Blue for You

April 28, 2018April 28, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Alas, no pictures of deer today. I did see one cautiously making its way towards the house, just a few minutes ago, but it saw me move in the window and dashed right off.

Sadness.

I did, however, manage to get a photo of a blue jay today. For the past few weeks, even if I’ve been at the window, watching them for a while, the moment I get behind the camera, they all fly off!

This morning, I managed to get just one decent picture, through the sun reflected on the window.

I love how they collect so many seeds in their beaks like that, before flying off.

It was a fairly quite day today. We’re still in recovery mode and pretty low on energy. My younger daughter and I made a run to the dump with our garbage and recycling, before heading to town to find a new handle for our garage door. In the process, I remembered to pick up some chain and a carabiner to replace the heavy duty wire that’s been used to hold our main gate steady. It has a sliding bar across the top to close it. I’m not sure why it also needed the wire to hold it closed, and one of these days, I’ll remember to ask a sibling about it. :-D The chain and carabiner will be much easier to handle than twisting and untwisting the wire every time. It’ll look better, too! Plus, we’ll have the ability to add a lock as well, if we ever need to. Sadly, there have always been people who seek out solitary farms as targets for theft and vandalism. At best, the RCMP are at least half an hour away, and that assumes they can even find any individual farm. My oldest brother and I are already talking about adding a security camera on the garage, which would catch anyone coming in or out of the driveway, and another on the house itself.

Such is life, even in the sticks!

My daughter and I went to two different hardware stores, looking for a garage door handle. Both stores had only one option available! They were even the same brand and style. On the plus side, the second place we went to had a much, much better price.

On the down side, while driving to town, I went into a coughing fit so bad, I had to pull over and get her to drive the rest of the way.

It’s so nice having another driver available!

This cold has really done a number on my chronic cough. :-(

We had some other things happen that were polar opposites. Such as my husband’s disability payment coming in early (they do that every now and then!) on the plus side, then getting a call from the tax preparer and finding out he’s now owing $3000 instead of the $1300 that came up when we tried using Turbotax at home. I don’t understand how he can owe anything. He’s supposed to be paid back taxes, retroactively, from two years ago! And here we thought getting our taxes professionally done would mean it would be better, not worse. On top of that, it’s going to cost us almost $70 in fees.

*sigh*

This has happened every time we’ve moved back to this province, no matter how late in the year we’ve returned. We would be expecting a return, only to end up owing thousands. This time, though, I am sure that has to be some kind of mistake.

Living here was supposed to save us money. Instead, it’s been unexpected expenses, one right after the other!

Ah, well. We’ll figure it out in good time.

The Re-Farmer

That Circle of Life thing… and I hate shopping

April 27, 2018April 27, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

For the past while, we’ve had a huge drop in deer visits. I didn’t see any yesterday, until quite late, when one showed up, then ran off when it saw me in the window. Pretty sure it was a new one, since our regulars are no longer bothered by seeing us.

We are certainly getting plenty of birds, though, including this new one that I’ve been trying to identify.

There were two or three of them among the dark eyed juncos and the male redpolls that were also in the feeding station. Looking through my bird book, its body looks similar to a Brown Thrasher, but the eye and beak are totally different. Another closer match is the Fox Sparrow, but according to the book, we’re not really in their territory. They might be passing through during migration, if that’s what they are.

If anyone reading this knows what they are, please let me know in the comments! Thanks. :-)

As I was taking pictures of the new birds, there was a sudden whoosh of movement and all the birds flew off.

Well, almost all.

What a beautiful hawk! I barely managed to tilt the tripod over to snap a few quick pictures before it flew off, with its meal, into the trees. Much to my surprise, the pictures all turned out, but only a couple caught the hawk’s face as it looked over before flying off.

This is one of the things we have to consider, if we do get chickens.

Later on, I went to tell my older daughter, who was upstairs, about the hawk. She hadn’t seen the hawk, but she did see the fallout, as panicked birds suddenly flew up, including one that smacked right into the window near her.

She went out onto the roof and moved it, so it could fly off when it regained consciousness.

Except, it didn’t. It hit the window hard enough to kill itself. It looked like one of the new birds, too. :-(

Wow.

This all happened in the mid morning or so. Shortly before noon, my younger daughter and I headed out to the city – our first trip to the city since all that work was done on the van – for a much needed Costco trip.

Just to jump ahead a bit, the van ran beautifully. Also, I didn’t get a call back from the garage about those parts they’d ordered for me. I’m not sure how I would have handled such a call, now that the work they wanted to do turns out to not be needed at all. Aside from not bringing the van in, of course.

I had hoped, even though it’s a Friday, going to Costco in the early afternoon would mean missing out on the crowds.

Maybe we did, but it was still insanely busy.

We didn’t go to the closer one, which is smaller, has a ridiculously horrible parking situation, and where the pharmacy staff were such a problem. Instead, we went to one that was not only larger, but also near a whole lot of other shopping.

Along with our usual bulk grocery shopping, I had one goal in mind. To get more undies for my husband. We’re in the city. That shouldn’t be a problem, right?

Well, it turns out that Costco didn’t carry any in his size. They do in clothing, just not in underwear. Which makes no sense.

So after we finished at Costco, with all its joyous moments (seriously; what is it about people who saunter to a stop, blocking the entire isle, and just stand there, staring into space? This happened several times, all different people!), we figured we’d just go to that mall up the block. They had a Marshals there. Marshals has clothes, right?

