I’m back from doing the Costco shopping today, but before I post about that painful trip, here’s some good news!
While doing my rounds, I found new growth in various places!
There are more purple crocuses up and blooming, plus more white crocus buds are up.
There is no sign of the muscari/grape hyacinth yet, but I did have a wonderful surprise nearby.
Okay, I know they’re hard to see, but there are at least 14 tulips coming up here! Before resizing the photo to post here, I looked at it at full size to try and find them all. Some of the green is blades of grass, but I spotted the leaves of a few tulip plants piercing through the dried leaves above them. I’ll have to keep an eye on those. I remember last year, seeing some of them getting taller, but not able to break through the leaves they’d grown through, so they were all squished together. Once they get taller, and I know where not to step, I’ll go in and pull the dead leaves off, so they can spread out and grow properly.
I had another pleasant surprise in the old kitchen garden, too.
We have one Egyptian walking onion that’s been trying to grow every year since we moved here. Last year, it actually survived long enough to form bulbils. After building a new, little raised bed, I took those bulbils and planted them in front. Here, you can see two of them have sprouted! There were several more, too. I can’t remember how many were planted, but I’m pretty stoked that they survived the winter and are now emerging through the mulch. I didn’t see if the “parent” onion has started to emerge, but think I might have seen, maybe, possibly, leaves from one of the flower bulbs my daughter planted along the edge of this garden. Last year, some leaves came up, but none bloomed. There’s another spot, at one end, where she planted daffodils which did bloom last year but, so far, no sign of them.
I did also check the carrots, and there are no sprouts that I could see, but I was just peaking under the edges of the plastic and couldn’t see very far in. I need to put a priority on building covers for those beds, as the current set up is very temporary, and not as functional.
We’ve got highs of 9C/48F predicted for today and tomorrow, with a bit of rain now and then. After that, we’re supposed to warm up a bit more and have sun for at least 5 days. Great weather to get work done out there!
But maybe not today. City trips three days in a row has sucked all the energy out of me! Right now, I just want to crawl into bed and sleep for a week.
While some apps predicted rain, others predicted snow.
Guess which ones where right?
My daughters decided to go for a walk and feed the outside cats for me. They are also bringing in the saw horses and old closet door we’ve been using as a table for the past year. We have so many tomatoes to pot up, we will need it inside for extra space to hold them all.
One of my daughters is wearing shorts out there. How Canadian of her! 😁😁
Some areas south of us are expected to get 20 – 35cm of snow. That’s about 8 – 14 inches.
I had a really rough night last night. No, not because of pain levels. Well. Only partly because of pain levels. More because of this little beast!
She even looks malevolent in this shot!
Throughout the night, if she wasn’t trying to dig under my keyboard or under my monitor (I have no idea what she is after under there!), she’s jumping up onto a craft shelf that really can’t support her, or goes right next to my head in bed, clawing at my sheets – I’m truly amazed I don’t have big holes in my sheets, yet! – before snuggling into my arms and cuddling hard up against me during the night.
She’s not the only one. I usually have her on one side, Cheddar jammed up against my back, and one or two more against my legs. It makes it very hard to roll over!
Then there were the cats determined to use the carpet as a scratching post instead of the scratching post, and the ones that do the non stop digging in the litter boxes (that includes Nosencrantz!) and generally waking me up repeatedly during the night. Oh, and of course there is the scratching at the door as various cats want in or out.
So this morning, I fed the outside cats while still in my pajamas, then went back to bed to try and get a least a couple more hours of sleep!
I almost got it, too.
Which is why I was later than usual when leaving to run some errands. We’re running low on dry kibble, and the price difference is enough to warrant going to the nearest Walmart. I left late enough that the post office had reopened after their lunch break, and my backordered seeds were supposed to be in, so that was my first stop.
Alas, my back ordered seeds did turn out to be yet another package of substitute seeds! Instead of the Improved Purple Queen beans I’d ordered, I got another package of Red Swan. That makes three packages, including the one that I’d actually ordered originally! Ah, well. I won’t bother trying to get the Improved Purple Queen again. They’re obviously having supply issues with that one. On the plus side, the seeds did come with a new catalog of garden supplies, including greenhouses. My older daughter is saving up for a hard sided greenhouse, so it will be great to look through what they have available, and get an idea of what it will cost.
