So Many Feets!

We got a light dusting of snow last night.  As I went out to take my mother to the hospital again, this was what I found on our walkway.

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So many kitty feet to make so many paw prints!

I love it!

Things went very quickly for my mother today; we barely waited 10 minutes in a busy waiting room before the nurse came for her.  Just the injection, a quick look at her eye, and we were done.  We’ll be back again tomorrow and likely the day after as well.

I left another 10 minutes earlier to pick up my mom, figuring I’d get her at home to put her knee brace on, only to find her already coming down the hallway, ready to go!  She refused to go back for her brace, but when I kept asking, she finally said “when we come back.”  So when we came back, I asked again!  I think she was hoping I had forgotten. :-D

So I finally got the brace on her.  Oh, what a lovely piece of engineering that thing is!  It’s beautiful!

Yeah, I’m a geek that way.

I told her to think of it like a prescription; just like she has to take her pills every day, she should wear her brace every day.  There are even people available where she lives that can help her put it on, if that’s a problem.

Of course, for all I know, she took it off as soon as I left, though she said she would wear it for the rest of the day.  I hope she will.

As for me, I think the next thing I will do is break out the handheld vacuum before I do anything else.  From where I am sitting as I write this, I can see 10 lady beetles crawling all over my window.  Well.  Not all of them are crawling.  I think several are actually quite dead.  :-o

The Re-Farmer

Critter Stress Relief

Oh, what a long day it’s been!

Wait… what do you mean it’s not even 6pm yet?

:-D

Actually, it wasn’t that bad.  Just longer than expected.

Before heading out to drive my mom to the doctor, I was able to get a few quick pictures – though the camera wanted to focus on everything but the cat…

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This is the tree Butterscotch got stuck in a while back.  It’s almost like she’s going “I can do it… just watch me…” :-D

I left earlier so I could help my mom to put on her knee brace.  I got there and even pulled up to the exit nearest her apartment – only to have her calling me from the main doors.  Yup.  She was out early, ready and waiting.  I mentioned the brace, but no, it’s okay, she says, as she climbs into my van.

My mom is tiny.  My van is not.  It’s a bit of an effort for her!

The drive in was… illuminating… as my mother expressed her discomfort about being taken off the blood thinners for her heart.  I had to explain that the injections were another kind of blood thinner, but something that wouldn’t make her bleed.  But she was still uncomfortable with the change.  Ultimately, though, she did say it out loud; her discomfort was a matter of racism on her part – though phrased to show she believed the change in her medication was due to racism on the doctor’s part.

That didn’t go over well with me.

While certainly not the worst of conversations with my mother, it definitely had some moments.

At least this time, she didn’t basically accuse me of worshiping frogs.  I have decorations on my dash, including scrapbooking adhesive beads, sea turtles, tortoises, a rock fish – in my previous vehicle, I had a much more elaborate display, but the surface is different in this vehicle, and they don’t stick as well.  I also have 1 frog on the dash (I had more, but they fell off) and 1 toad, in my dash, next to the gauges.  I did this because I was spending so much time driving around and waiting in the van, I made it into my happy place.  At Christmas, I even had a tiny Christmas tree with battery operated lights.

My mom just saw the frog, and I guess to her, what I was doing was like when people put little religious statues on their dashes; so it meant that if I had it on the dash, it was because I worshiped it.

But not the turtles.  Just the frog.

She doesn’t like frogs.

After we got to the hospital, we found out where they told us to go was not where we needed to go.  It was all within feet of each other, at least, and the right people were informed that my mom was there for her injection.  We didn’t actually wait for long before a nurse came and took her into a consultation room, along with the blood pressure machine, took her vitals then prepped for the injection.  After some questioning of the nurse about the doctor and so on (my mother is pretty good at hiding her racist motives behind these questions), she had to be told again that the injection was another kind of blood thinner, so her heart was still being treated.  She asked about having the treatments transferred to the hospital closer to her, and the nurse said she would look into it, and directed us back to the waiting room.

If it hadn’t been for that, we would have been able to leave right away.  As it was, because the doctor was in clinic, seeing other people, it took a while.