We’ve never actually been to a Marshals before.

It turned out to be kinda like a crappy Winners. We found the teeny, tiny men’s underwear section, half of which was shirts, and it was such a disaster, I could barely find anything at all, never mind the size and style I wanted. There was only one brand, too – an expensive one, of course.

But we’re in a mall, right? There’s lots of other stores we can try, right?

I found a map and… it wasn’t very encouraging. Still, there were several possibilities among the athletic stores.

We went to about 4 or 5 different shops. Any that did have men’s underwear had hardly anything at all, none in the style I was looking for, and certainly not the size.

What the heck?

As we were leaving the mall, my daughter pointed out that there was a Winners across the road. So that’s where we tried next.

It was better than the Marshals, at least. The shelves were better organized, but again, there was only one tiny display for the men’s section, and nothing in the size we were after.

I checked on my phone and found the nearest Walmart. I figured that would be our last stop. Even if we didn’t find the style I was after, if I could only find the size, that would be great.

Walmart, at least, has a nice, big section for men’s underclothes – but still a tiny clothing section.

Men, you guys are really short changed in the clothing department! Sheesh!

We found several brands in the style we wanted. Yay, right?

Nope.

There was a lot out of stock, so my daughter and I kept hunting for the right size, somewhere. After a while, I stopped looking at what was there and started looking at the labels in front of the hooks.

It turned out they weren’t just out of stock. They didn’t even CARRY the size we needed. In any brand, or any style!

What the heck??? He wears a common size. Why don’t they have it?

This was supposed to be our last stop, but we had noticed further down the parking lot, a Marks.

One more try…

Sure enough, we actually found both the style and size we were after!!! Finally! So I bought as many packages as I could afford without messing up our budget.

When we got to the counter, me looking a little wild eyed by now, the cashier asked us if we’d found everything we were looking for.

I told her that yes, we did, and that they were the ONLY ones to have what we were looking for. She looked completely surprised. Not even Walmart, she asked? Nope. Nothing in this size. That is so strange, she tells me.

It’s their most popular size.

Which doesn’t surprise me in the least. So why don’t other places even HAVE the size at all?

Who know buying underwear would be so difficult?

By the time that was done, we were both exhausted and more than ready to go home.

I really, really dislike shopping.

After we got home and unloaded, it occurred to me that none of us had the energy to cook supper. My older daughter is sick, my younger daughter is also getting sick, and just unloading the van was more than enough to remind me that I’m certainly not yet recovered from this stupid cold.

Since my daughter can now legally drive, I asked if she was up to a trip into town, so we could get some take-out. Thankfully, she was. So off we went to the van and…

When she tried to open the garage door, the handle came off.

Talking to my oldest brother not long ago, I mentioned this. He told me that thing has needed replacing for probably 15 years. It just never got done. It was on our list of things to fix sooner rather than later. Well, it just got bumped up higher on the list. :-D

My daughter had to go into the garage from the back door (which is used so rarely, it has self-seeded trees growing in front of it) and open it from the inside. The bar that runs through the hole to the handle is still there, and I couldn’t find any pieces that fell off onto the ground, so I’m actually not sure why the handle hadn’t fallen off sooner! :-D

I was just informed that we had deer outside our living room window again. A group of four. It’s almost completely dark at the moment, but still enough light for us to see them. And for them to see us. And hear us. Even the creaking of the floor had their ears going in all directions, and they could hear my daughter cough! As I was at the window, one was watching me until I shifted slightly, and off it ran, startling the others away.

So we will stay away from the window for a while, in hopes they come back.

Looks like we’ll be going into town again tomorrow, even if it’s just to pick up a new handle for the garage door! :-D

The Re-Farmer

One more thing, off the list

April 26, 2018April 26, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

This morning, I took my younger daughter for her knowledge test to transfer her driver’s license to this province.

Butterscotch, in command of the deer feeding station.

To recap: she did not have a full license; just the learner’s license. She never had a chance to take her road test. When she tried to transfer her license, once they saw it was a learners, she was told she had to take the written test to get a new license for this province. Then, because we are past the 90 day grace period, they kept her license, because she cannot legally drive in this province with it.

After doing the online practice tests, my daughter was quite worried about this. So many of the questions were unrelated to the rules of the road, or phrased so badly and without context, it was difficult to understand what was actually being asked.

We ended up leaving more than an hour early – and she was still worried about being late! Ah, a daughter after my own heart. :-D On the way, we stopped in the town my mother lives in to fill the gas tank. This is the gas station we’d stopped at when we were bleeding coolant, and one of our regular gas jockeys had crawled under and found the broken pipe. Well, he was there this morning. When he saw us, he came over and asked how things went, so I entertained him with the story. Turns out he was all worried about us, and was so happy to find out everything turned out okay!

One, lone dark eyed junco, just chillin’

I really like this gas station. They have such great people working there. Plus, they have this section of home baked goodies that no one else has, because they’re baked by one of the gas jockeys! :-D It’s become a bit of a ritual, that when we stop there for gas, I pick up some cookies (they are sold in twos) or a piece of Nanaimo bar as a special treat.

The city we went to is roughly an hour’s drive, and we’d left so early that, even with the stop for gas, we were an hour early. Which worked out, because neither of us had had breakfast, plus it gave us the chance to find the place, first. Which turned out to be incredibly easy to find. We were told to arrive about 15 minutes early, so that’s what we did.

