Medical

Today’s Evening Roundup

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

It’s barely evening, but I think I’m done for the day! :-D

We had plans to go into the city so the girls could get some shopping done that we never quite get to when we do our monthly stock up. With that in mind, I started my morning routine early, starting with visiting the kittens.

Beep Beep dashed up the stairs when I opened the door to the basement, so I let her be and made sure no other cats came down. This way, the babies got to have the wet cat food, without having to fight over it with their mom! :-D

Except for Saffron, who was much more interested in me…

I think they did leave some behind for Beep Beep, when she finally came down. :-D

Doing my rounds outside is getting so gorgeous right now!

I noticed that the cherry tree by the house is blooming now.

Just the cherry trees by the house. The ones near the new garden plot are not blooming yet. Both areas get the same amount of light and rain. The only difference is the micro-climate created by the house itself.

I also found some surprise blooms.

When cleaning up along the south side of the spruce grove, I found a row of crab apple trees. While I still have much to do in cleaning up dead wood and thinning out the trees, what I managed to do so far, made a difference. Last summer would have been their first summer with more light and space. Like the row of crab apple trees I uncovered when cleaning up the maple grove, they had no flowers at all last year. This year, there is one tree, with one branch, that is blooming!

It should be interesting to see how things develop here over the years. I will be taking at some of these trees, and hopefully the remaining ones will have better conditions to grow and produce.

The lilacs are starting to open up, scenting the entire yard!

The chokecherries growing among them seem to be doing well this year.

I also checked the sunflowers, and even more of them are sprouting. These are the Early Russian sunflowers, which can grow 6-8 ft tall. The others are Giganteus, which can grow 10-12 ft tall. I hope to see Giganteus seedlings within a few days. The package info says it can be 10-14 days to germination.

When the girls and I headed out to the city, we had a wonderful surprise, just half a mile from home!

I pulled over and my daughter tried to zoom in on my phone as best she could, but zoom really sucks on my phone’s camera.

What you are seeing is a dozen sandhill cranes! They had been near the road when we startled them. These are really huge birds!! Seeing a dozen of them taking off at once was really something!

The drive to the city is about an hour, but along the way we made sure to stop at the medical clinic. The town our doctor is in is about 2/3rds of the way to the city. After not being able to get through yesterday, I wanted to ask about getting renewed prescriptions. Especially for my husband. Given he has the kind that requires a hand written, in triplicate, prescription that needs to be delivered to a pharmacy within 3 days of being written, I said I could come back for them after we were done in the city, rather than waiting until the doctor was off the phone with a patient.

Then it was off to the city, where we had several places to do to. Thankfully, they were not all that far apart, but not only has traffic increased substantially again, but so has construction. Most of the stores had no real restrictions or line ups. At least not the ones we needed to go to. We did drive past a few places that had long line ups outside. Even Walmart didn’t have any line ups for the cashiers, never mind outside.

I really feel for the people lining up outside in this heat we’re having right now!

Still, we got what we needed to do, done. There was some temptation to do more with “while we’re in the city anyway…”, but it was just too long, too hot and too draining! If it wasn’t necessary, we skipped it.

On the way home, we stopped at the clinic again. The doctor ended up asking me to come in to see him about the prescriptions.

It turned out that he had already faxed the refills to the pharmacy. Including my husband’s triplicate prescriptions. Because of the pandemic, they’ve waived the requirement for the pharmacy to have the physical prescriptions. Which no one told me about. They probably assumed I already knew.

My husband’s meds were ready for pick up on the 29th – a Friday – but he forgot to tell me about it until after the pharmacy was closed. So I picked them up on Saturday morning, after dropping my daughter off at work. When I picked them up, the pharmacist told me he could only fill so much, because of the need for renewals.

They must have faxed the clinic when my husband called his refills in, because the doctor faxed the renewed prescriptions …

… on the 29th.

Which means that, when the pharmacist gave me 1 week of bubble packs and told me he couldn’t do more (usually it’s 4 weeks) without a renewed prescription, they already had the renewed prescriptions come in, the day before.

:-/

Meanwhile, I’d been out of my own prescription for some time. When I went to get a refill and they couldn’t, they sent a fax to the clinic right away. I came back a couple of days later, and they still hadn’t received a returned fax.

That had gotten done on the 14th.

No one called me, so I assumed they never got a response. I’ve been without my meds for about 3 weeks. That was part of why I wanted to go in to the clinic in person, since we couldn’t get through by phone.

My doctor clarified all that for me, and even printed out copies of the prescriptions for my own records. Once we were done there, we headed to the town our pharmacy is in.

It turned out my prescription was filled and waiting in the drawer.

*sigh*

Thankfully, my prescription is nothing particularly urgent.

I did ask for my husband’s refills to be done, since he’ll be out in a few days. The bubble packs take more time, so I’ll be coming back tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I picked up something for myself.

After helping my brother patch the shed roof, I felt okay, but by the end of the day, my right wrist started to hurt. I have no idea what I did to injure, or even if it was any one thing that did it. I was able to manage well enough yesterday; mostly, I was reminded of it as a problem when I tried to do something like turn a door nob.

I am considered left handed, because I write with my left hand. With most things, I’m ambidextrous. Some things, I’m right handed.

