but that’s because of how the daylight is hitting it.

Very strange! I’ve never heard of cloudiness in the eyes coming and going like that!

What I’m finding amusing is that angry looking face. More so because, these are its siblings.

They all have matching angry faces!

While the black and white kitten is getting quite used to pets, and the tortie is… more tolerant, shall we say, of being pet and picked up, that little tabby just won’t allow it, even though I’ve managed to sneak a touch now and then, while it’s eating.

Which suggests to me that the tabby is female, given how the socialization of yard cats has been for us over the years! 😄😄

The Re-Farmer

Gorgeous day!

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With gorgeous babies!

I so want to pet this baby! I can’t get near it, though. Which makes me think it’s a female, since it’s almost always the females that have been making strange!

This kitten looks so much like the one with the cloudy eye. I can’t tell if I’ve seen that one recently. I counted “only” 34 this cats this morning.

Including this one.

I’ve been feeding the outside cats earlier in the afternoons, rather than the evenings, because sunset is now earlier than 4:30pm, and I want them to have a chance to eat before the racoons come after dark and eat all the kibble that’s left. As I was finishing up, this little fur ball was eating in the sun room. I stopped to pet some of the friendlier cats, and not only did he let me pet him, but he actually stopped eating and came over for me to pick him up and cuddle him!!!!

These two, plus the fuzzy tortie and the tabby with the cloudy eye, are all part of the same late litter of 8 as Pom Pom, The Beast (aka: Tiny), Soot Sprite, and the sadly missed Snorri. They’re among the few we can still remember are siblings, because they’re all so much smaller!

Weather wise, today has been gorgeous. We hit 7C/45F today! The original forecast was for 3C/37F. Even our overnight low is supposed to drop to only -1C/30F.

Unfortunately, I’ve basically wasted the day. Oh, I was productive this morning, but ended up having to lie down because my back was giving out and fell asleep.

Surrounded by cats.

Now that I keep my door open all the time again, my bed is consistently covered with a dozen cats.

We need to take more “glamour shots” of the kittens and send them to the Cat Lady for posting among her contacts. She and her family are still dealing with house sale issues. They haven’t been able to sell their current home, and were just resigning themselves to giving up the one they wanted to buy. They even brought the 25 cats that were being boarded back home. Then a last minute dream offer came in, pending a house inspection. Which should have happened a couple of days ago. If that goes through, they are going to be insanely busy over the next month, so I’m not expecting her to be able to get back to working the rescue until that’s done. I don’t want to be bugging her about it when she’s got all this to deal with – on top of her own health issues! She’s a dynamo! I don’t know how she does it, at times!

Anyhow.

I don’t know how much I’ll be able to get done on the next garden analysis post tonight, so I might not have one ready to be posted tomorrow. It’s just been one of those days, and my head space it not where I need it to be for that type of writing.

I did, however, try something this morning that I’ll cover in my next post. I just wish it wasn’t what caused issues with my back!

More on that next…

The Re-Farmer

Hidden

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It wasn’t until I was cropping the picture that I saw it.

That face.

No, that one.

The other one.

The one in the back.

!!!

I was cropping the photo on my phone, right after taking it, so I looked again. From the same angle, I could just see a dark shadow behind the fuzzy kitten. The box has a side opening, but when I tried to see it through there, there was nothing visible. It was jammed way into the back corner.

Creepy stalker kitty! 🤣🤣

Also, I counted 34 this morning, then spotted number 35, hiding behind a tree trunk, as I did my rounds.

The Re-Farmer

Full little bellies

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Ah, it feels so good to be using a keyboard again! I really don’t like using my phone to tap out blog posts. 😄

Would you look at this bunch?

There’s always quite the rush of cats in the sun room when I first come out with my little bin and scoop to feed them. They’ve usually tossed things about over night (or the racoons have!), so I now put the bin down in the ground and let them have at it, while I pick things up and put them back where they belong. Then take scoops of kibble from around usually 3 or 4 cats eating out of the bin to fill the feeding areas in the sun room. Even after that’s done, I usually still have one or two I need to bodily remove from the bin so I can take it outside. There is a black cat that now lets me pet it and even move it around while it’s eating. I think it’s the one I posted a picture of recently. I’m not 100% sure, though.

This morning, every time I tried to do a head count, I got a different number. However, my first head count, done while they were all still voraciously eating, rather than running around all over the place, I got 38, and I’m almost positive I did not double count any of them. Once they’ve had at least some food, though, they start running around and then some start disappearing.

Then there are the ones that don’t disappear. They instead settle down in the sun room, with full little bellies, and settle in for a nap!