When my daughter got called up, she had all her paperwork from the broker that started her file for her, ready to go. The lady helping her just had to look up the file and continue the process. She was really great about explaining the exam process, and how my daughter needed to get a minimum of 24 out of 30 questions correct, and so on. Then she took my daughter to the testing computer. The questions turned out to be MUCH more realistic than in the online practice tests. They actually made sense, and were about the rules of the road.

She did 24 questions, then the test shut down, because she’d got them all correct. So she got 100% on her knowledge test. Awesome!

Then she had to do the eye test, were we discovered that she does NOT need her glasses to drive. She will use them, because she prefers to (she gets headaches from eye strain if she doesn’t), but there will be no restriction on her license. Cool!

The Mothman makes an appearance!

When the final processing for her license was started, we hit a problem.

The system was asking for her to turn over her current license.

Which had already been taken.

It turns out, they shouldn’t have done that. While my daughter could not legally drive here with it, it was still a valid license. She could still use it in our previous province, plus it was her valid photo ID, until 2022.

Not only that, but when her license was scanned, they only scanned one side. So even though the person helping us could find the scanned image on file, she had only the front information, not the back.

Now, the only reason this was an issue was a matter of credit for time driving. If they could use her current license, she could go for her road test at any time, because she’s been driving on her learner’s license for more than 5 years. If, however, they couldn’t use it, she would not be able to take her road test for at least 9 months.

The woman helping us called the broker where we’d started the process, to find out if they still had the license, but the person who started the file wasn’t available. After some discussion, they figured it got sent away already to the department all returned licenses go to. So she phoned there.

The license had arrived there, just yesterday!

Which meant they could scan both sides of the old license for the file. The woman helping us, meanwhile, used a copy of the scanned front of the license already on file, just to be extra sure – and my daughter got a copy for her own files, too, just as I did with mine.

Because of when her birthday is, though, when she gets her plastic copy, it’ll only be valid until the end of August. Which meant it cost less to process her license, since they only charged for the shorter time.

Cool.

As we were doing this, I told the woman helping us that I had some ID related questions for after it was all done. I had shared some of the issues I’d had with getting my license during conversation. When my daughter got her temporary license, I told the woman helping us about my husband’s attempt to get his license.

As soon as I said that his ID didn’t match his birth certificate, she knew exactly what was coming; he was told to get a legal name change.

Yup.

I brought up how this didn’t make any sense. He’s already using his legal name. It’s on his birth certificate. Everything he’s got – save his old license in this province, for some reason – has the name he uses. Even the Department of National Defense and the Government of Canada is good with the name he uses.

As we were talking, a guy came over and asked if he could join in, and he was able to give us more information. What it comes down to is, it’s up to the Identity Unit. Whatever they say, everyone else’s hands are tied, and they are basically the overseers of identity in this province. We talked about the issues of identity theft and security, which I totally get, but it still doesn’t make sense to demand that my husband change his legal name to… his legal name.

At one point, he asked why my husband wasn’t interesting in doing the legal name change, and my response was basically, why should he have to go through all that process, when he’s already using his legal name. In the conversation, I used as an example how it’s not like my sister, whose legal name is one thing, but the name she uses is completely different. It’s not entirely even an English version of her birth name, since there really isn’t any English equivalent. This is his legal name that is on his birth certificate. Every other place has been fine with using his second name. He has always used this name. Sure, they can understandably change things now, but why should he essentially be retroactively held to these requirements? It’s still his legal name.

Well, it turns out this guy completely understood not wanting to go the legal name change route. He’s newly married, and his wife is in the process of legally changing to her married name. The whole thing costs about $200, there are many hoops to jump, and one of those hoops is to go to the RCMP and get fingerprinted.

With the amount of pain my husband is in, that kind of running around is asking way too much.

In the end, he suggested we try calling the Ombudsman, explaining the situation, and asking for an exemption. We even got the name and phone number.

I really, really hope this works out, because this whole thing is completely ridiculous.

They were both extremely helpful and awesome, and I’m so glad I asked them about it.

Before we left, we paused to use the bathroom before I left. When I came out and my daughter took her turn, the woman that had been helping us asked, was my sister in law’s last name XXX? Why yes, it is, except she’s my sister, not my sister in law.

When I had used my sister’s names as an example, and she started talking about the names issue with a co-worker, it occurred to her that she knew someone by that name – and it’s a very uncommon name. So she figured she’s ask me when I came out of the washroom. It turns out that, not only does she know my sister, but they are cousins, by marriage!

That was so funny! I ended up staying and chatting with her for a while, with my daughter joining us as I told her about our move back to the farm and all the “fun” it’s been, dealing with my parents’ things, the state of the house, and all the interesting things we’ve been discovering. That led us to talking about how, especially in our parents’ generation, there was such an insistence of doing everything themselves, instead of paying someone else to do it, even when in the long term, it would be cheaper to pay someone else to do it! Or to buy new instead of second hand, etc. She knew first hand what it was like! :-D

It wasn’t until we were walking to the van and my daughter asked about it that I realized she’s missed the part about how this woman was related to her aunt. Ah, what a small world it is!

Trüllbus the Crime Eater, coming through!

After we finished there, my daughter and I headed to the nearby Walmart. Our monthly shopping plans have had to change, with my husband’s newest medical appointment, so we did most of our non-Costco monthly shopping today. Normally, we’d wait until the last business day of the month, when his disability payment comes in, but today is when the much smaller CPP Disability comes in. It’s enough to do the monthly grocery shopping, at least. Plus, I really wanted to finally pick up some new underwear for him, what with either not being able to find his size in the style he wanted, or only being able to find them at $15 for a single pair, with only one lower end brand available.