Like when I open door knobs.

When driving around today, it was more of an issue. Just turning the ignition to start the vehicle was painful. Turning corners, hurt.

So I now have a brace to keep me from over taxing my wrist (though I had to take it off to type) and give it a chance to heal. It’s a bit on the small side, but I got the largest size available.

My and my big, manly hands! :-D

Thankfully, I have two strong daughters who can lug things around for me.

When we unloaded the van, we also brought the pieces of tree in, since it’s supposed to rain. Getting the big one was an issue; we did have to cut one of the branches off.

So far, it hasn’t rained here, but from the looks of the weather radar, we should get at least some, though a rather large rain system has already bypassed us entirely. Some rain would be wonderful. :-)

Meanwhile, it’s time for me to get that wrist brace back on!

Ow.

The Re-Farmer

Looks like I ran out of spoons

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For those who are not yet familiar with the Spoon Theory, visit this link.

Today has been turning out to be a very non-productive day. Right from the start.

The first issue was waking up in pain. Particularly in my hands. Every joint in my fingers, stiff and sore. I know osteoarthritis is setting in (inevitable, given some of the jobs I’ve had in the past), but most of the time, they’re fine. Some days, however… well… let’s just say they’re “not fine.”

I woke up fairly early and started getting ready to do my usual routing, which now starts with bringing fresh water for the kitties. My husband was using the kitchen, so I sat down on the couch for a bit to let him finish.

I basically passed out for nearly 4 hours.

It felt more like a few minutes.

My entire body is feeling achy and sluggish, I’m in a snarly mood, and I’m in a brain fog.

Definitely a reminder that I am not really all that able bodied. I didn’t feel like I’d been overdoing it over the past few days, yet I clearly have, and my body is making sure I know it.

Well, at least it’s a good day to go into recovery mode. It’s too wet to finish mowing, and too chilly to finish transplanting. Manual labour outside is not going to be much of a thing, today.

And so, I will share some smiles with you, instead! :-)

I’ve been posting so many photos of our adopted cats and kittens, I rarely get photos of the two that moved out here with us. Last night, DahBoy got to entertain us!

One of my daughters was in my doorway when DahBoy demanded up.

He did not want up on her, though. She was just a way to get to his real goal.

No, not the top of the door, either!

He wants the top of the linen closet. He knows there’s space up there, and he wants in!

Will a human assist him? No? So how is he to get down, now?

Oh, look! A handy human.

I got that last shot a split second before he leapt onto my shoulder, then vaulted the rest of his way to the ground. :-D

This morning, while visiting the kittens, I had to very carefully step my way around kittens that were determined to climb my legs. They didn’t stop until I gave them some wet cat food.

Even during the feeding frenzy, Saffron and Turmeric were more interested in me than the food! They’re not as into the solid food thing, yet. Especially Saffron, who would much rather climb a table leg. LOL

Once outside, I had another cat I had to dance around. Potato Beetle was quite determined to walk in front of my moving feet and flop onto the ground. That is, when he wasn’t doing this…

What a goof!

At least they’re entertaining. ;-)

Ugh. It feels like such a wasted day, today, and it’s only mid afternoon!

Hopefully, a day of recovery means I can get things done tomorrow. I really need to get those transplants in.

The Re-Farmer

I know what I’m doing tomorrow!

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

Today I took my husband into the city for a medical appointment, but of course I had to check the kitties, first!

They are getting more and more active! We’re going to have to put them in something deeper, soon, so they don’t start crawling around the basement. At their size, there are too many things they can get into, that we couldn’t be able to get them out again! :-D

My husband and I left early enough to hit the post office, first, and ended up swinging by home again to drop things off. My husband had finally got his retroactive disability tax credit, and he used some of it to get a much needed new computer. Not something we wanted sitting in the van while we were in the city!

His appointment went well, though the drive was quite painful. It was for some tests in Nuclear Medicine, in the same hospital as the cardiac clinic. I was not allowed to come in with him, though. We arrived early, as is our habit, and I expected to have lots of time to walk around on a beautiful day, playing Pokemon Go. They must have taken him in early, because he was done much faster than I expected. Which is a nice change, even if the reasons for it are not to nice. :-/

His computer was not the only thing to arrive in the mail. I got a parcel I was expecting to come in tomorrow.

My Yukon Gem potatoes have arrived!

Which means I need to get them planted right away. Looking at the forecasts, tonight we’re supposed to reach 0C (32F), and that’s the coldest it’ll get overnight from now on.

I had been thinking about where and how we would plant the potatoes. With our rock hard soil in most places, I decided to go with a completely new and different method from what I’m used to. Here are some videos about what I am going to try.

The only thing is, I don’t have hay, nor was any available. I just have straw. I hope it will do as a substitute. I’ve seen other articles and videos that used straw, so I think it should.

With this in mind, I made use of the frames from the goat catching pen we’d made. The long sides are roughly 8 ft x 4 ft. A perfect garden bed size. So I am using them to mark out where I want to put the potatoes.

I will remove them, after I’ve finished covering the seed potatoes. For the 6 pounds of potatoes I have, this should be enough. I soaked the areas thoroughly, and will soak them again tomorrow before we start again. We are expecting some rain tomorrow (I hope!), but it won’t be much. By Sunday, we are supposed to hit 21C!! (70F) so I want to make sure it’s all thoroughly covered and watered before the heat hits.

