Back in the early ’80’s, I tried my hand at journaling.  I used a Hilroy scribbler and jotted my thoughts down a few times. Then I forgot about it, hidden under my mattress.

Years later, my mother found it. Read it. Kept it. Told me about it a short time ago.  I’m glad I switched to writing in code after a while.

More recently, my SIL found it, took some photos to send me, then left it.

I just glanced through it.  How embarrassing!  And yet, sad, as the few entries included descriptions of what, in our modern times, would be considered physical abuse.

Oh, how dramatically I wrote. Such angst! Such hyperbole!

That thing is going into the burn barrel right now, as it should have, years ago!

The Re-farmer

Being very tired, my husband and I went to bed ridiculously early (I typically don’t go to bed until about 2am, so going to bed at 7pm just doesn’t happen unless I am ill).  Of course, as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was suddenly wide awake.

Eventually, I gave up and got up, shortly before midnight.  My husband did get some sleep, and soon joined me.  Our daughters had just got to bed themselves, so when I realized I was feeling a bit peckish, I asked if anyone else was.  It turned out we all were.

And so it was that, by 1am, the four of us where at the table over a spaghetti dinner, prepared by our daughters. As they were cooking, they were playing a drawing game that involved choosing an object to draw from memory. They couldn’t see each other’s drawings until both were done. I even joined in the game for a bit. The results led to much laughter at the table, as did our general conversation.  It was awesome!

We would not have been able to do this before the move, out of consideration for our neighbours. 

Isolation has its benefits.

The Re-farmer 

Our trip to The City got adjusted. Instead of an evening trip after working hours, we were able to leave in the late morning.

Heading out, it was a lovely day.  At one point, we drove through rain.  The sun broke out and it was all quite mild and lovely.

Then we drove into this.

It wasn’t too bad in these photos, yet. Later, it got to some white knuckle driving, all the way home.

The plus side of returning the car is that we can now park our van in the garage.  It’s not heated, or even close to the house, but it’s out of the elements.

I look forward to not having to go anywhere tomorrow.

Update: we learned the next day that this highway was shut down because of the weather conditions.  It wouldn’t be the first time a highway was shut down while we were on it.

The Re-farmer

I feel like I have accomplished nothing.

Which isn’t true, of course. I could list a few things, if I had to. Yet, when it comes to the state of the house, it feels like nothing has been done.

The family visit yesterday was great.  It was good to see my family members. We sat around the table and ate and drank (well… they drank. Lol) and talked for hours.  Unfortunately, when my side of the family gets together, it is very loud and chaotic, which made my younger daughter immediately ill, so she holed up in the room they are using. Her sister kept her company throughout the visit.  My husband was able to make an appearance before he had to go lie down again.

We now have the loan of a carpet shampoo-er.  I hope one of the several vacuum cleaners lying around here works. 

A great day, but none of what we hoped to do got accomplished – and our list was modest.

Today will not be much better.  We might get some work done, but we also need to make a trip into The City to return the car.  In the process, we will do a few errands. The girls are going to pick up the supplies they need to start on the upstairs.  Masks. Gloves. TSP.  I will need to remember to get more packing tape so I can put boxes together.  Thankfully, one of my brothers left some packing materials for us. Including cedar pieces to include in each bag and box, to keep the insects away.

Growing up here, I know insects are a thing. You can’t get away from them.  I am still amazed at how many we have been finding.  There are dead bugs everywhere.  I thought that, while empty, family was still coming in once in a while and cleaning a bit.  I guess “a bit” was the operative word.

During our far flung conversations with family, things like our sporadic hot water supply came up.  It was brought to light when someone tried to do dishes and ended up having to boil water in the kettle to get hot water.  Our hot water tank is apparently the only one that has ever been here, and it was purchased used.  I was given an estimated age of 60 years for the thing. At one point, my sister commented that this place is a money pit.

She is right.  More so than I expected.  

I’m starting to feel like my mother has cheated us by having us live here “for free.”

The Re-farmer 

It’s been almost a week since moving day.  A quiet Sunday morning.

Look who found a new favourite chair?

And the very dusty ladybug I saw crawling around last night seems to have chosen our window sill for hibernation.

We’ve got family coming later in the day and tomorrow we need to head back into The City to return the car.

At some point, we need to start packing up this place.

Since our fish did not survive long enough to get the temporary tank set up, and it will be some weeks before our big tank arrives, we needed to get a few fish to provide some CO2 for our plants.

Meet Stephen and the Stephens.
The nice thing is, with our ratio of plants to fish to tank size, no air pump is needed.

This is now basically a small version of the dream tank I’ve wanted since I was a child.

The Re-farmer

Today, we had to make a run to The City.  Since we still have it, we used the car that used to belong to my FIL. It is a luxury sedan that has been babied all its life.  A very sweet ride.

I look forward to driving the van again, broken door and all.

The first problem is that it’s low. So getting in and out is hard on my knees, even without working around my generous proportions.  My FIL is a man of generous proportions as well, including vertically, and he handled it fine. I just got spoiled by having so much leg, elbow and belly room. Especially the leg room. The seats are so low, I feel like I’m sitting under the dash.  And that’s after raising them.

I’ve never been comfortable with luxury, and I don’t mean that in a psychological sense.  I find it physically uncomfortable.  At least what passes as luxury in the general market.  

The sedan is gorgeous and a dream to handle, but I’ll take my van that handles like a pick up truck over it, any time, thank you very much.

The Re-farmer 

My mother visited today.

My husband and younger daughter have visited her in the neighbouring town she lives in, but this is the first time she has been to the farm since before any of us had arrived.

I feel like I have been wrung out like a rag.  And she wasn’t even here for an hour.

She was being driven by my older brother, who has been doing so much at this place.  It’s been a couple of years since I have seen her.