Amazingly, not even the Walmart had his style in his size. There were 4 or 5 different brands, and NONE of them had it. In fact, they only seemed to have them in two sizes; small and medium. What the heck? Is there some sort of embargo on briefs going on I don’t know about? I finally got a package of 4 in the closest to the style he wanted I could find (at least the price was good!), but I can’t believe I still couldn’t even find what he wanted at a WALMART, in a city! Yeah, it’s a small city, but still… Sheesh!

Since we were there anyways, we paused to look at some of the summer stuff that’s out now. It occurred to me that I have yet to see a garden hose anywhere around here. I still want to check the garden shed, but there is no way my dad didn’t have garden hoses! If they’re not in the garden shed, then they found some legs and walked away. Along with too many other things around here. :-(

We’re also interested in getting a weed whacker – preferably an electric one – so we priced those out, too. Pretty reasonable. We are also looking to get a battery operated chain saw, though not at Walmart. We’ve got at least 4 chain saws in the garage and, as far as I know, none of them work. One could probably be considered an antique! I have no interest in hauling around jerry cans of fuel anymore, and the modern electric tools are just as powerful as the ones that run on fuel.

So we got the small grocery shopping done, including stocking up on distilled water for my husband’s CPAP. That done, we had one more stop to make; back to the town closest to home to pick up some prescription refills. As my older daughter has caught my cold (I’m still coughing myself, but at least I’m feeling better) and was feeling really awful today, we also made sure to pick up some “medication” for her. At the liquor store, in the form of a nice, spiced whiskey. :-D We rarely drink, so when we do, it’s at least a decent quality! :-D

Hopefully, we’ll all be healthy again soon, and can start manhandling the last of my parents’ stuff we need to move to the shed. The snow is gone and the ground it dry. It’s just that 2 out of 3 of us are too sick to do the physical labour. :-(

While in town, we took the time to play a bit of Pokemon Go, and at one point we were parked next to an arts and crafts store, which is also part of a used book store. I haven’t been there since we last lived in this province, so we decided to take a look.

I don’t know why they advertise as an arts and crafts store. They had basically nothing.

But we did come out with a whole pile of Brother Cadfael books. :-D

After all the running around, we were so glad to finally get home. Now that my daughter has her license, that’s one more thing to strike off the list! Next up is for my older daughter to get her ID transferred.

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer

Walkabout – the East yard

April 25, 2018April 25, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I had done a walkabout yesterday, through our East yard, some of the areas just outside the fenced yard, and explored around the old gravel pit and pond. I had my phone with me and took plenty of pictures, but then had technical difficulties uploading them to my desktop. My husband was able to see them fine on his laptop via the USB cable, so the problem had to be with my desktop. This morning, I tried one thing. Usually, I have my USB cable attached to one of the front ports of the tower, but my husband had moved it to one of the back ports, so he could access the front ones for something he was doing. Could that have made the difference?

Turns out, yeah. That seems to have been the problem. I was able to upload the pictures without getting the weird error messages I was getting before.

Unfortunately, in my attempts to access and transfer the photos yesterday, some were lost, while others were corrupted or damaged.

So today, I did the walkabout again, this time using the DSLR (Nikon D80) and an 18-55mm lens.

I ended up taking 308 pictures! :-D And I didn’t even go into the other house in the yard, this time!

Basically, I am documenting the way things are right now, that we will have to deal with as time goes by. Anything outside the house and immediate yard are lower on the priority list, but they will still need to be dealt with, eventually, so I want to maintain a photographic record of it all.

For now, I will just talk about the East side of our yard – and not even all of that.

When I first came out, Nasty Crime Boy was there to greet me, but he did NOT like the noise the DSLR made when I took pictures! :-D

The first area I went to was around the other house in the yard. This house used to be a church rectory, and my dad bought it and moved it when they wanted to build a new one. It was put into our yard temporarily. The plan was that it would be moved to one of the other quarter sections of the farm and be a home for whichever of the boys inherited it that section.

That never happened.

I’ll post about the house itself, another time.

This is next to it.

When my parents’ freezer died, they gave one of my siblings the money to buy a new one, which we are currently using. The old one, for some reason, got dumped in the yard. They took the door off, so nothing could get trapped in it, but that’s it.

I hadn’t realized that even the baskets were in there until I came over to take pictures.

I could do posts of nothing but large household appliances, abandoned in strange places, and have no shortage of material. Especially washers and driers. It’s amazing.

Then I went around the back of the building.

That largish black pipe you see? It’s placed through a hole in a partially boarded up window. That means it was deliberately placed there. I find myself wondering if there is something under the house that is being propped up.

This house had had a full basement in it. Now, the areas with the bricks are what used to be the top of the basement walls, and there is basically a crawl space underneath.

Then there’s this.

A toilet. Just sitting there.

Another rain barrel. I don’t know what the 6 sided plastic thing is. A wire shelf.

Just. There.

Why?

This is some sort of mini garden, near the fire pit. I can see no rhyme or reason to it being there, and can’t figure out what’s in it – that will have to wait until things start to grow. It needs to go. Seeing what’s there will help me decide whether it’ll just be torn up, or if there’s anything in it worth transplanting.