I’ve managed to touch the back of that fluffy grey tabby in the top right a few times while eating. He (she?) would run off, but not as quickly as usual. When not eating, I can’t get close enough to touch.

I think my daughter and I will need to head out earlier for my eye appointment today. I can see on the security camera live feed that the fog is getting thicker. We had fog alerts starting last night. After my mother was done at the hospital, we were hitting fog on the drive to her place. In one stretch, I turned off the main highway to cross over to her town and immediately drove into a wall of fog. We kept driving in and out of fog banks the whole way, but it did seem to clear up as we reached her town.

When I was driving home, I started driving through fog banks again. In some places, the ground was clear, but the fog hung like a ceiling, above.

When I came out to do my rounds this morning, there was a light fog. The trees are covered in light hoarfrost. I expected it to get lighter as the day went on, but nope. It’s getting denser!

So glad we’ll be taking the truck, and not my mother’s car!

The Re-Farmer

Practise

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This morning was pretty routine. As I was finishing up my morning rounds, I was able to get a picture of this handsome fella. Or lady. We don’t know!

One of quite a few black and tuxedo kittens for this year.

Yes. That’s a kitten!

We can’t get near most of them. Unless they have very distinctive and easily seen markings, we can’t tell them apart enough to give them names. I counted 34 cats outside this morning.

This afternoon, my daughter and I headed into town so that she could get used to driving the truck. For all that we saw the grader making passes down the gravel roads twice yesterday, the main road was still sheer ice! You could see snow ridges on the sides of the road and parallel scrapes in the ice in a few places, but for the most part, it looked untouched. WTF? Thankfully, the truck handled it much better than my mother’s car did.

With gravel roads, everyone typically drives down the middle of the road, unless there is oncoming traffic. Most of the roads are just barely wide enough for two vehicles, but we’re next to the “main” gravel road, which is wider and gets more maintenance, due to the higher amounts of traffic it gets. As we were going down that last half mile to our place on the way home, where the ice is the worst, my daughter moved aside as far as she could to let an oncoming car by. She had traction, but we could see the car start to fishtail, while trying to move to one side!

Once in town, we parked and walked to a few different places. I am still trying to find craft materials for the Christmas decorations I’m crocheting this year. I’m almost out of fibre fill, and I hoped to find tiny decorative items I could add to them as finishing touches. At the very least, I hoped to find some Styrofoam balls to use, if I couldn’t find fibre fill. So one of the places we tried was a dollar store. I found a bag of “snow” that I could have used as fibre fill, but it was insanely expensive for what was in the bag. I did find some packages of foam balls, but only needed one. I’ve been using cash lately, so I didn’t even have enough change to buy it. They have a minimum purchase to use debit, and I wasn’t going to buy something I didn’t need, just to use debit, so I didn’t get anything. My daughter found some knitting supplies she wanted, though. With that done, we went to a local store that has the only other supply of yarn in town. While the dollar store has the big name brand yarns, this place has a section of high end, imported wool yarn in remarkable range of colours. Expensive, of course, but worth it for my daughter. I can barely touch the stuff, as it’s a type of wool I react to. I had no idea I was allergic to wool until I tried a high end brand of 100% virgin one time, years ago. I was working on a scarf and had the length draped over my arm as I worked. I developed red welts where the wool touched me that were so defined, you could actually make out the stitch pattern in my flesh! My daughter was able to get a couple of skeins, and then we tried another store. No Christmas crafty stuff there, either. It’s been so strange. I’m looking for stuff I used to be able to find easily, every Christmas, for years. Now, it’s basically just finished decorations, jingle bells, or ornament and craft kits for kids. I might have to go to a Michaels the next time we’re in the city. They are the only dedicated craft store franchise choice we’ve got. I should be able to find at least something I can use, there!

While we were out, I discovered my daughter hadn’t even had breakfast yet, so after dropping her purchases off at the truck, we walked over to one of the restaurants in town that doesn’t close for the winter. We went to a Greek place and ate in, then grabbed a couple extra meals for take out for my husband and other daughter at home.

My daughter, meanwhile, LOVED driving the truck, after we’ve had to use my mother’s car for so long. Excellent visibility, better traction and handling, and no weird noises from the back all the times. Plus, she’s figured out where everything is, so she’ll not have to worry about that when it’s time for her to drive me home after my eye appointment, when my eyes will still be dilated.