We are also going to have to watch out for the Potato Beetle!

He kept us company while we started on the future potato beds.

I had considered setting them up where we’d covered with straw last year, as I am sure we won’t be having as many squash to transplant as I had hoped. There’s still a possibility that more seedlings will come up before the end of the month, so I figured I may as well just go off to one side, instead.

How well this works will help us decide what to do as we increase the amounts and varieties of potatoes we grow in the future. If we can get a good crop, without having to plow or till this hard, rocky ground, that would be really awesome!

The Re-Farmer

Those plans went out the window…

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Today started out normal enough. I did my rounds, as usual, including checking on the kittens.

Beep Beep is getting more comfortable with leaving them to sleep while she gets some needed sustenance – and some cuddles! :-)

I was just settling down to upload the trail cam files when I got a phone call from my mother.

For quite some time now, she’s been complaining about her heart. Chest pains. Not getting any air. It’s been very confusing. Partly because test after test has shown her heart is in great shape. No one has been able to find anything wrong. The other part is, her descriptions are rather lacking in details. She’ll talk about how her heart is bothering her so much, but then start talking about not having any air at night, and has to turn on a fan or open a window. But it’s her heart. It is made more difficult for her to explain, when she has a very poor grasp of anatomy.

The more detail we manage to wrestle out of her, the more we’re thinking it’s a problem with her lungs. What makes it even more difficult is that her symptoms only seem to happen when she’s lying down in bed. When she’s up and about, they go away.

This morning, I could hear in her voice right away, that something was wrong. She started talking about how much her heart was bothering her, then talking about not being able to breath. Her night was bad enough to scare her, and she was wondering what to do.

Normally, I’d just take her to the clinic. The clinic her new doctor is in has walk in, but it’s also located in a hospital, so there’s an emergency just down the hall.

But we’re in shut down right now, and with all the scary stuff she’s seeing on TV about the Wuhan virus, she’s also worried that her breathing problems are related to that.

Which is theoretically possible. Even though her building is in lock down, people do still have to go in and out. It was very unlikely, but still something that would probably check.

Also, her doctor’s clinic is doing most appointments only by phone right now.

Now, there is a hospital just a few blocks from her place. I suggested she go to the emergency there, but neither of us were sure there still was an emergency room. The building is now more of a nursing home with a clinic in it. She had even tried the health link number, which is for all the province, but only got a message saying they were busy. What else was in the message, I don’t know, since she would not have finished listening to it.

So I suggested she try to get to the emergency we thought might be near her, and to do that, she would first call the social worker assigned to her building. The social worker would have the phone numbers she needed. While she was doing that, I got online and tried to find the numbers to call myself.

Well, that turned out to be useless. I called the hospital number and got an long recorded message saying, “if this, call here, if that, call there, if something else, do this”. Even I was loosing track of it all. My mother would have been completely lost. From the website, it sounded like they wanted people to go use drive through testing centres for the Wuhan virus, rather than go to any hospitals.

I finally ended up calling the clinic near my mother. My mother used to go there, before switching to where her current doctor is. After talking to them for a bit, I was told to call this other clinic. So I did.

They told me to call the hospital near my mother’s place.

*sigh*

I explained to her that I’d tried that and just got a recorded message telling me to call other places. I ended up being transferred from the clinic to the hospital it was in, with instructions to ask to be transferred to the hospital in my mother’s town. When I explained the situation to the new person I spoke to, she was stunned that I only got a recorded message. So she put me on hold and called herself.

It turns out that, at the very end of the message, there was one last instruction to hit 0 to get the nurse’s desk. I must have hung up before that last bit at the end, because I never heard it.

Then she told me, “you know that hospital doesn’t really have an emergency room anymore, right?”

Well, now I do!

Basically, if she went there, they would assess her, then send her someplace else.

After explaining the situation to her, she suggested I bring my mother to this hospital, then gave me instructions on which entrance to go to.

So I called my mom back. She had just called the hospital by her place and told me they booked a telephone appointment for her with her new doctor.

For 3:30pm

It was coming up on 10am, as we were talking.

I told her about my calls, and gave her the choice. In the end, she decided she had better get checked.

So off I went to pick her up and take her to the emergency at this other hospital with an fully functioning emergency.

I’ve taken her here before, but a few things have changed since the shut down started. Instead of going straight to the desk to be checked in, there was a lady at a table facing the entrance. She was wearing a mask, gloves and gown. In front of her were posts like used on highway construction areas, with yellow caution tape between them, plus a hand sanitizer station. On the table was a stack of masks.

She asked us a few questions about why we were there, and if my mother had other cold-like symptoms or had been traveling out of the country within the last 14 days.

Once that was cleared up, she asked us to use the hand sanitizer, then my mother was allowed to the check in desk.

I was not.