The above picture is of what is directly North of the mystery planting. There used to be a playhouse here, built by my oldest brother. It was basically a shell of a building, with a door and windows in the front. I was too young to remember it being built, but as a child, I helped my late brother, who was just a few years older than me, frame out bunk beds inside it, and we used old couch cushions as the mattresses. In the summer, I would sometimes sleep in there, with a tiny kerosene lamp for light. It was glorious.

I don’t know what happened to the playhouse. For a while, one of my brothers had some bee hives here. Now, there’s nothing. I am thinking this is where we will start a wood pile from what we’re clearing out of the garden now, and what we’ll be clearing out of the trees around the yard. I am looking forward to when we can have the fire pit going in the summer, and have some wiener roasts!

This is the fire pit that’s there now.

Yeah.

Believe it or not, there is a metal ring in there.

It’s not where the fire pit was originally. That was about where I was standing to take the picture. It was made of loosely stacked bricks, on top of an old tree stump that had been cut to ground level. I only discovered the tree stump when I took it upon myself to “rebuild” the fire pit, because the walls were being knocked out of place.

One thing I noticed that you can see in some of the photos, is that this area now seems to be mostly moss! As I was the one who took on the chore of lawn mowing, I know there was no moss at all in there when I was living here. I don’t know when the moss started taking over, but this is not a sign of a healthy lawn!

I am thinking we should move the fire pit back to where it was, and farther away from those trees in the background.

We will first have to trim away the a dead branch overhanging it, from one of the maples in the area. There are a lot of dead branches that will need to be dealt with.

Eventually, I want to build a cinder block cooking pit in the area, but that’s a few years into the future.

This old log cabin is near the fire pit area. (note the amount moss in the foreground! That used to be all grass) From what I’ve been told, the family that owned this area before my family bought it – the ones who built the original log portion of the house we’re living in now – had built this and lived in it.

I am hoping we can salvage it. The one side wall has logs that are sagging in the middle, which may be a problem, but the rest of the walls seem sound. The roof is almost completely collapsed, and it’s filled with junk – including large household appliances, of course. At some point, I want to hire someone to empty it, including the remains of the roof, and haul it all away. Then we can see what can be done with the remains.

There is one thing about it that has me wondering.

See that tree at the corner?

When I was growing up here, there was a gooseberry bush growing there. I used to love picking and eating the berries right off the bush. I don’t know that anything else was ever done with the berries. Which might have something to do with why, years after I moved away, I came back to discover it was gone. In its place were a couple of spruce trees.

Now, the spruces are gone, and there is this tree.

I don’t know if it was planted, or if it seeded itself, but it’s going to have to go, along with the other trees that are growing too close to the building.

I am seeing this all over the place; trees were allowed to grow right next to buildings. No one bothered to cut them away. Did no one consider how much damage they can do to buildings? Did they not think of it? Or did they just not care?

So much of what I’m finding around here smacks of “no one cared.” I’m not talking about things that were left as they were, as my parents aged and weren’t able to take care of things themselves, either. It’s really quite disheartening.

Well, that’s part of our East yard. I’m expecting that, this year, we’ll be able to do some clean up and improvements in this area. At least the smaller stuff. The big stuff will have to wait, as they will require hiring people, and fixing up the main house is the financial priority. Still, we should be able to get the East yard to the point that we can use it and enjoy evenings around the fire.

Well. Maybe. That will depend on how bad the mosquitoes are this year!

The Re-Farmer

Deer family, and what the heck?

April 24, 2018April 24, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

Today has a mixed bag of things to share, some of which will be in other posts – if I can get the pictures off of my phone properly. Something is going wrong there, and it looks like I’ve lost a whole bunch of pictures in the process. Ugh.

My husband had a medical appointment this morning. It was to be a 2 hour interview to assess him and figure out what specialists he will be going to next. Not something for me to be at, so I took advantage of being in town to go to the places I can park and play Pokemon Go. I headed back early, which worked out, as my husband could only handle an hour before he had to cut it short, due to pain. So he’ll be back in a week to finish the assessment.

For the past couple of days, I hadn’t gotten many photos at all. No deer were showing up, except briefly in the wee hours, and even the juncos weren’t around much today. I did get a good photo of a daytime moon, though. This photo is just cropped; no resizing.

I’m pleasantly surprised by the amount of detail that showed up!

My younger daughter found the online practice tests for the knowledge test she needs to take on Thursday to get her learners license in this province. THAT turned out to be… something special.

The first two practice tests were for signs. Some were different from what she saw when she took the test in our previous province, but she could figure them out.

The rules of the road test should have been similar. After all, the rules of the road are largely the same across the country, right?

Well, that wasn’t the issue.

The test itself is bizarre. After being told about it, she and I went online on my computer, so she could show me what she was talking about.

Many of the questions don’t even make sense. The phrasing and terms are also different. For example, one mentioned the legal requirement for an upper stop light, except for vehicles before what year?

Stop light?

They meant brake lights. NO ONE calls them stop lights. Stop lights are what you see at controlled intersections.

Another question: Wearing a seatbelt decreases your chance of being killed by …? And then there are several percentages to choose from.

What rule is in this question? The rule is, we are required to wear seatbelts. Why include what is, essentially, a trivia question in a rules test?

Then there’s this one: A driver supervising another driver in the Learner stage must not have a blood alcohol concentration of greater than…?