My mother was remarkably patient, though, even when the not-quite-there lady came back wanting to watch her show, which wasn’t going to start for another 20 minutes, and kept asking us if we watched it, did we know what channel it was on, and where were we from?

When the show did start, she fell asleep.

Altogether, we waited for probably 1 1/2 hours.  Eventually, the noise of the TV was too much for my mother, so we moved to a table outside the waiting room that’s reserved for inpatients.  Which turned out to be a good thing, because the doctor happened by, recognized us, and came to check on my mom, right then and there.

Which also gave us the opportunity to clarify about the medications and the requested transfer.  The doctor wants my mom to keep coming back, rather than transfer to the closer hospital, so that the same people will keep monitoring her eye.

I’m good with driving her.

My mom was pretty tired by then, though, and glad to finally leave.  She’s not happy with the situation – especially after I told her that it’s likely she’ll need to come back until the end of the week, before her eye clears.  I don’t think she’s getting that this is just her first day of getting the injection instead of her pill, and it’s going to take a while.

I am so glad I have been able to come with her for these.  Before going home, she needed to get some prescription refills, and she completely misunderstood the doctor, thinking that ALL her prescriptions were being changed, not just the blood thinners, and so on.  Though I explained various things to her, she kept having to get them explained again by others.

It got very exhausting.  For both of us!

But I was able to help her get some grocery shopping, too, and carry them in for her.  By the time she got home, she looked more than ready for a nap!  I do hope she got one.

Tomorrow should, hopefully, just be a quick trip in for her injection, then home again.

And this time, I hope to get that brace on her leg!

It was good to get home.  My daughters were in the process of baking more bread, and taking care of the critters.  Even got some photos for me.

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Mama and the twins had come by, and were very active about it!

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While Nasty Crime Boy was very interested in something going on above Eunice, the Barely Upright Snowman.

As for me, it’s all I can do not to go for a nap right now. :-D

The Re-Farmer

 

In for a penny, in for a pound.

This morning, I headed over to my mother’s place to drive her to the hospital to follow up on her blood filled eye.

Unfortunately, she continued to take the blood thinners, which she takes for her heart, that she was told to stop taking, because she said she felt really bad without them.

Once at the hospital, we got passed around from place to place; turns out that the hospital, clinic and lab are all in different areas of the same building.

Very long story short, the blood thinners are why her eye is the way it is; she may have scratched it herself, or just rubbed it really hard – she mentioned that the day before she’d gone into the hospital with my sister, her eye was really, really itchy, and she’d rubbed it hard because of that.  !!

The doctor that saw her decided to put her on a different heart medication that will involve injections, in place of the current blood thinner she is taking.  Thankfully, just before we was given the injection, I mentioned that she’d taken her regular meds this morning, and would that be a problem?

The nurse double checked, and yes, it would be!

So she will get her first injection tomorrow, and will continue to get them daily, until her eye clears.

Which means I’ll be driving her to the hospital every morning for probably the rest of the week.

In for a penny, in for a pound!  Taking on some of the driving of my mother to medical appointments was one of the things I intended to help with, after all!

Good thing my own schedule is clear.  And that I’ve got two handy daughters to help out their dad while I’m away.

Overall, the trip was good. My mother used a cane today, instead of her walker.  It doesn’t fold up, like my husband’s does, but I have plenty of room in the back of the van for it.  Ah, well.  At one point, I had gone ahead to open up the door for her, then watched her as she walked over.  This was the first time I’ve had a clear view of her leg that’s bothering her while she was walking for any distance.  Her knee is bent inwards quite severely!  She was largely walking on the inside of her foot.  I’ve offered to come earlier tomorrow morning to help her put on the brace she’s supposed to be wearing.  She agreed, which is a huge step forward.

Even with all the reroutes (including more blood work), we didn’t spent much time in the waiting rooms, and we were out in about 1 1/2 hours.  We had passed a restaurant on the way in, and she offered to take me to lunch there, but they weren’t open yet, so we ended up going back to her hometown and she took me out for lunch there, then I got her home.  She was pretty tired by then.

Tomorrow should be much shorter, at least.