I also got a surprise gift in the mail! I opened up the padded envelope to see, but didn’t open the boxes I found until I got home again. Check this out!
The insert says “Human Body Induction Night Light”. Apparently, they will turn on with body heat? Which is weird. Especially since they have motion sensors.
The box of AAA batteries to go with them was also greatly appreciated. We don’t use those a lot, and my last package got knocked behind a shelf by the cats and we have yet to be able to move that shelf to reclaim them.
I am just thrilled with these! Before moving out here, the townhouse we were living in had some dark hallways and corners. We had night lights all over the place, plus in the three bathrooms (gosh, I miss having more than one bathroom!) with motion sensors, so we could use the bathroom at night without blinding ourselves.
For me, the biggest problem is right at my bedroom door. It’s very dark on both sides, and with cats constantly wanting in and out of my room, I’ve accidentally stepped on or kicked way too many of them. I now have one attached to the wall at the inside of my door, and one attached to the basement door on the outside, both at cat height. It wasn’t long at all before they were tested out, too. Perfect!
I do have the decorative fairy lights in the hallway to light our way without having to turn on the main light, I’ve been using the leftover batteries from the trail cams for those. They each take 8 AA batteries. When the batteries are too low for the cameras, there’s still quite a bit of charge in them. Enough for the LED lights. So I’ve been keeping those separate to use in the LED lights. Now that we have the solar camera and just one other working trail cam, we’re not going through as many batteries as we used to. I’m finally working my way through the box I’ve been storing them in! Since they’re already partly used, they drain fairly quickly. With the fairy lights, they just get dimmer and dimmer.
So, I now have one of these new lights set up in our very dark hallway at about knee height. Another is set up in the even darker corner one of the upstairs litter boxes is in. There’s an old mirror we have yet to remove from the opposite wall, so the light reflects and brightens the whole space. Another went on a bathroom wall opposite the mirror for the same reason. We do have a battery operated LED light switch style light in the bathroom, but it’s a pain to change the batteries on it. We have another in the corner where one of the upstairs litter boxes it, too. They’re held to the wall with self adhesive Velcro, which would come off either the wall or the fixture. I ended up buying heavier duty self adhesive Velcro for the bathroom one, which holds in place better, but now it’s harder to remove to change the batteries. Plus, as the batteries die, the light starts to blink on and off like a strobe, so we’ve pretty much stopped using them. With these new lights, the backs slide off easily. The back stays on the wall while the batteries get changed.
The last light went just inside the old basement door, under the light switch. There is no light over the stairs, so right at the door is quite dark. Not a problem when you’re going down, but when going up, it’s hard to see, and where the new motion sensor light is set, it perfectly lights up the door knob as you reach the top of the stairs.
I am just loving these things! I’ve asked for the link, so we can pick up more! There are so many dark spaces in this house. Plus, of course, if we lose power, we will still have these lights. There are strategic places I can think to put more of them, if I can figure out how to attach them. The self adhesive mounting strips won’t work on the old basement walls, for example.
Today may be cooler, but we’re still staying above freezing, and the kitties are just loving it!
I only counted about 16, this morning. As things melt clear and my morning rounds are extending further out, I’m seeing the cats all over the place. The long haired tuxedo followed me all over the place, much like Pointy Baby did – just without actively trying to get me to pick him up and carry him!
I miss Pointy Baby.
The berry bushes we planted last year are almost completely uncovered. That old saw horse with the sticks is over the highbush cranberry the deer kept eating. I checked the other one and can almost, sorta, see leaf buds starting to form!
The main garden area is still mostly covered with snow. If all goes to plan, the area in front of where I’m standing will have at least a couple of trellis tunnels built.
The garlic bed isn’t quite clear, yet!