While all that was going on, I was keeping in touch with my brother. When I was with my mother yesterday, one of her errands was to talk to the pharmacist. After asking her some questions, he told her she would need to go to a doctor before he could help her. She balked, because the doctor that took her on after our previous doctor moved to another clinic, is not someone she likes. My mother’s racism aside, she has a very strong accent, speaks very quickly, and tends to talk over people instead of listening. My mother mentioned not being able to understand what she was saying. The pharmacist started nodding along. It turns out quite a few of his clients are having troubles understanding this doctor. I had troubles, too, but that’s normal for me, with my auditory processing issues. I’ve only seen her a couple of times; once with my husband and I think only once with my mother. She might be a good medical doctor, I can’t say, but it doesn’t do much good if her patients can’t understand what she’s saying.

So I was going to start making calls on Monday, since I still need a new doctor, too, and see if the closer clinic has the new doctors they were expecting, and if any were open to two new patients. If I couldn’t have made an appointment then, I would have gone back to the other clinic and made an appointment for my mother.

Then I updated my brother on this. He and his wife were quite concerned. A family member had a similar issue that was left untreated for too long and developed sepsis, which is insanely dangerous. They survived, but I believe they were permanently damaged by it. My brother was planning on visiting my mother anyhow, so they looked up a quick care clinic that would be open, and my brother was going to take her there. After calling her first and she agreed, he was on the way when my SIL called the quick care clinic. She was told they had no room to fit her in !!! So my brother decided to take her to the emergency, instead.

They are still there, and it’s been about 4 hours. Another patient there was complaining because they’d been there since 4am and still hadn’t been seen, which means they were in the ER for something like 12 hours before they were seen! Other patients were triaged and rated more urgent and treated first.

My brother has been keeping us updated as much as he can, but he’s basically on baby sitting duty. My mother has said they should just leave a couple of times already, on top of her usual snarky comments, nasty assumptions and insulting behaviour towards others. There’s nowhere they can get food or drink while waiting, without leaving the ER entirely, and then they’d probably have to start all over again, so that’s a problem, too. My brother is going to be completely worn out by the time he gets home! Meanwhile, she’ll probably just get the prescription that the pharmacist couldn’t give her on his own and be sent home. Something the quick care/walk in clinic could have done, too, if they’d been willing to take her.

Hopefully, they will get in soon and be on their way, though it’ll mean my brother will be driving home in full dark, and there are a lot of deer crossing the highways of late! *sigh*

The worst of it is, I know my mother won’t appreciate what my brother is doing for her at all.

Oh, dear. I just found out she got away from my brother, stormed over to the nurses desk and made a scene. The nurse ended up going to the waiting room to make an announcement to everyone to explain their waiting times. It’s at 6 hours now, but had been at 12 hours overnight. To be fair, they’re making a 92 year old woman wait for… going on 5 hours now. You’d think their triage would take that into account, though my mother is easily mistaken as being decades younger.

Welcome to “healthcare” in Canada.

*sigh*

Okay, time to get off the computer for a bit and get some work done, while keeping my phone glued to my pocket as my brother updates us!

He is such a saint.

The Re-Farmer

Glad to be home

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

First, the cuteness!

The cats are quite enjoying the box I found to better stabilize the platform I rigged up for them as a way to store the wire mesh door we made to keep cats out of the old basement in the summer. The one that reminds me of Nosencrantz so much especially likes to just be a loaf in it! I’m constantly seeing cats milling around under there, though, and they do like that rigid insulation!

Also… I’m not 100% sure I recognize the cat on the left. It’s getting so hard to tell some of them apart!

I counted “only” 34 outside cats this morning.

As for the inside cats, Tiny, aka: The Beast, is now big enough that it’s safe to let her out of isolation. With the loss of Snorri, we no longer have to keep the door to my bedroom/office closed, even overnight. Tiny has been thrilled with her new freedom to explore the rest of the house.

The rest of the cats are thrilled to be able to go into my room again. As I write this, there are currently 8 of them asleep on my bed, with all but one of them in a single, huge pile of fur!

Gotta get more adoptions done!!!

Anyhow…

The plan for today was to help my mother with errands so, while doing my rounds, I took the time to open the doors to where her car is parked and give it a quick check.

I almost immediately noticed the back tire on the driver’s side looked awfully low. The tire that had gone flat before was the front driver’s side tire, so this was not expected at all.

The car barely fits in this addition to the garage, so I backed it out, then checked the tire pressure.

It was only 10psi!!

So I pumped it up, but saw no sign of a leak anywhere. I checked the front driver’s side tire, and it was really low, too, though not enough to be noticeably flat.

Of course, I checked the other two, and they were slightly on the slow side, too.