My relationship with my mother has never been a good one.  There isn’t much that can be done to fix that.  Suffice to say, nothing I will ever say, do or accomplish will be good enough for her.  And she will try to run our lives for us at every opportunity.  

We knew this, when we decided to accept her request for us to move here. Yet, seeing her today, we were all struck by how much worse she has gotten.

Within minutes of arriving, it started.  She saw a bag with recycling in it, which included some cans of Coke Zero.  So she assumed we were chugging the stuff and she started going on about our “taking chemicals.” Never mind the cans of V8 or the water bottles.  It was all chemicals, and if I don’t stop “taking chemicals” I will die.

Oh, and she made sure to tell me that, while we could live here as long as we wanted, it was not our property, but that it was going to my older brother; etc. Stuff we have already discussed several times.

As I went around with my brother, she went at my daughters. It was like she had a list of things she needed to get through as fast as possible, from how great Canada is, to teen suicides because there is no God in schools anymore, to how my daughters need to stop taking chemicals, because that’s why they are fat (never mind her own body size). Then, on seeing garbage cans with *gasp* garbage in them, she asked, “how can you live like this?”  It all should be in the burn barrel. Never mind that some if it was from before we arrived, or that some if our garbage cannot be safely burned. We have a separate box for burn barrel garbage.

Then we all followed my brother to a storage shed. As we were heading back, we saw her start throwing stuff out the door.  She was “helping.” None of it made sense, and some of it made things worse.  But she did it anyway.

Perhaps the most perplexing thing was something we discovered after she left. We have a covered litter box shoved into a corner until we find a more permanent place for it.  At one point, she had shoved it aside to access a shelf. We later saw that she had taken the tiny bags of used cat litter out of the garbage bag they were in, left them on the floor, along with the now empty garbage bag.

Meanwhile, even though my brother and his wife have taken so much out, the house is still a shambles of almost all her stuff.  We can’t even find space for the few things we brought in the van with us.  We have been here mere days.  Somehow, she did not clue in that when she wonders “how can we live like this”, it is her stuff that is making life more difficult for us.

Since arriving, I’ve found myself wondering if we made a mistake in coming here.

By the time she left, I was sure of it.

My daughter’s have encouraged me and assure me we have not.

I hope they are right.

Oh. I forgot. She also told my daughters they need to get married and have babies.

*sigh*

So the rest of the family made it out this week. It was really good to finally be together again. While the move wasn’t without drama, the road trip out was safe and they got here tired but happy :)
The cats were missed, and apparently they returned the sentiment. :D

We did have some casualties, however; the fish didn’t make it. We’re pretty sure it was the cold of the trip or the initial night here in a bucket that disagreed with them. We got a small tank to house them (and the plants) until our larger tank arrives, but since the fish went to the great big pond in the sky, we’re forced to manually manage the CO2 levels for the plants.

While there are many, *many* bad jokes here, it reminded me of how much I missed the other half of the family while we were apart. The unintended humour, the smarmy comments, the giggle of the kids, all the things that define the family dynamics.

It’s easy to take these things for granted, and while I grumbled at the need for a month long family split I am glad for the reminder of exactly how blessed I am to be part of this family.

P.

Oh, what a day.

It started out well enough.  Pretty normal, all things considered.  I got a recommendation for an internet provider from an old friend and my husband called them today.  If all goes well, we might have internet by the end of the month.

We are still exhausted and I ended up falling asleep on the bed my daughters are currently sharing, while being cuddled by a cat.  The rest of the family ended up going into town. When I got up, I took advantage of the emptiness and made a video tour of the house that I intend to upload for a friend.  When the family got home, I learned one of my daughters was mistaken for me at a coffee shop. She then gave me the number of an old friend from high school I later got connected with. And so on.

Good stuff, in other words.  

The day has certainly ended on a sour note.

I got a call from a friend at the co-op we moved from.  It turns out another friend had passed away, likely several days ago. It’s entirely possible she passed while we were moving, or the day after. Living alone, she wasn’t found until today.

I can take some comfort in our last conversations. She was well aware she was already on borrowed time. She was at peace with her past and her life. She was also glad I was moving, advising me to let go and move on; that the place wasn’t worth what it was doing to my health and my family.

Sad news, but not unexpected. 

Then this evening, I was able to get my email. There was one from the movers.

In my last email to them, I was asking about the free storage option (since my first question about it had her giving me monthly rates and telling me the bill had to be paid first, while the contract says up to 5 weeks free storage, starting from the date of pick up, then the bill has to be paid) and when I could expect to find out the weight and the final bill.

What I got instead was a credit card form, with instructions, should I choose to use a credit card, to include copies of the front and back of my card, plus a total, including the 3% fee they charge on card transactions. I got a second amount for if I choose not to use a card.

It’s about $2000 more than I’ve got in the bank to pay for it.

There is no bill attached.

Nothing about the weight.  No breakdown if costs. Nothing.

Nothing about the storage I was asking about. Nor any sort of date, should storage not be an option. It didn’t even say anything about the amount of my deposit being taken off or not.

I would need to know when the truck is coming, so I can go to the bank and get a bank draft, money order or certified check, and have it ready for when they come. It’s not something I would get more than a day or two in advance.

The thing about living on disability is that we get paid at the end of the month. That’s it.  

What’s even more frustrating is that the amount we have now should have been enough. It’s about what the original estimate was, for 8000 lbs. With how much we got rid of, even with the partial pack that turned out to be a full pack, it should have been maybe only a few hundred dollars more. Not $2000 more. It’s even more than the in-house estimate I got, not including packing, which put me at 10,000 lbs. And there is no way I was that heavy.

But without having an itemized bill, I have no idea why it is so high.

And I don’t have the money to pay for it.

The Re-farmer