There was a small waiting room I could go to, though, and it was a good thing I was handy. My mother, being scared of the virus, was talking about getting tested for it, and the staff were all “why weren’t you given a mask?” They had to come to me to clarify. Then a few moments later, the woman we first talked to came to me and asked if my mother had a history of dementia. I carefully (and quietly!) explained the situation with her, so that helped them understand a bit more on how to address her. Meanwhile, I could hear them trying to explain to her that, because she doesn’t have the symptoms, they would not be testing her for the Wuhan virus, eventually mollifying her by saying they would make that decision as she gets checked. Then she was sent to the emergency room waiting room, and I could hear no more.

Then I waited.

And waited.

Which was fine with me. I got to update my family, and had a nice chat with a woman who ended up waiting in the room with me, because she wasn’t allowed in with her husband, either. The only exceptions I saw was an elderly couple, with the husband pushing his wife in her wheelchair, and another guy with his very elderly father, and both times they were clearly expected for specific things, not an emergency room visit for something unknown, like my mother. The place was surprisingly busy, all things considered.

Then my mom came out, and that was it. We were done.

Once I got her in the van, she was able to tell me that…

…they found nothing wrong with her.

She is, understandably, frustrated.

They did take X-rays of her lungs, but will only call her if there is something found.

Long story short, I suggested waiting a few days for the X-rays to be looked at, and if she doesn’t get a call, to book an appointment with her doctor to talk about her breathing issues.

It took a lot of questioning, but I eventually got out of her that she’s had this issue for probably about 10 years, but that it’s gotten noticeably worse, recently. Which eliminated one possibility that I was thinking of, in that there was some sort of air circulation problem in her tiny apartment. Ten years ago, she was still living here at the farm. She brought up asthma, but the more I described the symptoms, the less she thought that might be the cause. She had also brought up her thyroid, but that was only because a friend she talked to on the phone takes medication for her thyroid and suggested it. I had to explain to her that a thyroid was a gland we all have, not a disease. I know people with both hypo- and hyper- thyroidism and was able to explain more about that to her. I had brought up in the past that sleeping in a more upright position might help, and maybe getting a sleep chair, and she’s starting to think that might be a good idea. She doesn’t want something with “buttons” on it (a remote), so she’s just thinking of a recliner with a lever. Sleep chairs are designed for actual sleeping on and would be much better, but are very expensive. So it might be worth trying a recliner and seeing if it makes a difference.

It wasn’t until just before I left that she mentioned something that had me thinking that she might have sleep apnea.

Whether or not she does, a sleep test would probably be a good thing to get done, but with all non-essential and elective health care not being done right now, it’s not like that is going to happen. Especially since there are already months long waiting lists for these tests, at the best of times.

At least my mother was feeling better by the time I got her home, but I can really understand her feelings about them not finding anything wrong with her.

It was late afternoon by the time we were done, but I was still able to get some things checked off on my to-do list. Her town has a hardware store, so I was able to go there to get the paint we need to finish the sun room door, plus a few other things. After messaging with my daughters, I ended up swinging by home to drop the stuff off and pick up a daughter, then we went into town for a few errands, before picking up some take-out food.

Oh, was that ever good. :-D

My daughters, meanwhile, did get some work done on the future garden plot, but that will be a post for another time! :-D

For now, I’m just happy my mom’s okay, and to be home.

The Re-Farmer

Water, water, everywhere, and in recovery

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Doing my rounds this morning is, for the most part, getting easier as the snow melts. There are just a couple of shaded areas where sheets of ice and formerly hard-packed snow suddenly giving way under my feet, have made walking somewhat more dangerous!

It also means that, while the water between the house and the garage has gone from “lake” to ” large muddy puddles”, there is a lot more water in other areas, too.

I noticed this while going past the outhouse this morning.

The outhouse door has a piece of plywood in front of it, with a rotted out hole. I’d had a metal… something I don’t know the name of, but it’s used as steps on large vehicles… over the hole, but while it’s there, the outhouse door can’t be opened. It had been set aside during our septic troubles (not that we used the outhouse; it’s too disgusting in there!) and not put back yet. This allowed me to see that the hole under the door is getting bigger – and the pit is full of water! I checked the access area at the back, and could see the water there, too. That pit is completely filled.

The outhouse is sitting on what is probably beams of pressure treated wood, which look like they have sunk into the ground. It really should have been on concrete or something, and raised slightly above ground level. I doubt any of the outhouses that have ever been here were done that way. Which would explain why they have been replaced so many times over the years. I know of at least 3, not counting the one that was there that we used before we got running water in the house.

Another reason why we want to build a new outhouse, without a pit and on a proper base! Composting toilets have their own issues, but I’ll take those over dealing with a pit, thankyouverymuch. :-D

I also had something I could really appreciate while doing this morning’s rounds.

I was able to do them without needing a cane.

Yesterday evening, after all the walking around with the wheelbarrow I’d done earlier, was a difficult one. I definitely over did it. My hip gave out again, and it didn’t recover as it had earlier. Thankfully, we keep canes around the house, including one of my dad’s canes that we’ve left hanging on an arm bar between the old and new parts of the house. I had to get my daughter to bring it to me, because I couldn’t walk from my desk chair to get it. Even my left hip was becoming more of a problem. Both hips have mild osteoarthritis, but my left hip hurts pretty constantly, due to bone spurs. Typically, it’s a level of pain I can ignore, but that was getting hard to do, yesterday evening. When my right hip was X-rayed, it showed mild OA, but also fragments basically floating around, and I think that’s what’s causing my problems. I think fragments are getting into the joint, causing pain until they get worked out of the joint again.