The standing water has receded more, so I was able to get to the storage warehouse (which I would really love to reclaim as a work shop again!!) and look around. With not being able to get to the dump as often in the winter, we’ve been storing our garbage bags in the old kitchen, where it could freeze. It’s getting too warm for that, now. We need to build a garbage bin outside that is cat and racoon proof to store the bags until we can make our dump runs. There are pieces of plywood and other random boards in the warehouse. With all my parents’ stuff jammed into there, none of it is accessible. Some of the stacks of boxes need to be moved around, anyhow, as they are starting to collapse and tip. That’s as good an excuse as any to move things around. Some of the plywood sheets, however, are behind a couch, and there are all sorts of boxes and bins that predate us on and in front of it. No matter. We’ll figure out how to get to them. I’d love to get rid of all the bags of clothes in there. They’re not even suitable for donating after all this time, but my mother still insists we don’t throw anything out! *sigh* She’s still all worried that someone might come in and steal her old underwear or something. 🤨
While in the shed, I noticed an old broiler pan that will work as a kibble tray. I don’t know why we’ve been finding broiler pans all over the place – no one ever used them for what they were made for – but they make great kibble trays, so I grabbed it. With a bit of readjusting of things, I was able to reclaim two of the baking sheets I got for carrying transplants around that were being used as kibble trays over the winter. There is still one more, just inside the cat house entry, but I will leave that for now. With the two trays I reclaimed, I’ll be able to pot up the Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes now.
After I was done my rounds, I made a quick trip to the post office to see if a parcel had arrived. With so much snow gone, once I was back, I actually went to close the gate! I’m seeing our vandal walking by with his dog on the trail cam more often, so I wanted to have it at least closed. This makes it the first time that gate has been closed since the snow got too deep to keep clear, several months ago.
Well, now.
When my brother and I put the repaired gate back up, the two sides were even. That sliding bar holds the two sides closed, and I could put a pin through the pair of holes at the corner, which made sure the wind or whatever didn’t vibrate the bar off the end of the gate. Before winter, it was noticeably shifted, but we could still lift one side of the gate while pushing down on the bar and get the pin through. Now, it’s just too far off! We’ll have to come out with a level and see which gate post has shifted the most. I was thinking the north post was tipping away, but my daughters think the south post is tipping inwards. It could well be both. The gate posts were installed in such a way that they can be adjusted by adding washers to the bolts at the base. My brother had done that when he installed the new hinges that replaced the ones our vandal broke. I’d hoped it would be a few years longer before it had to be done again. It’s been about 3 1/2 years since these were repaired and replaced, so I guess that’s not too bad.
The main thing is, the gate is now closed! Without being able to put the pin in the sliding bar, the chain is extra necessary to make sure they don’t swing open on their own. We’ll also have to touch up the paint a bit. I think I still have a spray can of it around. I’ll have to think about what I can put around where the chain and bar is damaging the paint so quickly.
Things are going to stay colder over the next 10 days or so, with daytime highs just above freezing and overnight lows dipping several degrees below freezing. We’re also getting smatterings of rain. I’d say it’s a good thing we didn’t plant those carrots, even if we did have the plastic to cover them until they germinated. I don’t mind, though. It means things will continue to melt and be absorbed by the ground slowly. I rather like not having to wade through giant muddy puddles to get to the garage. It will give us time to work on other preparations.
I’m just thrilled to be able to get outside and get working again, even if it’s just a tiny bit at a time!
They did a great job on the road, but that plow ridge. Oy! I knew it needed to be cleared before things warmed up, then froze again into a solid mass. This morning, at least, it was still relatively soft. Just really deep!
I came back with the snow shovel and the ice scraper. I used the ice scraper to break up the packed snow and large chunks in the plow ridge, then shoveled it away, little by little. My goal was to make a space wide enough to drive through, but first I did about half that width, just to dig my way to the road. Then I started digging my way back clearing the other half.
Part way through, I realized I was being watched from the road!
Two deer were very perplexed by my activities!
While I was out there, my daughter also came out and got little Spewie going. She started clearing the space in front of the garage. The snow is no longer sticky, but a lot harder than it was yesterday, so it was tough going on that poor little snow blower. I saw her having to go back into the garage quite a few time to flick the switch on the power bar back on.
Then, and angel swooped in.
While I was still shoveling away, our neighbour with the plow attachment on his truck drove up. Once I realized he was dropping his plow and turning into our driveway, I grabbed the shovel and ice scraper and moved out of the way.
