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Not tonight

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I did our first stock up shop tonight, but will do my regular price post later.

I didn’t get much sleep last night, and got up early to do the morning routine and watering while it was still relatively cool. Then I headed into the city, doing Canadian Tire, Walmart, and Dollarama and a Fresh Co (the last two shared a building). I also got gas at $1.599 in the city. One outside the city limits, the prices were $1.799

By the time I was done and heading home, my lower back was killing me, my left hip was giving out and my left shoulder kept trying to dislocate. I was heavily using shopping cards as walkers.

When I got home, I basically hit the heads, then crashed on the couch in the cat free zone, while my daughters unloaded the truck, parked it in the garage and put everything away. My older daughter was a sweetheart and brought me my water bottle and pain killers, because I forgot to do it before I lay down. I didn’t sleep, but I did give my body a chance to recover.

Then I had stuff to do outside. I’ll post photos later, but all our snail rolls and the seed tray are now outside, in the portable greenhouse frame in the shade. The snail rolls are in bins I picked up at the Dollarama for better stability, and they’re all further secured with wire to the frame, the the frame itself is now secured to the fence. Even the seed tray has the cover weighted down and is secured with wire – it seems we had an excellent germination rate overnight, but something, likely a mouse, destroyed it, even digging into individual cells to get at the seeds. I had to replant everything! Two items only had 4 seeds left in the packets, so I couldn’t replant all 6 cells in each row.

I did the watering in the front yard, then went to the back yard with some 3′ plant stakes I picked up. The mosquito netting over the potatoes was pulled up on the sides; the cats keep jumping on it! My daughter and I laid the stakes across, securing them on top of the 6′ bamboo stakes along the sides. The new stakes were a bit too long and had to be placed at angles so they wouldn’t stick out too far. Then we put the mosquito netting back on. Before I could even finish securing the edges with ground staples, a cat was already on top of the netting! After doing the edges, I put garden clips all round the sides and on the new supports across the tops. I don’t know if it’ll hold if the cats keep jumping on it, though. They are really determinded!

Also, for some reason, while working in the main garden area, we were absolutely attacked by clouds of mosquitoes! There weren’t any while I was doing the front yard watering.

Anyhow.

I finished the evening by watering the main garden area and the trees – the apple tree is recovering and has more new leaf bugs on branches I feared were dead, due to critter damage.

Now, I need to go to bed. Tomorrow, we will try to get the two littles in the isolation shelter into carriers. The goal is to bring in 3 cats. If that ends up being three fully grown males because that’s all we can catch, so be it. The rescue worker that arranged to have 3 slots available for me is aware of the problem. Since the raccoons and skunks clean up every crumb of kibble, the outside cats are essentially fasting, too, unless the go hunting somewhere. The vet will be aware of this, too.

I really hope we at least get the black and white female in the isolation shelter.

So I will be gone most of tomorrow with whatever cats we’re able to get.

For now, I’m going to try and go to bed early and get actual sleep.

I’m seriously considering sleeping on the couch in the cat free zone.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: the potatoes are in, next bed ready, and the heat has hit

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Ah, life on the Canadian prairies. One extreme to the other. A short while ago, we were still getting snow and overnight temperature at or below freezing.

Today, we reached a high of 25C/77F – I don’t know what the humidex was – and passed 20C/68F by about 8 or 9am.

I headed out a bit earlier than usual to do the outside cat stuff. Then I checked the garden shed. Sure enough, the raccoon and her babies were still there. I decided to very carefully and as quietly as possible, take out as many things I expect to need in the next while.

I heard a lot of loud chittering as I was taking things out, most sounding like they were coming from the littles. They seemed to be chittering more about trying to latch on than what I was doing. The mama barely moved. After I cleared away things that were on top of the wheeled garden chair they are under, I stuck my phone into gaps to get the first three pictures.

Those are such roly poly babies! There are at least three, possibly four.

The last photo is most of the stuff I removed.

That roll of netting is long enough to go completely around the trellis bed, so I am saving it for this, if we need to do it again, as it would be way too long for anything else.

After that, I headed in for breakfast, iced up a water bottle, then got started on the covered bed that I wanted to plant our potatoes in.

In the first picture, you can see how it’s been since the fall, minus the bricks waying it down – something has dug holes through the plastic.

As you can see in the next picture, the solarization didn’t really work, and it was more like a greenhouse. So the first job was to loosen the soil and weed it. Especially at the end where the excess was rolled up, which was packed with creeping Charlie.

That stuff is just nasty.

Once weeded, I got it all leveled out, while leaving the soil thermometer in place. That soil is quite warm!

By this point, I was really starting to struggle with the heat and had to go inside for a bit. After grabbing a light lunch, I headed back out with the potatoes. I have 5 pound bags each of Viking and Yukon this year. Not a lot for our useage needs, but that’s all we have the space for right now.

In the photo where the potatoes are laid out, ready to be buried, you can see a board across the middle. That’s to mark between the two different types of potatoes in the same bed.

Next, the bed had to be protected. I decided to use the long roll of mosquito netting this time, which isn’t very wide, so I used shorter stakes. These were salvaged from a broken market tent and are all from pieces broken in half. The broken ends got pushed down so the end with the screw holes were at the top.

I had to gather things next, so I set up a cheap dollar store sprinkler hose over the potato bed. Double duty: I could start watering the bed while doing something else, and it kept the cats off while I wasn’t there to keep them away.

One of the things I had to go was get the roll of netting which, as you can see in the next picture, Gouda was using to nap on!!

In the past, I have strung twine from support to support, along the sided and crossing the middle. I wanted something stronger than that. This bed is 18′ wide, and I have 6′ bamboo stakes, so I ended up attaching three along the top of each side to hold the mesh up. The stakes were spaced out just under 6′ apart, allowing for some overlap. I used the screw holes in the supports and wire from one of the hoop kits I got to hold them in place. I still had to put the stakes deeper into the soil so that the netting could be secured to the ground on each sides. The sides are secured with ground staples.

Yes, I took the sprinkler hose out. It was a pretty terrible hose – but then, you get what you pay for, and this did not cost very much! It was just there for the moment, anyhow.

After I took that last picture, I gave the bed a very through watering.

Then I went inside, because I was getting dangerously overheated. I kept myself hydrated, but was feeling very exhausted. It was around 2pm by then, and I decided to nap for a couple of hours. I would then continue when the temperatures were starting to drop.

I passed right out and slept for three hours.

During this time, the girls took care of things like the outside cat feeding and starting supper.