The bizarre thing is, when I took the car in to get that tire checked, the employee that worked on it thought it was the passenger side tire that was leaking and was done checking it when I returned to the garage. I told him it was the driver’s side tire, so he took that one off. He could not find a leak in either of them. All the tires, however, were topped up with air, just in case. I was there to see it done.

So why would all four tires be low, with one practically flat? We even used the car a few days ago, when we had to pick the truck up from getting its new battery.

I’m so glad I took the time to check on her car, so far in advance of needing it! With all the driving around I did with my mother, the tires have held their psi. No evidence of leaks, anywhere.

Very strange.

If it weren’t for the fact that we have snow on the ground that would have given evidence, I would be concerned that a certain “someone” made their way into the garage and let the air out. As it is, the only foot prints in the snow have been our own.

Another reason I am glad I checked the tires.

Road conditions sucked.

But only the gravel roads, and only those sections shaded by trees. They were sheer ice! Even though I was driving slowly and cautiously, ever now and then, the car would suddenly start fishtailing. Not much, thankfully, and not for long, but enough to be a concern. The last thing I’d want is to hit either ditch on the sides of these roads. They are very deep and very steep! The chances of being able to drive out, even with 4 wheel drive, are very low.

We got a light and fluffy snowfall overnight, which didn’t help matters.

Even on the highway, for the first while, I was not confident driving at the speed limit for quite some time.

Oh, how I wished to be driving the truck, instead!!!

Thankfully, today turned out to be warmer than forecast – again – and the paved roads melted clear by the time I was heading home.

Except the gravel roads, where were even slipperier!

As I was reaching the intersection by our place, though, I saw the grader coming through. Our section of the road had just been done. He had to move aside for me to be able to turn in, so at least the last 200 ft or so was good!

This should have been done long ago. People are really upset with our current municipal counsel. For some reason, they didn’t go with the usual company for road maintenance – a local company that has all the equipment and storage facilities on hand, and had done an excellent job of keeping our roads cleared and safe as quickly as possible, every year we’ve been here. Instead, they’ve decided to lease a grader, rent someone’s space to store it, for a ludicrous monthly fee – and a 125 hour limit. Oh, and they’d have to hire a driver each time, too. They only got the grader today, which means for the past while, roads like ours have been just left as they were. It got so bad in areas that the school division would not allow buses to drive on them, for safety reasons.

Which means parents on these dangerous roads had to drive their kids, however many miles, to meet the bus at the highway, instead.

Hopefully, it will no longer be an issue for the rest of the winter.

Anyhow.

Since I was there with the car, my mother wanted to do as many errands as she could, so we stopped at quite a few places. For all that my mother is 92, uses a walker, frequently complains about how bad her knees are (but won’t wear her brace), and is clearly struggling at times, once she gets going, she is really hard to keep up with! At the grocery store, we’ve switched from her using the shopping cart as a walker, to her using her walker and me pushing the cart, so that she has the option of sitting down if she needs to. Once she gets going, though, she just races off! Unfortunately, she’s one of those people who doesn’t really watch out for others or, if she does see them, all but barrels right through them. Yikes!!

We got it all done, though, and she was quite glad to get home and finally rest!

For me, it was just a stop at the gas station, then home, and I was sure glad to be home, too!

I thought I could look forward to taking it easy for the next while, but…

There was an answering machine message when I got home. A reminded for my eye appointment on Monday. I was very glad to get it! I have my phone set to send me a reminder 1 day in advance, so I wouldn’t have forgotten or missed the appointment. However, my eyes will be dilated for a field of vision test, which means I have to get my daughter to drive me home.

Other than parking in the garage, she has yet to drive the truck.

So tomorrow, we’ll be heading out for her to do some practise driving. Pretty much everything is in different places from any other vehicle we’ve driven. It’s also just a few inches wider and longer than the van – just enough to really affect getting in and out of parking spaces, or taking turns. It won’t take long for her to get used to it, but better to do that in advance, then when I need her to drive me home because I’ll essentially be blinded.

I just checked my calendar and see I have a reminder to get my bloodwork done on the same day my husband’s CPP Disability comes in, before Christmas instead of after. That, at least, is not an appointment. I just need to show up at the clinic and ask for the requisition for that should be on file, then step across the hall to the lab to do the tests. Since I will likely be doing our first January stock up shopping that day, and don’t usually have breakfast until I’ve reached the city, I can swing by on the way and get the bloodwork done while still technically fasting.

Then there’s the extra city trip that my daughters will need next week.

Good grief. I try to keep the winter months as close to home as possible, but this year it looks like our December is going to be filled with outings!

I just want to stay home and hybernate!

The Re-Farmer