In just a few minutes, he did what would have taken us all day, just to get a path wide enough to drive through!
He even drove out and reversed all the way back down the driveway, so he could clear the area in front of where we store the lawn mowers and snow blower, which he couldn’t access from the other direction. Then, last of all, he widened the space at the end of the driveway!
He didn’t even stop to let me thank him. I shouted my thanks, anyway, and he just waved and kept going.
What an absolute sweetheart!
Also… I want a truck with a plow attachment like his! What a beast, and he could make that thing dance. 🤍🤍
Gooby followed me around while I did my morning rounds, and posed nicely while I was switching out memory cards on the sign cam.
I got a call back from the plumber today, and we’re looking at him coming in some time in the middle of next week. From the sounds of it, he was driving (hopefully, hands free!) while talking to me and couldn’t give me anything more concrete, but we’ll get a call once he has the info. It’s not an emergency situation, so I don’t mind the wait. We have everything else we need, ready and waiting, barring any unforeseeable damage that might be found once the old tub surround is removed.
We got a bit of a boost in the mail today; a carbon tax relief check. One government takes a whole bunch away, another gives a pittance back. It’ll help with the work we need to get done, at least.
The reason I made sure to go to the mail today was because my mother phones yesterday about a letter she got from her doctor. We have the same doctor, so my husband and I got the same letter.
Our doctor is leaving the clinic for one in the city, as of April 1st.
The letter invites his patients to follow him to the new clinic, while offering virtual and phone visits, but driving that far for in person visits is a bit much for all three of us. The current clinic is already pushing it for distance as it is.
So I called the clinic to ask about other doctors there that are accepting new patients.
It turns out they are losing THREE doctors, not just one. There is one doctor that is willing to see their patients for now, but she can’t possibly take on that many new patients. Not that my mother would be willing to see her. She was already complaining about the doctor we’re losing, because he’s not white, but for a doctor to be both not white and female… that would be just too much for her to handle. 🤨
So I started doing some searches. There is only one other clinic in that town, and when I called, their answering service mentioned one doctor that was accepting new patients. I looked up the name and discovered both the clinic and that doctor have way too many negative reviews.
So I tried looking up doctors in the smaller city – that would be pushing it too much for my husband, but not as much for my mother.
That was pretty discouraging, too.
I finally tried looking at the town closest to us. We won’t go there anymore, but my mother might. No go.
There’s a town to the north of us that my husband and I could try, but that would be too far for my mother, plus it would require me to drive south to my mother’s town, then north to this other town, then back to my mother’s town, and finally back home, adding an extra hour of driving time.
Our province does have a service we can register with that will pair people up with family doctors, but if there aren’t doctors withing our area accepting new patients, it’s not going to help us.
What will most likely happen is, we’ll have to wait for new doctors to transfer over to the clinic that we’ve been going, and start seeing one of them.
With my husband’s private disability insurance, he must be “under the care of a doctor”. Every year, he has to fill out a form that includes mentioning how many doctor’s visits he’s had. Thankfully, phone and virtual appointments count, so until we are able to find a new doctor, it will have to do.
The “fun” of living in a rural area. Doctors tend not to want to work out in the boonies. There are simply more patients in the cities. As I understand it, doctors that have recently immigrated to Canada are required to serve in rural communities for a certain number of years first – five, I believe. Which is about how long our doctor as been at this clinic.
Oh, wow!
As I was typing this, I got a message from my SIL. It turns out there where is a mobile medical unit in our province that does house calls.
That would be ideal for my mother!
Time to go contact them and find out how it works!
The Re-Farmer
Update: looks like the mobile clinic is for the city only. However, I did just find there’s another clinic in the town we’ve been going to. This one looks more hopeful!
What a gorgeous day it is today! As I write this, we are at -2C/28F, with beautiful sunshine and next to no wind. Snow is melting all over the place! Including our nice new roof – with not a single leak into the sun room!
I’m not sure how many cats I saw this morning – I lost track after 20. That long haired tabby even let me pet him, as he followed me up the driveway. On the way back, I spotted The Distinguished Guest, tucked into a path in the snow, waiting his chance to come closer to the house and get some food.