Meanwhile, the girls did bread baking while I was away; they’ve been doing the basic sourdough recipe so regularly now, they don’t even need to bring out the cookbook anymore. :-D  They’re thinking of doing more tomorrow, except using The Rye of SourOn instead of Sir Sour Alot.

I showed them the pictures I was able to get of the deer I saw on the way home.  They told me Hungry Girl and Barbecue had come by while I was gone, both of which came back while I was uploading my phone pictures onto my Instagram.

I am thinking I might want to bring the DSLR with me tomorrow, just in case… :-D

I didn’t get a lot of pictures of Hungry Girl and Barbecue today, but here are a couple of Hungry Girl for you to enjoy.

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This one really stood out for me, when I saw that big, beautiful eye!

And then I saw this next one, and it made me laugh out loud.

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Oh, how I love the goofy face pictures! :-D

The Re-Farmer

 

 

 

 

A Day of Rest

Today was a very quiet day; I’ve learned to really appreciate those!

I posted some photos of the outside cats on my new Instagram account when I went out to feed them this morning.  Butterscotch came out, and I tried to see how the wound on the back of her neck was doing.  The fur was no longer matted and damp looking, but quite clean, so some grooming obviously happened.  Though I could feel where the wound was, she wouldn’t stay still enough for me to see anything.  It’s clearly not bothering her, though, which is good.

I’ve yet to see any deer today.  My older daughter thinks it might be too wet.  I’m hoping they come by later on.  The squirrels and birds will eat only so much, and as damp as things are, the seeds might start germinating – or rotting, depending on the conditions.

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Nasty Crime Boy entertained us for a while.  At first, he seemed to be watching something up the tree, though nothing that we could see from our window.  Mostly, though, he was just starting at the tree trunk.  Perhaps a bug had caught his attention?  I was able to get his attention for a photo, though. :-)

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Trüllbus the Crime Eater took over Rolando Moon’s favourite spot.  He had joined me when I was putting their food out this morning, but he would not let me touch him, or even go too near him.

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The redpolls were out in full force, but they were so active, I didn’t even try for a photo of them.  Instead, I managed to quick shot of this little feathery golf ball of a chickadee!

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Only one blue jay visited today.  Looks like it was a day of rest for the critters, too.

It’ll be an early bed time for me tonight.  I’ve got my first turn taking my mother to a doctor tomorrow morning.  One of her eyes had suddenly turned blood red.  Thankfully, my sister was visiting that day and able to take her to see a doctor.  The local clinic was closed, however, so she had to go to a clinic in the next large enough community.  That’s where I need to bring her back to tomorrow morning.  It’ll be about 40 minutes drive, plus the time it’ll take to pick up my mother.  Who knows how long we’ll be in the waiting room; they only told her to come back in the morning.  No appointment made.

I think I’ll bring along a small crochet project.  And maybe some extra yarn and hooks for my mother. :-D

My daughter has already offered me the energy drink she had been saving for another day.  I’m going to need it! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Critters – and ID progress

We had a lot of deer activity out our window this morning!  All five of them, at one point. They were all energetic and dashing all over the place, which made getting photos a bit of a challenge!

My younger daughter was watching them and commented that the twins are starting to get less fuzzy and starting to look more sleek, like their mother.  I’ve noticed their faces are starting to get less round and also starting to get that more “adult” look.

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Except when they’re making silly faces! :-D

Despite our repeated vacuuming, the Asian lady beetles are still out in high numbers.

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In the morning, they really like our living room window.  They are upstairs in the highest numbers, but they also really like my office.

Yesterday, I made myself a giant cup of tea, then went into my office to work on the computer.  After a while, I took my empty cup and started to refill it, only to find a lady beetle had landed in my cup and was now swirling around in the tea.

Ew.

So now I’m paranoid about my tea.

This morning, one of my priorities was to look at the public insurance website about was needed to get a driver’s license updated after a move, because all this about needing my proof of address to include my physical address was getting beyond ridiculous.  The website very clearly states,

Rural customers must provide at least one document containing their physical address. If rural customers do not have two supporting documents containing their physical address, the second document can contain their mailing address.

