photo of the day

Cat Therapy

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Ugh.  It feels like it’s been a long day already, and it’s not even noon.

I got home from taking my mom to the hospital for her injection early enough to do that outside cat stuff, so I got a bit of feline therapy for stress reduction.

It was much appreciated.

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Nasty Crime Boy was even extra friendly today, gracing me with licks and love bites on the fingers; his way of showing affection.  Butterscotch and Rolando Moon all let me pet them, too.

I think I’m ready for a nap.

The trip with my mom was fast.  I got there early and she let me put her brace on, which is a huge step forward.  Then she got in my van and tried to take the frog off my dash.  It didn’t come off (yay Fun Tack!).  Instead I got yelled at for worshiping frogs, being brainwashed by negative and evil people, and how things like frogs and snakes are ugly, therefore they are of the devil.  I should have Jesus things on my dash, and not worship frogs.  I told her I don’t worship icons.

Thankfully, that didn’t last long and we didn’t talk at all for most of the trip in.

Once at the hospital, she didn’t even have to leave the waiting room.  A nurse came in and gave her the injection right there, and we could leave right away.  I did confirm we’re coming back tomorrow.  Her eye is looking better, but I can see a couple more days of this.

Which is not making my mom happy.

If she were unhappy because it’s hard on her body, or she’s tired (and I can see that it is taxing on her, physically) and so on, that would be great.  But that’s not what she complains about.  It was back to wanting a second opinion and eventually got around to the doctor not being able to speak English well (she speaks English just fine; she just has a strong accent) and other criticisms of the doctor herself.  It’s all about race.

*sigh*

Even when I got her home, her racism came out, all because of a stamp on some mail she got, honoring a black woman.  I even looked up who she was and read out some of her accomplishments, but nope… that just made it worse.

*sigh*

I was glad to leave.

Maybe tomorrow she will be better.

I’m going for a nap.  After I get some more fur therapy.

The Re-Farmer

So Many Feets!

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

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So many kitty feet to make so many paw prints!

I love it!

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

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

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

Yeah, I’m a geek that way.

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

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

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

The Re-Farmer

Critter Stress Relief

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Oh, what a long day it’s been!

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

:-D

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

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

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

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

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

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

That didn’t go over well with me.

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

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

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

But not the turtles.  Just the frog.

She doesn’t like frogs.

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

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

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

When the show did start, she fell asleep.

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

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

I’m good with driving her.

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

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

It got very exhausting.  For both of us!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Re-Farmer

 

In for a penny, in for a pound.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tomorrow should be much shorter, at least.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Re-Farmer

 

 

 

 

A Day of Rest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Re-Farmer

Feeling like Spring!

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We’ve hit a whole +3C today!  Gosh, it feels so warm.

Of course, in a couple of months, the same temperature is going to feel cold, but hey, I’ll appreciate it while I can!

It was a great day to meet with family in town for a birthday brunch for my older daughter.  Unfortunately, my husband was in too much pain to join us. :-( We got to see my older brother and his wife, plus my nephew and his wife, whom I haven’t seen since I came out for my father’s funeral, almost 2 years ago.  My older daughter hadn’t seen them since my youngest brother’s funeral, about 8 years ago.  Yeah; the only time we’ve been seeing family has been for funeral related events.  We weren’t even making it to weddings.  We had lots to talk about!  Thankfully, the restaurant wasn’t busy, because we sat there for over an hour, lingering over coffees and talk.

In the end, it was probably a good thing my husband didn’t make it.  He would never had been able to stay so long.  No amount of medication can keep away that level of pain.

After, we spent some more time chatting in the parking lot about the car my nephew was driving; he’d salvaged it out of one of the car graveyards here at the farm and got it going again – he even left the moss growing in the Bondo cracks.  It seems one of the front tires was separating.  Did he have a spare?  Of course.  He had two full size spares. That’s my nephew!  :-D

So they were maybe going to go to where the boats were parked, where there was more room to change the tire, which I thought was great; that’s where we go to play Pokemon Go, so we’d meet them there if they did.  My daughters, meanwhile, walked to a Timmies to get more coffee, and they would meet me there, too.

When my nephew didn’t come to the parking lot, I thought they decided not to change the tire, but then a lure showed up on the Pokestop.  Looking around, I finally saw this familiar knit jacket that I had been admiring at the restaurant; my nephew’s wife had walked over to play Pokemon Go.  Which was perfect, because once my daughters joined us, we had enough people to do a raid. :-D

It turned out they had gone to another parking lot with boats in it.

Yeah, there’s more than one boat parking lot in town.

I completely forgot about the one by the marina.  It has a much more “private property” feel to it than the yacht club parking area we were at, which is next to a public park.  I don’t know that I’d call any of the boats there “yachts”, but there IS a sign… :-D

When we got home, my husband was lying down, so it was strange to find a business card tucked into the door.  Someone from a scrap metal company had come by while we were gone and left it.  Probably going to all the farms in the area.

We’re hanging on to that card!  Unlike my nephew, we are not in a position to start salvaging the many vehicles lying about.  We have neither the skills, nor the resources.  Nor the desire! :-D  Then there are the old fridges and freezers all sort of ancient metal things lying about…

Once things are clear of snow, I plan to do a walkabout with my brother so he can tell me the status of various things, including all the … stuff … lying around, so I know what I can get rid of.

Being away as long as we were, it meant we missed seeing the deer.  I’d put the cat food and deer feed out earlier than usual, and I did get a couple of cats come by.  Butterscotch even let me touch her.

Which is how I discovered a strange patch on the back of her neck.

Eventually, as she went from going to a food or water bowl, to winding herself between my legs, I was able to make out that it was a wound.  It looks like a bunch of fur has been torn out.  It looks raw, but it’s not bleeding, and when I had inadvertently skritched the area, she did not react in pain.  My older daughter had noticed something odd about the fur yesterday, so it’s been like that for at least that long.

Cat fight?

Most likely.  No way to know, though.

No deer pictures, but we did get some cat pictures…

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Eunice the Scary Snowman is starting to look like Eunice, the Sad, Tired Snowman!

Not that Beep Beep minds, while sitting on a warm spot.

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We weren’t able to get a photo of Beep Beep and The Hand, batting at each other while they were sitting like this.

They love that stone cross!  So do the squirrels.

I am so looking forward to the snow being gone.

The Re-Farmer

 

 

 

Critters – and ID progress

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ew.

So now I’m paranoid about my tea.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was the postmaster.

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

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

Totally bizarre.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I ended up crashing with the cats for 3 hours.

I’m getting too old for this. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Un. Be. Lievable. Part 3

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I can’t believe it.

I thought for sure, after I finally got the paperwork I needed to transfer my driver’s license, and actually GOT my temporary license, I was done.  It was over.

But noooo….  That would make life too easy, wouldn’t it? Continue reading →