Now, I would have expected the answer to be 0. The supervising driver shouldn’t have any alcohol in their system. But no! The answer is .05 Considering that .08 is too drunk to drive, this means, a person with a beginners license can drive with a tipsy supervising driver.

That’s not very encouraging!

Other questions leave us wondering, what is the context? Where is the detail? Because it makes a difference. Like; what direction are you driving in this scenario? And which center line do they mean? Other questions, I kept having to read and re-read the possible answers, just to figure out what they were saying.

And when did the hand positions on the steering wheel change from 10 & 2, to 9 & 3? Also, since when was it legal to change more than one lane at a time?

It’s the lack of context in the questions, and the many questions that have nothing to do with the actual rules of the road that are the most frustrating. Why are they even there?

So that was fun… :-O

This evening, while the light was still good, I took advantage of how dry things are now and walked further afield on the property. I checked out what used to be a gravel pit, but is now a pond; the gravel is all completely grown over. I found numerous things that had me wondering, why anyone went through so much effort to put them there, rather than just taking them to the dump? Some of the old equipment I found brought back fond memories. I checked out some sheds and the barn. Two sheds, I couldn’t even get at. I fought the burs, and the burs won. Laundry is now in progress. :-D

One log shed that I hoped might be salvageable, most definitely isn’t. A couple others still might be. Some other, more modern, sheds are just not worth fixing.

Then there were the piles and piles of … well. Trash. These are things some of my siblings had intended to burn, but they are filled with things that really should NOT be burned at all. We’re just going to have to hire a clean up crew to haul the stuff away. Someone with the right safety gear and equipment to handle the stuff.

I’m hoping, after I post this, I’ll be able to salvage some of the photos I took.

Then, the deer came!

A group of four. Two adult females, and two you males.

I’m pretty sure I worked out which pair belonged to each other.

Here’s one of the mums and her boy. Check out the little antler nubbins! :-D

This mama looks kind of young, too. Unlike the other mama…

… who looks like she’s seen a lot of rough years! Note the mark in her fur that runs up her snout? There’s a matching one, on the other side of her face. Like something had rubbed the fur off.

No where near as dramatic as her boy’s face! It took quite a few photos before I found one where you could really see it.

The fur is just gone in those two spots!

You can’t see them in this photo, but he’s got antler nubbins that are about the same size as the other male.

The four of them stayed for quite a while. Eventually, they made their way to the south yard, through the gate, and disappeared behind the barn.

It was so awesome to see them! I hope they come back.

The Re-Farmer

Hoop Jumping, discoveries and tech upgrades

April 23, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Since moving out here, there have been quite a few things that we’ve tried to do that needed unusual hoop jumping. The most severe being our issues with transferring our identification, but another has been getting an internet connection. Since we couldn’t afford to have a minimum 60ft tower installed, we had to go with satellite internet, and then ended up needing to get two accounts, because it was cheaper than going over our data limit. Satellite internet has more speed limitations, too. Our internet provider, however, recently gained access to another satellite and could offer higher upload and download speeds, with less interruptions, so we signed up for it. Someone was scheduled to come in this afternoon to switch it for us.

Before that happened, we got to work on our daughters’ taxes. In Canada, we have until April 30 to file. Normally, we just do the TurboTax thing, but it had issues with my husband’s disability information. So he and I have taken our tax information to the tax preparer in the next town. This guy (it’s a family business) has done the taxes for my parents for as long as I can remember, and still does them for my mother. Probably my brother who lives out here, too. We’d gone to him when we lived out here years ago, so it was a bit funny to be going back to him again, after all these years.

Our daughters, however, should have been able to just do theirs as usual, right?

Wrong.

Turns out that they can’t file their taxes online, because of the new address.

They can’t log onto the Government of Canada website to change their address, because they’ve never needed to start accounts on the site before, and to start one, they needed information from last year’s taxes. Which was lost when we lost my husband’s desktop computer after the move.

The alternative is to phone Canada Revenue. The website says to change the address online, or call a 1-800#, providing a list of the information that would be needed. One of my daughters called the number, got the automated system, went through the whole thing, only to have a recording tell her to go do it online.

Of course, the reason for phoning was because doing in online wasn’t an option.

Which meant they couldn’t file their taxes.

In the end, we gathered their tax stuff, drove into town and dropped it off with the same guy that’s doing mine and my husband’s.

The tax preparer’s wife took their stuff and got their information onto envelopes. As we were chatting, she made an observation on how much my younger daughter resembles her grandfather (my husband’s dad). Until then, I had forgotten that he’d done my in-laws’ taxes, too!

That done, we didn’t stay in town long. Sadly, it seems one of my daughters has caught my cold. I’m still sick as well, though I am getting better – the coughing fits are still a problem – so being out and about was pushing things.

Speaking of pushing things, before we headed out, I started to gather up some of the branches and twigs in the yard, now that the snow is gone. There is a LOT of them. In the process, I made a discovery.

20180423trees

These little spruce trees were deliberately planted, right by the fence.

I don’t get it.

First off, why are two spruce trees planted in the middle of the fence line like that in the first place. There are already quite a number of mature maples there, including a couple that will need to be pruned away from the power line to the house, as well as trimmed so that, once the leaves come in, they won’t be blocking our satellite signal. You can see part of the row of maples on the other side of the fence. The fence line used to be on the other side of those trees with a gate to the pump shack – the red building in the background.

Second, why so close together? Spruces get quite large. They should be planted anywhere from 8 – 15 feet apart. We’re looking at less than 4 feet apart here.

