Our 2026 Garden: reclaiming beds and succession sowing

June 18, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I was able to get a couple of big jobs done in the garden. It’s going to be an odd growing year. We had another cold night last night, dropping to about 6C/43F It looks like the cold has killed some of the melons and at least one winter squash transplants that managed to germinate in the tray that got resown after a mouse got to the seedlings. A couple more winter squash have germinated in the tray and I’ll transplant them when they get their true leaves, but it’s really too late for them, unless we have a super long, mild fall. The next time I have a chance to check out a garden center, I’m hoping to find more winter squash, at least.

Right now, I’m thinking of what can be direct sown for succession sowing. I’ll be doing more peas and bush beans, I think, and possibly some beets, but that’s not what I sowed today.

The first bed I worked on was the winter sown kohlrabi bed.

The down side of having a cover that can keep the cats out is, it’s much less convenient to weed.

Lots of crab grass. Thankfully, the remaining mulch kept most of the elm seeds from germinating. That is getting to be a real problem in other areas. Especially inside the protective collars around the tomatoes in the bed next to this one, and in the chain link fence bed.

In the next image of the slide show above, you can see my little surprise. There are actual kohlrabi growing! Absolutely tiny, but surviving. I was going to leave them to grow bigger but, as I was clearing the weeds, there were rhizomes going right under the little cluster. I ended up transplanting them to one end – a whole four tiny seedlings that probably won’t survive, but at least there’s a possibility.

The rest of the bed got completely worked over as I pulled all the rhizomes I could. Unfortunately, there were quite a few tree roots in there, too, and there isn’t much I can do about those. In this location, the roots could be either from the elm in one direction, or the cherry trees in the other. Both are close enough and spread roots far enough to be possible. It might even had been both, not just one.

Once the weeding was done, I have the bed a deep watering. Especially in the three rows I planned to sow into, which you can see in the third image.

In the fourth image, you can see what I decided to plant. American Spinach, Rainbow Swiss Chard, and I had some seed tape of Uzbek Golden Carrots left. They are old seeds so I don’t expect a good germination rate, and I hoped there was enough to lay down a double layer.

Before sowing anything, I noticed my brother had left some cardboard in the garage for me that was just right for this bed, so I cut strips to lay it down as a mulch between the rows, plus a couple that would be used to lay over the carrots to protect them until they germinated.

I didn’t need much. I had only enough of the home made seed tape left for half a row. I thought I had more seeds left in the packet and went looking, but couldn’t find it. So I grabbed the Hedou Tiny bok choy seeds we collected last year – something got to the ones planted in the old kitchen garden. The rest of the new row in the middle got those. The carrots got covered with the strip of cardboard, but not the bok choy.

Then the spinach and chard got planted in the rows still marked by twine on either side. There weren’t a lot of seeds in the packets, relatively speaking, and both got emptied in the planting. Then the cat proof cover got set back on.

Hopefully, these will take. We do have some seedlings from the rainbow carrot mix growing, but very few. I might try planting more carrots later on, but we’ll see. The chard and spinach planted between the garlic are just not growing, and what seedlings there were seem to be disappearing. It would be nice to have some greens that survive!

That done, I moved on to reclaiming the small, square bed near the compost ring.

The first image is the “before” picture. The boards on the side are from a same size frame that had been around another bed. They’re pretty rotted out, but they should last at least a couple more years. They still had their screws, so I took those out, first.

In the next image, the bed is all weeded, and the soil pulled away from the sides.

My original plan had been to join the corners opposite of how the frame already in place is, but it turned out the pieces weren’t all quite the same length, so I mixed and matched to get them to line up to the existing frame as best I could. Once the corners were screwed together, I had to be careful shifting it around to lay on top of the bottom frame properly. The wood is dry and rotten enough, I could hear it cracking at the corners.

I rummaged around in the scrap lumber pile in the garage for a while, and found some pieces I could cut into eight 8″ lengths, which is the new height of the bed. Four of them were screwed into corners, and four into the middles of the sides. One side didn’t line up at one corner. After screwing the vertical support piece to the bottom board, it left a gap between the support and the top board. More rummaging in the scrap lumber pile and I found something thin enough and cut it to 4″ in length. It was a bit narrower than the gap, but nothing the 3″ screws I was using couldn’t secure.

That done, I cleared a path to the remaining pile of garden soil we bought years ago and uncovered it. I thought I might be getting two wheelbarrow loads but, in the end, only needed one to top up the bed. In the next image, you can see the finished bed, all cleaned up, topped up and leveled.

The next thing was to protect the bed from being used as a litter box!

I had decided to use the rods from my hoop kit to made supports, running to opposite corners and crossing in the middle. This time, I decided to try something different. I found a drill bit that was the same diameter as the rods in this kit and drilled holes in each corner of the frame.

Which was fine for three of the corners, but one corner is a lot more rotten. There was no solid wood near enough to line up with the rods in the other corners, so I had to make do with what was there. Hopefully, it will be enough. The hoops will not be holding anything heavier than netting, and there shouldn’t be a lot of stress on it.

In the end, it took 6 rods to create each hoop. The hoop set into the rotten corner is a bit wonky, but otherwise it’s holding.

For the netting, I decided to dig out some green dollar store netting from last year, instead of the black netting I’ve been using elsewhere – the black netting that snakes can get caught in. The green netting is quite long, and I wasn’t sure it was wide enough to simply drape over the top, so I decided to wrap it around, instead. It was wrapped low enough that the netting could be secured to the ground with ground staples in the middles, outside the frame, while also being clipped at the bottom of the hoops at each corner.

I still had a lot of leftover netting, but I didn’t want to cut it, since it’ll be used elsewhere, some other time. After fussing with the netting to gather the excess toward the top and securing it with clips, I just pulled the excess length up and over the top and back again, before securing it in place with a clip, too. You can see the final mess in the last image of the slide show above. 😄

With this bed, I might transplant the one Arikara winter squash that has germinated in the middle, and then I will likely plant bush beans around the perimeter.

But not today.

That done, I headed inside for supper before coming back out to do the watering.

Which is when the phone started ringing. I hadn’t bothered to tell the family I was outside, so when the phone started ringing, they thought I was in my office and could answer. After four calls and no messages left on the answering machine, my daughter came looking for me. I went in and saw it was my mother, which was a surprise. I’d gotten a call from the nursing home this morning – at her request – to be informed that my mother was not feeling well. They’d already informed my brother yesterday, as he’s the primary contact, and he let me know. I was told she’d had a very rough night and was doing worse today, coughing, having a hard time breathing and talking. I was informed as to what treatment she was getting, and that she’s still in quarantine. She’s not the only one that’s sick, and if enough people in her ward are ill, they have to shut it down to visitors. For now, she can get visitors that need to wear a gown and mask, which rules me out because I can’t wear a mask.

I had asked the nurse that called me to let my mother know that I knew she was having a hard time talking, so I would not be phoning her. So it was very odd that my mother would phone me! She would have gotten the message, but when I mentioned it, she didn’t say anything about getting it. She did say that the nursing home phoned me this morning because she asked them to, but I told her they’d also already contacted my brother, yesterday. I told her about the medical treatment she was getting. She knew about the antibiotics but was saying they weren’t helping – I had to explain to her that it takes at least a few days before she would feel any difference, but she expects immediate response. I told her about the medication to help with her breathing, but she couldn’t remember anything about that one, then told me whatever pills they give her, she takes. I think she’s having a harder time remembering what she’s taking and when.

Of course, she started saying how she was so sick and didn’t think she was going to live much longer. Which she has been saying for the past… five? six? or so years. Thankfully, she is in the nursing home now. She’s coming up on 96 years old, and a simple cold can be dangerous at that age.

That got her to talking about the funeral and what I thought of it, and how she was surprised to see so many people. Then she told me, in a round about way, that she wanted us to make sure that her funeral had lots of friends there. I told her, we would let people know, but didn’t mention that she’s pretty much outlived most of her friends already.

By the end of the call, her voice was getting pretty squeaky, though she sounded a lot better than I expected, and even seemed to be in good spirits. Finally being where she has wanted to be for so long has definitely made a positive difference in her, even when she’s feeling sick.

After the call, I took the time to update my brother, then headed back out to finish watering the garden beds before it got too dark.

There are a few things I want to get done tomorrow, which is Friday, because I’m going to be doing some driving around on Saturday. June is a birthday month, and Sunday is Father’s Day, so we will be combining both on Saturday, to avoid crowds. My older daughter has offered to spring for Pizza Hut, which we haven’t had in at least a year. The nearest one is about an hour’s drive away. I’ll have other errands to do as well, including a dump run, which I did not do while we had my brother’s car and the truck was in the garage. Next week has got medical appointments, my daughter’s blacksmith workshop (she’ll be bringing home a forge when it’s done), and our first stock up shopping trip. So the more I can get done in the garden in between all this, the better!

Hard to believe we’re coming up on the solstice and the first day of summer already. With the cold nights we’ve been having, it feels like it should be April or May, not coming up on the end of June!

The Re-Farmer

Just in time…

June 9, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

My daughter and I headed out for my ultrasound early. I had instructions that included drinking 500ml of water by a certain time, so we first went to the Walmart parking lot, since it was nearby, and and I chugged it. We were early for the appointment, but didn’t wait too long before heading over to the hospital.

They actually got me in a bit early, and the ultrasounds – I got two different types in three different locations – were done quickly.

The tech had asked questions and I gave her some back ground. She was really nice and just sort of kept talking. At one point, I mentioned that I almost had to cancel the appointment because of what happened to our truck. She was glad I hadn’t, because these appointments are hard to get! I ended up telling her the name of the garage the truck was towed to, and that they had a second location in this city. Turns out, she had heard of them. Her son had taken his vehicle there to get a diagnostic. When he decided he would do the work himself, then asked how much he owed, they didn’t charge him for anything. When she takes her own Honda in to the dealership garage, it’s $200, just for a diagnostic. Every time she has to get work done, it seems it’s always at least a thousand dollars. I told her I had zero hesitation in recommending our garage and told her about when I’d gone to the second location after dropping cats off at the vet, so very last minute, and never got charged for all the testing he did to try and find why my battery gauge was doing what it was doing. She was quite happy to hear a first hand recommendation like that.