Which is what I gave them.  In fact, both documents had the physical address, because the proof of identification form specifically has “no p.o. box” on it, as we’d considered adding it in, too.

So instead of driving to my bank branch in the town my mom lives in, I printed out copies of last month’s electricity and phone bills (this month’s aren’t up yet, which means they are likely not going to be available online until next week), as well as the puclic insurance company’s webpage.

When we got there, someone else was being served at the counter, so I waited.  Then a woman came out from the back – the one I’d been dealing with the last 3 times I’ve been there and has been trying to help me so much – and went right to helping me.  She knew why I was there!

We talked for a bit and I told her about my calls with the phone and electric companies, and how the electric company simply can’t include the physical address, because their system doesn’t allow for it.  She was able to tell me why the personal identification form was rejected.

It turns out the problem on the form wasn’t with me or my address.

It was the postmaster.

It seems that the identity unit (we have one???) couldn’t confirm her as a postmaster, based on some sort of criteria they had.

Which is weird, since she has a framed certificate up on the wall, identifying her as the postmaster, issued by Canada Post.

Totally bizarre.

In the end, she took my phone bill as proof of address, because the electric bill had a slightly different postal address – it included the term “station main” on there (which is what they normally do).  I mentioned that they had a copy of my marriage certificate, which has my address on it, but Vital Statistics isn’t among their list of acceptable sources.

Well, what I’ve given now had better be good enough.  If this isn’t, I don’t know what’s left!

After that, my daughter and I picked up some prescription refills for my husband.  Unfortunately, it was for painkillers that can’t be filled until the last refill is almost done.  My husband had phoned it in yesterday, but they wouldn’t be ready for pick up until today – and he ran out of the painkillers last night.

It was a rough day for him today.  It’s not like he can take them any time, either, but on a schedule.

After picking up the refills and doing  some other errands (one nice thing about it; almost all the stuff we needed to do was within a block of each other), my daughter and I went to play some Pokemon Go.  Which turned out to be really excellent hunting; we both caught new Pokemon for the Pokedex, and we actually caught a Blissy!  She hasn’t even seen a Chancy, yet (I’ve had much more opportunity to play that she has), so that was pretty exciting.

On the way home, we stopped at the post office.  The postmaster wasn’t there, but I talked to the person that was working the post office to pass on what happened with the form.  I figured she might like to know that the identity unit couldn’t verify her as the postmaster.  Mind you, it could be because this is such a tiny post office, inside a retail outlet, and not a stand-alone office, like in the next town.

After we got home, my daughter was a sweetheart and did some bread baking.

I ended up crashing with the cats for 3 hours.

I’m getting too old for this. :-D

The Re-Farmer

The Deer Came Back – plus insurance update

First, an update on my medical insurance situation.

I got a call back from the insurance company “about my rejected claim.”  So that’s how the failure to get coverage on my prescriptions showed up at their end.

When I spoke to them before, they were confused to find that, while everything looked as it should in one area, in another, it showed that my file was closed.  They were going to contact the employer’s carrier company to find out what happened, which is what she was calling me back about.

They were told that I had opted out of the plan.

Huh?

Nope.  I have never done anything of the sort.  In fact, the only thing I’ve ever done has been to use my prescription coverage.  My husband has been the one to deal with them, since he’s the employee.

My guess is that when there was a screw up that affected his coverage, mine got messed up, too.

The insurance company told me I’d have to contact the employer to get it fixed.  Well, I can’t, but my husband can, so he has sent an email off to them.

Hopefully, I will have coverage again, soon!

My thoughts yesterday, of putting deer feed out in a trail past Scary Eunice the Snowman, was foiled when my younger daughter went out to feed the cats ahead of me.  As the deer hadn’t made it to the feed yesterday, she didn’t add more.  So I was going to go out later and do it.

I never got a chance to.

Hungry Girl and Barbecue were already out!

They were still nervous around Eunice, and were giving her a wide berth, which also meant they were coming closer to the house.

Interesting.  The deer were less nervous about us moving around on the other side of the window than a snowman!