We are going to need to get the AC going in the living room, and the onion snail rolls have been sitting on top of it, so I decided it was time to take them outside. Onions are hardy and I’m not worried about them, plus I need to start transplanting them as soon as possible. They are meant to be planted in between other things, as we go. The frame for the portable greenhouse is sitting in the shade near the shrine, so I put them there. I’ll need to start moving some of the trays from the basement out there, too.

Then it was back to the main garden area, where this is one bed that didn’t get cleaned up last year I wanted to prepare.

As you can see in the first couple of photos, the creeping Charlie is a real problem.

I had put the soil thermometer in there earlier, and it was reading a couple of degrees cooler than the first bed. By the time I removed it, though, it was just as warm as the first bed I tested! Having that plastic over the bed didn’t seem to make much difference. So much for solarization!

This bed turned out to be so filled with tree roots, too. I pile the creeping Charlie aside, half filling the wheel barrow, so it could be disposed of further away. I’d burn it, if I could. Getting those out means losing a fair bit of soil, too. In the fourth photo, you can even see some of the finer tree roots on top. I pulled out as much as I could, but somewhere under there is a major root. I was hitting it every now and then with the garden fork, but couldn’t lift it up at all.

No root vegetables in this bed, for now!

Once it was cleared and prepared, I gave it a thorough watering. For all the rain we had, that soil was pretty dry. Then I covered it with the plastic that had been over the bed the potatoes are in, covering the holes with scrap boards.

The potato bed is going to be a problem. I kept having to chase the cats off the netting! It stretches enough and is low enough that their weight pulls it down to the ground. Ideally, there would be horizontal supports across the top, joining the vertical supports, but I don’t have anything the right length.

At least they won’t be using it as a litter box.

I’ll have to figure something out.

By this time, it was around 8pm and the temperatures were downright pleasant. We’re expected to drop to 8C/46F tonight, but after that our overnight temperatures are expected to be no lower than 10C/50F On Thursday and Friday, we’re supposed to break 30C/86F, and the overnight temperatures are expected to be close to 20C/68F. It’s supposed to cool down a bit in the second week of June, but that’s a relative statement by then!

For the next while, with the exception of days where I have to drive into the city or something like that, my pattern is going to change. I’ll be getting up earlier to work outside while it’s cooler, then be inside (and probably nap) at the heat of the day before going out again when the temperature starts to drop. With the heat, I’ll be watering things in the morning. Possibly in the evening, too.

I have a couple of beds to take care of in the east yard, plus prep the old kitchen garden bed along the retaining wall. In the beginning of June – after I’ve done all our city trips and vet trip – I should be able to start direct sowing. I’m really trying to focus on getting each bed covered in some way to protect them from the cats. The one area I won’t be able to do is where I intend to plant corn. That area is currently covered by a black tarp/landscape cloth/whatever it is, and has been for several years. Everything under it should be dead by now. I need to move that aside and prepare blocks to plant corn in and, possibly, interplant them with winter squash. That area will simply be too large to cover. I’ll have to figure something else out.

It’s going to be very busy in the garden for the next while!

The Re-Farmer

Everything, all at once!

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I had one real goal today. That was to visit my mother in the afternoon.

While doing the morning routine over the past week, my younger daughter and I had been making sure to open the gate, just in case. It was late morning when we heard a honk and I saw a thing of beauty.

The septic truck had arrived!

I headed out to meet him as he got out to check on where he needed to set the truck up. He was apologetic about not getting back to me about the delay – he’d lost my phone number! I was just glad his truck was up and running again, and he could make it at all.

Once he confirmed that he could back up around the back of the house – I wasn’t sure if our straw bale would be an issue or not – he opened up the tank to check inside. I told him about how we’ve had things backing up into the basement because there seems to be a bottleneck that I estimate to be roughly under the wall. He mused about how something like that could be fixed until I told him it was a cast iron pipe joining plastic. He just shook his head. Cast iron, over time, can start crumbling, and it’s likely near the join with the plastic pipes. As for fixing it, I told him I figured it would require tearing up the concrete and replacing the pipe. He said we’d have to excavate outside, too. I mentioned this had been done, before we moved out here and he wondered why it wasn’t fixed them. I told him, no one knew. My dad was living here alone by then. With just one person, it wasn’t a problem. He understood.

With the tank open, I stayed out on cat watching duty, to make sure none came too close to the open tank. Which is much easier, now. The rescue took so many of the cats, there’s a huge difference in what we’re seeing. Even when I check the sun room critter cam at night, I have been seeing no cats at all, many times, or just a few in the cat beds. None of the swirling masses we used to get! With the very loud truck, the cats almost all immediately disappeared. The Grink was the only one that came to check things out, and it was easy to persuade her to leave.

He was done very quickly and was soon leaving the yard, stopping when I came out with the envelope of cash we had ready for quite some time now, to pay him. Every time we’ve done it this way, he’s never even looked in the envelope, trusting me that I had the right amount. Of course, I tip him, too. Always. There have even been times when I couldn’t get to a bank machine to get cash before he came out here, and he just did the job and told me where his house was, trusting I would drop the payment off when I could.

He may be more expensive than other places; I don’t actually know for sure anymore, but I wouldn’t want to go with anyone else.

When he left, it was late enough that I was going to get changed, have a quick lunch, then head out to my mother’s.

Which is when the phone rang.

Earlier in the morning, I’d noticed that the wind was tearing off a tarp covering one of my brother’s pieces of equipment. It was too torn up for any chance to secure it again, so I took some video and sent it to my brother. He called to thank me for that, and asked if I could get some measurements, so he could pick up another tarp. So I quickly got some shoes on again and headed over with a measuring tape to get the info for him. He might come out tonight to take care of it.

Not too much longer, I was on the road to my mother’s for what turned out to be an okay visit. She was having one of her better days. The last time I was there, she had asked for a couple of apples because she missed having fresh fruit. I’d passed that on to my siblings, because I knew it would be a while before I was back. When I reached her bedside, I saw an apple on her tray, so I knew my sister had come by on her day off and remembered to bring some for her – I had completely forgotten. Once my mother was settled on her bedside, she picked up the apple and reminded me that she’d asked me to bring her apples. I guess my sister bringing her apples wasn’t good enough??

The next thing I knew, she was talking about giving me some money to get something for her, but started talking about her vision, her vison, her vision… Her vision is so important. She started going down a rabbit hole so I cut in to ask what it was she wanted me to get for her.

The eye vitamins. Because they’re only giving her the eye vitamin once a day, not twice, and she wanted me to get the gel type that she used to get in her bubble packs.