After I was done at the hospital, my daughter and I filled the gas tank, then headed back to the Walmart area. I went to the same place as last time. Where I saw others on the way out at $1.569/L, this one was $1.529 – and they had their 5¢ off/liter sale again, too, so I got a nice little discount! Even so, I was shocked that it took less than $45 to put in 3/4 of a tank. The car’s tank is so much smaller than our truck!

Once at the Walmart, we had a late lunch, then both did a bit of shopping. We took our time about it, but we didn’t need much and the store is still undergoing renovations, so it wasn’t that long. The one thing I did remember to get, for both my husband and I, were iron supplements and vitamin C. The type of iron I was after turned out to be behind the counter, so I had a nice chat with a lovely pharmacist.

As we were leaving and heading to my brother’s car, we could see dark clouds moving in and were starting to hear thunder. We weren’t sure if the system would reach where we lived, but it was definitely coming close. We loaded up the car and headed out. It started raining as we drove and I had to get my daughter to figure out how to get the wipers going, since I couldn’t look around to figure it out while driving.

It was way more convoluted that it should have been! 😄

For most of the drive, we were heading in the same direction as the storm, but eventually we were driving along side it. We could see the mass of clouds and rain heading towards where we knew the house was.

I had planned to back up to the house to unload, but we were just pulling up to the driveway when we realized it had started to hail. My daughter quickly got out to open the gate, and I drove straight into the garage. We got the car inside just in time!! The car is a lot smaller than our truck, so there was plenty of room to pull forward, and we could close the garage door.

In the video above, the first one was taken as I waited for my daughter to catch up to me from the gate. We hadn’t brought our re-useable bags, so she used the back door and dashed to the house to get some. As we set up to unload the back of the truck, I was able to close the door part way and got the second part of the video. The noise you hear is the hail hitting the metal garage door.

Thankfully, in the time it took for us to fill the bags and gather things up to go to the house, the hail had stopped, if not the rain, so we just got wet while dashing to the house.

Well. Hobbling somewhat quickly.

My older daughter was waiting to open the door for us, too.

Once we were all settled in, I headed out again to feed the yard cats and do a quick status check. It had pretty much stopped raining by then. The transplants done this morning are looking okay, so far.

Back inside, I took the time to update my brother and SIL. I haven’t heard back from the garage yet, which means they didn’t get a chance to install the part today, and I wanted to let my brother know.

Before starting this post, I remembered to text the garage to change a burnt out headlight for me. I have a new bulb waiting in the truck. It would just be a pain – literally – for me to get at that third bolt in the wheel well that would allow the light fixture to be removed. Once the truck is ready, we have to work out how to get their car back to them after I pick up the truck.

In other things, before we headed out this morning, we got messages from my SIL. She had found out when the funeral for our vandal was going to happen and where, through Facebook posts. I had messaged my sister about it, knowing she wouldn’t see the messages until after she got home from work, but never heard from her. My brother already promised my mother that he would get her to the funeral, so it doesn’t matter. If people have a problem with us being there, that’s on them. He may have hated us, but we still loved him.

Anyhow.

We’re currently expecting to keep getting rain off and on – more on than off – until about 2am. Our phones have been going off with tornado warnings, but not so much for where we are. The system is moving directly over us, though, and we are definitely getting some lightning. Tomorrow is supposed to be clear of rain, which is good, because we have an insurance appraiser coming out to look at the buildings on the property. Hopefully, my brother will be able to find a better property insurance policy with a better company. The nights of rain and days without will be good for the garden, that’s for sure.

Getting more done outside today is definitely not going to happen. Hopefully, I’ll get at least some of it done tomorrow. If we do end up getting the truck back tomorrow, I’m hoping it’s early enough to check out a greenhouse in town and see if they have cabbage and winter squash transplants available. I’m really unhappy about the destruction of what we’d planted ourselves. I want to try these varieties again next year, and this time I’ll make sure to start them indoors earlier – and protect them from any mouse looking for lunch! I’m already looking to order new seeds for the varieties I ran out of because I had to do second sowings.

One good thing about the storm, though. We went from 31C/88F to the current 20C/68F, and it feels so blessedly cool! I might even be able to get a decent sleep tonight!

The Re-Farmer

Conflicted, and our Sword of Damocles

June 9, 2026 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Oh, what a day yesterday turned out to be.

I had not planned to go out at all yesterday, for starters. I had my medical appointment in the the smaller city hospital this afternoon, and anything we might have needed could wait until we were done with that. My younger daughter was even going to come along to help out.

While I was doing the watering, I couldn’t resist taking these photos.

The white lilacs are in full bloom, and the honeysuckle in the old kitchen garden are just getting into that phase. They are looking just gorgeous!

Though, if you look at the background behind the white lilacs, you can see some of the clusters of dry Chinese Elm seeds among the leaves. They’ve been falling like snow for days, and won’t be done for a while, yet, even with the high winds we were having.

I did not expect to be later picking some of these to make a bouquet for my mother.

I was just finished up with the watering and gone inside, where my daughters updated me on the water pressure issue. They’d been doing dishes when suddenly the pressure dropped, dramatically. One of them was headed to check the pump and about to send a message to me, asking if I was using the hose, when they got my message asking them to check the pump because I’d lost pressure on the hose!

So we all just stopped using water for a while!

In the middle of all this, the phone rang. Twice. I managed to pick up and saw the display showing it was my mother, just in time to hear her hanging up.

I called her back immediately, and she was all surprised to I did. Yes, she had just tried to call me, she confirmed. I told her, you have to let it ring more than twice for us to reach it! She just laughed with a “you know me…” response.

No, I don’t recall her ever doing this before, so it’s not typical of her.

Then she informed me that our vandal had passed away on Friday. This was Monday. She had just found out from my sister.

For those who have been following this blog for a long time, you have been reading about the issues we’ve had with our vandal. When we first moved out here, things had been fine, but he had been working for years, trying to talk my parents into changing their wills and NOT leaving the property to my oldest brother. This included many verbally abusive messages left on my mother’s answering machine, and showing up at her place to yell at her. The property was originally supposed to go to the youngest of my brothers, who died in a quite horrible accident, more than 10 years ago. Our vandal expected the property to be left to him instead of my oldest brother, since he and my late brother had been so close, and he helped so much. When I told him I was good with it going to my oldest brother, he became furious. He’d spent the last few decades hating on my older brother, who was never able to find out what went wrong, and soon shifted that to me. Over the next while, we had to deal with verbal abuse, stalking, harassment, and the vandalism of our gate. He even went after my daughters. It got to the point where we though he might show up drunk and try to burn the house down, or even come over with one if his guns.

After we got him on trail cam video, vandalizing our gate, I pressed charges. They were stayed, unfortunately. When I caught him trying to do it again, I filed for a restraining order. Then the illegal lockdowns hit, and court dates kept getting cancelled and rescheduled, so it took almost a year before I finally got the restraining order. He retaliated by filing a civil suit against me for money, based on all the stuff he had abandoned on this property (while helping himself to pretty much everything that still functioned and ever returned them – a large part of why my mother asked us to move here and take care of the place). It was because of him that my mother transferred ownership of the property to my oldest brother, so it was taken out of the will completely.

The restraining order was for a year, and he did stay away. When it expired, I didn’t try to renew it. It’s such a pain to go through the court system, and I didn’t want to go through that again if I didn’t have to. For the most part, he did still stay away, though there were still a few incidents, some of which we caught on the trail cams. Then he got his cancer and blamed me and my oldest brother for it. We somehow gave him cancer. There were a few more incidents, from him yelling at me from the road while waving his colostomy bag at me, to showing up at my mother’s to yell at her, and leaving more of his vile letters slipped under her door. He kept using my late father and brother to try and manipulate and guilt her into giving him property that was no longer hers to give, anyhow.

We had been quite close in the past, and it was clear his behaviour was the result of his drinking and an undiagnosed mental illness. My mother kept ragging on us to reconcile with him, but couldn’t accept that we had tried, our doors were still open, but we would not put up with abuse and threats, and that is was on him to take the steps. Basically, in her mind, we should have just put up with his abuse to “keep the peace” and give him whatever he wanted. Except the land. She and my father never wanted the remaining two quarters to go to him.

Which leads me to something I have not said on the blog before, and will only say now, and only this once, since it no longer matters.

I had three other brothers. My middle brother already got his quarter section across the road from our driveway. He was our vandal.

This was a man with a big heart who did help us out quite a few times over the years. He helped a lot of people, many of whom took advantage of that big heart – especially girlfriends. What I later found out was that, when he helped us, it wasn’t out of generosity, but manipulation. He felt that, because he helped us with things years ago (even though we reciprocated whenever we could), that meant we had to let him say and do whatever he wanted to us, and we had to put up with it.

Hence why I feel so conflicted. On the one hand, I grieve losing another brother. On the other, I am thankful that he is finally at peace. There was something very wrong with him, and the people that should have helped him seemed to mostly enable him, instead. Of just didn’t realize he was literally inventing things in his mind that we never said or did, and told everyone about them. He alienated my late brothers children from us, telling them they were banned from the property, even though we’d never done anything of the sort. His inner demons destroyed someone I loved, leaving behind a shell of hatred, bitterness, envy and anger aimed at me and my daughters (he somehow seemed to forget I have a husband).

Obviously, there’s a lot more that happened that I can’t write about on this blog.

After my mother told me about his passing, we spoke for a while and I told her I would pass it on to my oldest brother, as I knew my sister wouldn’t. My mother had told my sister to email me about it, but she never did. She was the only one that still had any contact with our vandal (I will continue referring to him as such again, from now on), and had been visiting him. His wife had called to let my sister know, and probably told her not to tell me and my brother. We already knew our vandal didn’t want us at his funeral.

My mother wants to go to the funeral, of course, which would require transportation for her and her wheelchair. Something my brother is willing to do. We just don’t know when the funeral is. Talking to one of my daughters about it after, we came to the same conclusion. If we do show up, it would be bad – my daughter even thinks his wife might physically attack me. If we don’t show up, it would also be bad.

But we don’t know when the funeral is, and there have been no announcements or obituaries.

I passed the news on to my brother and SIL. Some time later, I got a message from them saying that they were going to visit my mother with flowers and a card to check on her.

Not knowing when I’d next be able to visit my mother, I decided I would meet them there.