I will have to get myself to a doctor again to check it out.

I got very little sleep last night, due to the pain and discomfort, even though I’d taken pain killers. It’s better now, in that I can walk without a cane and put weight on my right leg again, but even with painkillers, it’s still hurting quite a lot. I also needed to use my husband’s bath chair while I showered.

So today is going to be a day of recovery for me. Aside from heading out to the pharmacy this afternoon, to pick up prescriptions, I’m going to have to focus on giving my body a break to heal up. I figure this is a good time to catch up on some more crochet projects. :-) I’ll have to remember to get the mail today, too. My order from Vesey’s is ready for pick up. The girls and I will go over what we want to start indoors. Almost everything we got can actually be sown outdoors after danger of frost is past, which would be about mid-May, but getting a head start on some of them would also be good.

I’m really looking forward to being able to garden this year!

As long as my body holds out. :-(

The Re-Farmer

Some furry visitors, and getting a call

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I happened to look out the window, and saw this.

Looks like the deer found something to snack on, as the top of our compost pile thaws out! There would be all sorts of vegetable and fruit peels there right now.

If there were deer at the compost, I figured there might be some at the feeding station…

There certainly were! Along with Pump Shack cat and Two Face. :-D

As I was watching, the two in the back of this photo wandered behind the house. Then they suddenly came running back into view, clearly startled by something.

There turned out to be a big pick up truck coming up the road. It was slowing right down as it neared the intersection – far more than usual – then continued to drive slowly after it turned, until well after it passed our driveway. By then, all the deer had been startled away. Going back to the window I first saw them at, I could still see them in the trees, with a couple already crossing the road. Not long after, I saw the truck returning and driving just as slowly. At that point, I figured the driver was watching out for any deer that might come running onto the road, rather than trying to watch them in our yard. :-)

It makes me so happy to see our furry visitors. :-)

On a completely different subject, we got the call I was wondering about this morning. The heart clinic phoned my husband.

There was a rather long and detailed interview, checking on his status. As far as his heart condition goes, he’s been doing awesome, but he did have to qualify some of his answers by explaining that he was dealing with the pain of his disability.

By the end of the call, after making sure he wasn’t in an urgent situation, his two appointments next week were cancelled. He was told they were looking to reschedule in June. He was also told they’re cancelling all their appointments, due to the Wuhan flu, to reschedule in June. They have no idea how they’ll re-book everyone for June, so it’ll more likely be July or August.

I can’t say I was expecting this, but I wasn’t not expecting it, either.

So that’s off the calendar.

My mother’s medical appointment is still on, though it’s already been rescheduled once. We shall see how that goes.

I did call my mother to check on her yesterday. I woke her from a nap! Oops! :-D

She assured me she had been able to get to the grocery store. It’s just a couple of blocks away, and she does the distance well enough with her walker. She’s been told to try and get exercise, so this is one of the ways she does it. The only downside is that the main doors of the building are now kept locked, so outsiders can’t get in without a resident letting them in, which makes is harder for her to get in and out with the walker. Those doors are the ones with the button to push to open automatically. She manages okay, though. As for her supplies, the grocery store delivers to her building regularly, so she has no problem buying as much as she needs and getting it home. Apparently, the only things they were out of stock on (that she noticed, anyhow) were bananas and garlic! :-D

She had also gotten a call from my sister the day before, and even the social worker had called to check if she needed anything. With all the social events now cancelled and people told to stay at home and not have visitors unless they absolutely have to, I think my mom is getting a bit bored! She does still go to the lobby just to sit for a while, for some “fresh air” and sit in at sunny window. The walk down the hall counts as her exercise, too. :-)

The main thing is that she’s doing okay and is not running out of any necessities.

As for her appointment, I’m not expecting a cancellation call, but again, it wouldn’t exactly be unexpected, either.

The Re-Farmer

More baking, and my daughter works in a tent now

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I went into town today, driving my daughter to work. We got there at our usual 10-15 minutes early, but there were already several cars in the parking lot, and people standing by the doors. I’ve seen this before, but not with so many people. Weird.

Since I was in town anyhow, I made a quick run through the grocery store. My husband was running out of brown rice (he’s the only one who eats it) and the girls were running low on lactose free milk. There was plenty of milk, but almost no rice of any kind at all. Oddly, there were no potatoes, squash or onions. Entire sections of fresh produce were empty. I find myself thinking there are other reasons for the stuff to be gone, besides more panic buying. There was no shortage of bread or meat on the shelves, but they haven’t restocked in things like flour, sugar or yeast yet.

Still no toilet paper, either.

Thankfully, we are not in any need of these items.

Once at home, I did a couple of different breads. One was a sourdough soda bread from Alaska Sourdough, the cookbook that got me into sourdough many years ago, though I acquired my own copy much more recently.

This recipe uses 4 cups of sourdough starter, along with oil, sugar, salt and baking soda. I tried to get a video of the chemical reaction when the baking soda (mixed into a “jigger glass” of warm water) is added, but it just couldn’t capture how the mixture just… foams. It’s really quite fun to watch!