I got a message from the garage, letting me know our van was ready to pick up. The final bill was $216 and change. It meant setting a little bit less aside for our “car payment”, but not by much.
We got to talk about his trip to the auction, and no, he was not able to find anything, and he was able to explain the issue.
We actually got approved for a larger amount loan than the cost of the vehicle we were interested in. The problem was that the monthly payments would have been $750 a month, because of the interest. As my credit score is so bad, the interest rate would have been 29%. Which is insane. To get a vehicle that meets our needs, with payments we could afford, that was also 2014 or newer, with a maximum 180,000 km… well, it just doesn’t really exist.
Of course, right now, we have nothing to improve our credit rating. We have no debt. No rent or mortgage. Nothing that would improve our credit rating.
His suggestion?
Get a credit card.
More specifically, get a card with a $300 or $500 credit limit. Max the card out every month, and pay it off every month. Which we could easily do with a single Costco shopping trip. In 6 months, we’d have a good credit score. Together with the money we are setting aside every month towards a down payment, he’d be able to get us a much newer and better vehicle, with payments within our budget.
While we were talking, his mechanic joined the conversation. He knew full well what we were going through. Thanks to the lockdowns, he lost his small trucking business 2 years ago. It wiped him out completely and, of course, his credit score was wrecked. He wanted to get a loan for a truck to start over, but couldn’t get one. He got himself a $500 credit card, maxed it out and paid it off every month, and it repaired his credit rating enough that he was able to get a lone for a truck – and those things go for about $200,000!
It’s basically the only way we have available to us to repair my credit score, so when I got home, I went online with my bank and started looking up what was available. Once I got to a certain point, though, I decided I needed to talk to someone, so I called it in. As I spoke to the representative, he told me the main issue was that I have no income – it will be based on household income. My chances of being approved was pretty low, but I could apply for a secured credit card. That, however, had to be done in person. He recommended I do that, rather than continue trying to apply over the phone.
Well, it was early enough in the day, so off I went to the nearest branch, in the town my mother lives in. I tried calling my mother to see if she would need groceries, but got no answer, so I took her car just in case.
I got in to see someone fairly quickly and explained our situation. We started the application for a secured credit card. The down side of this is they work it by locking the amount – in this case, $500, which is their minimum – in our account, so that if we ever reneged on a payment, they would get their money out of the locked funds. However, she suggested we go ahead and try for an unsecured account, first, and see how it that went.
Much to my shock, I got approved for a $1000, unsecured credit card!
I asked if it could be reduced to $500, which she was able to do.
I should be getting my card in 7-10 business days.
The whole thing was shockingly painless!
Once it comes in, it will be used only for gas and groceries, within our usual budget, that’s it!
With that done, I finally managed to connect with my mother and popped in for a visit. She only needed a few things, so I just ran out and picked them up for her. She commented that she wasn’t feeling that well, after the procedure – then started to tell me again that if they couldn’t do what she was there for, because she was on blood thinners, then what was the point? I told her, she was there for the scope; the taking of samples would have been only if they found something of concern, and for that, they would have had her come back. She started to get angry and insisted she never left the room and never had the procedure. She watched other people come and go, but not her. I explained the light sedation to her, and told her I don’t remember getting my bronchoscopy, either. Turns out she’s working herself up to thinking that the stuff they sprayed in her mouth, and lying about doing the scope on her, and her now not feeling as well is them trying to kill off old people to save money.