My brother had brought my mother some lilacs he picked here, when they visited her on Sunday before going home. I decided to pick some white lilacs to go with the purple ones, then grabbed some honeysuckle, too. I wrapped the cut ends in a damp paper towel and tucked the bundle into a vase. Even without water in the vase, I seat belted the vase in place.

Earlier, my husband and I had talked for a bit about treating the family to burgers, and getting some red meat into everyone, when I came home from my medical appointment. Since I headed into town unexpectedly, I figured I would do that one the way home.

I got to my mother’s before my brother and SIL did. After I got the flowers set up in the vase with water, I sat down and asked how she was feeling.

Oh, you know… and she started describing her aches and pains.

Okay… so how are you feeling?

She went on about her being tired and her other usual complaints.

I finally said, okay, but how are you feeling about the news.

She seemed startled by the question, then started talking about how he was no longer in pain and at peace now, etc.

What I could see was that she really didn’t care, one way or the other. Which can’t be blamed on cognitive decline, because she was much the same way when my father passed away.

At one point, she started telling me how wonderful our vandals wife was because she stuck with him, even when he was sick. Other women would have left him.

Oh, how I was biting my tongue to not say flat out, “you mean like you did with Dad?” When my father needed her most, she moved out – largely because of our vandal – leaving my dad to what I later learned was continued verbal abuse, that my mother won’t even acknowledge happened.

After a while there was a knock at the door and my brother and SIL came in. They had brought her a bouquet, which my SIL started setting up in a vase they had brought, while my brother tried to give her a card. My mother started chastising them for spending money on flowers, unlike me, who brought flowers I picked and didn’t pay for. We managed to cut that off and suggest, “just say thank you…”

Aside from a few odd tangents, the visit actually went rather well. My mother had started to give me a shopping list, which included Voltaren, but I saw the staff had left her a printout of her medications and treatment, and the prescription version of Voltaren was on the list. I told her I’d talk to the nursing station about it, first. The rest was stuff from the grocery store; some fruit (she complained they only gave bananas and mandarins, and she wanted apples and grapes), some Ginger Ale in small bottles, because she found them so handy, and some crackers.

With how light things are for so late, I almost lost track of time. When I realized the grocery store was going to close soon, I grabbed the list and quickly headed out. My mom kept trying to delay me so she could give me cash, but I left my brother and SIL to explain to her I didn’t have time for that.

I managed to get the items and out of the grocery store a little more than 5 minutes before closing.

My mother was quite happy when I got back. I spent the next while washing the grapes and apples ahead of time for her, while my brother helped her look at the receipt and get out cash to pay me back. Which I would have been find if she hadn’t, but it wasn’t worth making a bit deal out of it (the nursing home doesn’t want residents to have cash with them at all, for obvious reasons). Then I made sure one of the packages of crackers was open, so she didn’t have to fight with the plastic sleeve.

Meanwhile, different staff came by several times. Someone came by with the snack cart, another came by with her bed time pills, and one even came by to help my mother get ready for bed, though she said she would come back after we were done visiting.

After I’d brought the stuff for my mother, we realized it was getting quite late – my mother’s window faces west, so we were getting lots of sunshine, making it feel more like the afternoon than evening. So we wound down our visit, then said our goodbyes, with all of us talking about our efforts to find out when the funeral would be and passing it on once we did.

On the way out, I made sure to stop at the nursing station to talk about the Voltaren, since my mother wanted me to buy more for her. It was confirmed, she now is getting the prescription version, two applications a day, so there is no need for me to get the Voltaren.

Then she told us there had been some… incidents, with my mother.

In general, she had been very easy, but as she has settled in, things have started to change. My mother is a big one about everything being quiet around her, but there is one non-verbal resident that makes vocal noises, but can’t speak. My mother kept telling her to shut up, and even grabbed her arms. !!!! There were other incidents, but this was the only one that got physical. She had handled it, and we were very appreciative of how she did it – and for informing us about it. We’ll have to have a talk with my mother. As it is, her behaviour has meant she can’t be included in some activities on another floor for now.

We had a good talk with the nurse before leaving.

After we parted ways, I headed for the DQ to get the burgers my husband had requested. As usual, I parked in one generic spots along the street rather than into their lot, as I find maneuvering in the lot with the truck is not worth the hassle. I got the stuff, loaded the truck and started backing out when I realized I’d forgotten to let the family know I was on the way home with food. So I pulled back into the parking spot and sent out a message.

That done, I backed out into the street again, and that’s when the sword dropped.

I tried to go from reverse to drive, but the shifter just slid smoothly from one side to the other, without any of the “clicks” while passing gears.

I knew exactly what happened.

A year ago, this happened after I’d gone to my mother’s apartment to do her grocery shopping. The truck got towed to a garage in that town, where it was found to be the linkage to the transmission. He had to order a part but, while waiting, he had jerry rigged it with a C clip, and it was working find. When he found the company sent the wrong part, we talked about it and decided to just go with the C clip. He told me he couldn’t say how long it would last. It might last a few years, or never break at all.

Clearly, it broke.

So there I was, in the middle of the street, unable to move the truck.

I popped my hazards on and sent a quick message to my brother, asking if they were still relatively close and saying I needed to get the truck towed. I quickly messaged my family, then called CAA.

Amazingly, I got a human being right away. After talking to the agent for a while, a tow was arranged. They even had the new address for the garage we use in their system already (they officially relocated barely a week before).

I got a message from my brother telling me they were just one town up the road – they’d spontaneously made a stop along the way, so were much closer than they normally would have been, otherwise. I updated the family, and then had to wait.

The truck broke down at really the best possible spot. Yes, I was in the middle of the street, at an angle, but vehicles could get around me, and I wasn’t blocking the driveway into the DQ. I had quite a few people stop, asking me if I needed help. Some even offered to push the truck out of the way, but I told him, it wasn’t going to move. It technically was still in reverse.

After awhile, my brother and SIL arrived and parked nearby. I told them more details about what happened and about the C clip that likely broke. My brother popped the hood but couldn’t see anything. He started the truck and tried to get it into gear, but nothing happened.

We still had people stopping and offering to help, which we greatly appreciated, even though we had to say know.

Then this couple came by. On hearing our brief explanation on why we couldn’t push the truck out of the way, the guy – a young, skinny little guy – said, Oh, I know what’s wrong!

He then got down on the ground and shimmied under the truck – he was small enough to fit! – while my brother stepped on the brake, just in case. He immediately saw that the wires had come loose from the transmission, then crawled back out and said to try it again.

Sure enough, he had temporarily “fixed” it. My brother was able to drive the truck across the intersection and into a parking spot.

He was pretty sure he was able to get it into neutral, but that was it. It would no longer move.

We were extremely thankful to this guy – and I noticed his girlfriend on the side, with a grin, proud grin on her face the whole time. At one point, he was talking to my SIL and mentioned he was a mechanic that worked on big rigs. As to what he found under the truck, he said “this happens all the time.”

!!!!!

So now we were no longer blocking the road and just had to wait for the tow truck.

CAA had sent me a link with a live status map that I kept checking. I knew I would be getting a phone call from the tow truck driver as soon as they were on the way. I didn’t recognize the company name on the page linked to, though. I also noted that, while they had the town right and the address for the DQ I was next to right, the cross streets listed did not exist in this town.

???

It took a while before I realized what I was seeing for the expected arrival of the tow truck, though.

Apparently, a tow truck wasn’t expected to arrive until this afternoon.

Which would have been roughly a 15 hour wait.

Yes, the system said things were busier than usual, but the next afternoon???

My brother recommended I call back, which I did.

This time, it went to the automated system, and the robot voice started asking questions – after telling me I had no open calls on file.

The robot voice even cut me off while I was giving the address, saying they could find no such address, before I finished.

Finally, it said it sounded like I was asking to speak to a live agent. Which I hadn’t, but I took it.

I finally got a real person. A different voice from before.

The first thing I did was confirm that I had an open call, which she told me I did. I brought up that the ETA was for the afternoon the next day, and how was that even possible? (Particularly since I’d made a point of telling them I was blocking a street) She asked me who told me that ETA. I told her, I got it from the link they texted to me. She said she would talk to dispatch and put me on hold.

For quite a while.

Finally, she came back and told me that there were no tow trucks in the area available, and they might have to dispatch one from the city.

Not the smaller, nearer city. The further, larger city. An hour away.

At that point, I told her that first, the truck was moved and no longer blocking the way, though we were still at the same intersection. The next while was a jumble of trying to explain to her where the truck was, and having to spell out the name of the business whose parking lot we were now in. Then I had to explain that I could not stay by the truck for that long (I didn’t say it to her, but my brother and SIL really needed to get home, and it was well past 9pm by then). She told me that, if I weren’t with the truck, they might not be able to take it. I told her, yes they will, and that I would give instructions to the driver when they called me.

The call was winding up when the agent hung up on me.

This particular agent was the worst I’ve ever had to deal with. In fact, I’ve never had a bad call with CAA before, even at times when I was on the side of the highway with zero street information to give them, because I wasn’t even near a cross road. I’ve had some difficult calls, but not like this.

After that, I dug out the envelop my mother had put the cash she gave me into, took the cash out and wrote a note to leave under the windshield wiper, since the truck wasn’t really parked well. It just said “tow truck is on the way” on the front, then on the back I put my first name and phone number. That way, if the tow truck didn’t make it until the next day, the staff at the company could see the note and know it was being take care of, and could call me if necessary.

At this point, I was prepared to cancel my medical appointment today. As my SIL started driving us away (I’d already transferred our food and drinks to their car), she then told me that they were driving to their place, then I would take their car and drive myself home.

!!!!!!!

I don’t know what I could do without them!

As we were driving to their place, I checked my phone and saw that the tow truck drive had tried to call me and text me, but my phone made no noises. I completely forgot that my “do not disturb” setting had kicked in at 9.

I called the tow truck drive back. After explaining things a bit, he told me to text him the details, which I did.

Then I texted our garage to let them know why our truck was there, and what was wrong, knowing no one would see the text, or the truck, until this morning.

Once we got to my brother’s, they made sure I knew how to start this car – it doesn’t use a regular key – even though it’s almost identical to the one they’ve lent us before.

Which is currently in the shop, getting thousands of dollars of work done on it.

They even made sure my phone was linked with BlueTooth, which I would not have bothered to do at all.