The recipes in this cookbook are hand written, and in this one, the instructions forget to mention when to add the salt! I just add it with everything else, before the soda and flour are added.

The recipe also said to use 8 – 10 cups of flour.

Eight to 10??? What’s with all these recipes that use huge amounts of flour? I barely got 3 in. I’d wonder if my sourdough starter is too thick or something, but it’s the same with non-sourdough bread recipes, too. I know we’re really dry here, this time of year, but it shouldn’t make that much of a difference!

This recipe requires just one rising, so it got shaped into loaves right away and I left them in a warm oven to rise while I made another double batch of my seedy bread. I ended up making it into a bunch of mini-loaves this time, just for fun. By the time that bread had its two risings, and finished baking, the sourdough bread was ready to go into the oven.

They came out so pretty!

While I was working on that, my other daughter came down for a break and let me know her sister is now working in a tent.

A tent?

The cash desk now has a plastic curtain around it, to protect the cashiers from plague customers who won’t keep their distance. It hangs from the ceiling, and is Tuck Taped to the counter, with windows cut into it to reach products for scanning. The pharmacy counter has its own plastic wall, with a slit for the pharmacists to go in and out at one end, and a slit at the pick up counter. Customers, apparently, are still trying to stick their faces right up to the openings.

People suck, sometimes.

After I picked my daughter up at work, she needed to go to the grocery store, so we swung by on the way home. Some of the empty produce displays were no longer empty – there were onions again, though not many. Still no potatoes or squash. So very odd!

As we were going through the till, I couldn’t help but comment to the cashier about how nice it must be, to be able to clean the belt more often. She confirmed that, yes, it is! She was quite enjoying the cleanliness. Customers still try to shove things onto the belt, but at least now the cashiers are allowed to tell them to stop, so the belt can be cleaned. I remember only too well how difficult it was to keep things clean in between costumers, when I worked as a grocery store cashier!

They’re also back to single use plastic bags. This franchise had only recently made such a big deal about no longer having plastic bags and encouraging people to bring, or buy, reusable bags. Now, if people bring their own bags, they have to pack them themselves. It’s long been known that reusable bags are very unsanitary, but it took the Wuhan flu for that to finally be taken seriously. :-(

Well, we’ll be able to go back to staying home for the next few days. No plague people hiding among the deer that visit us. There is plenty to keep us busy! The only thing I’ll need to remember to go out for is to get the mail, since I’m expecting my seed order to come in soon. I look forward to starting some of them indoors.

Oh, I also broke down and ordered a bottle cutter. This is not something we can find locally. I chose a type that can cut square bottles, as well as round. I look forward to using it to help make bottle bricks! Since I already know we plan to make the walls on our cordwood practice building 8 inches think, we can get a head start on making these.

Also, my daughter found a really nice recipe for no-knead Focaccia that I think we’ll be trying out tomorrow.

Should be fun!

The Re-Farmer

Evening and morning critters, and going off the rails a bit

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We continue to have frequent visits from deer in our yard. I got this photo out my window yesterday evening.

Of the 5 deer in the photo, 4 of them are a family group. One of them was part of a group of 3, two of which I could see through the trees near the old garden area, but they never came any closer to the house.

I don’t imagine there was much left at the feeding station, this late in the day, but they’re still coming by to snack on what they can find!

They are so pretty.

Speaking of pretty, check out this beautiful Potato.

Potato Beetle has gotten into the habit of dashing in front of our feet as we walk, slowing down, forcing us to step around him, dashing in front again, slowing down… then flinging himself onto the ground and rolling.

In other words, he’s trying to kill us by tripping over him. :-D

I was very late in doing my rounds this morning, and Potato Beetle was the only one around at first. That meant I got to pick him up and carry him – it was either that or constantly trying not to trip over him! – and he was very content to stay in my arms. Unlike Butterscotch, Beep Beep or Two-Face, who are in constant motion while being carried.

He so wants to come inside!!

There has been zero interest in our attempts to adopt the rest of the babies out, which is really frustrating. Two-Face is booked to be spayed later in April, which means we’re going to have to bring her inside, if only to make sure she doesn’t get pregnant, first.

But we already have 7 cats inside. It’s getting to be a problem. Part of the reason I did my rounds so late this morning is because of being kept up most of the night by cats.

Which reminds me. When topping up the outside cats’ food and water last night, we had an extra visitor in the sun room. Stinky is back! He stayed around, hidden behind the makeshift cat cave, while I was in there. Later, I could see him through the bathroom window, eating the cat kibble. When I looked again at about 2 am, he was still there and eating again! This might explain while, some mornings, all the food bowls have been completely empty, with barely a crumb left behind.

I was talking with one of my daughters this morning about the outside cats, and how we’re slowly getting them fixed as my other daughter has been able to afford it. We were talking about how the outside cats want in, but we just can’t do it.

Unless…

There is a possibility.

If we can clear and clean up the new part basement, then find a way to make a door over the entry to the old part basement, we could do it. We could move the litter boxes downstairs, and they would have a huge amount of extra space if we keep that basement door open. The old part basement has the pumps, including the sump pump reservoir, so we don’t want to let them in there.

I guess that’s incentive to get the basements done faster!

