As I posted earlier, in the wee hours of the morning, my daughters and I had done out last night to see the Perseids meteor shower. My daughters had read that the peak viewing period would be around 3am. We even brought out the tripod so I could set my phone up and take photos.
Well, we didn’t see very many meteors, but we did get a light show!
My older daughter’s the one who actually took most of the photos. I the fourth one of the slideshow, at the top near the middle, you can just see that a meteor was caught in the shot.
It was an awesome night, too. Lovely and cool – just the perfect temperature! – with nice clear skies for viewing the stars.
The meteor shower is supposed to be visible tonight, too. I checked The Farmer’s Almanac, and it says that the peak viewing period should be around midnight, not 3am, but I guess that depends on what time zone you’re in. Either way, we plan to be out again tonight, at around midnight.
After we were done, my older daughter got back to work and my younger daughter ended up staying up as well. They have been arranging their sleep schedules so that and one of them is up and available, any time of day, and my younger daughter has the “day shift”. 😁 She was a sweetheart and took are of feeding the outside cats this morning – and washing the one kitten’s infected eyes – for me, so I could get a bit of extra sleep.
Once I got outside, my priority was to water the garden before it got too hot, then did a bit of harvesting. After I had breakfast… er… lunch, I made a trip to the post office, making sure to leave the gate open when I got back. I got some more painting done on the pre-cut frame pieces for the cat isolation shelter – three sides are now done. I then spent the next couple of hours, mowing. The driveway hasn’t been done in so long, I had to go over it twice to get it cut to the length I wanted.
I’m going to have lots of “hay” to collect! The grass is so thick in places, even this mower, set as high as it could go, was struggling!
Gosh, it all looks so much better!
Now that that’s done, I’ll get back to cutting more lengths of wood for the isolation shelter frame, so they can be painted before construction, too.
As I think about the construction, I am debating how to make the access doors. There’s going to be a main door that will swing down and convert into a ramp when it’s open. When not in use as an isolation shelter, we plan to leave it open and available for the cats to become familiar with it, and a ramp would make it easier for kittens to get in and out.
Since I don’t have salvaged windows that slide open to incorporate into the design, I am thinking of making sliding doors instead of doors that swing out. I think that will give more security for if we have a particularly feral cat inside. We’d be able to reach in and out without having to open a sliding door all the way. With a swing door, the door itself would be in the way if we wanted to open it partially. A sliding door would also be handy for releasing a cat from a trap, as it could be opened just enough to fit the end of the trap.
I’ll have to think about that, some more. Whatever I decide for the access points, the rest of the structure doesn’t need to change, so I can literally wait until the shelter frame and interior is completely assembled, then see what works best.
I’m having fun with this build! It’s going to be the most complicated thing I’ve built and, with using salvaged materials or whatever we can afford to get, the plans have to be pretty loosey goosey!
I’m so glad to see this! I was ready to take them off, later today, and send them back.
They are si bright. I think I will change to one of the other modes that are not quite so blinding.
I can definitely see getting more of these for other areas, in the future. Being able to install the solar panels away from the lights makes them very useful!
In the city we lived in before moving here, there were bottle depots all over. Anything that you paid an enviro fee on at the grocery store could be brought over, and you’d get the money back.
So we were in the habit of keeping our recycling organized and kept it up.
Then we discovered there are no bottle depots here. In the years we were living in other provinces, we sort of expected they would have them by now.
Since we need to go to the landfill anyhow, and they have recycling stations, we started sorting things differently. Glass is separate. All other recycling goes together. They even have signs at the landfill bins saying not to sort the recycling!
But we just don’t do it with the aluminum. I know most of the stuff that goes for recycling is more of a problem than just using the landfill, but with metal, that’s something different.
So we’ve been keeping our aluminum separate, but not taking them to the landfill. We’ve been storing them in the garage where my mother’s car is parked.
Unfortunately, since there are so many cat food cans in there, critters get into them. We also started running out of space, and were starting to store the bags outside the back door of the garage.
We now have a scrap company that is going to come by when they are in the area. They weigh things on site, so you know exactly what you’ll get for the metal. They take all scrap metal, old appliances, batteries, etc., but aluminum is priced differently.