I told her, the TCU has her prescription now, not the local pharmacy – and they were definitely giving her her eye vitamin, twice a day. She insisted they were not; she was supposed to get it at the end of the day, as well as in the morning, but she wasn’t getting the second one. When I didn’t immediately agree with her, she started saying “oh, you think I’m stupid… you’re just like them… you’re taking their side“, and so on.

She also said that her vision was getting worse, because they weren’t giving her the eye vitamin, and that it was for both eyes.

I explained to her again, she has two different problems. The vitamin can only help with her left eye. For her right eye, she would have to go into the city to get the eye injection, because there is only one place that does this treatment. I even tried to ask her how her vision is getting worse. “It’s getting dark“. I asked if it was with one eye or the other, and what did she see if she covered one eye, but she wouldn’t do it and just made like it’s both eyes going the same thing.

That conversation got nowhere.

As we were chatting, her new room mate was wheeled in and transferred to her bed, promptly falling asleep. The privacy curtain was already pulled and we just kept talking. At one point, I spotted a tiny insect flying near one of my mother’s eyes and I mentioned it was there, in case she saw something moving in her peripheral vision (which is pretty good, based on the last tests she had). Her response?

Her room mate sleeps with her mouth open.

???

This confused me so I asked what that had to do with anything. She talked in circles for a while before dropping it, but she said enough that I realized she thought the insect had come from her room mate’s mouth, because she sleeps with her mouth open.

?????????

Meanwhile, I started to get messages from home.

The tree company had arrived.

My daughter and husband knew which tree was being assessed for removal, but there were details they weren’t sure of, so we messaged back and forth on that, while I told my mother about my brother wanting to hire a company to safely remove the tree.

My mother started saying, she planted that tree there, and did I know why? Yes. It was for shade. She’d told me before about how the sun through the kitchen window made it so hot. I suggested it would have been easier to put up a curtain (that window did have curtains, but they were lacy things that did not block any light), so she started telling me about how, at her childhood home back in Poland, they had a cherry tree right by the house. I pointed out, they didn’t have a basement. Oh, of course – no one had basements! So I talked a bit about how this tree’s roots were causing cracks in the basement wall, and the branches were threatening the new roof.

She brought up the extended pruning saw that should have been here. I told her I use it often, but it can’t be used on these branches. They’re just too big, and if we cut them, they’d fall onto the roof. So she started to give instructions on how we could put a rope around the branch to pull it so it would fall the way we wanted it to. I told her, that might work somewhere else, but not over the roof. It would be much better to get someone with the proper equipment and get it down right, with no risk to the roof. Oh, it’s not my business anymore.

…

*sigh*

I didn’t stay for too much longer, as my mother was looking forward to Bingo starting soon. Before I left, I stopped at the nursing station and talked to the nurse that gave my mother her meds this morning, and would again, at supper time. I told her, my mother keeps insisting that they are not giving her the second eye vitamin.

It turned out that not only is she getting it at both breakfast and supper time (it has to be taken with food), but the pill is so big, at my mother’s request, they break it in half for her. She always sets out the pills on her tray and counts them out, and when she does that, she counts the two halves as one pill, recognizing that they belong together (she has another half pill, but it’s tiny, and she takes only one half at a time).

The nurse promised that she would make sure to explain to my mother that the big pill split in half is her eye vitamin, and why she’s taking it with her supper, not at the end of the day. We talked about some other pills she has issues with, like one that she is completely convinced she used to take twice a day, but she only ever took once a day.

That done, I headed out, but not home, yet. I went to the feed store to ask about the chicks. The woman who was working out the splitting of the minimum 24 chicks order was not there. I talked to the guys that were that and was told that, if she hasn’t called me by now, she wasn’t able to confirm the arrangement. One of them made a note for her to call me when she is back next week.

Then I confirmed the date the chicks will arrive.

It’s the same day I’m supposed to bring three of the isolation cats in for their spays.

Crud.

I would be dropping them off at 8am, though, and they said the chicks tend to arrive at 11am or later, so we would have time to drop off the cats, then drive to the feed store to get the chicks. We would then have to take them home and get them set up in a brooder before I would have to drive back to pick up the cats and bring them home!

That’s going to be a lot of driving.

While there, I got an extra 40 pound bag of kibble, plus a chick feeder and waterer, both gravity fed. I’ll get the pine shavings and chick feed another time. I may not be able to get chicks, if I can’t split a minimum order with someone, but if that doesn’t work out, I know people I can guy adult laying hens from.

On the way home, I remembered to stop at the post office. I wasn’t expecting anything, but it’s been a while.

I’m glad I did.

I got a letter from the health care system. I’m booked for a pelvic ultrasound on June 9, in the hospital that’s literally across the road from the vet clinic we get spays and neuters done at. 😁 The appointment time is in the afternoon, which will be much easier for us to get to.

I’m surprised I got the appointment so fast. My younger daughter had to wait for almost a year before she got an ultrasound done, but the images weren’t clear, so they want to to come back. That was two winters ago.

Meanwhile, there isn’t much news from my older daughter. Things are improving, but not where they should be, yet. She really wants to just go home. Which I can understand, that’s for sure! Still, it means we have no idea when she’ll be discharged.

While today was nowhere near as windy as yesterday, we were still dealing with high winds – though we didn’t lose any trees, where I could see! – and it was overcast and rainy. The sort of weather that always makes me sleepy. After I got home, I settled at my computer for a while, watching the latest Tasting History video, and fell asleep in my chair! Aside from the evening cat feeding, the only thing I managed to get done outside today was a bit of clean up in the old kitchen garden.

Tonight, we’re supposed to drop to freezing or lower – I made sure the heat lamp in the isolation shelter was plugged in and on – and tomorrow is supposed to be chilly. Which is actually a good time to do some of the direct sowing I want to do. Hopefully, I’ll be able to work on that. I’m also hoping to finally get my mother’s old mattress and box spring to the dump, but we shall see when the time comes. We’ve got a few chilly days ahead, then we’ll warm up moderately. There is still much to do out there in the garden, and the month is already half over! The long range forecast says we’re supposed to suddenly get very hot during the day, approaching 30C/86F, and staying high for all of June.

We’ll see what actually happens.

For now, though, I need to get any seeds that prefer cold soil direct sown right away.

At some point, I’ll be able to get back to working on the walls of that garden bed!

What I really want to do right now it crawl into bed and sleep for a week.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Chicken coop build, day three – finished!

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I had to make a run into town late this morning, so we didn’t even start on finishing the chicken coop assembly until much later in the afternoon. Which was fine, because it turned out to be an absolutely lovely day today.

The first thing I worked on was reinforcing the interior roost, then securing them in place.

Each corner got one of these flat braces. My original intention had been to have the horizontal roost resting on top of the vertical support, but it was difficult to get proper measurements through the tiny opening I had to work in. The roosts ended up too short by enough that I instead trimmed them about a quarter inch shorter so that they would fit in between the vertical supports, instead of on top. While the corner braces would hold them in place, these were cheap dollar store braces and I was concerned they wouldn’t hold the weight of chickens without bending or breaking. These flat braces are higher quality and will hold. The wood itself will break before those give out.

To secure the roosts, I had to use a little kitchen step ladder to be able to reach from above at the front, to set the roosts in place and line them up, while making sure they were flush against the front and back walls. There is just a bit of a height difference because of the white edging I had to account for. Both roosts had a vertical that sort of bent away from the wall, so I used one of the pieces for later in the build, jammed at an angle to brace the wonky side in place. Once they were solidly flush against the walled, I screwed them in place from the outside. Each end got three screws. Later on, I’ll use some sort of sealant on the screws to protect the wood from moisture.

The coop now has a roost on each side, on the inside.

The next stage of the build was to add the roosts that came with the kit, which were to be mounted underneath, on either side of where the ramp would be. For that, I needed an extra pair of hands and asked my daughter to come help. After I went inside and looking up online, just how they were supposed to be attached. The pictographs were really useless for that and even an image I’d shared with my daughter, showing how high off the ground they were supposed to be secured, looked like there was something else entirely going on.

She ended up basically taking over the build, and I was her assistant. Mostly because she can actually get down on the ground, and I can’t.

This time, though, we set a sheet of plastic on the ground as a drop sheet. Last time, my daughter was crawling around on the ground, she later discovered she managed to get cat poop on her pants. Ick.

Getting the exterior roosts in place was definitely a two person job. Especially for the front. With the area for the door empty, the sides sides were slightly spread out, and I had to push the entire side in and hold it in place while my daughter screwed the roosts in place.

After that, the floor between the two sides had to be installed, then the hinged ramp attached to the floor. That was all my daughter, as there was no room for me to do anything other than hand her screws.

That done, we had to attached the door to the frame by the hinges. There were a couple of plates that I’ve been using as spacers every time we had to attach a hinged door. After the door was hung, those plates were added across the insides of the frame’s corners at the opposite side, to stop the door from going past the frame when closed. Then the latch was added to the top, and the door and frame could be attached to the coop.

With the ramp on hinges, that could be lifted up and out of the way, so my daughter could go inside and screw the door frame to the coop. The ground isn’t level, so my job was to line up edges and corners and hold them in place – which required actually lifting the coop itself slightly, on one side – until my daughter got enough screws in to hold it in place, and she could do the rest without me holding things.

Once the door and frame were in place, there were a pair of cross pieces to attach between the top of the door frame and the back mesh wall of the coop. These were part of the roof supports.

The roof was the next thing to do, and it took a lot of figuring out what the pictographs were showing. We noticed some pre-drilled holes in some pieces and had to look at instructions a couple of pages later to see what they would be used for, and we could tell which direction they were supposed to face.

The roof supports were assembled in two parts before they could be set on top and secured to the coop. Then we could finally put on the plastic roof panels.

Which was more of a pain than it should have been.

First, was figuring out which side was up, as both sides were identical. They had pre-drilled holes in them that needed to line up with the supports they would be screwed into. Then there were the overlaps. After much shifting and flipping and trying again, it was the pre-drilled holes that determined which panel edge went on top of the other. It was not the way I would have expected it to, when it comes to drainage, but it was the only way one screw could secure both edges at the same time.

Once we got that figured out, and the panels were centered and lined up, we could finally start screwing them into place. For this, my daughter was using the little step ladder a lot, and we found a different problem. The ground was too soft and the legs of the ladder started to sink! I had a small piece of plywood nearby that I could put on the ground under one set of legs, which worked out very well. When it was time for my daughter to move the ladder to reach another section, I just kept moving the board.

We found other problems, though.

The screws for this part of the build are quite short. Too short for where the panels overlapped. After some digging around in the garage, I found a few that could replace some of the screws along the seams, but then we had a whole different problem along the front. For all the care we took to line up the pre-drilled holes with the supports below, the entire row of pre-drilled hold along the front were just a touch too far. The boards in that part of the roof were slightly warped. Probably from sitting in the box in the garage for over a month in the winter. There were extra longer screws in the kit and my daughter ended up using those, and not using the pre-drilled holes, to secure the roof panels. Some of the screws went in crooked and the tips got exposed, but not anywhere I chicken could hurt itself, so we weren’t too worried about it. We’ll have to go over the roof with sealant in places, anyhow.

Once the roof panels were on, the only thing left was to attach the hooks and eyes that would be used to hold open the two front doors for air circulation. For that, the hooks were first attached under the roof, and then we could use those to decide where to attach the screw eyes at the height we wanted the doors to be held open at. In spite of using a measuring tape and marking out where to attach them, we ended up doing one door at a different height than the other. The white edging in one of them had marks already on them that I mistook for the marks I’d made below! Which is fine. As long as they can be held open.

That done, the coop was officially assembled. We just had to move it.

Slight problem. The hinged ramp. With the roof in place, it couldn’t be lift up like when my daughter worked under it before. What we ended up doing was lifting is as high as we could through the open door, then quickly shutting the door before it could drop. We still had to push the ramp up through the wire mesh so the door could be closed but, once it was, the door itself held the ramp up and out of the way.

It wasn’t easy to move the hole thing. We were able to get grips on each end, because the wire mesh is on the inside of the coop, so there was enough of a lip on the frames that we could get our fingertips under there. The main problem was me and my janky elbows. I could hold the weight for only short distances before I could feel them giving out.

Still, we managed it, and set it up in front of the retaining wall, where the ground seemed to be the flattest.

It’s still not level, but at least the whole thing isn’t being twisted out of shape by uneven ground.

Where is how the finished coop looks, with all the doors closed, plus the back, which has no doors of any kind.

You can really tell in the side views, how the ground is sloping! In the front and back views, you can see the screws holding the inside roots in place.

Here are the three sides with all the doors open.

The coop was designed with the roosts below as a way of not having to deal with lots of chicken poop inside. With the added roosts sheltered inside, we’ll be adding bedding. The nesting boxes will probably get straw, but I plan to get pine shavings for under the roosts inside.

With the coop right up against the retaining wall, we can potentially secure it to the blocks so it won’t get blown over in high winds.

We will probably not be able to keep it there, though. It is facing west and the sun can shine right through the wire mesh, the sides might create too much shadow for the garden bed behind it.

One of the things I want to do if find a way to add wheels to it, so it will be easier to move around as needed. It might be easier to just make a pair of wheeled platforms that can be tucked under the ends, then removed once the coop has been moved.

This coop will work out fine for when we get our first chickens, and for the summers. It is not the strongest of structures and definitely not suitable for a Canadian winter, but the plan is to build a polytunnel in the garden this year, so that we can move the chicken coop into it for the winter. It will do until we can build a proper, sturdier, chicken coop. We’re just getting a few chickens to start; enough to supply us with eggs. Over time I want to get more, including meat hens, so we will need to expand things quite a bit. It will take time and materials we don’t really have, but at least now we can get started.

Meanwhile, we can get ready for the chicks to arrive at the end of May. We’ll need feeders and waterers (the ones my parents used are still in the old chicken coop, but I don’t know that any of them are useable, after so many decades since my parents had chickens), both for while we have the chicks in a brooding pen indoors, and for when they get moved outside.

Something else that will be coming at the end of May is our order of basket willow. I got an email from the nursery with several shipping dates available, and I requested the latest one. That will give us time to prepare where we will be planting them, beyond the outer yard, and working out how to protect them from the renter’s cows.

On a completely different note…

It is confirmed that Slick lost her litter. While working outside, I heard a commotion and it was Slick. She’s gone into heat again, and had a whole crowd of dudes wanting their turn with her. She was not happy about it, either. I sent a quick message to the rescue and they want me to trap her as soon as possible. I don’t think we’d be able to trap her specifically, though. However, she has been super friendly when we do the morning cat feeding, and we might be able to get her into the big carrier. Tomorrow morning, my daughter is going to come out with me to try and get her. If we can manage it, she’ll go to the rescue for however long it takes for them to get her spayed, then she will come back here.

If we can get her contained!

Here’s hoping!!!

The Re-Farmer

Costco stock up shop: this is what $739 looks like

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Well… $738.95, to be exact

Today was my day to go into the city for our second stock up shop for May.

It was a very rough start to the day.

I had a hard time sleeping, so when I was awake – again – at about 6am, I asked my older daughter to take care of the morning routine, so I could get a couple more hours of sleep before I needed to drive. I even managed to fall asleep for some of that time.

I was getting up and starting to get ready when the phone rang.

It was my mother.

She almost immediately launched into asking me about the call I had been expecting on Tuesday about the doctor. I told her, they didn’t call, but I was in the city yesterday and would be doing our Costco shop today, so I wasn’t able to follow up on it yet. She started ranting about the doctor neglecting me like he was neglecting her but I reminded her it wasn’t the doctor that was supposed to call me, but the administrator.

She eventually got around to telling me that when she woke up this morning, her hearing was gone completely. Obviously, she could hear me as we spoke on the phone, but I still had to ask questions to find out what happened, as she went on about how they’d need to do the oil treatment again and so on. When I asked her, several times, if she’d told the nurses about it, I found out that no, she had not. How was she able to hear now? She’d dug her fingers into her ears until she could hear again…

!!!!

I had to explain to her that she needed to tell the nurses what was going on, not just anybody, but specifically the nurses, but she kept ranting. It was nursing pretending to be doctors. She wanted the doctor to do the ear flush. She wanted to talk to the doctor about her pills (they repeatedly explain her pills to her, but she is convinced they are lying and deliberately messing with her meds so she will die, because “they” do that to old people…) and so on.

When she started going on about how she was a patient in the hospital so they should be doing… whatever it is she wants them to be doing at any given moment, I had to remind her, this place isn’t a regular hospital anymore. She is a resident in a transitional care unit, not a patient. Things are done differently in her situation, and the doctor isn’t there just for her, but has a lot of other people he is responsible for.

At some point, I tried to tell her again that I was going to Costco today, so she wouldn’t try to demand I visit her or do whatever it was she was winding up for. At which point she started railing at me… “All you think about is food, food, food! And see how you look!”

Yes, my mother decided this was the time to attack me for buying groceries, because I’m fat. I didn’t even try to point out that it’s not just food we buy at Costco, but seriously. According to her, we should all… stop buying food? Stop eating? Because she has problems with her hearing and wants me to do something about it?

She got so bad, I finally just said, that’s enough, and hung up on her.

Now, my mother knows I do stock up shops to the city only twice a month, at the end of the month. She doesn’t understand why I stock up for the month like this, instead of just going to the local grocery stores every week, like she used to. I’ve even explained to her that we save hundreds of dollars a month by doing this, which is the only reason we can afford to still buy things locally throughout the month. That’s why I make these trips. Somehow, she always manages to “need” me to drop everything and devote every moment to her, at the end of the month. Month after month. Just like she knows that, with the snow gone, there is lots to do outside, but she doesn’t think I have anything to do, because we don’t have cows. I should devote every moment to her.

Aside from her making it very, very hard to want to spend time around her when she gets nasty like this, I can’t help but think how she never really did this for her own mother until my grandmother literally moved in here with my parents until she passed away. Nor did she do anything for my father after she moved off the farm, leaving him to the abusive treatment of our vandal. Abuse she now denies, even though our vandal’s behaviour towards her is one of the main reasons she moved off the farm. She often tells me, she depends so much on us to take care of her, which is something she wasn’t willing to do herself when the need arose.

It’s very hard not to feel bitter. I can’t even blame it on cognitive decline or aging. She’s been like this for as long as I can remember. She’s just more open about it now.

After that, I took the time to message the my brother and SIL in our group chat about our mother (my sister is no longer on Messenger, but I didn’t have time to text her about it), let my family know what happened, then booted up and headed out. My husband had a prescription delivery for today, so I made sure to leave the gate open, and my younger daughter made sure to keep a handset with her for when the driver called before getting here.

My only stop on the way to the city was at a gas station for a drink and something breakfast like.

I should have filled the tank when I had the chance, yesterday. Prices are $1.889/L all over now.

It was too early for their fried chicken, but they did have fried perogies ready. I grabbed some of those so I wouldn’t be having my energy drink on an empty stomach. Plus, they were something I could easily eat while driving. I was still thinking of eating at Costco, since the new location I was going to has the awesome corned beef sandwiches again, but I never did get to that.

When I arrived at the Costco, about an hour + after leaving home, my first stop was to get gas. I was at just under half a tank by the time I reached the city.

Costco price for regular gas was $1.749 It cost me $96.10 to fill my tank.

This after our federal overlords promised to bring the fuel prices down by temporarily not charging one of the many taxes they have on fuel. Instead, prices are much higher now.

The tank full, it was time to get a flat cart and start shopping. Thankfully, it wasn’t too insanely busy.

This is what $738.95 looks like.

There’s a few things buried from view, of course.

This is what I got today.

For the non-food stuff, there are 3 bags of kibble for the outside cats, a case of wet cat food for the inside cats, a case of XL puppy pads and toilet paper.

For drinks, we got a flat of energy drinks, which my daughter paid for, a flat of Coke Zero for my husband and I, and oat milk for my daughters. There is also a large box of Earl Grey tea.

In dairy, I got a block of mozzarella cheese, a wheel of brie and a 1L of whipping cream – the whipping cream is a treat we rarely get these days. Then there’s 5 pounds of butter, and a large shaker of Parmesan cheese my daughters requested.

In bread, we got two 2 packs of rye bread, two packs of tortilla wraps and a big bag of ciabatta buns. The buns are a treat. I don’t recall if we’ve ever bought them before. At least not since we’ve moved to this province.

Not sure what’s going on with the receipt, though. It says I got one 2 pack of sliced French bread instead of two 2 packs of rye bread. So I got undercharged? The rye bread packs were more expensive.

Not going to complain. Last time, I got overcharged for something. It’s an odd mistake to make, though, since I had no French bread for them to scan. That makes it a error in their pricing system. Very strange.

For protein, I got two panini packs for sandwiches, a pork loin that will be broken down into different cuts, two packs of drumsticks that were $5 off at the counter, two packs of loose Mild Italian sausage meat (cheaper per kg than links), and a hot rotisserie chicken. The chicken was for my husband and I to have for our supper. My daughter sent funds and requested some sushi, so the sushi and the nigiri platters are for her and her sister. Oh, and the double flat of eggs, plus a 6 pack of canned chicken. I also got peanut butter, which I guess fits under the protein category, too.

We also got a 9 pack of variety pasta, a bag of Basmati rice, I finally found the popcorn kernels, two large jars of mayo, a large jar of sliced pickles, a 3 pack of baking powder and the only frozen item, a box of perogies. There’s a giant bag of nacho chips for my husband.

According to the rest of the receipt, I had 45 items and a total of $16 in discounts.

Together with the gas, I spent a total of $835.05 at Costco.

This is starting to really hurt.

Not just the budget. My whole body is hurting, and that pain in my lower abdomen is kicking in again. I’ve got my doctor’s appointment in a few days. We’ll see where that gets me. Probably on a waiting list for an MRI or ultrasound or something. Maybe some Xrays for my knee that still hurts from when I tripped and fell in the sun room, before Christmas, along with my right elbow and my left rotator cuff that feels like it’s about to pop out all the time. After I get those joints looked at, I’ll see about booking myself at the sports injury clinic again for another injection into my hip. That’s starting to hurt when I’m in bed, no matter what position I try.

I’m just falling apart all over the place.

Scary thing is, I’m still the most able bodied person in the household.

!!

Seriously considering going to bed, and it’s not even 7pm yet.

I am so tired.

The Re-Farmer

A beautiful day!

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We’re at 10C/50F as I write this. “Real feel” at 12C/54F – and we still haven’t reached our high of the day! Tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer.

I am so enjoying this.

First up, I made sure to check on the well pump this morning, and I’m happy to say…

… everything is drying up nicely, and there is no sign of any leaks.

The picture is out of focus because that corner is completely dark, so the camera didn’t know where to focus before the flash lit up.

There is moisture on the floor below showing, but that is normal for this time of year. There’s a low spot where any water seeping through the concrete puddles, and I sweep it into the sump pump reservoir regularly.

Then I headed outside to feed the yard cats, and was even able to do a head count.

Twenty seven. There were 27 cats this morning!

This included Slick, who made a brief appearance.

She is no longer very round.

*sigh*

Then she disappeared.

I checked all the places we set up that I hoped she would use to have her kittens, but they were all empty.

I did find Gouda in the catio, enjoying the fresh straw on the hammock.

There is a beautiful feral tuxedo I saw this morning that I think actually lives across the road from us. He likely calls two colonies “home”.

Once the morning routine was done, I headed to the town north of us to sign the form for our taxes, then take my husband’s home for him to sign, before taking it back. It’s a half hour drive to this town, so doing this meant a total of 2 hours of driving time. Happily, the truck behaved the entire time.

Which is good, because tomorrow I have my eye appointment that my daughter will need to drive me home from.

Meanwhile, I’d messaged the rescue chat group about my count this morning, and we talked about how to at least get some of the friendly males neutered. With that in mind, I did a bit of clean up in the isolation shelter. Later on, when the ground is dry and we can set up a hose, we will move the isolation shelter away from the house and give it a through spring cleaning. For now, though, I wanted to clear out the bottom level. We haven’t been able to change the two litter boxes under there for a long time, because of the box shelter we set in front of the ramp door in the winter. It is warm enough that I moved it out completely and left it set aside, so we’ll be able to access the bottom regularly now. I left the emptied litter boxes out, only one of which will make its way back into the shelter. The other will go into the cat cage in the sun room, where I hope any mamas will bring their kittens.

The straw that was put in the lower level for the winter was thoroughly pooped on. I had to use a garden hoe to reach the far corner and drag it all to the ramp door. That all went to the litter compost behind the outhouse.

It was so warm, I shut off the heat lamp in the isolation shelter as well as both of them in the sun room. With overnight temperatures looking relatively mild from now on, we shouldn’t need to turn them back on again until the fall.

By the time I was done with the isolation shelter, I was starting to hurt again. Definitely something wrong going on in my abdomen. I would not be at all surprised to learn I’ve developed another large cyst. Doctor’s appointment is in the first week of May. We’ll see how it goes from there.

With my eye appointment tomorrow, I won’t be able to work on the garden beds I meant to, but I should be able to gather the materials I’ll need later today. The days are getting so much longer, I’ll have time for that. I think I’ve figured out what I want to use to protect the dwarf peas in the wattle weave bed from the cats, once the straw mulch is removed. Once I’ve got everything I need handy, it won’t take long at all to get the beds cleaned up and protected.

From twenty. Seven. Cats.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

This is going to hurt

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It is, however, done.

The plumber made it to our place today, to check out the leaks at the new well pump. I had checked it again this morning and, using a flashlight, could see that most of the water on the floor was coming from one of the pipes leading from the pump to the well (there are two).

Along with the leak at the well pump, I had also asked to have the taps replaced at the old laundry sink, install the shut off valve on the cold water pipe, plus repair an occaisional leak on the shut off valve on the hot water pipe.

I just checked the security camera time stamps. They were here for three hours.

*sigh*

They charge a base price, plus materials, for the first hour, so we’ll have two more hours of labour on top of that. I haven’t received the bill yet. It will be emailed to me.

We also got some bad news, but I can’t say it was unexpected. I’d already talked to my brother about this, but he had disagreed with me that it was a problem.

We’re going to have to replace our pressure tank. He hooked up a machine to the tank’s valve while it was still full. It had only 2.5psi! For this pump, the psi should be 28.

That will have to wait.

As for the well pump, he had his super bright light to check it out, and found both pipes to the well were also seeping at the fittings. This is on top of the small leak on top of the pump, at the pipe leading to the pressure tank.

He ended up replacing three sections of pipe, two brass fittings attached to the pump itself and two plastic elbows.

This, of course, meant we had no water while it was being worked on. I even had some water bottles available that he could use to prime the pump again when he was done there.

I already had new taps and a second shut off valve for the laundry sink. Getting the old taps off took quite a bit of effort – and a blow torch. The taps I got were designed to simply screw in place, but these old pipes weren’t threaded. Which is why he needed a blow torch to remove the old ones! Once he got those off and the copper cleaned off, he got the new ones on and soldered them in place.

As for the shut off valved, he ended up needing to add some copper pieces to get them to join right.

Once all of that was assembled, we ran the water in the laundry sink and full blast. There was SO much grit that came out, as well as a period where the water was rust colored and completely opaque.

One of the things he did after the well pump’s pipes were all back was use his compressor to bring the pressure tank up to 28psi. Hopefully, it will last a while, because it’s going to be some time before we can replace that.

After he was done and gone, I went to all the taps upstairs and ran the water until it was clear. The only taps left to clear is with the washing machine. We’ll run it through a tub clean tomorrow – then do a whole lot of laundry! I suppose the old taps in the basement that the washing machine had been hooked up to, before the laundry was moved to the entry, should be cleared, too. I leave a hose attached to the cold water tap there, for when I need to clear the floor drains to the septic tank

Here is the finished job.

The first photo in the slide show is of the two pipes leading to/from the well; a suction pipe and a pressure return pipe. New lengths of pipe, new brass fittings at the pump and new elbows to the well. The second photo in the slide sow shows the new pipe to the pressure tank, which did not need new fittings.

The next picture is of the new taps at the laundry sink, soldered in place. I’ve put a short length of hose on the cold water tap again, and will look for another to add the the hot water tap. Without those, the water sprays quite a lot. I did have one set aside already and tried adding it, but it has a plastic rather than metal fitting, and it leaked. It’s just too old. We have old hoses around that I can scavenge later on.

Last of all are the shut off valves. You can see the copper fittings he added, to make up for how much pipe he had to cut away to ensure the Shark Bite valves had something to grip on and not leak. He ended up moving the hot water one completely over by a few inches.

There are two other pipes that have leaks; one at a shut off valve on the hot water pipe to the bath tub. The other in a really hard to reach spot in the cold water pipe going up to the bathroom, where it is now a PEX to copper join. It was so hard to reach into there to crimp the join. By the time he was finished what needed to be done, I wasn’t going to get him to do two far less urgent jobs. Those can wait.

With how long things took, and the time of day, I decided not to go to the town north of us today, to take care of getting our tax forms signed. I will do that tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I’d sent photos and updates to my brother. They are still in Spain doing their pilgrimage. With the 6 hour time difference, he was actually able to see them and respond to me. He’s still surprised about the pressure tank. He says it’s about 20 years old. Their pressure tank at the property they sold was over 30 years old and still working fine. Now that it’s at the right pressure, though, we will monitor things. We should even be able to check the pressure ourselves using a tire pressure gauge; it’s the same type of valve stem.

Hopefully, it will be a long time before we need to call a plumber again!!!

On a completely different note, after doing my morning rounds, I took my April “garden tour” videos. I got one of those “X years today” things in my FB this morning, this time from 2023. It was a photo of the snow we got on April 19 of that year. We had a storm with winds high enough they knocked over the gate trail cam’s stand again. That was when I finally found something heavy I could set across the legs at the base. It hasn’t fallen over, since!

We are now entering a very warm spell, and the forecast has changed, yet again. Last I looked, we were to get 4 very warm days, followed by a major drop in temperature together with rain in the day, snow in the night. Now we’re looking at only one evening, later in the week, with possible rain. We might actually be snow free before the end of April! Wouldn’t that be nice!

Meanwhile, I need to do some editing and upload the garden tour video. My project for this evening!

In between checking on the pumps and tanks in the basement throughout the evening, just to be sure there are no more leaks!

The Re-Farmer

Well, now

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That’s not supposed to happen.

It’s a good thing we’ve already arranged for the plumber to come back next week.

One of the things he instructed my daughter, after the new pump was installed, was to keep an eye out for leaks. Which is a bit difficult partly because there tends to be a lot of condensation on the pipes. That well water gets really, really cold!

This is definitely not condensation.

That’s how I found it this morning.

As this basement was built before weeping tile was a thing, it’s pretty normal for there to be water on the floor in the spring. Sometimes all summer. We have oscillating fans and blower fans to try and keep it down, and switch the winter window to the summer screen window for air circulation. That frequent wet is part of why the well pump, pressure tank and hot water tank are all on an elevated concrete slab.

I am starting to see water in the floor drain, from the weeping tile under the newer basement, but for now, the concrete is dry. This is all from the pump. One spot, where I can feel a drop of water under the brass fitting, seems to be the only leak. The steel screw clamps are tight.

The plumber is coming out on Monday or Tuesday. I had mentioned the leak at the pump, plus the cold water tap at the laundry sink. He will be replacing both taps for us, since the hot water tap started leaking long ago and we could only install a shut off valve to stop it. He’ll check on the leak at the well pump as well.

Otherwise, the pump is working just fine.

In other things…

I made it out to visit my mother, though I had to turn around and come back. I had some stuff she asked for ready in bags and forgot them at home. Thankfully, I remembered before I reached the highway, and messaged my daughter to meet me at the gate with them.

When I got there, my mother was sitting on her walker in the hall as her room was being cleaned, so we went to the common room. It was a pretty quiet and calm visit. My mother had complaints, of course, but nothing unreasonable, really – even the ones that turned out to be based on her not understanding something she’d been told. I stayed until she was done her lunch, then talked to the nursing station for a bit – an opportunity to clear up one of her misunderstandings – before heading out.

From there, I drove to the town we usually shop in. My husband had a list and his own budget for me this time. Some of what he wanted I wouldn’t have been able to find at the grocery store in my mother’s town. It was a fairly short list, so it didn’t take long before I was done. Then I had to get more gas before heading home. That part was painful.

Throughout all that driving, I’m happy to say the truck behaved. After what happened with the differential, there were a few times on the highway where I was second guessing things, but it seems I was just driving headlong into the wind and being buffeted. More importantly, that oil pressure gauge was having normal readings. Hopefully, the mystery readings are now at an end! The real test will come with city trips, though, and those probably won’t happen for a couple more weeks.

For now, though, I feel ready to drop. For some reason, I just couldn’t fall asleep last night, and I can only partly blame the cats or pain levels. I was mostly just… awake. It was past 6am when I messaged the girls, asking them to take care of the morning routine for me. I did finally get a few interrupted hours of sleep after that. Enough that I was safe to drive, at least. I headed outside to do the evening rounds not long ago, and felt like I was ready to fall asleep the whole time. Now, I am just crashing.

It’s not even 4:30 as I write this.

It’s a gorgeous day out, though. We’re just below freezing, but it’s bright and sunny, and things are melting. The current forecast has us going from a high of 0C/32F tomorrow, to a high of 14C/57F on Monday! We no longer have a high of 20C/68F before the end of the month, though. That’s been pushed back until May. Still, I should have a few days next week to take the mulch off the exposed pre-sown beds and get them protected from critters. The garden beds in the main garden area are still fully covered with snow.

I’m quite looking forward to getting at it!

Hopefully, with more fresh air and sunshine, I’ll be sleeping better, too.

The Re-Farmer

The snow is back

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This morning was chilly. Just chilly; the incoming weather system hadn’t reached us yet. I was actually able to do extended rounds, with so much snow finally melted away after yesterday’s warmth. All of which froze overnight.

The amount of water had actually gone done quite a bit before it froze, though! This is behind our garage, this morning.

Yesterday, I needed to dump a litter bucket into the litter compost pile behind the outhouse. I neglected to wear my rubber boots, and the path we usually use was completely flooded, as was the path all the way to the outhouse. I ended up making my way through the other side to dump the bucket, skirting branch piles and snow drifts!

I had another bucket to dump this morning – and yes, I remembered to put on my rubber boots this time – and stopped to take the above photo. The path to the litter compost was almost completely clear. There was just one lower area with ice over it, but the water below was almost completely gone, so it was just a floating sheet of ice. This area in the photo is the lowest, so it takes quite a while for it to fully drain.

I was finally able to make my way around to the sign cam, only by skirting along the edge of the spruce grove, where much of the snow was gone. I just had one drift to break through at the far end. Literally. The snow was so soft in the warmth, yesterday, but this morning that was frozen to a hard crust at the top that I had to stamp and break through in order to cross. I didn’t even try to go through the garden area, where the snow it still over a foot deep. Going around did give me a chance to check out and confirm we have had two more dead trees fall.

The big spruce landed on top of another spruce that fell years ago. The other two pictures in the slideshow above are of a dead poplar that is now hung up on other trees.

I’ve already talked to my brother about clearing the deadwood out in the spring or summer. If he can get his tractor going, we can pull them out. Then we can start taking down the other dead spruces as well. We really, really want to get the ones that are closer to the house!

At this point, I would just like to have the trees all dragged into one general space in the old garden area where it’s still all wide open. Once they are there, I can process them to use. Some – the thickest trunks – will become support posts for the outdoor kitchen we are planning to build, while others will be used to build raised beds.

While walking towards the sign cam, I passed a huge poplar, and saw this lovely sign of spring.

Soft clusters of catkins, all over the branches! This tree is the only one I see them on right now.

All of this is now covered in snow.

The system is hitting other areas harder than us, but we will be getting snow, off and on, through to tomorrow. Some areas will be getting a mix of rain and snow, while other higher elevations might get as much as 15cm/6in, where most areas are looking at 4-8cm/1.5-3in

It started here in the late morning. When I headed out to meet the pharmacy delivery guy, we had about an inch of new snow. It was light enough that I could just use a broom to clear the steps and sidewalk. It has started snowing again, so I’ll probably need to do it again when it’s time to feed the outside cats for the end of the day. The delivery driver, meanwhile, said that his place is flooding! His house is not in danger, thankfully, but he’s had to contact the highways department. That tells me there would be an ice dam in a ditch between his place and the lake that needs to be cleared. This system is pushing north, and I was chatting with one of the rescue’s contacts this morning. She lives on the reserve that might have to do some evacuations because of this storm. For her, that means working out how to help animals, should that happen.

This morning, I was able to pet a very pregnant Slick while she was eating, and was able to send the group chat I have with the rescue some video. Slick is one of the few that allows contact, but only when she’s on the cat house roof and eating. Even then, it’s touch and go. They would like us to trap her and bring her in before she pops. We can try, but it would be very difficult to trap just one specific cat! Especially one that is more feral than not. We will do the best we can.

In other things, while doing my checks in the basement this morning, I found that the cold water tap in the laundry sink is dripping even faster. I contacted the plumber and talked to him about it. Both taps need to be replaced and I already have new taps. The problem is that the current ones were affixed permanently. My brother said a torch would be needed to get them off. !!! I explained this to the plumber – then mentioned we have other leaks down there to check, too. He started to look at his calendar saying he couldn’t come today, and I told him it wasn’t urgent. Next week would be better. So he will come either Monday or Tuesday, depending on his schedule, and will call us before he comes.

As for me, I am taking the truck in to the garage tomorrow morning. I got a text yesterday aftenroon, letting me know the part had arrived. So we will get the new OEM sensor, the engine flush and oil change all done as the same time. Hopefully, that will bring and end to those weird low pressure readings!

I also got a call from the tax preparers last night, just before 7pm!! They close at 5.

Our taxes are done. I will need to go in to sign my form, then bring my husband’s home for him to sign and bring back again. I will do that after getting the truck back, tomorrow. The tax preparer told me how much we’re getting back. For me, it will be zero. I thought I would get my disability tax credit the same as I had been getting the caregiver tax credit, directly to me. However, because I have 0 income and don’t “need” it, they were able to transfer it to my husband’s return – and got a larger tax return for both of us in the process, than if it had been done separately. That’s going to come in handy, that’s for sure! Especially with the extra plumber’s bills.

So tomorrow is going to be a busy day of driving around. Hopefully, the roads will not be too bad after this storm passes!

The Re-Farmer