I imagine they’ll get used to it soon.  Or the warm weather will melt it down.  Whichever comes first. :-D

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Hungry Girl was pretty enthusiastic about burrowing and digging into the snow to get at the feed.

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And making faces at us in the window.  Not so much in this photo.

Gosh, she’s so cute.

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Barbecue was certainly enjoying himself.

What a difference between those two.  Hungry Girl is all scruffy looking, while Barbecue is so sleek and fat, his haunches jiggle when he moves quickly.

In the next while, we’ll find out if he really is a he.  March is usually when the antlers start to grow in.

Later on, Mama and the twins came by.  They, too, kept well away from Scary Eunice!

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This is one of the twins, coming back after being chased off by its sibling, using the boot trail near the house left by my daughters.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen them go this close to the house before!

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There was a fair bit of digging into the snow in some of the spots.

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And burrowing of faces.

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A bit of aggressiveness, too.  I wasn’t able to get a photo of one of the twins actually kicking at its sibling, enough that his leg even got hung up over the other one’s body.

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But that didn’t keep either of the twins from coming back.

Look how deep that snow is!  This area doesn’t get as deep as other areas, such as the open garden. It’s definitely making it harder for them to move around.

And now a bonus photo…

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One, adorable, fluffy little chickadee!

The Re-Farmer

Hello, March!

Ah, what a lovely spring day we are having today!  As I write this, our temperature is at +2C.  That’s right, I’ve had to add a + to the temperature!  We are above freezing temperatures right now, and it’s already evening.

Awesome.

Of course, we’re also getting storm warnings for Sunday – when we’re also supposed to be above freezing for temperatures, so it’s a heavy snowfall that would happen, if it does happen.  From talking to my dad over the years, these snowfalls tend to miss the farm, and hit farther south.  So we’ll see.

The melting snow has left the deer feeding area looking much bigger!  All the detritus of past feedings is being revealed, so the spots where I’ve been leaving little piles of seeds are now looking much bigger.  And blacker.

This morning, Hungry Girl and Barbecue came over before I’d gone out to freshen up the feed.  I tried to take photos, but the camera wouldn’t work.  Checking the display, I saw what looked like CHR.  Or maybe CHA.  Anyhow, I figured the battery needed to be charged.  So I took the one from the camera to charge and popped on the extra.

Which was also almost dead, even though I had fully charged it not long ago.  I still thought there was enough charge to take some photos, but not; I still got the same display.

So I missed getting photos of them while the batteries charged.

It turned out not to be the batteries.

Somehow, the memory card got locked.  The photos I took yesterday are still there.  I copied them, but I can’t remove them, nor can I take more photos on the card.

I have no idea how this happened, or even where.  It could have happened on the camera itself, or on the desktop.

I will have to investigate further.

I did, however, get a nice photo of a blue jay, at least.

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I got a call from my husband’s doctor this morning about a change in his medication.  (I appreciate that they will talk directly to me about it, so I don’t have to interrupt his lie-downs.)  The new medication is covered by insurance, so he gave me information and instructions about it, then sent the prescription to the pharmacy so I could pick it up today.  Rather nice having a prescription that we don’t have to physically pick up at the clinic and take to the pharmacy within a limited time period!

So my younger daughter and I headed into town to pick it up (and get some Pokemon Go in).

While there, I checked to see if my own file was successfully transferred from our previous pharmacy (it was) and if it had been filled (it was).  So I got both at the same time.

One of the pharmacists and a trainee spent some time with me, making sure I had the needed information about the updated medication, the dose, when to take it, etc.  They even opened the package to look at the paperwork to make sure the dose measurements on the injector pen matched the previous version of the medication.  It did, but the dose my husband is supposed to be on is quite high, so the box will only last a few days.  It was decided to leave it as is, for starters, then in the future we can get multiples of boxes, so I’ll have fewer trips into town.

Meanwhile I glanced at my own prescriptions and choked at the price tag.

The insurance coverage wasn’t used.

So I let them know and gave them my insurance card.  Once done with my husband’s prescription, they started fixing my file.

It’s a good thing I brought an insulated bag and asked for ice packs.

I think I spent at least half an hour waiting, as they first tried to get my insurance set up on my file in their system, which failed, and the pharmacist then called the insurance company directly.

Long story short.

They couldn’t get it to work.

At the insurance company’s end, the person was going to talk to someone else, but that someone else was on lunch, so she would call the pharmacy back later.

The pharmacist, meanwhile, felt that the problem was at their end, not the insurance company.  I could pay the full price and get reimbursed (nope; we may have just got paid, but reimbursement wouldn’t happen until it got fixed, and who knows how long that would take), or she was willing to transfer the prescription to the competing pharmacy across the street to be filled.

Yeah!  Really!

I decided to not get them for now (it’s a good thing they’re not a vital prescription!!).  She said she would call me if she got a call back from the insurance company.  I mentioned coming back tomorrow, but she suggested I call, first.

So what should have been a quick trip into town, with some leisurely Pokemon-ing ended up being much longer.  At least there is a Pokestop right next to the pharmacy, so my daughter was able to throw on a lure and played on both our phones while she waited for me.

Meanwhile, my phone let me know I had a voice mail.  Which was weird, because I got no phone call.  Turns out I did, but it just never rang.  It was my previous doctor’s office, wanting to talk to me about my file transfer.

So, once I got home, I had lots of phone calls to make.

I called the insurance company and explained what happened.  He could see nothing wrong with my file on the system, so he put me on hold to talk to someone else.

When he came back, I could hear the perplexity in his voice.  It turns out that in one area, my account was active, but in another, I was no longer active.  They don’t know why.  So he was going to contact the carrier my husband’s work is hooked up with to figure things out and get my file fully active again.

Hopefully, it will not take as long as it did to fix up the mess with my husband’s file.

Then I talked to my old clinic.  Turns out there is a $35 fee to transfer a file, and how did I want to pay that?  I don’t have a credit card, but I do have debit Visa, which they take, so we did that.

I also updated my address and phone number, so she wouldn’t call my cell phone, though my cell phone number is still there as a back up.

Then I worked on something else when I got a notification from my phone.

Another voice mail.

Yeah.  She called my cell phone.  And since I had zero signal at the time, it went straight to voice mail.

I called back and found out my card was declined.  Which made no sense.

So I called the bank’s 866 number on my card.

Which got answered with a cheerful recording saying I could help them out by taking a short survey.  As a reward, select customers could win a Caribbean cruise.

Uh huh.

So I went through the three question survey (there was no option not to take it), and at the end, the cheerful recording congratulated me, because I just won the cruise; it would only cost a $65 processing fee.  Did I want to accept the prize?

Uh huh.

So I selected yes.  A live person answered the phone, greeting me with an “are you excited about winning this cruise?”  To which I responded, “Actually, I’m trying to figure out how I got you guys, because I was trying to phone … ”

*click*beepbeepbeep*

She hung up on me.

I called the bank’s number again and got through to where I was supposed to.  After being on hold a while, I made sure to first tell the person who answered what happened.  She took notes to pass on to the back office to see if there was a security breach on their system.

Then I talked to her about my debit Visa being declined.  She checked, but there was nothing wrong with my card.  After getting more details, she put me on hold and went to talk to someone in the back office about it.  When she got back, she informed me that no transaction on my card was attempted, according to their system.

Which means that, somewhere between the clinic and the bank, something went wrong.

So, back on the phone with the clinic I went.  I told her what the bank told me, and she was surprised, because she had tried twice.  I told her the bank confirmed there is nothing wrong with my card, so she said she would try again later, then call me back if it was still a problem.

So far, no call back, but then if she tries to call my cell phone again, it might be a while before I find out.  I forgot to mention that she’d called the wrong number.

Ah, well.

So, more move related hassles to sort out.

Later on, I went and got the memory card from the camera, as well as the one that got locked.  I uploaded the photos I took…

And found pictures of Mama and the Twins.

I didn’t remember taking those.

I uploaded them all, then started trying to figure out what happened with the locked card, and if there was something I could find to unlock it on the desktop.

While I was doing that, my older daughter came by to let me know she’d taken some pictures of deer while we were gone.

I suddenly felt sane again. LOL

Here is one of the photos she took for me.

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With the melt, it looks like there is so much more feed out there than there really is!  I’d emptied the bag this morning, and picked up 3 more on the way home, so we should be good for the Month.

Now, I am looking forward to a quiet evening.  I’m not used to talking so much.  My throat is sore.  I have a friend I’m hoping to talk to soon, and I don’t want to have to cut conversation short because I’ve spent so much time talking on the phone!

The Re-Farmer

Warming Up

I must say, I’ve been really enjoying the warmer weather we’ve been having lately!

There is a down side to it, though.  Insects that would normally be hibernating right now, are coming out in droves.  Flies, I’m used to, but mostly it’s these guys.

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They are EVERYWHERE!  As I started this post, there was one crawling up the wall.  Every now and then, we hear the distinctive “tick” of one of them landing on the floor or some other hard surface.  They congregate on window sills and corners.  When washing up before bed, I find them crawling across the soap.  Every now and then, we’ll discover one that’s crushed on the floor, as we’ve inadvertently walked on them.  I’ve even found my beside touch lamp triggered by several of them, walking along the metal base. !!

Our daughters have been vacuuming them up several times a day, lately.  Unfortunately, that’s not really an option on the main floor.

These are not our local species of ladybug (coccinellidae).  I’m told that these are the imported Asian Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis) that we were told have been particularly bad this past summer.

Apparently, they bite, too.

Not much we can do about it but vacuum them up, really.  They’re still a beneficial bug, but can be a problem in greater quantities.

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Maybe we can take a lesson from our cat and just chill.

That’s her, with her chin draped over the plant stand, in front of my crochet corner.  She has a thing about draping her chin over things.  Or using objects as chin pillows.  Typically, not the object the rest of her body is on. :-D

In other news, I got a call back from the septic guy that has been coming to our farm for many, many years.  I’d left a message for him over the weekend, mentioning that the tank hasn’t been done in at least two years.  We are concerned that the tank might back up into the basement, as has happened in the past, now that there’s suddenly 4 people using the system.  He remembered the farm and the ejector system we have.  While he was willing to come out and do the tank, he recommended against it, while the ground was still frozen.  He was confident that we’d actually be okay until the fall.  To get it done now, while the ground is still frozen, introduced a potential risk.  It would take a while for the tank to fill again with water, triggering the ejector to send it out to the field, far from the house.  Normally, any water in the pipes after it was emptied would drain back into the tank, but with the ground shifting over the years, there would be pockets of water remaining that would freeze, or the septic field itself would freeze, over the days it would take before warm water was once again being ejected from the tank.  This would cause a major problem.  The only way to fix that would be to find the blockage, then dig a hole to the pipe to repair it.  In his opinion, emptying the thank now would put us at greater risk for that sort of scenario than for our tank having too much solids.

So I’m thinking that we will likely get it done in the late spring (the earliest he recommended), then go back to having it done every September.

Meanwhile, I got a response from another expert I’d asked advice for regarding our situation with the Co-op we left behind.  It was most helpful.  He made some of the same recommendations the lawyer did, but had other suggestions that the lawyer, not being as familiar with housing co-ops, would not have known to suggest.

Oh, how I wish I didn’t have to still deal with this crap.

Speaking of dealing with crap…

painMy husband had a medical appointment today, adding two more people to his team of caregivers; a joint meeting with a dietician and a diabetic nurse.  It was not pleasant.  He was having a very bad pain day.  Pain is a complicating factor, as pain causes high blood sugar reading.  So does things like lack of sleep, and numerous other things.  We’re basically treating a symptom.

Thankfully, on having it pointed out to them that he was in great pain at that moment, they were willing to cut through the usual stuff (which he’d heard before, anyhow) and go straight to options.  The best one of them being that, in the future, they could have these appointments over the phone, instead of him coming in.

Meanwhile, I took advantage of the appointment and got the process started to move my own medical files over – then ran into an old friend in the waiting room!  It was good to see her again.  I look forward to our being able to get together to catch up.

Slowly but surely, little by little, we’ll get all this medical stuff switched over to our new home.

The Re-Farmer

 

 

 

 

 

A few more steps forward.

Well, I got a couple of things accomplished to move us forward today.  This morning, I had a consultation with my lawyer about the Co-op situation.  I’ve been consulting with a lawyer about their actions against me for some time, but I really thought that would be over with, now that we’re no longer living there.  *sigh*

The next thing was certainly more positive.  I had to go in to town for a prescription refill for my husband today and FINALLY remembered to grab the information the pharmacy needed to be able to transfer my prescriptions from our old pharmacy over.  I could have done it by phone, but just never remembered during business hours.  I haven’t been taking my meds since I ran out before Christmas.  Reduction in stress meant I was already reducing my doses, anyhow.  My goal is to get off them completely, but with the Co-op BS still hanging over my, that’s going to be a bit more difficult.  Still, any progress is better than no progress!

Today was baking day for the girls, and this time they made “piggies in a blanket” by wrapping ropes of our usual sourdough bread around hot dog wieners and baking them.  It works well for a treat every now and then. :-)

With how warm it’s going to be for the next while, the girls and I are planning on getting things moved out to the shed again soon.  Which means back to packing up more of my mother’s things that we’ve been ignoring until we could actually get them out.  If all goes well, we’ll finally get 3 more dressers out of the way (my parents seemed to collect dressers!), and once a weird little nook beside the old kitchen is clear, we can FINALLY move the cat litter out of the corner of the dining room and into its permanent spot!  We’ll be able to clear out some stuff that got shoved into the sunroom, too – it’ll be nice to be able to open the door all the way again, when we go in for the cat kibble and deer feed.  Once spring has reached a point that everything is dry outside – at least near the house – we will empty the entire room, clean it out and set it up to suit our own uses.  I have a few ideas the room can be used for, along with just enjoying the room itself.  My dad used to love sitting in there.  His walker is still there.  I’ll be hanging on to that, just in case.  There have been more than a few times when I’ve wished I’d had one handy for my own use, given how my knees and metatarsals tend to dislocate unexpectedly.  That’s always fun.  Not.

The Re-Farmer

Sometimes, it’s the “bad” photos that are my favourites. :-D

The Re-Farmer

This time, I saw them

As expected this morning, we could see signs that the deer had visited the feeding station during the night, and dug through the snow to find food.  There might still have been some left, under the snow, but my daughter still topped it up.  With the various running around today, inside and outside, I’m happy to have been able to spot Hungry Girl and Barbecue.

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You can see that Hungry Girl was nuzzling through the snow to get at the feed. :-)  She seems more comfortable coming closer to the house than Barbecue, and the snow is a bit deeper there, because of the bushes in my mother’s flower garden.

Today was a day of doctor’s appointments – with a quick pause on the way out to get the old gas cap tether off so I can finally use the new one (the “check gas cap” notice continues…).  My husband and I now officially both have the same general practitioner.  My appointment was immediately after my husband’s, and we’ll both be seeing him, one after the other again, in a month.  I forgot to start the paperwork to transfer my medical files from my old clinic, though.  It requires signing a form, so I’m going to have to go back.

Hopefully, by the next appointment, our new medical cards will be in.

While the appointment was a “meet and greet” sort of thing (with the usual admonitions that I’m going to have to get a pap smear done, since I haven’t had one in years.  I hate those), I did request a referral for mental health.  My husband is, of course, going through that process already (you can’t live with the sort of constant pain he’s in and not need help!), but I’ve never gone though this myself before.  I realized I needed to get this done based on my response to the BS from the co-op that managed to reach out and grab me by the throat.

We’ll see how that works out.  The referral has been made and I’ll be getting a phone call, likely next week.

I also got a requisition for blood work, which I was overdue for.  The lab is right there, so I was able to get it done right away.  Then it was a few quick stops on the way home, during which my husband just stayed in the vehicle – it wasn’t worth dragging his walker in and out for such brief errands – and we were done.

On a more pleasant note, I got a chili started in the slow cooker this morning, which meant we came home to a delicious smelling house and hot food almost ready to go.

Even my older daughter had some, and she doesn’t like chili.

The recipe will be in my next post. :-)

The Re-Farmer