It was around 11pm by then and full dark when I finally started home. It was just past midnight when I parked in our garage.

When I got into the house with the food and drinks, I could hear the girls rushing down the stairs to get to me, and I promptly got buried in hugs. They are in total disbelief about the truck breaking down, yet again! And thankful that I didn’t have to cancel my medical appointment!

My husband was unable to stay up and was already in bed, so we tucked his food away. I hadn’t eaten since before noon, and was getting pretty famished, so I ate and went straight to bed.

Of course, I had a hard time sleeping.

Still, I did get some sleep. Enough that I’m not really feeling very tired.

So I got up early and did the usual morning cat feeding, then did some transplanting.

My daughter and I will be heading out for my medical appointment fairly soon. I’m hoping we get home early enough that I can at least finish the weed trimming before the expected thunderstorms hit this evening.

Meanwhile, we wait until we hear from the garage (I’ll probably phone them first) and find out what they can do with Damocles and when.

*sigh*

This is getting so ridiculous. Like we need vehicle troubles on top of everything else!!!

The Re-Farmer

(ps: my apologies for any typos. I don’t have time to go over them again! I hope they aren’t too egregious!)

Our 2026 Garden: transplanting gourds and hollyhock, direct sowing luffa and sunflowers

June 5, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

After waiting for the call from my doctor until well past the clinic closed, I headed outside to finish up.

The bi-color pear gourds transplanted, I wanted to sow the short season luffa next to them. I also wanted to mark where they were and protect any seedlings, but I was out of collars, so I grabbed more 4L water jugs and cut them to make more. The packet has only 9 seeds, so I cut 5 collars to plant them all in.

Along with the luffa seeds, I brought out the two types of sunflower seeds I have.

I wasn’t sure at first which of the sunflowers I would be planting, but I prepared the bed anyhow. First up, I loosened the soil and set in the collars for the luffa, giving each collar a deep watering. Then, while waiting for the water to be absorbed by the soil, I loosened the soil along the front of the bed, from end to end, then gave that a deep watering. By the time that was done, the water in the collars was absorbed enough and I planted the 9 seeds into the 5 collars. If the germination rate is high, I will probably thin by transplanting.

All the luffa and gourds fit into 1/3 of the bed (the posts for the chain link fence makes it easy to view distances). That leaves another 2/3s of the bed where I could plant climbing things. Potentially, melons, winter squash or cucumbers, depending on how things to with the second sowing in the tray. Currently there are a total of 5 melon seedlings and 2 winter squash, but zero cucumber. The cucumber can still be direct sowed, though, if necessary. Or I could plant one of the two new varieties of peas I have available to try. Or I could plant more pole beans.

After planting the luffa and giving them another watering, I hosed down the area I’d loosened along the front of the bed from end to end.

The sunflower seed packets both have about 50 seeds in them. After thinking about it, I decided to plant the Mammoth sunflower in half the bed, on the side with nothing else in it now. I figure if we plant climbing winter squash in there, the giant stems of the Mammoth sunflower could actually hold the weight. In the other half, I planted the Black Russian. The description says the stems of those are so strong, they can be dried and used as firewood! So those would be strong enough to support the luffa and bi-color pear gourds, too.

The recommended spacing for both was 12 inches, but I didn’t plant multiple seeds per spot, so I planted them more like 10 inches apart. I was eye balling it, so it’s not exact. Once those were planted, I watered them more to settle the soil around the seeds, and then I brought the netting down and secured it.

Next, I worked on the space for the black hollyhocks.

In the first picture, I’ve yanked out the tall crab grass and flowers. The flowers in this bed are ones my mother planted many, many years ago, and they are perennials. They also grow very tall. Right now, they are still a bit shorter than the crab grass.

The stones are over a cat grave. When I found a dead cat in one of the old dog houses, I buried it there, but could not dig a deep enough hole, due to rocks and roots. To prevent it from being dug up, I put a board over the grave, then weighed it down with rocks. That was several years ago, and we could removed the rocks and board by now, but I haven’t bothered.

After pulling up the greenery, I went over the area with a hand cultivator, digging up as many roots and rhizomes as I could get. Then I opened up the roll of hollyhocks to get an idea of how many transplants there were, before using a trowel to loosen the soil deeper in for the transplants. I started by planting the largest ones, closer to the rocks, and was just getting ready to plant the rest of them slightly in front when I heard my daughter.

The doctor had called. It was almost 7pm!!

So I dropped everything, hosed the dirt off my hands and went in.

My poor doctor. It was two hours past when the clinic closed, and when I mentioned I thought the call wasn’t going to happen because of that, she told me she still had two more calls to make before she could go home!

I got a quick run down on my lab results. Nothing showed up in the pap smear (the pelvic ultrasound is next week), everything was looking good except for one thing.

My iron. It’s low.

She wants me to start taking iron supplements.

My husband had the same recommendation, just a couple of days ago. We’re all low on iron.

I am pretty sure I know why, too. It’s been ages since we’ve been able to buy enough red meat for it to be anything but an occasional treat when I can get it at a really good sale price. We’ve mostly been eating pork and chicken. Any iron from vegetables isn’t really helpful, since it’s far less bioavailable.

It didn’t even occur to me to ask what type of iron she wanted me to take. I’ll talk to the pharmacist about it, the next time I’m there.

We went through my Xrays as well. Nothing showed up in my right shoulder. As for my knee, the OA has gotten quite a bit worse since the last time it was Xrayed. Likely due to that fall I had, before Christmas last year. I mentioned to her about going to the sports injury clinic, but they didn’t have the Xrays available to see yet, so I just got the injections, in both hips this time. I mentioned having the walker now, and the doctor at the sports injury clinic gave me a prescription for it, so I could claim it on our insurance.

Which is when she brought up about me getting new knees.

???

This was something that came up, quite awhile ago, but now that I’m using a walker, and with the Xrays showing how much worse my knee got, it turns out I could get a new set of knees, if I wanted to.

!!!

They’ve actually gotten a lot better lately – I haven’t even been using the topical painkiller at all, lately. So I said no, for now. I didn’t bring it up, but if there are any joints that I would want to have replaced, it would likely be my hips, first.

With that call done, I headed back outside and finished transplanting the lost of the hollyhocks, then gave them a deep watering. I’ll have to keep a closer eye on these, as the crab grass and those flowers will want to take over again a lot faster here, I think. Eventually, though, if they take, the hollyhock should get big and bushy enough that they’ll keep those from coming back as quickly.

At this point, anything that needed to be planted is planted. Next, I need to prepare the area where I’ll be planting the short season corn.

I might start that tomorrow morning. Early. It’s going to be a scorcher, so I want to get out there as early as possible. Then we need to do a dump run and, once the grass is dry enough, I want to get the push mower and weed trimmer out, and possibly the riding mower again, to get the areas I wasn’t able to do before the rains and storms came.

Meanwhile, my brother and his wife will be out for the weekend again, working on their caravan and whatever else they have on their list.

I’ll probably be in bed before they get here!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: transplanting and direct sowing – we’re almost there!

June 4, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

First, I just have to share an update, so you can laugh at me.

I’m certainly laughing at me. I am so silly.

I mentioned yesterday that I got a parking ticket, while waiting for my daughters at the hospital clinic. I’d been diligent about buying more time on the machine, as things dragged on WAY longer than we expected them to. I had some confusion between two receipts with times close to each other, but figured I was so tired, I somehow paid again, even though a session hadn’t expired yet. When I got the parking ticket and checked the times on my receipts, it showed I had paid and it had not expired at the time the ticket was written out.

This morning, when the parking company opened at Pacific Standard Time, I got onto a chat with an agent, which was the only way to contest a ticket. It wasn’t in their system yet, and they clearly were not in our province. The agent asked for some details on the ticket, and I gave the reference number on the receipt. In the end, I was given local contact information and a reference number to use for that.

One of the methods of contact was an email address. So I took a picture of the parking ticket and the receipt, next to each other, and emailed it in. I didn’t say much other than basically, “I got this ticket, here’s the receipt showing I was paid and time wasn’t expired yet”. I didn’t ask for anything. Just gave the information.

I got a response while I was working in the garden.

The first thing pointed out in the response…

The ticket and the receipt had two different dates on it.

I tucked the receipts into a pocket in my phone case, forgetting that I had a receipt from the last time I parked there, when we picked my daughter up from her hospital stay. The old receipt got mixed up with the new ones, and I never noticed.

The agent that responded had looked up my license plate and listed all the times I had paid for more parking, adding that it was obvious I had made the effort to keep paying for the parking.

My ticket was cancelled. Just this once, I was told.

Having made a very silly mistake, I would have been more than willing to pay the ticket once I realized it! How absolutely embarrassing. I was so focused on the time stamp for the expiration, I completely missed the equally large date right underneath.

I made sure to write back to own up to my mistake and thank them for cancelling the ticket. That was very kind of them!

Because of the time zone differences while waiting to be able to chat with an agent, I didn’t get out to the garden until quite late in the morning. Thankfully, today was not expected to get as hot, nor were we expecting more rain or storms. We’re not expecting more rain for almost a week, but in a couple of days, the heat is going to be back.

The first thing I wanted to do was get the last of the tomatoes into the ground. The one bed I’ve been working on is going to have quite a variety if things in it!!

These are the Chocolate Stripe tomatoes, and there were only 7 surviving transplants. I planted them in a block, protected by collars, like with the peppers and eggplant. These got support stake added instead of wire cages, which you can see in the second photo of the slide show above. After the picture was taken, I put a straw mulch around all the protective collars.

Then I got a seed snail of onions, choosing the roll with the smallest number of onions in it.

These turned out to be from our own saved seed. I moved aside the straw mulch on either side of the celery block and there was just enough to fit them in. After tucking the straw back, closer to the onions, they are barely visible! You can just see them in the second photo of the above slide show.

At this point, I had just a few feet at the north end of the bed to fill. I wasn’t sure how much I could fit in there, so I grabbed the snail rolls for more onions – Red Long of Tropea – the White Vienne kohlrabi I started indoors, the caraway and the French marigolds.

I took a picture of all the rolls together. Honestly, I did try to! Apparently, the touchscreen on my phone didn’t register my touch, because there’s no photo of them in my phone. This is not the first time this had happened!

I really don’t like touch screens. They don’t like to read my fingers.

In the first picture above, you can just see the snail rolls in the bin at the top corner.

I spaced out some lines to plant in, using a garden stake, then used the jet setting on the hose in each on to smooth is out and make sure the seedlings had plenty of water below them. In spite of all the rain we’ve had, and the soil being moist on top, it’s remarkably dry after the first couple of inches.

There were barely any surviving kohlrabi seedings, and they were pretty small. I ended up with six that I planted in two short rows closer to the tomatoes, alternating them with onions. Then I planted the caraway – those seedlings were very fine and delicate! – in between onions, managing to split them into nine rows of three caraway each. The last row got just the French double marigold. There were only 5 surviving seedlings in that row.

There were still onions left in the roll to transplant elsewhere.

In the second picture, you can basically see the onions, and not much else! I couldn’t put the straw mulch in between them, but I made sure to add it on the sides and end of the bed, where all the crab grass and creeping Charlie try to invade. Not to mention all the dandelions.

That bed is now done. Hopefully, things will survive! This bed now has two types of onions, celery, two types of peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, kohlrabi, caraway and marigolds in it.

Next, I wanted to sow the pole beans, which were to go in the bed with the white egg turnip and daikon radish.

I got the weed trimmer out and cleared the dandelions going to seed in the paths before I started!

In the first picture, I’ve unfastened the netting along the sides and pushed it up to the top of the hoops. After that, I removed the remaining leaf mulch between the rows – I filled the wheel barrow twice – then did the weeding and loosening of soil.

Which is when I discovered we had only one daikon radish.

The netting keeps the cats out, but not the bugs. I know there were quite a few seedlings popping up when I removed the greenhouse poly and put the netting on, and they’re all gone. Something ate them! The turnips show signs of insect damage, but there are still quite a few left.

In the second picture, the bed has been weeding and the soil loosened, including where the daikon radish had been planted. That dark line running the length of the bed is the shadow of the netting on the hoops.

While I was working on that, I set the red noodle beans to soak, which you can see in the next picture, and got my packet of daikon radish seeds to resow. This is the one thing my younger daughter requested, so I wanted to try again. They are only 55 days to maturity, so replanting should be fine.

I prepped rows with the plant stake and the hose again, as in the other bed. For the pole beans, though, I had a bit of a problem. This is a low raised bed, which means reaching into the middle, even though it’s just a couple of feet, is harder with my short little arms, and quite painful on the back.

So I cheated.

In the next picture, you can see the bean planting in progress. I have a length of Pex pipe that never got used as a hoop support, so it is still straight. I set the end where I wanted the seed to go and dropped a bean in from the top. Since they were wet from being soaked, they sometimes stuck to the inside of the pipe, but that was easily fixed with a short puff of air.

Once the bean seeds were in place, I used the plant stake I’d made the rows with to push the beans into the soil to the right depth, buried them slightly, then used the hose again, this time on the shower setting, to settle the soil over the beans.

I still had Red Long of Tropea onions left. Just enough to transplant all along the side with the white egg turnips. I have one roll of red beard bunching onions to transplant, and that should fit along the other side, but not today. It was coming up on 3pm by the this time, we were into the hottest part of the day, and I forgot to have lunch. So I put the netting back – the ground staples hold a lot better with the leaf mulch moved out! – and will transplant the last onions in there tomorrow.

What I have left for transplants are the holly hock, bunching onions, chicory, and bi-colour pear gourds. Plus there are seedlings popping up in the winter squash and melon tray I had to replant, though not very many yet.

I still haven’t decided on where to plant the holly hock. Those can get very large.

I’ve decided I will transplant the bi-colour pear gourds into the bed I just finished redoing at the chain link fence, along with direct sowing the short season luffa. I had thought to put winter squash in that bed, too, but I don’t know that we’ll have many of those. So I will plant my sunflowers in there. The netting over that bed is keeping some of the elm seeds out, but some are still getting through, so I will have to find something else to add to it before the elm seeds dry up and really start dropping. The potatoes are coming up, so I’ll soon be able to remove their protective cover of mosquito netting, which is big enough to cover the chain link fence bed. It was used there before but, in high winds, it acted like a sail and kept getting pulled loose from the ground staples. I don’t think the clips that came with the hoops I’m using to hold the current netting would be strong enough to hold the mosquito netting when high winds hit. Like the ground staples we’d tried to use before, the clips would just go flying! More thought is needed.

The chicory will go into the old kitchen garden, where there is still room in the wattle weave bed.

I have a bed in the main garden area that I planned to put winter squash and/or melons. I also expected to be able to interplant winter squash with the short season corn I plan to direct sow, after I move the black landscape cloth or whatever it is, and loosen the soil for planting them there.

I had meant to transplant the cucumbers in an available space in the trellis bed, but there is no sign of the second sowing starting to germinate. I might direct sow one variety of cucumbers in the chain link fence bed. There should be room after the gourds and luffa are planted. The other variety can be direct sown in the trellis bed, as originally planned.

That mouse that ate all the seeds and seedlings in that tray really set things back!

There is still much to be done, but at least the more time dependent things got done. I’m even already seeing little bush bean sprouts starting to elbow their way out of the soil in the high raised bed. I need to add trellis netting to the trellis bed supports pretty soon, too – the peas in that bed are growing fast! I think I’m even seeing carrot sprouts, though it’s really hard to say for sure.

So that is progress for today.

I am battling with myself.

I keep feeling like I should get back out there and do more – if not in the garden, then with the weed trimmer or push mower, or move things so I can use the riding mower… the list goes on – while the temperatures are decent. I’m also trying to heed the warning signs my body is giving me, to avoid overdoing it. My pain levels have been pretty low for the past while, and I’d like to keep it that way! Mostly, though, I’m battling fatigue. There’s been just too much going on, too much stress, both positive and negative, too often and too close together. In the past, with similar stress levels, I would push myself anyhow until one time I reached the point of literally collapsing from exhaustion. That was long ago and I was also sick with a cold at the same time but, with the old bod giving out on me more and more, I just can’t do that to myself anymore. I wasn’t even up to going into town in the afternoon, like I’d hoped to do.

So the work will continue tomorrow, as will the trip into town and to get the mail. I just have to time it so that I’m home for my telephone doctor’s appointment, to go over my lab results.

Dangit. I keep forgetting to call the sports injury clinic. They would have had my Xrays available weeks ago, by now, and I’d really like to see if there’s anything they can do about the joint damage in my right shoulder, elbow and knee.

Ah, well. Lately they’ve been improving. It’s my left shoulder that’s still giving me grief, and that one didn’t get Xrayed.

Being broken sucks.

Have I mentioned how much I love my walker?

The Re-Farmer

That was a lot longer than expected!

June 3, 2026 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

This morning, my daughters and I headed into the city.

I am so glad we left more than 2 hours before the appontment!

Knowing there was construction on the highway I normally would have taken, we took a different route which, unlike my usual route, has an actual town along the way. We stopped at a gas station for some drinks and snacks for the road, since none of us had breakfast before leaving. My older daughter was planning to take us for lunch after her appointment.

There turned out to be construction on this highway, too, though not as much. Still, between that and other delays, we got to the hospital shortly before her appointment time.

Knowing this was just a follow up visit, we weren’t expecting things to take long. After dropping the girls off, I parked in one of the half hour parking spots near the doors. The girls went to the clinic the appointment was at while I paid for parking at the machine near the entrance, then stayed nearby, in case it took longer and I needed to pay for more time.

Which I did.

Then did again.

Then did again…

It ended up being about 2 hours before she was done. First was paperwork. Then waiting. Then a nurse came to get her ready, thinking she was there for something else, not just conversation about test results and discussing options. Then waiting. Then a nurse saw her. Then more waiting. Finally, the doctor made it in. She had simply been pulled away by emergencies in other parts of the hospital complex and couldn’t get there any earlier.

Once they were out, we got into the truck and my first stop on the way out was going to be getting gas (which my daughter paid for).

That’s when we saw the envelope under the windshield wiper.

As soon as I could, I found a place to pull over, and my older daughter quickly popped out to grab it before it blow away. My younger daughter took it while her sister buckled in, then ooked inside for me.

Sure enough, I got a ticket.

I asked the time on the ticket, and I was most definitely paid for during that time. I kept all the stubs. It may not matter, though, as they want people to actually leave after half an hour. If I’d had any idea of how long it would take, I would have, but we kept thinking, just a bit longer… just a bit longer…

So I’ll see if I can submit my payment slip and contest it. Otherwise, my daughter said she would pay for it.

We’ll be back in 3 months to follow up. Next time, I’ll just drop her off and leave the area. It’s almost impossible to find parking in the streets around the hospital, never mind just navigating the crumbling streets and one-way maze. I’ve already been warned not to bother trying any of the parkades with the truck, as I would have difficulty maneuvering around without hitting something.

As we were heading away from the hospital, we stopped at a gas station along our route and my daughter filled the tank for me. It was 1pm by then and none of us had eaten anything other than some beef jerky along the road (which my other daughter paid for, when the cashier pointed out the rather shocking price for this new, small company brand. It’s better than the big brands, though).

The gas station we stopped at happened to be very close to the international grocery store, so that’s where we went for lunch. With all the options, all three of us ended up getting steamed dim sum combo dumplings and canned bubble teas. It’s been a long time! Especially for my older daughter, as it’s been years since she’s been able to come into the city with me for our stock up shopping.

After a very enjoyable breakfast/lunch, we grabbed a cart and the girls did their shopping. It was mostly for the household in general, but they got things they like that I don’t normally know to pick up. I have no idea what the final bill was, as I left them to ring things through at the self-checkout.

By the time we were done, we were all pretty tired and glad to just head straight home. This time, I took our usual route out, even with construction, since we weren’t on any time line anymore.

I’m happy to say, the truck behaved. I still stress out over every wiggle of a gauge and every weird rattle or thump from the road. This is the third vehicle we’ve had that has had so many very strange or rare things go wrong with it.

We got gas in the city at $1.569 As we passed town and turned towards our little hamlet, we could see a station at $1.699 There isn’t usually that much of a difference between the city and town! They are usually the same.

Once at home, we brought the stuff in and the girls took take of putting everything away while I fed the outside cats and checked on the transplants in the portable greenhouse frame. Our set up to protect them seems to have worked, and there was no damage from the rain. I checked the garden beds, too. It does look like we lost a couple of Orange Current tomatoes, but they were smaller and looked to have been damaged by heat and sun, not the storm. Their collars would protect them from any severe winds.

We got home much later than expected, but still early enough. As I type this, I can hear another storm coming in. It may pass us by, but we will at least be getting more rain. We’re supposed to get hit by the system for a couple of hours followed by a couple of hours break before more rain hits. Once that’s done, that should be it. We are no longer getting thunderstorm warnings throughout the night.

Oh, that thunder is definitely coming closer. Might be a good idea to shut down the computer!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: one more bed prepped, and got a visit in

May 26, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

The temperatures continued to climb today.

I started things off a bit early, and it was still lovely and cool. My priority, after I did my morning rounds, was to water the garden beds before the heat hit.

I’m happy to say that I am seeing new sprouts in the rows of spinach, chard, turnips and radish in the main garden area. I checked under the boards in the trellis bed and saw what might be carrot sprouts, so I removed the boards. It’s hard to say for sure, as a lot of weeds were trying to come up under there, too.

I’m pretty sure I saw new sprouts in the cabbage and kohlrabi beds, too. I’m pretty sure I’m seeing tiny bok choy and beet seedlings through the mosquito netting, thought it’s hard to be sure. I didn’t see any this morning, but this evening, I’m sure I could see the first dwarf pea sprouts!

After I finished outside, I came in and had breakfast, then tried to go down for a nap before I planned to visit my mother, then pick up anything we needed before doing our first stock up shop, tomorrow.

It was a failure.

For some reason, both Butterscotch and Cheddar have decided that, when I lie down, they absolutely MUST cuddle my head. Aggressively. Then curling up right at my head to nap themselves.

That doesn’t count the other cats that like to settle on my hip, against my back or on either side of my legs.

*sigh*

Next time, I’ll try napping on the couch. The living room is a cat free zone.

I eventually gave up and got ready to head into town. Before I did, I noted activity notification on my bank app and checked.

My husband’s tax return, which is supposed to include my first Disability Tax Credit, came in.

It was short by about $2500.

Unfortunately, my husband still can’t log into his CRA account to see why. I’m going to have to wait until our tax prepared is back from holidays at the end of the month and phone her, because she can log in and see his account – and maybe find out why he can’t log in, himself. anymore!

My younger daughter never got her disability tax credit, either. She did her taxes herself.

Frustrating.

Anyhow.

I headed into town and realized my mother would be just starting her lunch, so I decided to go to the grocery store, first. I actually picked up some ground beef that was on sale. I haven’t seen ground beef for under $6 a pound for a long time, even with sales.

My visit with my mother was pretty good. As I was headed to her room, I spotted her in the dining room and popped in. We then went to her room for the visit.

She is so enjoying having a room – and a bathroom – to herself! She says being in the nursing home, compared to the TCU, is like night and day.

Of course, she still had things to complain about. With her medications, as usual. Apparently someone tried to give her her breakfast meds and supper meds at the same time? Then the count for her morning meds was off. She said she asked who was in charge of the medications and was told it was the pharmacy in town. I suspect the person didn’t understand what my mother was asking, but she now believes the pharmacy decides what medications she gets, at their whim. She then started going on about how the staff all think she is stupid, and everyone living there is stupid, and that’s why they are deliberately messing with their medications.

*sigh*

She had asked my brother for a radio and he’d given me one to pass on to her. I plugged it in and tried to find the station she told me the number of. There was nothing on either AM or FM (she didn’t know which is was; she doesn’t understand anything about AM or FM). Since I couldn’t pick up her station (though I could pick up others), she decided it was a bad radio and started asking me if an old radio that belonged to my husband when we were in high school – a ghetto blaster, which tells you just how old it is! – was still around. It is, but I told her, it still won’t pick up that station. I tried to explain again about things interfering with frequencies, but she decided it meant that the radio stations were the problem, for having “weak” signals.

Then I tried to show her the sliding switch that goes from off to FM then AM. She demanded “just show me what button to push”. I told her, it’s not a button. It’s a switch that slides, and showed her again; Off – FM – AM.

She got angry that my brother would give her a high tech radio that she can’t understand.

*sigh*

It was a shorter visit, since there really wasn’t much we had to talk about. Now that she is in town, I can visit her more often, anyhow. Before I left, I spent some time at the nursing station. I explained what my mother told me about the medications, and that someone tried to give her her breakfast meds and supper meds at the same time. She was startled to hear that and said she would look into it. She got out the medication binder and looked up my mother’s file, going over everything, which is basically the same that it was while she was at the TCU. She said they tried looking at my mother’s list to compare (the hand written one she makes after she counts her pills, with little diagrams), but it was in Polish, so they were trying to translate it. My mother had been promised a list of her medications and they were going to try to get it translated into Polish for her, too. I told her, my mother knows pre-WWII Polish; she would not be familiar with modern medical terms in today’s Polish!

As we were chatting, the nurse told me how so many of the staff were startled when my mother was transferred over. Many of them had cared for Baba – “grandmother” – which is what they called my aunt. My mother looks SO much like her sister did. My aunt passed away a few years ago, so for the staff to suddenly start seeing their Baba again was a bit of a shock until they found out they were sisters.

This nurse had just started working there when my father came to live there. I’ve had it confirmed that he was there for only 5 months before he passed away; I thought it was 6 months. She remembered my father, and I told her about how, when I phoned him every Sunday, he would go on and on about how great they were treating him, how well taken care of he was, and how much he liked the staff. She was so touched to hear that!

So far, my mother has been very nice to them. I hope that lasts! She has been saving the nasty comments about the staff for when we are there. 😕

It was a good chat with the nurse, and I expect we will have many more opportunities to talk now that my mother is there!

That done, I headed home, then stayed indoors to stay out of the heat. Unfortunately, it just kept getting hotter. I finally headed out at around 6:30, which is about when we hit 27C/81F.

The predicted high was 25C/77F.

We’re supposed to keep getting hotter, with the hottest day in the forecast being Friday, which they are now saying is supposed to hit 34C/93F.

The yard cats are laying in puddles all over the yard, in whatever shade they can find.

Bobert was looking adorable in the cat bed I tucked under the isolation shelter’s door box, to keep the weather out in the winter.

With the heat, I made sure to do the watering again. This time, I did watering in the food forest area.

I’m happy to say that it looks like the apple tree survived, in spite of the damage to the stem. A single branch with new leaf buds has shown up. The plum tree also has leaf buds showing up finally, but only in branches coming up just above the graft at the base. None of last year’s growth is showing buds. Neither are the mulberry trees. They survived their first winter, but it looks like they didn’t survive their second. The poor little highbush cranberry have free leaves showing, but they are still remarkably tiny, including the one that the deer did NOT nibble one. The silver buffalo berry bushes, which I don’t bother watering because there are too many, had been covered with what I thought were leave buds. It turns out they were not leaf buds, but flower buds! The leaf buds are showing up now. The sea buckthorn also have leaf buds unfurling.

After the watering was done, I started working on the larger of the two East yard beds that had not been prepped in the fall.

I first removed the two lengths of twine that went around the sides. Those were there to keep anything wrapped around the box frame from flapping in the wind too much, but they were in the way for working in the bed. I considered taking the box frame off entirely, but decided it wasn’t necessary and worked around it.

In the second picture, you can see the cleaned up bed. Unfortunately, while I was leveling the cleared soil with the hoe, I caught the line running across that helped keep the sides from bowing outwards at the joins. The wood is rotting and the screw eye got pulled right out!

Honestly, I’m surprised these beds have lasted as long as they have. I used lumber I found in the barn that had been sitting there for probably at least a decade before I found them. They were not in particularly good shape, but they were the best I could find for the job. I expected them to last about 3 years, maybe, and they’ve lasted twice that by now.

Weeding the bed didn’t really take that much, except that I found a remarkable amount of tree roots! Given where this bed is located, they would not be from the elm tree, but from the nearby cherry bushes.

I look forward to when we can make these into high raised beds. These beds are about a foot high, but it was still really painful to be bending to work in it.

Once the bed was clear, I took some plastic that was rolled up and set aside from previous uses in these beds and covered the soil to protect it from cats, until we can plant in it. I’m looking to transplant tomatoes into this bed. We have four varieties to transplant, and couple probably fit three varieties in this bed. We don’t have a lot of each variety.

The pieces of wood frame on the left of the first photo are on the 4′ square bed that also needs to be done. By the time I finished the longer bed, I was too hot and in too much pain to do that one. Aside from weeding it – and that one has been infected by creeping Charlie – I will be adding the additional wood frame pieces to make it a bit higher, and can then add more soil into it. I’m planning to put the eggplant in here. It’s a small enough bed that I can add plastic walls around it, to protect them from high winds and create a semi-greenhouse around them.

I don’t know how much I’ll be able to get done over the next few days. I’ll be doing our city stock up trips and a vet trip in between. Shopping always drains me, so it will depend on how much energy I have left – and what my pain levels are at. At the very least, I plan to water everything in the morning, and again in the evening, because of the heat.

Once the city trips are done, I expect to be able to start the direct sowing, and then hopefully start transplanting soon after. Somewhere in there, I’ll be uncovering and reclaiming the area to plant our corn in.

A lot to do in a very short time!

The Re-Farmer

Today was a mixed bag…

May 22, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

There was good stuff and sad stuff.

It was a very early day for me, mostly because once I woke up at around 4am, I wasn’t able to fall back asleep. I finally have up well before my 5:30 alarm.

We expected to need a lot of time to get Furriosa and Bug – we knew we wouldn’t be able to get Marta – into carriers, so my daughter and I were out shortly after 6. Since she has had better luck making contact with them, I held the carrier while she tried to get them.

Bug turned out to be really easy to get. First try, even!

Furriosa took a bit longer, but my daughter was finally able to grab her by the scruff of her neck and quickly sneak her into the carrier.

It was done so quickly, I had plenty of time before I planned to leave for the vet! I still brought the truck over and opened the gate, while my daughter did the outside cat feeding, then we made sure the carriers were secure in the sun room before going inside for a while.

I headed out shortly after 7, shooting for an 8am drop off, though I’d been told 9am. The clinic opens at 8 and it takes a while to process, so I prefer to be early. Once the carriers were in the truck and no longer being moved around, Bug and Furriosa settled right in. I had Furriosa on the passanger seat, with the door facing me, and she watched me for the entire drive!

I wasn’t the only one to get there just before the clinic opened. We didn’t have long to wait.

When it was my turn to get them checked in, the receptionist was able to find both Bug and Furriosa still in their system from when we tried to get them spayed before. I mentioned that they might be pregnant so, even if though they were still small, they really needed to get done. Neither would survive a pregnancy. Being yard cats, we also went on the assumption they have ear mites and worms. She double checked what the rescue would cover and it was basically just ear mites, but they planned to use ivermectin, which can also have a deworming effect.

I made sure to tell them that I had a long drive and would be hanging around town until they called me, and she said they would try to get them done as quickly as possible.

I then spent the next while going to the Dollarama and the Walmart, picking up a few things, then trying to nap in the truck.

That didn’t work.

I had updated the people in the rescue chat group earlier, and they had some questions. Then I started getting messages from my brother and SIL. My brother was able to get the day off, so they could go to my mother at the TCU and help things ready for her transfer to the nursing home. For some reason, the staff thought I was given the list of my mother’s medications, which they hadn’t. As my mother’s PoA, my brother had paperwork to sign and take care of on her behalf. Then they waited until the Handi Van came to pick her up.

After I while, I gave up trying to nap and went across to the Canadian Tire. I needed another quick connect hose repair kit, but I couldn’t remember if I needed the male or female connector. Not that the packages say that any more. They have “tap end” and “accessory end” or some such. I also got a new multi function spray nozzle. I had one I really liked that I used last year, but when I set it up this year, I found it was leaking in between sections of the handle.

In this one, the handle is all one metal piece.

The greenhouse portion of their garden centre was open, so I looked around. There were a few things that interested me, including some berry bushes, but today was not a day to pick them up. I still need to mark out and prepare for the basket willow that are in the process of being shipped. There is also a Manchurian Walnut, which will be planted in a completely different location from the willow. I have a tracking number, as a shipping label has been created, but the won’t actually be in the mail until Monday. I need to prepare for those before I start thinking of getting more trees or bushes!

By the time I was done at Canadian Tire, it was past lunch time, and I ended up going back to Walmart, just to walk around and look at things indoors, out of the heat. Past 1pm, I finally decided to just go to the clinic and see.

When I got there, I asked to find out what the status was and she got the names to look them up. She told me, they were just about to call me, and that the vet wanted to discuss the care routine, first.

That part is typical. What wasn’t typical is when a tech came back and told me to go to one of the examination rooms and the vet would come and talk to me.

Usually, they just give us the print out and, if there is anything extra, talk to me in the waiting area near the reception desk.

I’ve been in this room before. This is where we spent our last moments with our elderly Freya. This room has its own private exit, so people don’t have to go through the waiting room to leave. This is also where the vet talked to us about Bug, Furriosa and Domino when we brought them in for spay, and we were told they were too small. So it was obvious, there was something going on.

When the vet came, she told me that things went well with Bug.

Then she told me she made the decision to euthanize Furriosa.

It turns out she was in very bad condition. Being so fluffy, we couldn’t see that she was basically skin and bones. She had gained no weight since we tried to spay her before. She said Furriosa’s teeth were badly broken (!!!???!!!) and she had skin issues. All things we couldn’t see because we couldn’t handle her. The vet knew that they were colony cats, so she understood we couldn’t have known. She suspected there might have been liver problems. She said, we could have gone through much testing and diagnosis and what would likely be extensive treatment, but she felt that Furriosa’s condition was just too poor to put her through that.

*sigh*

She did ask if anyone had explained about the possibility of euthanasia, and I said yes. It wasn’t done this time, but we’ve brought in so many cats by now, we are well aware of the risks.

As for Bug, the vet she had diarrhea and needed to be cleaned up before they could do the spay. She’s very small for her age and, while she was treated for ear mites, she decided to send home a deworming pill (half pill, actually) into her, tomorrow. We’ll put it with some wet cat food or a squeeze treat and get her to eat it that way.

After the vet filled me in, I was sent back to reception to wait while someone brought Bug and the carrier Furriosa had come in. I hadn’t brought a donation towards this, as was done last time but, when I found out how much the pill cost, I was at least able to cover that. Aside from arrangements with rescues, this clinic also accepts donations specific to spays and neuters – the two receptionists talked about transferring from the donation account to cover today’s spay. They also had a container of what I at first through were lapel pins that were going for a recommended $1 donation each. The backs were odd, so I had to ask what they were.

They were decorations for Crocs.

My daughters both have knock-off Crocs.

I had some toonies, so I got four of them. Every little bit will help someone else in our position to get spays and neuters done.

We are booked to come back next week with Misha and Marta – if we can get them into carriers!!

While that was happening, Bug and the empty carrier were brought out and I got my printouts with care instructions. Once in the truck, I quickly updated the rescue group and the family, then got caught up on messages about my mother’s transfer – she had arrived by then – before heading home.

Bug started at me through the carrier door, completely silent, for the trip.

I pulled up to the house and my daughter came out to help me get Bug into the isolation shelter. Which went very quickly. Once the carrier door was open, she ran right into the shelter, then went straight for the food bowl! There was still some softened kibble from the morning cat soup she could safely eat.

Then we unloaded the truck and my daughter parked it while I put things away, then got on my computer to properly update everyone and catch up on message.

I really dislike using a touch screen for messaging.

I hadn’t eaten lunch and it was well past three by then, so my daughter was a sweetheart and took care of feeding the outside cats while I made myself some food. She said she got to give Bug all sorts of scrubs!

We’re all saddened about Furriosa, but in the end, it’s better that it worked out this way. Otherwise, she would have just stayed sick outside until she disappeared, and we wouldn’t have known what was going on.

This picture was of her watching me in the truck, just before I started driving to the vet.

Poor little thing.

After I finished eating and getting more updates about my mother – and a glowing report on how much better the nursing home is, compared to the TCU, from my SIL – I headed outside. We had a hot day and I wanted to get some watering done, as well as take care of things with what I picked up. We might still get rain tonight, but even with all the rain we already had, the beds were baking.

Before I started the watering, I got out the box of larger safety pins I’d picked up and secured the mosquito netting better to the wire of the raised bed cover.

This is why I wanted to make sure it was very secure.

That cats so lover to use that mosquito netting as a hammock!

That done, I went to the hose that was missing its end (I got the wrong connector for it last year, but didn’t realize it until after I’d cut off the damage end). I set that hose up in the rain barrel bout by the plum, gooseberry, apple and haskap row, and added one more length of hose to the back tap. Now the main part of the hose is long enough to reach up to the rain barrel hose for a quick connect. I watered the main garden beds – I really like the new sprayer! – first, then set up the hose to the rain barrel. While that was filling, I used a watering can to water the sea buckthorn, highbush cranberry and mulberry, before doing the row by the barrel. The barrel is between the gooseberry and the apply tree. Neither the apple nor the plum are showing leaf buds year. Nor is the mulberry.

I think I found out why, with the apple.

Only visible from one side, I found critter damage.

*sigh*

The damage is all on one side, so I’m hopping the rest of it is enough to keep it going.

By the time the watering was done, the barrel was mostly full. This barrel leaks, and I am taking advantage of that. It will slowly drain between the gooseberry and the apple and, with about 30-35 gallons of water in there, will probably benefit the plum and at least one haskap, too.

After switching the hose back to the spray nozzle and returning it to the main garden area, I worked on the old kitchen garden, watering it and the east garden beds of kohlrabi and cabbage, from the nice and full rain barrel. Ambient temperature rain water is much preferable to our very cold well water.

With that done, I still had enough energy to put the end walls on the chain link fence raised bed. Being barley 2 feet wide, I wove the skinny, still flexible, maple and poplar I’d gathered last fall, wattle weave style, trimming them with pruning sheers.

They look so much better than the deadwood walls! 😄 I’ll continue working on the front wall once I sharpen points onto the stakes, but at the moment, that might be a few days.

So that has been my day today. It was mostly good stuff. Getting both cats into the carrier and to the vet. Bug getting spayed, thanks to help from the rescue. My mother finally in a nursing home of her choice – the staff remember her sister, and some of them remember my late father, too! – while my brother and SIL could be there to help out and take care of the paperwork. Being able to get a few things I needed while out today, and getting at least a bit of work in the garden.

The only sad thing is not being able to bring Furriosa home. We couldn’t even be with her at the end. I know the vet took good care of her, though. It was the same vet that took care of our Freya.

Tomorrow, I’m hoping to get to my mother’s in the morning with the stuff in the truck that I’d taken from her room at the TCU. None of it is essential stuff, but I need it out of my truck. Tomorrow is Saturday and the dump is open longer hours. I need to finally get my mother’s old mattress and boxspring, which have been hanging out against a wall in the garage since January, to the dump!

I don’t know how much I’ll get done outside, though. We’re supposed to have rain from 2am to 2pm, so we’ll see how it goes.

Now that spring has finally arrive, things should be getting busy outside, but the rain is limiting what I can get done!

I’m not complaining, though. We need the rain.

So that’s where we’re at now.

With only a few hours of sleep last night, I am so very exhausted right now!

The Re-Farmer

Good news!

May 21, 2026 / Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

Today has turned out to be a dreary day with rain on and off all night and continuing on through today.

Translation: I feel like I’m about to fall asleep at my keyboard right now.

The ground is way too saturated for the work I hoped to do outside today, but I can’t complain.

First good news.

I got Bug!

She had come into the sun room to eat kibble and was hungry enough that she didn’t run off when I came near. I grabbed the bowl of cat soup for the isolation cats and saw her still there, so I snuck a pet on her back.

She looked at me, then went back to eating.

I gave her neck scritches.

She kept eating.

So I picked her up.

She wasn’t too happy with that, but I had the bowl of warm cat soup, so I basically stuck it under her face and started walking. Every time she made like she was going to escape, I moved the food closer. She didn’t try to eat it while I held her, but it did seem to calm her down.

Once at the isolation shelter, she allowed me to put her in! I took out the food bowl inside and closed the window before she could make a run for it.

After taking out the leftover cat soup from last night, which the other cats pounce on immediately, I refilled it with fresh cat soup and set it back in.

Curtis was very interested in getting into the shelter and I ended up letting him in, too.

I did a quick check around the yard and, thinking of the raccoon I saw in the garden shed, decided to check and see if it was still there.

Yes, SHE was.

Turn your volume up a bit for this one.

There’s a litter of baby raccoons under that ball of fur. At the start of the video, you can hear the extra chittering from the babies.

Hmm… I just realized that Instagram shortened an 11 second video into something barely a second long – but I’m also getting “we are having trouble playing this video” messages. That’s on my desktop, though. On my phone, I can see the whole thing. Do let me know if you are getting the full 11 seconds, please!

I did move that garden feeder attachment aside after getting the video. I could just see part of her face after moving it, but she stayed all hunched around her babies.

I’m going to have to figure out how to get the stuff in the shed that I’ll need for the garden without scaring the heck out of them all. I don’t expect aggression from the mama, unless she feels threatened, which she might if I start moving out the bundles of garden stakes and plant supports. There’s that rolling seat/cart, but I won’t need it now that I’ve got my walker.

We’ve had cats have their litters in there, but this is a first for raccoons!

I paused to get a picture of the isolation kitties before I headed out this afternoon. Curtis is in the big cuddle puddle. Bug wants out again. 😄

Tonight, they have their overnight fast. In the morning, we have to get two into carriers. On file, we’re supposed to bring in Furriosa and Batman (aka: Marta), but they will take any two we can bring. I can see being able to get Bug. Furriosa… my daughter might be able to get her, but I’ve barely managed to sneak touches on her back. The other two, not even that, but we’ll have another week to work on them.

Once the outside cat stuff was done, it was time to head into town. My husband was finally up to getting his blood work done. That is always a challenge. They always have a hard time to get a vein on him – and they needed to take 8 vials! The tech barely got two done before she had to find another spot and was eventually able to fill the remaining vials.

That done and home again, I was going to grab an early lunch, then head over to visit my mother, since I wouldn’t be able to do it tomorrow.

Which is when I got a call from my brother.

It has finally happened.

He got a call from the nursing home. The one my mother actually wants to be in.

They have a bed for her – tomorrow!!!!

After well over two years – probably closer to three, by now! – of my mother fighting to get into a nursing home, it is finally going to happen! Yay!!!!

They wanted us to do the transport, which we thought the TCU would do. I wasn’t going to be home tomorrow, plus my mother can’t get into the truck. She can barely get into my brother’s car. So that was something that needed to be worked out.

Things were still very much in the air, except for what her room number will be, and “check in” time. She will have a room to herself, too.

I told my brother I was planning to visit after I finished my lunch, and he said he would phone Mom right away, since he was at work and was doing this between other things.

When I got to the TCU, I stopped at the nursing station first. The head nurse was there and they had already been called by the nursing home. I brought up about transportation and she told me they had already arranged a Handi Van. There will be a charge for it, since my mother is being transferred to her “forever home”, not another TCU, but it won’t be a lot. This way, they can use her wheelchair to get her in and out, and can safely secure her for the trip. The nurse suggested I take as much of my mother’s belongings as I can, to make it easier for them to transport her.

Then I went to my mother’s room. My brother had got through to her, and she was very happy with the news. She can’t wait to get out of the TCU!

We talked for a while and worked out what I should take with me for now, and I started taking things to the truck. Then I packed almost all of her remaining things in a couple of hard sided grocery bags, leaving just what she would need for the night and the morning. The head nurse came by and we talked a bit more about the transfer. She even remembered that they need to include Mom’s Pepto supply.

I visited a bit longer and we talked about how things will be done tomorrow, what they will take care of, and how she will be transported in the wheelchair while they bring the walker as well (I was specifically instructed to leave the walker).

My mother then insisted that her wheelchair has been “switched”. That her wheelchair was wider than this one. I told her, it’s the same wheelchair. I scrubbed that thing. I know what it looks like.

Only later did I remember about the cushion. Our vandal had brought her a “wheelchair” cushion, except it was basically just a memory foam cushion for a regular seat. It doesn’t actually fit in her wheelchair. Which is why it would be feeling smaller when she’s in it.

My mother has decided they’ve “switched” the wheelchair and nothing will convince her otherwise. She also claimed they “forgot” one of her meds, and went on about how terrible this place is for taking care of her medications and of her, and how she hoped it will be better in the nursing home.

It will be better, for sure, but not in the ways my mother will understand, and some things won’t change. Even while I was there, with her room mate out, she got mad and demanded I close the door, because someone in the hallway was talking. I closed the door but pointed out that, here she was, alone in the room, and complaining about noises in the hall. She’s going to hear noises in the nursing home, too. Her response was, “I’m not alone, you’re with me.”

…

So I rephrased that her room mate was not there. She will have her own room in the nursing home, but there are other people living there. She will hear noise. There is no escaping that.

I get the impression she believes that in the nursing home, things will be completely silent in her room. Granted, it’s not a transitional care unit in an old hospital, but there are a lot of people living there, and a lot of staff. She also thinks that the staff will all be white and Christian, because this place was built by a local Christian community, I forget how many decades ago. She is familiar with this place, since this is where my father spent his last 6 months, and her sister spent quite a few years before passing. Interestingly, when it came up with the head nurse, my mother talked about her sister living there, which she has brought up before, but she never mentions my father living there. It’s almost as if she’s forgotten my father existed, in many ways – and I don’t mean due to dementia. Which really doesn’t surprise me, to be honest. Ah, well.

Hopefully, things will work out. When my father was there, he always spoke about how well they were taking care of them and he would tell them how much he appreciated them.

That’s not something my mother is capable of, unfortunately, and I strongly suspect that, probably within days, she will find things to be angry about, and she will likely be lashing out at people before long. It is just the way she is.

Overall, though, it was a better than usual visit, even though she got mad at me for things like putting some of her items in the box of the truck, covered and hidden from view, because it doesn’t lock. She thinks people will steal her odds and ends. In fact, as I was leaving, the last thing she said to me was to keep her stuff safe. She’s more worried about her possessions than anything else!

Some things just don’t change.

Meanwhile, I have also been in touch with the rescue. They are happy that Bug is back in the isolation shelter. I’m really hoping all goes well, and we can get cats into the carriers in the morning!

It’s time for me to go out and feed them now. I want to make sure the isolation kitties get their fill of cat soup before we have to remove the bowl this evening. We’re going to have to be up quite early and, once we get two cats into carriers, the other cats will get their morning feeding.

Wish us luck! We’re going to need it!

The Re-Farmer

One step closer on the garden bed construction, and an update

May 19, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I wasn’t expecting to get much done outside today. It’s been a damp and chilly day – the sort of overcast day that makes me want to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. Tonight, we’re supposed to dip below freezing for one last time.

Hopefully.

The first thing we had to do today was head into town and to the pharmacy, where my older daughter got a file set up and her prescriptions mostly filled. They didn’t have enough to fully fill one of them, but they’ll have the rest in a day or two. Meanwhile, she has enough to last for a fair bit longer than that.

One of the meds turns out to be covered by our province’s health care system, and the other was very cheap, which was a pleasant surprise. Once we were done there, the girls wanted to hit the grocery store and picked up a few things. On the way home, we stopped at the mail where my garden hoops kit was waiting for pick up.

There was also a letter from the health care system for my husband that turned out to be a “hey, you need to get your blood work done” reminder. He’s had his requisition form for months, but we weren’t able to do it either because the truck was in the garage for most of two months, or he was physically unable to make the trip into town.

We’re planning to do it tomorrow morning. Hopefully.

Later in the afternoon, after I went out to do the outside cat feeding and do my evening rounds, the weather had improved enough that I decided to try and find more materials for the chain link fence raised bed. I was looking to get about 18 stakes for the front wall, plus the side walls needed three smaller, thinner stakes. Going through the spruce grove, I found enough poplar, maple and cherry suckers with straight sections strong enough for stakes. I had two left from earlier, that I’d used to mark where the wall would go after the bricks were removed, so I collected enough for another 16 stakes for the front wall before going back Cutting the longer pieces down to equal length, I had enough slightly shorter lengths left over that I only needed to fine one more poplar sucker long enough for two stakes.

Then I spent the next while debarking them.

The shorter ones for the ends of the bed were narrow enough that I could easily make points with the utility knife I was using to debark them. For the longer ones, some are thicker, so I’ll use the vice and a draw knife to make point on those ones.

You can really tell in the picture, which lengths are the cherry wood!

They are all freshly cut and very green, so that are also very damp. I’ve left them out to dry out a bit. When I check on them tomorrow, I’ll have to decide if I should use them as is, or if I should char them like the others. If the soil weren’t so rain soaked right now, I wouldn’t be as concerned, but we’re looking as possibly more rain over the next few days.

We shall see.

So that’s my progress on the garden bed for today. Tomorrow, things finally warm up and are supposed to keep warming up to the point of getting actually hot – at least for our region – within the week.

Which means replacing the plastic covering two garden beds with netting, and keeping an eye on the isolation shelter. They will still need the heat lamp for one more night, and tomorrow, I’ll need to make sure to turn it off when the morning feeding is being done. If it gets too warm in there, even with the mesh walls on the bottom uncovered, I’ll set frozen water bottles in with them to help cool things down.

Now that I have the second hoop kit, I should be able to set them up over a couple of beds in an almost permanent basis, and still have enough left over to temporarily cover others. This is in addition to the Pex pipe hoops I already had. The goal is to be able to cover any individual bed with some sort of protection, until I can build more removeable covers for most of them. We need to frame out more raised beds in the main garden area with logs, and build more trellis beds, before I can focus on more covers. The hoops will do just fine until then.

Not a lot of progress today, but it’s at least one step closer to getting that chain link fence bed done!

The Re-Farmer

The Re-Farmer

Sometimes, you need to go back, to go forward.

Medical

Our 2026 Garden: reclaiming beds and succession sowing

Just in time…

Conflicted, and our Sword of Damocles

Our 2026 Garden: transplanting gourds and hollyhock, direct sowing luffa and sunflowers

Our 2026 Garden: transplanting and direct sowing – we’re almost there!

That was a lot longer than expected!

Our 2026 Garden: one more bed prepped, and got a visit in

Today was a mixed bag…

Good news!

One step closer on the garden bed construction, and an update

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