And finally, why are they planted right at the fence? As they get bigger, they will grow into and destroy the fence.

Yet there they are, with little support poles and tiny picket fences to protect them. Initially, I’d thought maybe they seeded themselves, but the fact that they are protected like this shows that they were deliberately planted.

Why would someone deliberately plant trees in such a way that they will destroy the fence as they get bigger?

I don’t get it.

Meanwhile…

When we got back home, the internet guy was here and busily installing two new satellite dishes.

On the sunroom roof.

Oh, dear. My old brother specifically said he didn’t want them installed on the roof. Turns out, there was no choice.

Because of the trees.

It was the only place he could get a signal.

The old dishes were already down, and he took extra care to ensure there would be no leaking caused by the satellites. It took him a couple of hours to finish up. When he was done, he tested the speed at about 35mbps. When I had the chance, I tested the wifi signal on my phone. I got 40mbps for download speed, and 1.89mbps for upload speed. The first is quite a lot faster than before – I think we were getting between 10-14mbps consistently. The upload speed is almost doubled.

That should make live easier!

We also got cool looking new modems, with the black boxes replaced with white triangles. :-D

This is what we had before.

That’s our original dish. When we got the second account, the other dish was installed above it.

This is what we have now.

20180423satellite

They are aimed in a very different direction. No wonder he couldn’t get a signal through the trees! The other satellites were aimed through a gap between threes. In the same location, these would have been aimed right into the trees. From here, they are now aimed through the gap over the big gate into the yard; the one that can be driven through. Mind you, there are still trees on either side that will need to be pruned, because they are overhanging the gate. Plus one that’s shorter, but close enough that its branches get in the way when I have to make a wide turn into the yard. Pruning is still in order.

I like trees. A lot. They are wonderful things to have, and can be very protective. We intend to eventually plant more trees in the future. Preferably food trees.

But they are also potential problems. Many of the trees that have been planted in the yard seem to have been done without much thought given to what would happen, once they reached maturity. From the Chinese Elm in front of the kitchen window, planted too close to the house with branches damaging the roof, to the pair of Chinese Elm on either side of the small gate, whose roots are now making the sidewalk blocks uneven. Even the original maples on the north side of the house have been allowed to reach too close to the house itself; they should have been cut back many years ago, when they were smaller and it was safer to do so.

It’s going to be interesting, during our first summer living here, to get a good understanding of what all is planted around the yard, what we can keep, what needs to be gotten rid of, and possibly, what can be moved. Those little spruce trees, at least, as small enough that they can be easily transplanted.

There is much to do here, that’s for sure!

The Re-Farmer

Deer Thoughts

April 22, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

As I had hoped, some deer did show up today. Hungry Girl and Barbecue came by, though Hungry Girl never came to the feeding area. She disappeared somewhere behind the house, then I saw her again walking by in the background to go through the garden, and that’s it.

Barbecue came to feed on what the birds had left behind, though she got startled away a couple of times, before finally running off completely. Not before gracing me with some silly faces, though! :-D

At this time of day, in the shadow of the house, they can probably see quite well into the living room.

She would run off towards the opening to the garden, stay there a while, then come back to feed. I don’t usually get pictures of her from this side. As I was going through the photos, I noticed something.

I had commented previously about the marks in the fur on her neck, and that my conclusion is that they are from scarring. It looks like she’s got even more scarring beside her mouth.

I think this girl has had quite a history!

The Re-Farmer

Birds, Birds, Birds!

April 22, 2018April 22, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 6 Comments

Well, today has definitely been a day of the birds!

From what I’ve been able to find, the “new” birds are dark eyed juncos. They would be returning from overwintering elsewhere. There were only a few yesterday, but today, there was tonnes! I now realize that we did see them last year. I had just not been able to look at them so closely at the time. But I definitely remember seeing this…

(I don’t know why the video quality is so bad after uploading it to YouTube!)

There were masses of juncos and redpolls swooping in and out, with many, many bounces off the windows. Even the dining room window was getting hits.

We are starting to see a lot more of the male redpolls now, too.

Of course, all that activity attracted a watcher…

Trüllbus wasn’t able to do much more than watch from the lilac bush, though! LOL

Love how my daughter caught this redpoll, peeking at her through the twigs. He looks angry! :-D

From what I could find, there is quite a variety of juncos, but it does look like these are dark eye juncos, and the lighter coloured ones are the females. The one in the photo above would be a male.

At one point, as I stood near the window, something startled them and the whole flock took off. Three or four of them bounced off the window, right in front of me. After they were gone, I realized that one had been left behind.

At first, from inside the house, I wasn’t even sure if was a bird or if it was some darker foliage. After a while, though, I could see the beak. Ever so slowly, the beak opened, and stayed open. Eventually, I decided to go out and check on it. When I got close, it was aware enough to watch me, and even start to move a bit. I was able to pick it up, though, and then it flew away from my hand. No injuries.

Besides the birds, some deer did make a showing when my husband was up bright and early, but I have not seen any since. I’m hoping some will show up this evening.

The Re-Farmer

New Birds today!

April 21, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Another sick day for me today, so not much accomplished! My husband put out the food and water for the animals outside this morning. Now that the snow is pretty much gone and the risk of falling is reduced, he wants to do that more often, as the pain allows. He informed me that we were now out of deer feed and almost out of cat kibble, which meant another trip into town – our own hamlet for the deer feed, then the next town over for the cat kibble. We can get the kibble locally, but the brand they carry is something even the outside cats don’t like. I don’t mind going farther afield. It gives my younger daughter and I a chance to play Pokemon Go for at least long enough to get some achievements in the game. Still, I look forward to when I’m not the only one with a valid driver’s license!

When we got home, I pulled up near the house to make it easier to unload the bags, then we took advantage of the situation to clean up the garbage and recycling (yes, I keep recycling bags for sorting in our van, too! :-D ), refill the cooler we use to keep water bottles (that came in REALLY handy when we had to keep adding coolant the day the hose broke) and reorganize things a bit. So the back of the van is now all open and ready for when we do our monthly bulk shopping.

It didn’t take much to clean up the van, yet it was enough to wipe me out. I may be feeling a bit better, but wow, am I running out of energy fast. By the time we were done, I had broken into a sweat and my chest was on fire. Ugh.

Have I mentioned how much I appreciate that the girls are with us to keep things going when I’m out of commission? Well, even if I have, it’s worth saying again. I so appreciate that they chose to stay with us. They didn’t have to move out here. They could have stayed behind and done their own thing. Instead, they chose to stay and help us.

I am so blessed to have such amazing daughters.

Who also happen to be good cooks. Supper is smelling so good!

On the wildlife front, once again, we had very few deer visits. My husband had to get up insanely early, when it got too painful to be lying down, so he was there to see a couple in the wee hours. We didn’t see more again until about 7pm. I had hoped all our regulars would keep coming back; I really wanted to see how the antlers on the young males are coming in. Hopefully, we’ll still get visits from them.

The squirrels are chasing each other all over the place, but only one seemed at all interested in the seeds.

I love those little paws!

We also got a new type of bird today!

There was only one of this greyer one. The rest were much darker.

I’ve gone looking through my bird book, and there’s nothing quite like them in there.

There were quite a few of the darker ones. They are slightly larger than the redpolls. Their behavior is also more… sedate, shall we say. They seem downright chill, compared to the non-stop motion of the redpolls, chickadees and grosbeaks.

If anyone knows what they might be, please let me know in the comments! I’d love to know what they are.

Then Hungry Girl and Barbecue showed up.

At first, it was just Barbecue on her own, then Hungry Girl came trotting in from behind the house. She was much more antsy, though.

It didn’t take long before she took off into the garden area and stayed away, though I did see her grazing on the far side of the garden for a while.

Barbecue ran off, too, then came back for a bit, before finally taking off for good.

I noticed something interesting as they were leaving.

As the more shaded areas of snow slowly melt, we now have a kind of long, narrow “river” of melt water running across the opening to the garden, and then a bit past the spruce grove. After that, it’s still ice and snow, where it only gets sunlight for a short time in the mornings.

Both Hungry Girl and Barbecue carefully skirted around the water, to where it was still ice and snow, then cut across to the row of apple trees and into the garden. Going through the water would have been much shorter and faster, but I guess even deer feet don’t like getting cold and wet, if they can avoid it! :-D

I look forward to seeing who shows up outside our window, tomorrow. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Critter pictures, and feeling better

April 20, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

After another very rough night, and some major quality time with an electric heating pad, I can finally say that I’m starting to feel a bit better. This morning, I had even managed to get an audio recording of the weird noises my chest is making. While some was definitely cold related, the squeaking noise actually happens fairly regularly and is related to my chronic cough, so I figure it would be good to have a recording for the next time I go to the doctor about it.

Hungry Girl and Barbecue came by today. We are getting significantly less deer visits since the weather has gotten warmer!

Thankfully, the girls have been able to take over for me while I’ve been down for the count. As I type this, they are busily making supper. I don’t know what they’re making, but it smells delicious. *L*

Though still feeling sick, I did have to drive into town to pick up a few things. I’m the only person with a valid driver’s license right now, so it’s not like I could foist it off on someone else, though my husband was willing to do the drive. This, in spite of having his own rough night and still having really bad pain days.

For the first time since stores started putting them out, I actually used the disinfectant wipes on my hands and on the cart handle, then hid my hands in my sleeves to push the cart, while my daughter did all the touching of product that was needed. I sure don’t want anyone else to get sick because of me!

I’ve noticed for some time, the odd fur pattern on Barbecue’s neck. I have come to the conclusion that it is the result of scarring.

We are really noticing what a difference it has been, not doing that monthly Costco shopping trip in the city. We’re having to go into town for groceries far more often, and it’s costing us a lot more per item. We’re still not spending as much as we normally budget, simply because our budget had to be re-adjusted to pay for the work on the van; the money isn’t there to overspend. However, it’s more because of what we’re NOT buying, that what we ARE buying. It has set back making up for the costs of the move by at least a couple of months.

Hungry Girl was nice enough to give me a silly face picture! :-D

But we have a roof over our heads, food on the table, and the bills are being paid, and that’s the important part.

I think this is the first time I’ve seen a chickadee, just resting on a branch, rather than in constant motion!

Still, we are really looking forward to being able to do the monthly bulk shopping again, and restocking the cupboards and freezer!

The Re-Farmer

The Re-Farmer

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

photo of the day

Blue for You

That Circle of Life thing… and I hate shopping

One more thing, off the list

Walkabout – the East yard

Deer family, and what the heck?

Hoop Jumping, discoveries and tech upgrades

Deer Thoughts

Birds, Birds, Birds!

New Birds today!

Critter pictures, and feeling better

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