We don’t know when they’ll be in the area next, but the last time the guy called, it was to come by the same day, and we just weren’t ready for that – plus, I was taking my mother to a medical appointment that day.
Meanwhile, even if they did come out, not only did the critters get into the bags again, but my mother’s car can’t be moved right now – and not just because of all the cans that ended up under the front end!
So when I found out my brother was coming out today, I headed out early to open the gate for him, then my younger daughter and I got to work on the aluminum, picking up all the loose pieces and rebagging those with torn bags. As we filled new bags, or found still intact bags, they got moved to a spot outside of the garage, where they would be easy to collect.
There’s about 28 or 29 bags in there. Some of them have nothing but cat food cans in them! Some of there had stuff with labels, logos or brand colours that changed, years ago.
The garage in front of my mother’s car looks so much better now!
We did, however, find some very old cans of paint that were intended for the dump (they have an area set side just for old paint cans), but they got buried. These were cans we’d found in the basement, and some of them were leaking.
They’ve been moved into a plastic garbage can for now. The next time we go to the dump, we need to remember to grab it. The smell is so strong right now!
We got that done and I had time to grab a late breakfast. I was just finishing it when my brother and SIL arrived. It was a long, slow drive for them. The truck was heavily loaded, and they were hauling a bailer!
Some of the stuff they brought went to the barn for storage. They are planning ahead for my brother’s retirement, so they’re going to be bringing stuff here to the farm to store.
Including equipment.
Like their smaller lawn tractor.
That was brought over in case they needed to mow a spot for the baler. That’s not going to happen, though. The high area they plan to use is too overgrown.
They do have a mower attachment for a tractor that can clear it all, so they’ll be bringing a tractor and mower out next.
!!!
Oh, and the lawn tractor? I thought they were going to take it back, but nope. They left it here for use to use!
Yes, I did lawn mowing already, today! 😄
For now, the baler is stored next to the bags of aluminum. My brother and I went walking around so I could point out to him the various low areas we’ve discovered since moving here, and the few high areas that can be used to store equipment.
The grass where we went through is almost as tall as me in places!
My brother isn’t going to be haying and baling their acreage anymore, so they’ve been using the tractor mower to keep it under control; if it’s not cut, it makes growing conditions worse. That’s the situation we’re going to find when the overgrown areas are finally cleared. At ground level, the grass is going to be sparse and mostly dead.
It’s a shame we couldn’t borrow a few cows! 😁
So my day started very early, and we got lots of work done.
I’ll be heading back out again to do more painting, then get back to mowing!
We’re going to have to figure out how to fit it in the garage where we store our lawn and snow equipment. It’s getting pretty full in there, and it’s mostly stuff that needs repair!
The problem is, I’ve been up pretty much since sunrise and hadn’t gone to bed until around midnight, so I am ready for a nap! 😄
Okay, time to get back to work. Just a bit of painting, the the fun of mowing the lawn with a lovely little lawn tractor!
When I first started thinking about the plans for a smaller isolation shelter, one thing I did not think about was painting it. That’s always been something we dealt with after the build. Paint, however, is going to be needed, to protect the wood and keep it from rotting too quickly. This is especially important, considering that I’m using salvaged wood that already had damage to it.
Given that this build is going to have a lot of stuff going on on the inside, I decided it would be much easier to paint the parts and pieces before assembly, rather than trying to reach inside to do it.
In going through our leftover paint, the can that felt like it had a decent amount in it was the peacock blue used on the floating benches (benches built on tree stumps that aren’t painted, so they’ll look like they’re floating when things grow back under them) and the folding table we cobbled together. The can of red seemed to have some weight to it, plus I also found a quarter can of white that was used to make our sign for those trying to find our address that doesn’t exist on any online maps.
I know we’ll need a decent amount of paint, so why not mix them together? They are all water based exterior paints, so mixing them would work fine.
I started off by setting up the frame pieces that are already cut.
They all needed a bit of a cleaning of dust, dirt and debris, first. Once that was done, I opened the cans to see what we had.
The blue was about half full, but there wasn’t much left of the red or the white.
I had a very pleasant surprise once they were all mixed together. I really like the resulting colour! When it’s time to buy more, which I expect to need to do before the project is done, I definitely want to colour match this!