We shall see.

Meanwhile…

Today, being Sunday, is our day of rest. Normally, I’d be in town right now, while my younger daughter is at work for her short shift. The pharmacy she works at is closed on Sunday now, due to the Wuhan Flu, so we are all home today. For a moment I thought that, hey! I could go to church! But the churches are all closed to services right now, too.

Which leads me to another topic entirely. Normally, I try to stay away from stuff like this, but this blog is about our new life here at my old family farm, and this is one of those things that is affecting us. Even as relatively isolated as we are.

I am just so frustrated about all the panic over the Wuhan Flu. People are being so stupid about it. This morning, my husband caught an article about a couple in BC that walked into a grocery store and bought their entire inventory of meat.

I have two immediate thoughts about that. The first is, who has the money to buy that much meat? The second is, why did the store allow it? Retailers have the discretion to limit purchases. Why didn’t they?

Meanwhile, I just read the updated protocols for the hospital my husband has appointments with in the city at the end of the month. His appointments have not been cancelled, but the hospital is now allowing access at only 2 entrances. The main entrance and one to the cardiac clinic, which is also the emergency entrance and the one we will be using. Everyone who comes in will be checked for symptoms and asked about their travel history.

The thing that bothers me so much about all this is the panic – largely induced by the media. I’m certainly not against precautions, but so much bad information is out there right now and, as mentioned earlier, people are being stupid about it, and their behavior is affecting everyone else, in a negative way.

Another part of my frustration is this.

We’re nearing the tail end of the annual flu season right now. While there is non-stop hyperventilating about the Wu Flu around the world, in the US alone, between October 1, 2019 and March 14, 2020, there have been an estimated 38 – 54 MILLION flu illnesses. There have been an estimated 17 – 25 MILLION flu medical visits. There have been an estimated 390,000 – 710,000 flu hospitalizations, and between 23,000 – 59,000 deaths.

(source)

And the annual flu season isn’t over yet.

This is just in the US.

I’ve found the Canadian numbers. The Government of Canada website has weekly reports. The latest report, as of this writing, is March 8 – 14, or Week 11. From that last link:

Severe Outcomes Influenza Surveillance

Provincial/Territorial Influenza Hospitalizations and Deaths

To date this season, 2,232 influenza-associated hospitalizations were reported by participating provinces and territories Footnote 1.

68% of the cases were associated with influenza A.

Of the 978 cases for which subtype was reported, 55% were associated with influenza A(H3N2).

The highest cumulative hospitalization rates up to week 11 were among adults 65 years of age and older (71/100,000 population) and children under 5 years of age (69/100,000 population).

273 ICU admissions and 97 deaths have been reported.

68% of the ICU admissions and 71% of the deaths were associated with influenza A.

With so many people coming in to be checked for the Wuhan flu, more cases are being diagnosed for the annual flu. Many cases don’t get recorded, because people just don’t go to the doctor or hospital and get diagnosed. (Side note, the annual flu strains are listed as Influenza A and Influenza B, with A having several sub categories.)

Now, please understand that I’m not trying to say that the annual flu is somehow worse than the Wuhan Flu, or anything like that. There are significant differences. The fact that the Wuhan Flu is spreading at the same time as when the annual flu was in full swing is taxing health care systems to the max. Proper care should be taken.

Wash your hands with soap and water frequently.

Stay home if your sick, if you can. My husband used to work in IT, with government contracts, so he spent much of that stage of his career in various provincial government offices. Government employees are paid by salary, not by the hour, and tend to have generous sick leave and insurance policies. Yet so many people would show up at work, sick, hacking and coughing all over the place, acting like they were some sort of hero for being soooo dedicated to their jobs, that they came in even while sick. The next thing you knew, dozens of people are having to call in sick because of that one plague person spreading their colds. If you can stay home, do it! Not just from work, but going out in general.

Also, wash your hands with soap and water, frequently.

If you can’t stay home, take precautions. That’s where those masks come in handy. Masks aren’t there to prevent you from catching a virus. They’re there to keep you from spreading it to others if you’ve got it yourself.

Wash your hands with soap and water. Frequently.

Keep your distance from other people – stay out of each other’s “personal bubble”.

Wash your hands with soap and water. Frequently.

Sneeze into tissues. Cough into a tissue or your elbow.

Wash your hands with soap and water. Frequently.

Don’t lick your fingers before handling money, paper, etc. That is a MAJOR problem in retail. An astonishing number of customers slobber all over their fingers to better grip their cash or cards, then hand their germ riddled item to some poor part time cashier, who doesn’t have sick leave or insurance, and can’t afford to lose any hours due to illness. Keep your spit to yourself.

Oh, and…

Wash your hands with soap and water. Frequently.

Seriously. It doesn’t take much care to reduce the spread of germs. It’s not like they can get around on their own.

(Do visit this post, Why yes, I am an Infectious Disease Specialist, by Insanity Bytes for an excellent read.)

The frustrating thing is not that people are taking the Wuhan Flu seriously (panic behaviour being another issue entirely). It’s that we DON’T take the annual flu just as seriously.

Every year, before flu season, people are given the exact same information for precautions to prevent the spread of the flu.