The sad thing is, I can’t fault her for thinking that. However, our “wonderful” health care system is now using MAiD – Medical Assistance in Dying – for that, so there’s no need for the elaborate scene she’s building up in her mind. So far, no one has tried to talk her into offing herself, at least. It’s a good thing we don’t live in BC. 😕
Anyhow, I temporarily mollified her, but I know it won’t last long. Aside from that, it was actually a really good visit, and I even got to talk to her about our plans for getting chickens (which she enthusiastically supports), and to make it so that if things happen, like the power going out for a long time, we’d be okay. Every time I bring that up, she starts talking about being able to use the old wood cookstove in the old kitchen, and I had to explain to her again, how badly damaged it is, and why it would be wildly unsafe to use it, even if we did manage to repair it. We may some day be able to fix it up, but until then, there are other things that we can do that we can do ourselves, at little cost, like building and outdoor kitchen under a shelter. In the past, she would have mocked me for the things I was talking about, but she doesn’t do that anymore. Since we’ve moved here, she gave us the hardest time over our plans, because they were so different from how she did things, and she didn’t believe we would actually do them. One example being the retaining wall I wanted to build at one end of the old kitchen garden. When I described to her what we had in mind, she laughed out loud. Then she told me how the family that used to live across the road from here (no one lives there now) had all sorts of grand plans for how they wanted to fix up the property, with retaining walls and garden beds and more. In all the years they lived there, they never did any of it. Therefore, neither would I.
Then I build the retaining wall, and we did several other things I’d told her about that she laughed at me over, or even became angry over, because she would not have done things that way. But they worked. So now, she no longer laughs.
Progress!
For now, anyhow.
So it’s been a pretty productive day, even if not in the ways I expected or planned on!
At the time I headed out to do my morning rounds, it was only -18C (about 0F), with no wind chill to speak of. As I write this, less than an hour later, we’re already warmed up to -15C/5F, again with basically no wind chill. We’re supposed to get a high of -10C/14F today. It’s going to seem tropical, after the past week!
I still wasn’t quite able to do my usual rounds. The wind has blown over many of the paths dug out in the snow. I decided it was a good day to test out the new heated gloves and do some digging, starting with the plow ridge across the driveway. My mother’s car had a hard time getting through it, yesterday!
Some of the cattens kept me company.
They love that tire that’s used to keep the doors from blowing open. It gets nice and warm! With how much warmer it is, I’m seeing them running around and playing, all over the place!
Along with the plow ridge, I also cleared the path to the compost heap. The wind had completely filled in parts of it, and the snow was brick-like on top, so that took a while. I didn’t even try to dig the path to the sign cam – too long! – but I had my nice new boots, and plowed my way through the wind packed snow. That was almost as tiring as shoveling! It’ll be easier to dig out later, though. The boots are awesome.
As for the gloves…
They are nice and warm, even without turning on the heat. They didn’t seem to get any more pliable by the time I was done, unfortunately. The long cuffs are great – except that they’re not wide enough to go over the cuffs of my parka, nor narrow enough to go under. So I ended up with both cuffs all bunched up. The stiffness of the gloves makes it hard to put on the second glove, but there was an extra problem. These XL gloves fit my wide hands just fine – but I have short fingers. So any time I tried to do something like adjust the other glove, it was hard to get a good grip with floppy finger tips! Plus, the touch screen sensitive parts on the thumb and pointer finger are slightly ridged and harder, so that gets pushed around more, too. I didn’t even try to test the touch screen sensitivity. I have to take a glove off to get my phone out of my pocket, anyhow, so there was no need – plus, just handling my phone with the gloves would be unnecessarily difficult. The last thing I wanted to do was drop my phone in the snow. I did get a lot of use out of the wrist straps while switching out the memory cards, pausing to get my phone out, or to dig out a tissue to blow my know while digging. I like being able to just drop the gloves and have them hanging!
It’s been quite a while since I switched out the trail cam memory cards. Today is the first time I saw the batteries on the solar cam at anything other than 100%! When I first opened it up and checked, it said the batteries were at 75%, but after I switched the memory card out it went up to 80%. Which tells me that it’s more about the cold. Much to my surprise, the older sign cam’s battery meter was still full bars. I suppose that makes sense, though. The gate cam is mounted on a stand in the open. It would have had the full blast of yesterday’s winds coming from the southeast. The sign cam is not only under a tree, but the sign it’s monitoring, as well as the trees across the road, would have stopped all wind from that direction, so it was quite protected.
It should be interesting to see the files over those freezing cold days! The camera that got stolen would do weird things when it got really cold, like turn everything pink. The new camera has had some cold spells before, but not quite like what we’ve had for the past week, so I’ve yet to get a good look at how it handles severe winter conditions.
Considering how many days of files I’ve got to go through, I think I’ll make some tea, first! 😄
The Re-Farmer 