I had looked for paint rollers and trays, and I did find the roller frames and a tray, but no rollers. I know we have some. I even remember finding one still in its package. Where they ended up, I have no idea.
So, paint brush it was.
With the frame pieces, they were pushed close together so the tops could be painted all at once. The cut ends were done, and part of exposed sides of the row, but that’s it. After they were painted, I spread them out for air circulation as they dried.
I really like that colour!
Once that was done, it was time to put the wheels on the pallet.
My original plan had been to cut away part of the slats at each corner, so the wheels could be attached to the solid wood below. They were far too damaged to bother, though. These pallets were used by the roofers. While they were working, I have a fire going to burn the branches and wood that were too big for the commercial wood chipper used when we got the branch pile cleaned out, a couple of years ago. It was cold and snowing while the roofers were working, and they would sometimes go to the fire to warm themselves. When they were done, they tossed the pallets to the still-hot ashes. So what you’re seeing on the bottom of the pallet is ashes and a bit of scorching. The pieces at each long end got the most damage, so it was easier to just break them off and pull the nails. The slats were so cracked, it was easy to break them off by hand!
The ends were also a bit too damaged, so when I used the wheels to mark off where the pilot holes needed to be drilled, I butted them up against the next slats in.
Then I had to dig through our collection of wood screws to find ones suitable to attach the wheels. The ones I’d already brought to the garage were for attaching the frame pieces together, so there are a lot of really long screws, but no shorter ones. After digging around in the sun room, among the boxes of screws that cats hadn’t managed to spill all over the floor, yet, I found some that would do. Thanks to the new cordless drill and driver set, and the set of driver tips my husband got me for Mother’s Day, attaching the wheels took almost no time at all!
My husband is such a sweetheart.
Once the wheels were on, it was time to flip the pallet over and test them out.
Oh, they are going to make moving this thing SO easy!! They might have some trouble going through the grass in the yard, but that should be manageable. I love that they all rotate 360°, too.
That done, the top got brushed clean, and it was time to paint!
Have I mentioned, I love that colour?
I plan to do just one coat of paint, and will not be painting the underside. I did make sure all the edges were well coated, though.
Once that was done, I went and took garden tour video, then checked on the frame pieces. They were still too wet to flip, so the other sides will be done tomorrow, then the edges. In between painting, I’ll be measuring out and cutting other pieces, so by the time those are painted and dry on all sides, I’ll have more cut pieces ready to paint.
So that is progress on the cat isolation shelter, so far.
Next, I need to work on the garden tour video.
Oh, I’ve just been getting messages from my brother. They’ll be coming over tomorrow, early in the morning, to bring stuff to store in the barn. They do know we haven’t been able to mow a path to the barn, but I hadn’t told him yet that we have no working lawn mowers at all. He knows, now. They won’t be staying long or making much of a visit. My SIL is allergic to cats, so they can’t come into the house, really.
I’m looking forward to seeing them! That will be a great start to the day!
Yesterday, the 2 pack of solar lights I ordered came in. I chose these ones specifically because the solar panels and the lights are separate. This way, I could put the lights inside the kibble and water bowl shelters, where it’s consistently in shade, and the solar panels could be installed on the roofs.
In the package were the two solar lights, with motion sensors. On the back (under the cable of the one that’s turned over, in the photo) is a mode button that is also an on/off switch.
Each solar panel comes with a generous length of cable. The lights and the panels use the same type of mount, held in place with a knob that also allows for the angles to be adjusted. They also came with the teeniest remote controls!
Before setting them up, I went through the instructions, which starts be saying to test them first. The solar panels are connected, but placed face down, then the mode button is pressed to turn on the lights and go through the modes. The batteries in the lights already had a charge in them, so they work without being connected, too.
After testing them, I set the first light up under the roof of the kibble house, while the second light was set up on the side of the water bowl house (which is reversed in the Instagram slideshow).
After mounting the solar panel on the corner of the kibble house roof, I ran the cable through the frame and wound it around one of the horizontal supports, to the light. There was still plenty of cable, which was bunched up and held with the twist tie they came with, and it could be tucked on top of a beam under the roof. No hangy bits for critters to catch on!
With the water bowl house, the cable runs along the side, held up in one spot by a hanger I found. There’s already a eye-hook that is supporting a power cord for the water bowl, so the solar panel cable is help up in two places, before the excessed was wrapped up.
The solar panels are shaded in the photo, but the roofs of the shelters all get full sun for most of the day, so that’s not an issue.
What is an issue is, they don’t work.
The lights work hust fine, on their own, but as soon as a solar panel is attached, they turn off. Like a switch. Cable on, light is off. Cable off, light turns on.
I have no idea why.
For now, I’ve left them as they are. I looked up where we got them from, but can’t find contact information (I could easily just be missing it). I ended up leaving a comment in the review section. I’ll see what happens from there. We have 30 days to return for a refund.
I would much rather have working lights, though!
For now, I’ll wait and see what sort of response I get. Otherwise, bye bye lights! We’ll try again, from a different supplier
I like the lights. They are doing the job! Right up until the solar panels are hooked up. They worked when I tested them, so I have no idea what went wrong!
Today I needed to hit a Walmart and a Canadian Tire, and took advantage of a city trip to pick up a few more stock up items, while I was there.
This is what $144.48 looks like.
*sigh*
And I was picking up the cheap stuff, for the most part.
For my husband, I got some Coke Zero and distilled water for his CPAP humidifier. The girls were out of soy milk, but so was Walmart. I got two 2L cartons of lactose free milk instead, which was on a two-for sale, plus a 1L carton for my own use.
Wait a minute…
I got charged for three 2L of lactose free milk. I don’t see a 1L of regular milk in there.
Crud. I wish I’d noticed that before I drove all the way home! Not worth the cost of gas to go back and fix it.
The hot dog wieners were also on a two-for sale, but I got only one package of hot dog buns. My husband and I prefer to have them cut up and added to other foods.
I got two bags of kibble; a 9kg of Whiskas and a 7kg of the Walmart brand. I also got some wood glue for the isolation shelter that’s being worked on right now.
I spotted an Annie’s pasta and cheese sauce display, and they were 97¢ a box, so I got 4 of two different flavours for the pantry, plus a couple of loaves of rye bread for the freezer. I picked up a bottle of lemon scented cleaner – the girls have noticed that when they used it to clean up the cat messes, the cats seem to avoid the area for a while, and we’re thinking they don’t like the lemon scent. We’ve tried using citrus scent to repel the cats from places, but it never worked. I guess generic “citrus” isn’t as useful as lemon. They certainly don’t object to orange scent at all.
Last of all, I picked up a bottle of magnesium for myself.
That’s it. That’s all I got for $144 and change.
Next I crossed the street and went to the Canadian Tire. One of the things I was after there was a new power bar to replace one I have in my room. They had a clearance sale on a couple of bars that have the plugins turned sideways, with one type having USB ports. With the power bar I have now, I have two things plugged in that take up four spots. With the new bar’s design and the USB ports, I freed up three plug ins. I got a second non-household one that has the plug ins spaced out in two rows, and a built in cord storage, for the same clearance price.
I also found some inexpensive outdoor wheels for the isolation shelter’s pallet base. They rotate 360°, so that will make it easier to move the finished shelter. I didn’t find the right size hose clamps I was after, though. They had one size bigger and one size smaller, but not the size I needed! There wasn’t even a space on the shelf for them.
I just looked them up at a local hardware store. They have the size I need – and in stock!
Looks like I’ll be making a side trip after I go to the dump!
Which will be opening soon, so time to get things together and start heading out again.
I’ll be honest, here. We’re really just winging it on this build, even though it’s going to be quite a bit more complex than the kibble house and water bowl shelters. It all comes done so what materials we can scavenge.
The original plan was for a 4′ x 4′ cube, divided up inside to have an enclosed shelter that will be insulated, a not quite enclosed shelter for a litter pan, and two levels with space for food and water bowls, and just hanging out.
We had a couple of pallets that were left by the roofers. My original intention was to dismantle them and use the wood mostly for the floor.
That did NOT work out!
The pallets are nailed together mechanically. The nail heads are deeply embedded in the wood – and the wood is quite thin. When I tried to pry them off, the wood started splitting.
Time for plan B!
The pallet will be the floor, more or less as is.
I measured the pallet’s length and width at the boards inside, and each side was slightly different. I brought over the circular saw and cut the ends flush to the outside boards. The most damaged side will be the bottom of the floor.
I could still work with 4′ lengths on two walls, and the other two will be 40″, to fit on the pallet. The shelter will still be 4′ tall.
For the main parts of the frame, I’m using the true-to-size salvaged 2 x 4 lumber in the barn. There’s hardly any of that left, but there’s enough for this project. It feels like a shame to “waste” it on something like this. The wood is old and the ends have started to rot a bit, but it’s really solid and heavy wood. It is, however, what we have, so that’s what we’ll use. Other parts of the build will have more modern, standard 2×4’s, which are not true to size, and are quite a bit lighter. We have even less of that, so we’ll have to plan accordingly.
For now, I’ve cut lengths to make the front and back panels, which will be 4′ square. The frame will be attached directly to the pallet once put together, but that won’t happen quite yet. The dirt floor of the garage is pretty level, but not flat, mostly due to shallow tire ruts. Right now, the pallet can’t lie flat on the ground. I’m heading into the nearer city tomorrow, and will be looking at what wheels are available, and affordable.
Once the pallet has its wheels, it will be able to straddle the uneven parts of the floor, and be sturdier to work on.
Once the “box” is framed out, the interior will be worked on, including things like extra surfaces for cats to lie on, something they can scratch at, and so on. Once that’s all figured out, access panels or hinged doors will be made so that the litter box, food bowls and enclosed shelter can be reached from the outside. For the enclosed shelter, what I will probably do is make an insulated box that can be removed completely, if necessary.
I haven’t fully decided on how to do the roof. It will most likely be a low slope metal roof. I just haven’t decided how I want to make the slope while not having any gaps.
Last of all, the welded wire hardware cloth will be added to those walls that are not enclosed with wood. We might not be able to pick that up until the end of the month, though. Unless we find something on hand that we can use.
Anyhow. That’s progress so far. Reworking the plans and making the first cuts for the frame.
When I went into town, I just had a few things on my list for the grocery store. Once I got there, though, I found they had some really good sales going on and I ended up doing a bit of a stock up shop!
This is what $115.78 looks like.
Yeah. Even with the sales, it doesn’t look like much!
I did get some treats this time. The multipack of Coffee Crisp is for my husband. The Kit Kats multipack were for my daughters and I. The ketchup was actually on my list. So was the whipping cream, which is for some no-bake cheesecake we want to make.
I just noticed it says low sodium for the ketchup. I hadn’t noticed that on the label! Ah, well.
I got a couple of boxes of cookies on sale for us to try. I can’t remember if we’ve ever had them before.
There was a good deal on the red grapes, and large clamshells of blueberries. I think the blueberries would go very well on top of a no-bake cheesecake!
Hot dog buns were on sale, so I got a couple of bags, then picked up a large package of wieners to go with them. I got 300 grams of sliced Montreal Smoked Meat from the deli; it was on sale, though still expensive. When it comes to deli items, they don’t show the “you saved” line.
I got some French bread and marinated artichokes so the girls and I can do a charcuterie with the fancy cheeses and salami that I picked up during previous stock up trips. The marinated artichoke is for that, as well.
I was really happy with the sliced bread that was on sale. They were so fresh, the loaves were still warm when I picked them up off the shelves!
Last of all is a poppyseed roll. It’s been years since I’ve had some! My mother used to make then when I was a kid, using poppies we grew ourselves. I don’t see them regularly at the grocery store, so I made sure to grab one.
Looking through the receipt, it shows I got almost $35 in savings on this trip. Had these been regular prices, the final bill would have been a little over $150.
So… yea? I mean, I’m glad I got the sale prices, but I remember when, not too long ago, those would have been the regular prices!
Gotta take advantage of the sales and stock up when we can, though – and that includes a few treats. Those are always a good psychological boost when it’s near the end of the month but still a ways away from when pay comes in. I like to reserve something special for times like that, whether it’s a sweet treat, or some high end steaks. That’s something I learned to do back when we were way, way tighter, financially, than we are now. The morale boost of having something like that to enjoy when the fridge is otherwise empty, or the money ran out before the month did, is just as important as keeping to bellies full!
According to my weather app, it’s “only” 26C/79F out there, with no humidex change.
I’m pretty sure they’re lying. 😄
We barely cooled down last night at all. Usually, during the day, I have the box fan in the window facing the screen and blowing hot air out, then at night a reverse it to blow cool air in. I actually had to get up during the night and set the fan to blow the air out again, it was so hot!
The forecast for today had been a high of 31C/88F, but that’s now what we are expecting tomorrow, and today’s high is supposed to be 27C/81F, which we have not hit yet – at least not according to the weather app!
I was out early again to water the garden. I’d say, in the cool of the morning, but having never gone below 20C/68F during the night, it really wasn’t that cool. Still, it would help reduce the heat stress, at least.
Once the morning routine was done, I made sure to grab the ice packs out of the freezer, once again double insulating them, so they would last until I needed them, then headed out. Today is election day for our municipality, so I made a stop at the polling station first. That took longer than expected, as my name wasn’t on the list. My brother’s was, though, which explained why. My brother owns the property and pays the taxes on it, so even though he doesn’t live near here, they would have his name on the roster. Since we’ve been living here long enough, I was able to just sign a form the scrutineer filled out for me and vote.
I remembered to avoid the highway I normally take, since it’s still being resurfaced in sections, and crossed over to the next highway, stopping to put in $20 in gas along the way. Just enough to put me back above half a tank.
My only goal for today was Costco, so there were no side trips this time. I was going to fill the tank first, but the lines at the gas pumps were pretty long, so I decided to do it later. It was really busy, but was I able to find a parking spot near the gas pumps, and right next to a cart corral, so I was happy.
The shopping was… okay. As usually, I loaded up with the larger and heavier cat supplies, first, then did the rest of the shopping. With things as busy as they are, it was frustrating. What is it with people who don’t think twice about cutting off a flat cart? I can’t stop on a dime with that thing! I did have one person going past me pause to compliment me on how well I handled the flat cart, though! That was certainly appreciated. Lord knows, I was doing my best!
Anyhow, this is what $717.12 in total looks like.
*sigh*
As usual, I put the cat supplies on a separate bill.
I got four 9.1kg bags of Kirkland cat food, two 11.6kg bags of Whiskas, two cases of wet cat food and a box of puppy pads.
Nine items, and it came out to #325.60
I suppose this as good a time as any to post the Ko-fi donation button, if anyone is able to contribute!
As always, all donations go towards care and feeding of the cats. With my husband on disability payments, we have to be really, really careful about that!
Then there was the stuff we got for ourselves.
There’s a flat of Coke in there, that is 30 cans at about the same price as a flat of 24 cans, locally. I got a case of water bottles this time. We used buy these all the time and kept water bottles in a cooler in the van. With the truck, the cooler doesn’t really fit with the other stuff we keep in the cab. So we’ll just bring water bottles to the truck before heading out, as needed.
There’s a 15 pound bag of potatoes in there, since our larger potato varieties in the garden aren’t ready to harvest yet. I got a big case of ramen noodles, paper towels and toilet paper.
I didn’t get any sliced bread this time; just two packs of tortilla wraps. The chicken taco is a meal kit that I picked up for supper, so we don’t have to cook in this heat. There’s a package of fresh sausages, plus a 3pk assortment of cured sausages. There’s 5 pounds of butter, a 6pk of cream cheese, and a 2 pk of sour cream (they no longer carry the 500ml containers, but packs with two 250ml containers, instead). I got a block of mozzarella and a block of marble cheeses. I picked up two hot rotisserie chickens, frozen perogies (the box has 4 bags in it), a bag of basmati rice, and a 60 count of eggs.
I got a 2pk of baking powder, 3pk of Spam, a large jar of peanut butter, a 2pk of butter chicken sauce and 2 large jars of mayonnaise for the pantry. Normally, I get the Hellman’s mayo, but they’re getting more expansive, so I got the Kirkland brand this time.
And that’s it.
That’s all we got for $391.52
There’s hardly any meat in there at all, and meat is usually where I get the best prices at Costco, but the budget just wasn’t there for it, this time. That will change, later in the month, as my daughter pays us back for what we covered to get her new computer, which should arrive in a couple of days.
After I paid for this, I did grab a chicken and fries meal with a drink for the ride home, which was almost $9. I ended up not eating most of it, though. The seasoning on the chicken is a bit spicy for me; I have almost no tolerance for spicy heat in food, unfortunately. That’s okay, though. My husband got to enjoy it when I got home.
Once the truck was loaded up, I had some issues getting to the gas pumps to fill my tank. Someone decided to get in the line right behind me, and I didn’t have room to back out and turn. They would not move at all – even when other lanes cleared and they could have gotten to a pump faster!
Filling the tank cost me another $69 and change. Between the gas and the food, that made for a total of about $815 and change spent today.
*sigh*
After messaging my family to let me know I was on the way home, the girls made sure they were up and able to help me unload, then put everything away. While they took care of that, I made sure to put food out for the yard cats, to get them away from the truck, before parking!
Oh, that reminds me. I’ve had good news from the Cat Lady. Her son it already out of the hospital! In fact, he’s feeling well enough, he’s wanting to go to a local event this weekend. If that works out, she’ll let me know, so we can work out where and when to connect, and Button will finally be on his way to his new forever home!
All in all, I guess it has been a productive day, even though I wasn’t able to get everything that was on my shopping list this time. I’ll have to go out again, tomorrow, but this will be to make a dump run, then head into town to refill our 18.9L water jugs.
What I’d like to be doing right now is mowing the inner yard, but it’s way too hot and humid. It’s not supposed to cool down to a decent temperature until 6am. I think I’ll try to get to bed early tonight, so I can do the watering earlier, then get some mowing done before it gets too hot. Once I get the inner yard mowed, I want to park the truck in the shade of the inner yard, so we can use the garage to start building a cat isolation cage. I want to move the folding table we made into there, then set the miter saw up on it, then start gathering whatever materials I can find in the sheds and barn. I have a basic design in mind but, in the end, it’s just going to be cobbled together with what we have! It will be much better to work in the shade – and more level floor! – of the garage.
Oh, I also want to remove things from inside the outhouse, including the shelves we installed, so we can use them again. The yard is solid enough that we can use the truck to pull the tree off of it. I expect the outhouse will be destroyed in the process, but we might still be able to salvage parts of it. We shall see.
I really appreciate working air conditioning in our truck!
Today’s stock up shopping trip was a smaller one, and I even managed to be under budget, but not by choice in a couple of places.
The big stock up shop will be at Costco, in the middle of next week. This trip was going to be Canadian Tire, then Walmart, then the international grocery store.
I goofed and found myself in the wrong lane to go to Canadian tire, so I ended up going to the international grocery store first, rather than trying to find a way to turn around and go back.
The international grocery store shares a parking lot with a Dollarama, so I decided to go there, first. I didn’t bother taking a photo of that shop. I got a couple of cheap plastic table cloths for our dining table to protect it from the cats, some tomato twist ties, a square box of facial tissues for the truck and a couple of large ice packs for future stock up shopping trips, since we’ve had to get rid of a few older ones. That trip totaled $22.12
It was lunch time by then, so before I did my shopping at the grocery store, I got some dim sum and a drink for lunch. That totaled $19.94.
Then I finally got the shopping done. In this store, there are things we get that are more like special treats, things we don’t find elsewhere that we normally go to, and sometimes some unusually good sales.
This is what $120.32 looks like.
Yeah. Seriously. That’s it.
This place has a really good cheese counter. Not as good as what we used to have to choose from in the city we lived in before we moved out here, but still pretty decent. This trip, that included a coconut brie, goat gouda with honey and truffle gouda cheese. They also had a sale on big blocks of marble cheese of a size larger than what is now available at Costco.
Coconut milk was on sale, and the girls like to use that, so I got a couple of cans for them. Yes, I got more ice packs – an in between size, this time – which were also on sale. The Applewood smoked bacon is a locally produce product that we find only here, and we like to buy the slab bacon at times.
The cooked and raw prawns were both a reduced price. We normally get Basmati rice at Costco, but we were completely out, so when I saw the sale price, I grabbed a bag. Last of all was the raspberry syrup; a Polish product that isn’t usually in stock, so I made sure to grab a bottle.
That’s is. Eleven items. I fit most of it in a hard sided insulated back, with ice packs, and still had room to put the soft sided bag with the rest of the ice packs on top. The cans and the bottle of syrup went into another hard sided bag that got added to, later.
Usually, I’d be putting the bags in the box of the truck, but with just a couple of bags, I kept them in the cab, with the air conditioning.
My next stop was Canadian Tire. There were two things I was looking for there. Litter pellets and a new air filter for our lawn mower. It’s a Canadian Tire brand, so only Canadian Tire carries the air filter. I meant to get one last month, but they were out of stock in both Canadian Tires we normally shop at.
They were still out of stock!
So all I got there were 4 bags of stove pellets for the litter boxes, which totaled $33.56 after taxes. I didn’t bother getting a photo of those. 😁 I didn’t take the time to look for anything else, since I had stuff on ice in the truck, and I knew that cab would be heating up fast.
Last of all was the Walmart. The girls had a couple of things they asked me to pick up, but the rest was mostly just “pick up enough to last us until the Costco trip”.
This is what a total of $269.44 looks like.
*sigh*
I ended up with three receipts for this one.
I put the cat food on one bill. I got two packs of 32 cans of wet cat food. I intended to get 4 bags of dry cat food, but ended up getting only two that were at $29.97 still. The other bags – same weight but different flavours – had gone up $5 per bag. So the wet and dry cat food together came out to $131.57
Oh, crud. I just remembered. I intended to pick up more of their XXL puppy pads. I’ll have to make sure to do that on my next trip.
For the rest, I got some coffee for the girls because the price was better than anywhere else I’ve seen. I also got a couple of coffee creamers to go with it, which was actually on the shopping list. I got a 12 pack of Coke Zero for my husband and I, and of Ginger Ale for our daughters. An unplanned purchase was a new smoke detector; I kept forgetting to replace the one that broke a while back until now!
I got some canned luncheon meats for the pantry. They had rice crackers on sale that my husband really likes, so I got 4 packs of those.
I got a couple of soy milks for the girls as well. Normally, I get 2L cartons from the fridge, but they were completely sold out, and I grabbed the last two 1L self stable cartons when I found them.
There was a really good sale on bacon, so I grabbed two packages of thick cut bacon. The beef stew wasn’t on sale, but it was the only thing that both looked good and was affordable. I’m actually quite shocked by how much of the beef I saw today was turning colour! I grabbed a pound of butter – just one, as I’ll be stocking up on butter at Costco. There’s a couple of vegetable bouillon cube boxes in there, a bag of raw pumpkin seeds that will be ground up to include in the cat soup (though it’s something we can eat ourselves, too), and a bag of avocados. It’s been a long time since we’ve bought avocados, they’ve become so expensive! I got 2 bags of pasta for now; I’ll stock up on pasta more at Costco. Finally, I picked up and energy drink for the ride home. That totaled $127.43.
Yup. We spent more on cat food than on food for ourselves!
Then, as I was packing things back into the cart, I remembered I was supposed to get ice. I had even picked the cash register that was next to the freezer, so I could grab them at the last moment! Thankfully, the cashier allowed me to get 3 bags in between the customer she was ringing through, and the next one – and the next one in line was okay with it, too. We even joked around about it.
The three bags of ice came out two $10.44
So that was the shopping and lunch. I also got gas.
On the way to the city, I’d stopped to get $40 of gas, plus some perogies and a drink for breakfast. I also grabbed some beef jerky to keep in the truck for road munchies. That totaled $60.77 I was under half a tank when I left home. With gas at $1.539, that brought me a bit above half. By the time I was done shopping, I was at half a tank. So, on the way out, I decided to put in another $40 in. (I’ll do a fill, and reset my trip counter, at Costco) I decided to get myself an ice cream bar as a treat, which brought the total to $45.37
So, everything together, including gas (which comes out of a different line in the budget), meals and beverages, the grand total for the day came out to $571.52. Taking out the gas budget items, the groceries, etc. budget items totaled $465.38
We didn’t get a lot for that money, that’s for sure.
I’m not looking forward to seeing how much the Costco trip is going to cost!
The Re-Farmer 