Every public washroom in places like grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants and department stores have posts with instruction on hour to wash your hands properly. Seriously. People need to be told how to wash their hands.

And people don’t do it.

So many just use the bathroom and leave, without going near a sink.

It’s disgusting.

It gets people sick.

How many people would be protected, every year, if we kept up these basic hygiene practices, all the time? Especially at risk people, such as those with preexisting health conditions or the elderly.

How many productive hours would not be lost?

How many lives would be saved, every year?

Right now, we’ve got people panicking over the Wuhan Flu, with the media whipping it up to a frenzy. Emergencies are being declared. Economies are being shut down. Yet, we have the equivalent of the Wuhan Flu, if not worse, every year, around the world.

Again, this is not to make light of what’s going on right now. It’s just so frustrating that it took something like this for people do engage in simple behaviors we should be using all the time.

Of course you just know that, once this is over, many of the same people who went into a frenzy of toilet paper and hand sanitizer panic buying (all those survivalist and prepper sites are certainly being vindicated right now!), or doing things like buying up the entire inventory of meat in a grocery store, leaving nothing for those who actually need the food, will probably go back to business as usual; going to work sick, coughing all over their co-workers, and not washing their hands with soap and water throughout the day.

Sometimes, humans really suck.

The Re-Farmer

The reality of things

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I’ve been told I should make sure to add warnings before I post certain things, so I’ll start with that. Towards the end of this post, there are pictures of a dead bird.

Aside from that, during my morning rounds, I did get photos of Two Face. Her wound is healing quite nicely. You can hardly tell where it is, if you’re not looking for it!

Continue reading →

Feelin’ hip

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My hip joint, that is.

Hip ball socket joint Clipart Picture, Hip ball socket joint Gif

I have been feeling pain in my left hip for some time. I got X-rays and they found the beginnings of osteo-arthritis, which is not surprising, but also bone spurs, which explained the pain I was feeling. That pain is pretty much always there, but not very severe. About the only time it’s a problem is when I sleep, as it means I can’t lie on my left side for very long. Otherwise, it doesn’t really slow me down. At least not more than anything else does. :-D
(image source)

I’d hurt my right hip some months before and had it X-rayed, too. It also showed mild osteo-arthritis beginning, but that’s about it. That hip had stopped bothering me.

Until a few weeks back. While walking across the dining room, I suddenly couldn’t put weight on my right leg. There was something wrong with my hip joint. I was close enough to the dining table that I could grab a chair and sit down. After a while, I was able to get up and “walk it off”.

Then the pain went away as suddenly as it started.

I then basically forgot about it.

It happened again, yesterday evening. All I was doing was sweeping the floor. Without warning, I suddenly couldn’t put weight on my right leg, due to pain in my hip joint. My daughter had to come over and pull a chair out for me to sit down. Later, I was able to use one of my dad’s canes that we simply left where he kept them, hanging on arm bars (there’s a reason I left them there!) and made my way to my office chair.

Now, I’ve dealt with a lot of different kinds of pain. I’ve broken bones. I developed post traumatic osteo-arthritis in my feet and knees long ago, along with bone spurs in my heels and knees. I have bones that dislocate pretty regularly. Joint pain, muscle plain, pain from what turned out to be a large cyst that took my innards for a waltz. Typically, they limit me to a certain extent, but I can still maintain a level of activity that gets the job done.

Just don’t expect me to be able to kneel down, then get back up again, without help! :-D

This pain, however, is different.

This time, it didn’t go away.

I was, eventually, able to put weight on the leg and walk without the cane, but the pain stayed. I still have most of my range of motion, but for some things – like shifting my leg in my chair as I type this – it goes from not hurting while I’m motionless, to pain that prevents me from moving the joint.

It doesn’t feel like OA. It doesn’t feel like bone spurs. Still, I was able to go about and do my rounds outside, without a cane, and basically walk around like normal. I just had this pain, right in the joint, that wouldn’t go away.

I was trying to describe to my husband what had happened yesterday evening, since he had already gone to bed by then and missed it. He said it sounded like maybe something got in the joint.

Which brought back a flash of memory.

When I had my right hip X-rayeds, months ago, mild OA was not the only thing they saw.

They also saw loose bone fragments. I believe fragments were visible when I got my left hip X-rayed. Not unusual with OA, really.

But that might be my problem. Loose fragments may be getting into my joint, causing pain, then migrating out and my joint feels normal again. Except this time, it’s not clearing, so it still hurt when I make certain motions.

Just a little while ago, while sitting on my office chair, I tried to get up to reach for something.

And I couldn’t put weight on my right leg again.

I can still get about, using my left leg and a whole lot of things to lean on. My husband – the one with excruciatingly painful back injury – was sweet enough to bring me a cane so I could at least walk to the bathroom.

*sigh*

After I’m done writing this post, I’m going to have to see if I can walk on it again.

I guess this means I have to get another X-ray to confirm, and see if there is something that can be done about it. At the very least, I’ll have to call my new doctor’s office and see if I can make an appointment or something.

What a pain. Literally and figuratively.

Well, I certainly am not going anywhere in these temperatures. I’ll see how things go over the next few days. Until then, I’ll just have to keep a cane hand and, if worse comes to worse, use my dad’s walker to get around.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer