They seem to like hanging out around the old burn ring, rather than the catio. The catio may be too exposed feeling.
The girls have still taken on my usual outdoor stuff. No watering of the garden today, though, as it rained all night. Just walking around the yard taking video was enough to leave me feeling exhausted.
I’m at war with myself between all that I want to be doing, and knowing that I need to not be doing any of it to I can recover.
In some ways, I am a really terrible person to myself.
I am doing very well, which means I want to do more than I should, without even thinking about it! I was doing so well, I was able to do a walkabout yesterday evening… with my daughters both joining me to make sure I was okay!
Here we are, past the middle of August, and the sunflowers are just starting to form their heads. In the second photo of the slide show above, the one tomato we have that formed the earliest is finally turning red, but it’s taken so long, the skin looks dried out and damaged. There are, however, a decent number of other Manitoba Tomatoes on the plants, though still very green. The Blueberry tomatoes have quite a few forming fruit, all incredibly hard. There are lots of Orange Currant tomatoes, and they’re the only ones in that bed that have had anything ripen, but only from the same spray of fruit. Everything else is solid green. Same with the Chocolate Stripe tomatoes in the main garden area. We might be able to bring them in to ripen off the vine, but it’s way too early for most of them. Meanwhile, we’ve had some surprisingly cool night temperatures lately. We dropped to 6C/43F last night! Overnight temperatures over the next while as supposed to be warmer. The app on my phone says we’ll get another drop like last night within the week, but that app is also saying it’s raining right now, has been for hours and will continue through the night.
It’s not raining. It’s not even overcast.
Looking at the weather radar, the system is passing to the north and south of us. We might get a bit of rain in about an hour and that’s it.
I was able to sleep last night, and even sleep in, as my younger daughter took over the morning routine. She made sure the catio food bowl had a generous amount of cat soup to lure the babies (I have not seem or heard them at all today), and she watered the garden. We talked about that for a bit and the potatoes will no longer be watered so the soil will dry out and they can be harvested.
Which won’t be by me.
Later in the morning, she and I headed out to town, stopping first to pick up a parcel at the post office that turned out to be three parcels. I’m really amazed by how quickly my husband’s Tei Fu order came in! This time, he got some oil as well as the lotion that my daughter will test out. I was up to driving, but my daughter ran into the post office so I didn’t need to get in and out of the truck.
Our first stop in town was the pharmacy so I could get my post-op prescriptions filled. My husband has a refill scheduled for delivery tomorrow and I was hoping to pick that up, too, but I was not allowed to. Being a “controlled substance” it was too early for a refill. Idiotic and frustrating. Both my daughters had refills to get filled as well, with one of those also being a “controlled substance” that had to wait until it was almost gone before it would be refilled – which means it would have been out completely if she waited for delivery day.
While we wait for the prescriptions to be filled, my daughter got a wrist brace for her sister and I ended up getting a thumb brace for myself. I wore it only for the afternoon, and it has already made a world of difference.
Wandering around the store started to be a bit much, though, and I didn’t want to push myself, so I sat in the waiting area for most of the time. My daughter got the meds for herself and her sister faster, so she paid for the wrist brace (their meds were both covered 100% by our province’s pharmacare insurance) then headed out to another store while I waited.
My meds, being new, got a discussion about instructions with the pharmacist. The antibiotics need to be taken every 6 hours until the bottle is empty. The number of days is a bit off, since I wasn’t able to fill it yesterday so, in theory, I’d already “missed” several doses. The other is to stop bleeding. I can take it every 8 hours, but only as needed, and the fewer I take of that, the better. It’s the same thing my older daughter has a prescription for, and she had asked if I was getting it. The prescription was hand written in a short hand, so I had no idea until the pharmacist named it as she gave it to me. My daughter was very happy to hear I got this prescription, because it works incredibly fast and well. It’s highly unlikely I’ll need to take it for more than a day or two.
Once done at the pharmacy, we decided to go to the grocery store for a few things; bread, eggs and milk, mostly. We ended up getting more, of course. They had several cuts of steak, plus beef roasts, on sale for prices I haven’t seen in a very long time. I ended up getting two packages of steaks for tonight, a small roast plus a seasoned pork roast that is always a good price. Pork is about the only affordable meat right now.
Before we could finish going through the store, though, I had to give my daughter my cards and turn the shopping over to my daughter, so I could head to the truck and sit down. I had only been walking around, using the cart as a walker as I usually do, but I could tell I had started to push myself too far and needed to sit. My daughter did the driving and, once we got home, I took my new meds and lay down pretty much right away, making sure to set a timer and an alarm for the two different lengths of time to the next doses.
The girls took care of all the stuff I normally would have done at least part of. My older daughter also cooked the steaks for supper, finishing off the last of our store bought potatoes, together with cabbage and beans from our garden, to go with it.
It was deliscious.
Before supper was ready, I felt well enough again to go outside for the evening cat feeding – promising my daughters I wouldn’t do anything else!
Then my older daughter saw me through the kitchen window, dragging the hose across the yard, and sent my younger daughter running. I was just taking it to the catio to refill the water bowl for Slick and her kittens, but they were afraid I was going to start watering the garden or something! 😁
My daughter stayed with me while I finished and brought the hose back, and we got to talking about how Sprout’s little one has gotten so talkative!
It has a squeaky little meow it gives off while waiting for us to distribute the kibble. It is so nervous about eating, and I’d had to use the hose to chase off a big skunk that had scared it way, just by being there. This poor baby is all alone. Mama doesn’t stay close to it anymore, and it’s too scared to come to the house, so it has formed no “friendships” with any of the other cats. If they come by to eat, she runs away, so we try to get them to eat from other bowls, instead.
Once the cats were fed and watered, my daughter chastised me until I went back inside. 😄
Along with the meds, I’m under some pretty strict instructions on what I can and can’t do. No lifting anything over 10 pounds. No “strenuous activity” for a week… I suspect digging up potatoes counts as “strenuous activity”. Apparently, I’m supposed to be eating a “light diet” or things like toast or soup until I can tolerate more. I have had zero issues with what I have been able to eat. The steak dinner my daughter made REALLY hit the spot! Of course, there are also the warnings to look out for that, if they start, I am to get to the nearest ER immediately.
So far, though, I just had that while where I could tell I’d pushed myself, and lying down was sufficient.
The down side of feeling so good after the procedure; I REALLY need to force myself not to just get back into my normal activity levels!!!
Meanwhile, my timer just went off… time to go take the next dose of antibiotics…
I am so glad we left early. Three constructions zones on our route, slowing us down.
We still got there well before my registration time. They took me in for processing and prep almost immediately, and it wasn’t long until I was in a stretcher, waiting to be brought in for surgery.
I fell asleep.
Twice.
After several hours, the doctor finally came by to let me know that there had been an emergency that came in and everything got delayed. She had one more person ahead of me, before I could get done. When I heard a nurse telling someone it was past 3:30 (my check in time was 11:45, but we checked in almost half an hour early), I asked someone to call my daughter and let her know about the delay. She was more worried about the surgery than I was.
The surgery itself took only about an hour. While in recovery, I was informed they did find and remove something unusual. I’m to go back to the doctor in four weeks for a follow up, test and biopsy results. I got a prescription for antibiotics and something to control bleeding, if necessary, that they wanted me to fill right away, but our pharmacy would be closed long before we reached town, so I will do that tomorrow. Meanwhile, I was given instructions for home, and what to look out for that I would need to go straight to the nearest ER for if it happens.
They kept asking me what my pain levels were like, on a scale of 1 -10. My response? A half. Maybe. Just a dull ache. Pain, of course, can be a relative thing, and compared to the past few months, there was almost no comparison.
After my daughter wheeled me to the truck, we made a quick side trip for some take out so I could eat and hydrate on the way home, since I wasn’t ready to be going in and out of the truck yet.
We also took a different route home, allowing my daughter to detour two of the three construction zone.
As for me, I feel absolutely fantastic. I am so happy!
It’s still possible I might go for another, more major surgery, depending on the biopsy results, but I suspect I won’t need it.
I can’t believe how much better I feel already. Wow.
My daughter, meanwhile, as informed me that she will do the morning routine. I am banned, no matter how good I might be feeling. 😂
I admit, I’m writing this post in the morning, instead of the evening, as a distraction. Normally, after finishing my morning rounds, I would be making breakfast right now.
I’m hungry. And thirsty.
Unfortunately, I’m in the stage of my pre-op fast where I can’t even drink water.
My daughter is definitely doing the driving on the way in. I’m starting to feel quite light headed and ill, and my hands are getting shaky – and we aren’t leaving for another hour yet!
So, here I am.
I am quite happy with the harvest I got this morning. The beans didn’t get picked yesterday, so there was quite a lot.
These are quite nearly the last of the yellow beans. From what I could see, we won’t be getting more than a few green beans over the next while. The purple beans, however, are at their peak. I don’t expect to pick this many again, but the plants have lots of developing pods visible.
I also picked the one Early Prolific Straightneck squash that was ready. There is a second, smaller one and possibly some female flower buds, spread around the three plants.
Not very prolific, but then, none of the summer squash has been prolific this year. I can see female flower buds on the green pattypan squash plants, and there’s a single Golden Zucchini squash that should be big enough to harvest in a few days. No lemon squash. No Yellow Scallop squash.
Then, out of curiosity, I harvested some Hollow Crown parsnips. The plants are huge and I was curious to see how large the roots were.
Small. They are very small. Parsnips have a ways to go in the season, though, and are a cool weather crop, so maybe they will be better as we approach fall.
I haven’t tried to pick any of the beets. Their greens are huge, which we’ve left, because we are not big on beet greens. Beetroots, however, form right at the surface of the soil, so I can see how they are. These seeds were from a variety mix, and some of the plants look very, very different from others. I can see some roots forming from the red varieties, and they are really small. Other varieties that I am guessing are yellow, orange or white varieties, I can’t see any roots forming at all. Which is so very strange. Particularly for this bed, which has good loose soil, and gets “extra” watering from below, any time the sump pump goes off. Which hasn’t been often, lately, but with how wet things were earlier in the growing season, anything in this bed had a huge advantage.
Well, we’ll see when it comes time to harvest everything and clean up the beds.
So much for that one Yellow Swiss Chard that I was leaving to go to seed. Apparently, the deer like Chard.
The motion sensor noise maker is still there, so I moved it over to the former garlic bed, where the Yellow Swiss Chard is. Hopefully, the closer proximity will help? We shall see.
Meanwhile, my daughter just popped by and we are almost ready to head out to the hospital. Leaving early is good, since there is road construction on our route, so we’ll be heading out fairly soon.
I’m so looking forward to getting this surgery over and done with!!!
Not just for the surgery itself, but so that I can start taking my supplements again.
I got hit with a Charlie horse last night, somewhere around 2 – 3 in the morning. It actually started with the top of my left foot, the tendons yanking my toes and ankle up. As it got worse, I managed to fling off the three cats that were using me as a bed, sit up and grab a tube of Tei Fu lotion. The tube was more empty than I expected, so I had to fight with it, while my foot was painfully cramping. I ended up with way more than I intended on my hand, what actually turned out to be a good thing.
I got some on my other hand and raised my knee onto the bed so I could start rubbing it into the cramp, only for the position to trigger more cramping in my thigh. I ended up with cramping in my entire left leg, from the tip of my toes to my hip, with my right leg starting to threaten. I had enough lotion to apply to both legs, pre-emptively preventing any cramping in my right leg.
That Tei Fu lotion is gold.
The frustrating thing is that the magnesium, potassium and zinc I’d been taking to prevent this in the first place is off limits until after the surgery. I was eventually able to get myself up and hobble to the bathroom to wash my hands before I took some painkillers. My older daughter was awake and working, so I messaged her and she came down. I didn’t need any help by then, but she stayed and we talked for a while, and she made sure to let me know I could message her at any time if problems started again. Thankfully, it did not and I finally got some sleep.
When I got up a couple of hours later, I saw my husband’s light was on, which means he was driven awake by his own pain. I popped in to talk to him about what happened, mentioning that I was going to be starting my last tube of Tei Fu. The last time he ordered some, he got 4 tubes, and I’d given one to my younger daughter. She recently mentioned to me that she had been out for a while. My husband immediately went online to order more. He was thinking to get in on a monthly subscription, but I don’t use it that often. My daughter, however, might do well with that, until she has her own surgery, which may be months from now.
I was able to get another hour or so of sleep before I finally got up for the day and headed out to do the morning routine. I got to feed the feral baby.
The kitten now comes out and meows when I start putting the kibble out. It still won’t let me near, but seems to be catching on to the routine and understanding that I’m there to leave food, not try to hurt it.
No sign of Slick’s branch pile babies this morning, though she came to the house for breakfast, as usual. I do hope she hasn’t moved them!
I did my morning rounds and should have picked some bush beans, but didn’t have a container, so I left it for later.
I might have to get my daughters to do it. They’ve been taking over most things for me today. My younger daughter was kind enough to make breakfast for me when she found out I had started to do it, but had to stop before anything was ready to actually eat.
I didn’t push myself at all this morning, but as the time wore on, I started having issues with my left arm. All the joints from my rotator cuff to the fingers. Then the abdominal pain started to kick in.
*sigh*
One. More. Day.
My younger daughter was able to come down and do my arm with diplofenac at joints, then I did my lower abdomen myself, along with my left hip, which now hurts pretty constantly. The abdominal pain kept getting worse instead of better. I still wanted to go to the general store and post office to pick up a parcel and another 40 pound bag of kibble, so we wouldn’t have to worry about it while I was recovering. When the post office re-opened at 2pm, I got my daughter to drive me. When we got there, however, I was no longer up to getting in and out of the truck, so I gave her the mail box key and my card for the kibble.
She got the mail first, and came out with two larger packages. I was only expecting one. The larger box was quite beat up, and part of the contents was broken through.
It turned out to be the blower I’d ordered for her forge! The one my husband had received a message offering a refund or a replacement blower, and tracking said was still at customs!
I checked before starting this post and, according to the tracking, it’s still at customs.
After dropping the boxes off in the truck, my daughter went back in to buy the kibbled. When she was done loading it into the box of the truck, she gave me my debit card back and told me it hadn’t worked, so she paid for it herself.
I had done some banking earlier and there were no issues. It wasn’t until I went to put the card back in my wallet that I realized, I had given her my Visa instead of my debit card. The cards look identical, except one has my name on the front, and the other on the back. The general store is not set up to take credit cards.
Oops!
Once we got home, I was able to take the mail in, as they were quite light, but I could barely walk from the pain. I was still able to open up the bashed up package, though, which had a piece of metal sticking out one side!!
Thankfully, the blower is not something easily broken. Even the foam around the opening was broken, but there aren’t any dents. Of course, my daughter got the handle on and we tested it right away.
Now, all she needs is fuel for her forge and some steel to practice with – and we have scrap steel all over the place – and she can start doing some blacksmithing here at home!
Once we were back, though, the pain was still getting worse, so I took more painkillers and lay down.
My older daughter, meanwhile, took over another project for me. She first went out to give that old bathtub a thorough scrubbing. Then, once it was fully dry, she used the enamel paint I picked up on it. She has since been able to put on a second coat.
With the condition of the tub, we know it’s going to have lumps and bumps, and the paint might have trouble adhering. I’m not too worried about it, though. It’s going to be used to soak and wash filth cat beds and blankets. I just need it to not be rusted out and flaking, and to hold water.
My daughter will be adding more layers over the next few days, giving it plenty of time to cure in between, pretty much until the can is empty.
All this, in between making a supper of ribs and roasted cabbage from our garden. She wanted to make sure I ate very well, before I have to start fasting at midnight. The house smells amazing right now.
As for me, the pain did finally start to subside while I was lying down, but then the bleeding suddenly increased. A lot.
We’re doing laundry now.
One. More. Day.
That prescription I was given – the “safer” version of what my older daughter is on – has done nothing for me. I may as well have not been taking it. It should have at least reduced the pain, and there shouldn’t be any bleeding at all.
Hard to imagine that all of this got trigged by taking an anti-inflammatory that had been so helpful for my arthritis!
Ghosty knows that if she digs into things, it wakes me up. I’d sit up in bed and see her looking at me from wherever she was that she wasn’t supposed to be! Usually, I can figure out that she’s letting me know the food bowls need topping up, but that was already done. I never did figure out what she was wanting, other than to wake me up! By the time I was ready to get up for the day, I was ready to throttle her. 😄
The morning routine was normal and uneventful. I got to see the feral kitten. Sprout doesn’t seem to have anything to do with her baby, and I didn’t even see her at all today. I got a head count of only 10 yard cats this morning, including the kitten. Clearly, the little one has been weaned as essentially abandoned, and seems to be staying mostly in what’s left of the junk pile.
Unfortunately, once again, I got hit with the pain again. This time, it started later in the morning. I took some T3s but it kept getting worse, and I finally had to lie down. Not because lying down is any less painful. I’m just not fighting gravity to stay upright anymore. I even tried the topical painkiller and that made no difference, either. It took about 4 hours before finally fading away. I wish I could say I got some rest, but that didn’t happen, either.
When the pain finally faded, it was as if it had never been there. Which is good, but the unpredictability of it is very frustrating.
Five more days and, if all goes well, this should never happen again!
I felt well enough to head outside in the early evening to do my usual routine, feeding the yard cats and watering the garden, including the food forest trees. That leaking barrel I have set up to leak next to the apple tree has almost completely stopped leaking! So strange.
They are so yellow. Only two of them are climbing the trellis (you can see one in the second image above). They have certainly grown more than last year but, once again, seem to have reached a point and stagnated. The trellis should be a wall of darker green leaves, flowers and bean pods.
All of the Daikon radish has bolted. The heat we got earlier in the season really messed with them! I’ve tried pulling some and there’s just spindly radishes – and the largest one had grub damage. I grew these for my younger daughter, who really likes Daikon radish, but it’s not something we buy often. She suggested we just leave them be and collect the seeds.
That’s going to be a LOT of seeds! 😄
While doing my evening walkabout, I had my usual furry followers. Including this guy.
Stinky is adorable, but I’m not happy with him. He has been attacking Sweetie! Other cats, too, but Sweetie is so tiny compared to him. It’s hard enough to try and get her to trust us, but harder when he goes after her and I break them up. She has no way to know that I’m only after him, and trying to protect her.
*sigh* Poor little thing!
Oh! I got a call I was very happy to get today. The tree company called to let me know they were be out here tomorrow afternoon with the stump grinder. Once that is finally removed, we’ll be able to work on the patio area, leveling it off with a slope away from the house, instead of towards it. It’ll be nice to have that area level again! The cat isolation shelter will be set up there again for the winter, and the wheels kept getting stuck on the heaved edges of the blocks.
That’s pretty much it for the highlights of today. Pretty boring, really.
Today has, somewhat surprisingly, been a day of progress.
Surprisingly because I was dealing with the pains on and off today. I was fine when I went to bed, then got awakened by the pain in the wee hours of the night. I managed to finally fall asleep and it was gone by the time I got up, but was back again after I did my morning routine and was having breakfast. Then it went away.
There just doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason behind it. I really, really hope the surgery next week puts a stop to this!
This morning, I did a head count and there were 12 cats showing up for breakfast. When I counted again at the second feeding of the day, there were 14, plus the kitten showed up later.
I did contact the rescue about needing to adopt the cats. They recommended I contact other rescues as their resources are stretched really thin right now. I wasn’t asking for fostering. Just if we could post them on their website, but it doesn’t look like they can even do that right now. The problem is, I’ve tried contacting other rescues before and they don’t cover our area. The only one that did turned out to have… issues. The only good thing that came out of that is we connected with The Cat Lady, who helped us so much while she ran her own little rescue.
I already know none of the rescues are doing intakes right now. Everyone is full. So… we need to figure things out.
Anyhow…
As usual, after feeding the cats, I went through the garden. I am just so happy with how the Arikara squash is doing!
I’ve got my hand in the second picture as a size reference. We’ve got one squash that’s growing. A couple others have withered away, and there’s one that I’m not sure is going to make it. It’s bigger that the size of the others that withered, but it doesn’t seem to be growing. There are some female flower buds visible, too.
The winter squash at the chain link fence are looking good, with lots of male flowers blooming. There was one that had a single female flower that dropped before it ever opened. Currently, I see a different winter squash with a female flower that will hopefully blossom and at least have a chance to get pollinated.
The Super Sugar Snap peas that were planted later at the chain link fence bed are blooming and forming pods now.
The yellow bush beans had matured faster but are winding down now, yet are still just as prolific as the green and purple beans that are pretty much at their peak right now. There are fewer green and purple bean plants, too.
Next year, I hope to remember to try using the wire tomato cages on the bush beans, like I do now for peppers and eggplant. They seem to need that extra support.
Bush beans do great in the high raised bed, but it isn’t big enough. We have enough beans for eating fresh, but not enough to freeze or can. We definitely need to grow more beans. Normally, I’d be starting to harvest pole beans as the bush beans are winding down, but the Red Noodle beans seems to be struggling. Not as much as last year, where they only reached 6-8 inches high then stagnated. The first year we tried growing them was a drought year and they barely grew at all. It wasn’t until I was cleaning up at the end of the season that I found a single, skinny bean pod that was about the size of a worm. This year, they are bigger but, again, they seem to have stalled. There’s next to nothing climbing the trellis, and the leaves are a yellowish green, like last year, instead of the darker green I see in pictures of mature plants. I don’t know if we’re going to get any pole beans at all this year. We do have the bush beans planted later, with the Arikara squash, and I’m seeing pods starting to form there, so we’ll have at least a bit more beans to harvest from there, soon.
I harvested a couple of green scallop squash, deciding to leave the golden zucchini to get a big bigger before picking them. There are still a couple of varieties of summer squash that barely have flower beds, even.
On coming back to the house through the sun room, I could hear noises through the door. As I came closer, a little raccoon ran out, but I could still hear noises.
Of the two you see in the first image above, the top one eventually ran by me and out the door. The one below it, however, ran to another corner, and just sat there. I even tried to persuade it to leave with an old broom handle I’ve got in the sun room for times like this. I was going to just sort of push it from its back, to convince it to move.
It didn’t move.
I ended up “petting” it with the broom handle while it just sat there, frozen, staring at me, which is what you see in the second picture.
I tried leaving for a bit and tapping on the other side of the window. Nothing. So I puttered around outside some more before coming back. It was still there. I moved in closer do to something else and all it did was turn around and stare at me some more, which you can see in the last picture.
The little thing looks so sad and adorable. The most tragic of expressions! 😄
It did eventually leave, some time after I was back in the house.
Once my morning routine was done and I was making breakfast, I used some of the fresh beans I picked this morning. I ended up making the fanciest breakfast I’ve ever made for myself, ever. 😄
My daughter had roasted the marinated pork belly last night, so I used some of that. I cooked up a couple of packages of ramen noodle soup, boiling the cut up beans in the stock for a few minutes before adding the noodles. Then, once the noodles were softened, I added a couple of eggs to poach for the last couple of minutes. We have some very ripe avocados that need to be eaten quickly, so I sliced one up.
The noodles and soup liquid didn’t all fit in the bowl, though, so the last of it went into a mug to be added to my bowl once there was room.
Since the meat was already cooked, the whole thing took hardly any time at all. I think waiting for the water to come to a boil was the longest part.
It was quite delicious, too!
Unfortunately, by the time I finished cooking, the pain was coming back. When I finished eating, it was bad enough that I had to take some pain killers and try lying down for a couple of hours. By the time the pain eased, it was long enough that I’m pretty sure it went away on its own, and the painkillers didn’t actually do anything.
Still, I was feeling well enough that I headed for the basement, sneaking past my daughter as she was mopping the floor before she got to that part. 😄 My brother is wanting to haul away the hot water tank collection, and I wanted to at least move them from the old basement to the bottom of the stairs in the new basement, as there is more room around them and they are stronger.
The modern tanks were pretty easy to move, though one of them turned out to still have a fair bit of water in it. I had it tilted over the little trench in the concrete floor that drains to the sump pump reservoir for a while. The water coming out was thick and deeply orange from rust!
With the tanks being round, it was quite easy to “walk” them across the old basement, though the space at the bottom of the old basement steps is so narrow, I had to drag them through there. Once in the new basement, I could mostly just roll them along a bottom edge.
Then there was the original tank. The one I thought I could make lighter by removing the outside of it. That inner tank is way heavier.
I tried rolling it back and forth at first, testing the weight, and could hear all sorts of things rattling around inside. There must be so much scale in there! I stood it up, and almost immediately, noticed some water leaking from the outflow valve. I started rocking it a bit and more water started spurting out. I ended up walking to over to the drainage trench in the concrete and held it there, at an angle, for a while.
The light isn’t good there, so I was using my phone’s flashlight to check the outflow pipe and could see it was threaded at the tank. There was an old pipe wrench handy in a nearby shelf so I used that, at the “tap” end of the outflow, to try and unscrew it. It was coming loose quite nicely when I realized it wasn’t coming loose from the tank. The “tap” was coming off – I couldn’t even see that it was threaded, earlier! After a while, a white pipe was visible and I was able to pull the whole thing out by hand. By then, most of the water had already drained and it was just a slow trickle. I ended up dragging something over to lean the tank against, so I didn’t have to sit there holding it at an angle the whole time.
Once it was down to a drip, I continued moving it to the other basement steps. Which was way easier than I expected. With the outer shell removed, it was narrower than the modern tanks, making it easier to get past the bottom of the old basement steps. Once it was on the smooth concrete of the new basement, I was able to just push and slide it most of the way!
So we now have three hot water tanks at the base of the new basement steps, waiting to be hauled out.
Then I went and got the old door from our last vehicle. It’s been leaning against a wall off to the side for years now. That turned out to be an easy move. The concrete floor in the new basement is nice and smooth, and it slide across quite nicely.
So that’s all ready to drag up the stairs and outside to the junk pile, which the girls and I were thinking of doing today.
It won’t be done today.
Once everything was moved, I cleaned up where the tanks had been, then grabbed the very handy old garden hose we keep for clearing the pipes to the septic tank to clear the drainage trench to the sump pump of all the thick, rusty sludge still sitting in it. Ew.
That done, it was about time to feed the outside cats, so I headed back outside. After feeding the cats, I broke out the push mower to FINALLY get a job done that I’ve been meaning to get to for weeks.
I cleared the two overgrown spaces in the main garden area, and around the fallen tree by the old squash tunnel we still haven’t taken down. These areas both needed to be mowed twice. The first time with the mower as high as it can go. The second time, a few notches lower. The old garden area is still so insanely rough from the botched plow job done before we moved here, I can’t really mow it as short as I’d like. I was able to mow in between the silver buffalo berry, though. Those need more wood chips mulched around them, eventually, too.
It looks so much better now!
After I put the mower away and headed back to take the above photos, I spotted little Bug in the north yard, behaving strangely. Like something in the grass had her full attention…
That mouse is about half the size of her skull. Such a good little Bug, earning her keep! 😁
I had intended to water the garden after I finished with the mowing, but I was at my limit for the day. My older daughter was able to do it for me, while I was working on this blog post.
As I write, I can start to feel that I may have pushed myself a bit too far with moving those tanks, though. My shoulder and neck muscles are starting to stiffen up.
Time to be pro-active with the painkillers, I think. Maybe some Tei Fu lotion on my legs before bed, too, since I can’t take my magnesium supplements until after my surgery.
An early bed time is definitely in order, tonight.
For all that I ended up having to lie down due to pain for several hours, I glad I was able to get things done.
The complete and utter destruction of our corn patch. Clearly, the motion activated noise maker did nothing to deter the raccoons!
I found a whole three cobs that looked untouched. You can see in the last image, what was in them. Basically, just one cob that had anything remotely like ripe kernels.
This is so, so disappointing.
The rest of the day wasn’t much better. Ended up spending several hours in bed dealing with pain that painkillers had no affect on. Then I got a call from my mother who immediately began ranting at me about how nobody is visiting her, and why didn’t my brother or my sister visit her? By the time I had to cut the call short and hung up, it had gone from, no one is visiting her to trying to say I should visit her because she provided the roof over my head and “gave” the farm to my brother to the staff is neglecting her because they are paying more attention to other residents than her to wanting to know very specific details of why I’m getting surgery that are NONE of her business to saying I should make sure that I have a white doctor because brown people don’t care about white people and brown doctors make mistakes.
By then, I was more than done with the call.
The day has gotten better, though. My daughters were able to clear a path and get the big aquarium into the basement. They were able to get the living room actually useable again. There is now a charcuterie and a movie about to happen.
This little guy was waiting with the cats in the sun room when I came out. It seems to prefer this particular tray just outside the sun room, and was eating kibble where when I came out with the cat soup. It did not want to stop eating when I came close! Hungry baby. It did finally move but came back as soon as I moved on to the next tray. I find it amusing that Sweetie – who still behaves as if terrified all the time – is buddies with the skunk!
After feeding the cats, I hoped to water the garden but, after walking around and checking the beds, I was just in too much pain – and I had taken pain killers before I headed out. So I went in to have breakfast and hoped the painkillers would finally kick in.
They didn’t.
In the end, after waiting long enough, I took some more and tried lying down. That finally did it.
One of the things on my to-do list today was a trip into town. My younger daughter had her own list, so she came along. While heading to the truck and getting things ready, I had a surprise. The shed my brother had bought was up! I never heard a thing!
I had been wondering what could be done to create a base for the shed. After leveling the area, my brother salvaged an old steel door – for some reason, there are quite a lot of them scattered about! – to set under the shed. It is the perfect width.
I later found out that the shed is surprisingly light, so he wants to find a way to secure it to the steel door, so it doesn’t blow away in the wind.
I had a bag and a half of non-aluminum cans in that spot, and the cats were already starting to get into one of them. They are now in the shed. No more coming out to find cans scattered all over the place!
My daughter and I headed out soon after. I haven’t seen the renter’s cows for a while and I think they’ve been rotated out. We decided to leave the gate open and I made sure to send a message to let my brother and SIL know, so they knew it was us and left intentionally.
We had lunch first. While we were eating, I started getting a lot of notifications on my phone. It was the security camera at the gate. My SIL took advantage of the gate being open while she was mowing around the driveway. We had actually talked about that earlier and she wasn’t planning to mow, as we haven’t had rain lately and the grass wasn’t very long. The path to the barn that my brother uses a lot, however, was a fair bit taller, so she mowed that for them and just kept on going!
After lunch, we went to a nearby store to look for one of the things my daughter was after. She ended up finding a couple of things she needed, which was handy. Then it was off to the grocery store. I had a couple of the big water jugs to refill, plus a short list from my husband. Since we were there anyhow, I picked up some fresh fruit and a few other things that we would need soon that were on sale, and my daughter found a few things as well. I’m glad she was able to come along.
By the time we got home and everything was unpacked and put away, it wasn’t too much longer before it was time to feed the outside cats again, so I took care of that before doing the watering. This time, I also watered the trees and bushes in the food forest area. It’s been dry enough lately that they got extra watering.
After finishing watering the main garden area and the trees, I came around to do the south garden beds when I found my daughter going by with the wheel barrow. She had dug up the enameled bricks from around the fire pit and brought them closer to the house, where they are currently soaking in water to loosen the dirt before she scrubs them a bit. We were planning to take those bricks out and replace them with rocks that we’ve picked out of the garden, more of which needs to be brought over to the fire pit area. Knowing these were going to be taken out, she wanted to salvage them – to use in the basement! She is wanting to reorganize and do a keep clean in the living room. We’ve got that big fish tank we’d used as a greenhouse for seed starts in the past, and it’s in the way. We’d been talking about putting it in the basement, where I can use it as a greenhouse in the spring, but the concrete gets wet in the spring (parts of it are still wet now) because the weeping tile is probably full of silt and tree roots. Anything we set up has to be elevated, and we’d run out of bricks. Once she has these salvaged bricks cleaned up a bit, they will be used to set under the stand the fish tank rests on, so the wood won’t rot.
Getting all that out of the living room and down the stairs is not going to be easy. It will, however, free up a lot of space we need!
This was set up near the old kitchen garden so, once the bricks were soaking, that’s where I started the watering. While doing the wattle weave bed, I decided it was time to lift the garlic in there. These are from a bulb of garlic I’d found while preparing the rectangular bed nearby in the fall. This was well after I’d planted the garlic in the main garden area, and were clearly quite a bit smaller, even before I dug them up.
These are very young and small garlic, so we will be using them right away, rather than setting them with the other garlic to cure.
It’s a good thing I enjoy doing the deep watering, because it takes at least 2 hours – closer to 3, when the trees get watered, too. I was pretty tired, sore and hungry by the time I was done, and my daughters were sweeting enough to make me a supper when I came in.
Meanwhile, my brother has headed back to the city while my SIL stays here for a while longer. We never crossed paths in person today at all!
Anyhow.
Today has been a mixed bag, but I am happy with how much I was able to get done, in between dealing with pain. One of the things that came up while I was talking to my daughter about what I was feeling this morning was my doctor’s offer to start the process to get me a new pair of knees. I said no to that, as they aren’t that bad, really.
My left hip, however… that is something I should probably bring up, the next time I see my regular doctor!
Not anytime soon, though. One thing at a time, and there’s three of us waiting for various surgeries right now!
So the past couple of days have been SO much better, it just blows me away!
Yesterday, I was not only well enough to go into the city for the stock up shopping at Costco, but felt well enough to keep on going after everything was put away and we’d had supper. I headed outside for the usual evening cat feeding, then gave the garden a solid watering before heading back in.
A couple of nights ago, my brother and SIL quickly came by to drop off a box with a small raccoon proof shed they picked up. I had some bags with cans at various stages of sorting against the garage, and critters had gotten into them again, spreading them all over. So this is something we can store the aluminum cans in until it’s worth bringing them to the scrap yard. Most of the cans are cat food cans. Even though they are empty, the critters still smell food on them and sometimes tear the bags apart – even after ignoring them for months!
They also let me know that they were coming back the next day (yesterday) to take the trail loaded with metal items to the scrap yard. When they told me about the shed, I mentioned that we had more bags of cans in our basement that would fit in the truck. My SIL said that they could load the bags into their truck (which has a taller cap over the box) and take it in with the rest of the load.
I didn’t know what time they would be coming by with the shed, so I headed out with some fresh bags to at least re-bag the bag with aluminum only that had been torn up. As I was walking to the garage, however, I saw something that wasn’t there when I’d gone out to feed the cats and water the garden earlier.
That wasn’t there when I was out watering the garden beds! I sent the picture to our family chat and my daughters said they had heard something – maybe 40 minutes earlier – fall. It wasn’t even particularly windy at the time!
After re-bagging the aluminum cans at the garage, I came to see how bad the damage was under this tree top. Much to my surprise, the garden bed cover was not damaged. The netting was bent, but it doesn’t have hoops under it, to it can be easily pushed back into shape. All those branches sticking out in every direction actually kept the full weight of the tree top from landing on the cover and doghouse roof. I broke off some of the branches while one of my daughters came over, and she held the tree top up until I could get the garden bed cover out from under it, then pushed it aside, so it’s not over the old dog house anymore. We’ll have to come back with the chain saw to break it down, soon, but for now it waits.
We went in after that and my brother and SIL were in and out to drop off the shed in its box so quickly, if I hadn’t gotten security camera alerts, I’d never had known they were here!
With my SIL’s kind offer to take our aluminum in, that meant getting all the bags out of the basement. I didn’t know what time they would be coming buy, and knew I’d be going to the city, so I wanted to get the cans out before we left. Which had to be done in stages, since we can’t just leave doors open, or the inside cats would be getting into the basement, or outside.
I got it done, though. By the time I got them out near the junk pile, which has been cleared out significantly, thanks to my brother and SIL, I had 11 large clear bags, plus another 8 or so small blue bags. Including the two bags from beside the garage I’d rebagged the night before.
What I found out later was that they weren’t coming out until my brother was done at work (I had thought he might have arranged to leave early or something). So we were back from Costco well before they got here, in seperate vehicles.
I had actually gone back out to water the garden, but suddenly realized my brother had somehow arrived and parked by the barn without my ever hearing him! Then I heard my SIL arriving at the gate. So I postponed the watering and started tying the garlic off so I could hang them to cure.
Which didn’t work out as planned.
Normally, I make two long strings of garlic that I hang under the canopy tent to form a large X across the middle. The garlic, however, turned out to be too heavy. The first string of garlic kept snapping at different spots. In the end, I hung the remaining pieces, reinforcing the longest one with more jute twine. With the rest, I tied off strings of roughly a dozen garlic each and hung them around the sides of the canopy tent.
I was working on this when my brother and SIL drove their truck and trailer up to where the aluminum bags were. In the end, though, they didn’t take them yet. They didn’t have time. The scrap yard closed at 8, but it was at least a 45 minute drive to get there, and they needed to be there before closing time. Last call is usually about 15 minutes before closing.
So they left without the aluminum, with my brother driving the truck and trailer and my SIL following in the car my brother had come out in. They got there just in time and were able to get it done. Once the trailer was cleared, my brother took the car and drove home, since he had to go to work the next morning. My SIL drove the truck and trailer back here.
Meanwhile, I had finished stringing up the garlic.
There are two images in the above slide show. I don’t like that the garlic is around the edges, as they could be affected by the weather more. We’re not expecting rain for a while, though, so I hope they will be okay.
I was just finishing watering the garden when my SIL got back with the trailer. I helped her unhitch the trailer (something neither of us had done before, though at least my SIL has seen my brother doing it), then she drove the truck over to the bags of aluminum. We didn’t want them out overnight, as the raccoons would probably tear them apart.
It was getting dark, so I messaged my daughters and they were both able to come out and help load the truck. Much to my surprised, they all fit, with room to spare!
By then, it was pretty much full dark. My SIL parked the truck near their caravan and stayed the night.
This morning, I was up by about 6am, even though I hadn’t actually slept much last night. I headed out into the wonderfully cool morning to feed the cats and do a quick walkabout before going back inside.
The last time I saw this Arikara squash, it was maybe 6 inches long!!
I set a brick under it, so it wouldn’t have direct contact to the ground. There are several more squash developing, but this one got huge, fast! One squash plant, and we might have as many as 5 squash off of it, if they all survive. This is how all our winter squash should be looking, but even the biggest of the other varieties do not look this vigorous and healthy!
This is a chokecherry tree, part of which has split.
Oh, I just realized. This is probably NOT wind damage. This might be deer damage. There are ripe chokecherries on this tree. If they were pulling on the berries like they do when going after the crab apples, they could easily have broken the tree like this.
My SIL and I were planning to head out around noon. That gave me time to go through the house for any remaining aluminum cans that were waiting to be bagged up, filling about half of a large, clear bag. Then I went to the garage, where a bag with crushed cans had been torn and spilling and picked that up. Then I crushed all the cans I could find in the crate and bin we us for recyclables. Last of all, I headed outside the garage with a magnet and sorted the last bag that’s been sitting there for months, pulling out the cans with steel. By the time I was done, I’d filled the large clear bag and about half of a small blue recycling bag. I carried them over to my brother’s truck and added them to what was in the back.
At this point, we have a couple of bags with just ferrous metal in them. We could have taken them with us, but it just wasn’t worth is for barely two bags. The price for steel is quite low.
I later found out my brother got 12¢ per pound for their load. The stuff didn’t weigh as much as my brother had estimated.
The cans sorted and bags and cleaned up, I headed back in to change out of my grubbies and into going out clothes. I double checked the hours I’d found for the place online, and they said they were closed today. !!!??? So I phoned.
They were very much open.
My SIL and I headed out soon after. We went to the salvage yard directly to the south of us that I was already familiar with, rather than the one they went to last night. There was enough in there that they brought out one of the bigger cages with a forklift, rather than the bin they’d brought out the last time we’d managed the trip, and we actually filled it. It turned out to be 252 pounds, and they paid out 70¢ per pound. a bit lower than the average going rate, but these were not “clean”; a lot of the cans had been outdoors for some time before we had to put the bags into the basement to keep the critters from getting at them, so they had literal dirt on them.
That got me just over $175 in cash. Not too bad!
I also remembered to ask for a new magnet keychain to replace the one that was stolen, I think by a raccoon. They had a whole basket full of them available to give out!
My SIL had suggested we go for lunch afterwards, and this allowed me to treat her, for a change!
I don’t know a lot of what’s available in this town, so when my sister suggested Chinese food, I was quite happy to try a place I’d never been to before. We had a lovely meal and a great time catching up with each other.
As we were finished, my SIL mentioned she wanted to go to the town north of us after we were done. I asked if she wanted company and went along, with just a side trip to the post office for something my husband was expecting.
The extra drive meant almost a lot more driving time to chat in. I really enjoy spending time with my SIL. She’s awesome.
The place she wanted to go to was the livestock supply store. She’d never been there before, but that’s one of the places I’d been getting 40 pound bags of cat food from, plus this place has all sorts of other farm supplies to ogle. I was able to give her directions to the store, which is actually away from the town itself. Since we were there anyhow, I picked up a couple of bags of cat food, as well as a very plain, inexpensive, folding knife. Something better than the utility knife I’ve been carrying around when doing yard stuff, with no fancy saw edges or do-dads. Just a plain knife. They had one left in bright orange, and I grabbed that. This way, if I drop it in the grass or dirt, it’ll be easy to see!
My SIL, meanwhile, picked up some stall liners. Something to put under the stairs to their caravan, or other places where they don’t want the grass to be taking over.
I have to admit, when I saw them being loaded into the truck, I started wanting one for our kitchen! These are designed to withstand cow hooves. The cats would not be able to scratch this up! They’re actually too big to fit on our kitchen floor, though, but gosh, that would be so nice. Pricey for what would essentially be considered a floor mat, but worth every penny.
That done, my SIL wanted to check out the hardware store. We both got a couple of little things, but mostly she wanted to look at their display sheds. They had quite a variety of designs on display, from basic wide open spaces, to ones with front porches, pretty windows and lofts.
Some of the price tags on these, though… there’s a reason I want to build a garden shed using the cordwood wall technique! The mortar needed for that, plus using wood from dead spruces we already have, would be a lot cheaper, even with having to buy roofing material.
With all the driving and checking things out, it was late enough that the girls took care of feeding the outside cats before I got home. We’re now good on dry cat food for both the inside and outside cats for probably the rest of the month, which was a nice bonus.
My brother has since made it out and they will be here for the weekend. Much of the focus is still going to be on cleaning up and hauling things away.
Which brings me to something the family is going to need to figure out.
My brother is going to retire in a couple of years. The deal is, he pays for the property tax and insurance, we pay the utilities and keep the place up – something that is getting harder for us to do with all of us being broken, one way or another. Something I hope will improve within the next 6 months or so, as my daughters and I each get the surgeries we need.
Once he retires, they won’t be able to keep up paying the expenses for this place. The money brought in by renting most of it out doesn’t even cover the cost of taxes.
We need to figure out what our options are, and we have only two years to do it in. Meanwhile, my husband’s disability income through is employer ends at age 65. That’s only 7 years away. It’s not like we can take over the property. With both our daughters having health issues, their options are limited, too.
