I’m in the city right now. I decided to get an oil change before heading into Costco, so I’m just waiting on that right now. I decided to check the weather conditions back home.
Wow!!
The highest temperature I saw in the forecasts was 6C, but we are at 8C now – and it’s not even the hottest part of the day, yet!
The is going to make the temperature drop tomorrow feel even colder. 😆
The city is usually a couple degrees warmer, but right now, it’s a couple degrees cooler where I am.
This year’s quarter beef filled 5 boxes this time. The finished weight for our share came out to 210 pounds (just over 95kg). They did have to increase their price per pound this year, so it was $6.25 per pound, instead of $6, making for a total of $1312.50 Our first order of a quarter beef was under $800, at $6/lb. 
I’m going to have to go over the budget and see if we can still make the $100 a month payments for another quarter beef at the end of this year, but with the new truck payment, and various things that need to be repaired or replaced, I’m not sure we’ll be able to do it. We can still get their freezer packs out of the regular budget, but would be paying more per pound that way. It’s only by getting at least a quarter beef share that we can get things like prime rib and big T-bone steaks at only $6.25 a pound. 
When letting them know more of less what kinds of cuts we wanted (we’re more interested in a nice variety, so I really don’t care that much), I mentioned we are a household of 4 adults, asking if it was at all possible to get items in groups of four. So, if one type of steak is normally packaged two together, to get two packages of that steak. They don’t do the butchering themselves, but send the beef to a provincially certified butcher, so I knew it wasn’t really up to them, and would depend on just how much our share worked out to be as it was being cut. The closest they could get would be satisfactory. I didn’t count the packages, but from the looks of things as I put them in the freezer, the butcher did try to do that! The minute steaks used to be smaller packages of two. This time, they were in larger packages of four. Some of the bigger steaks used to be one to a package, and we’d have two packages of one type, and two of another, so when we had a steak dinner for the four of us, we wouldn’t all have the same kind of steak. This time I saw them packed in pairs, and two packages of each type of steak. I’m quite pleased! 
The chest freezer is now quite full. I’ve got some minute steaks out for tonight, since they’ll thaw out more quickly, plus a 2 lb package of ground beef thawing out for tomorrow. I’ll be doing our Costco shopping tomorrow, and won’t need to buy any meat at all this time! My mother has been refusing to buy meat at the grocery store lately, because of the prices, and buying things like a ring of garlic sausage, instead. I think she’s still got a package of venison from my sister in her freezer, but I want to bring her some ground beef and something else that’s in a smaller package, since it’s just for one person. I think some stew meat might do well for her. I’ll try to remember to grab some and drop by her place on the way to the city to drop it off.
Oh, we got an extra little gift with our beef order this time, too – a pair of ball caps with their logo on it. I was quite happy to see them. I wear a cap all the time these days, and the one they gave us before with our very first order is starting to look a bit stained and beaten up! 😄 We got one black hat and one burgundy. My younger daughter loves the red one, and has been wearing it since they were brought inside!
I am so happy our beef is in – and that they were willing to delay our order, when the final weight turned out to be so much more than expected!
I took this picture while doing my rounds this morning. Rounds which finally included switching out the memory cards on the trail cam again! It was about -7C/19F at the time. As I write this, we’ve dropped to 0C/32F, from a high of 2C/36F. We’ll be even warmer over the next few days, with Wednesday – the last day of January – expected to be anywhere from 4C-6C/39F-43F, depending on which app I look at.
Checking the 30 year records for today, the record high was 3C/37F in 1989, and the record low was -37C/-35F, in 2019.
I well remember that year. Both our van and my mother’s car froze, and we were stuck here for weeks. 
And that, my friends, is why we try to have at least an extra month’s supplies stocked up for the winter! I am so enjoying this year’s El Niño temperatures. It’ll probably be another 30 or so years before we have one like this again!
I headed into town today, as three of our four 18.9L/5 gallon water jugs were in need of refills. I was just on the far side of our little hamlet when I saw a car in the ditch, with someone walking around on the road. 
The north side ditch, which is deep and steep!
I stopped to check on the driver, who had been taking photos of her vehicle from the road. I’m happy to say, she was unhurt. She’d had a deer run in front of her! She had a tow truck called in that she was waiting for, and thanks to our warm day, she was in no danger from the elements. She was pretty shaken – understandably! – but being able to talk to someone for a while seemed to help her relax a bit. Thankfully, it doesn’t look like her vehicle is damaged, so once it’s towed out, she expected to be able to keep driving. Someone else had stopped that was willing to pull her out, but her vehicle had nothing to attach to, so tow truck it is!
The car was gone when I was driving home. Hopefully, she was right, and was able to drive home without any issues.
Once in town I decided at the last minute to go to the dollar store, which is close to the beach. I was actually surprised to see the ice fishing village set up. I was sure this winter hadn’t been cold enough for the ice to freeze to a safe thickness. I guess this close to shore, it’s less of an issue than further out onto the lake. It makes me wonder about the ice roads up north, which is the only time some of the fly-in reserves can be accessed by road.
I found a few small things at the dollar store before heading to the grocery store. Of course, I picked up a few extra things besides the water refills. With three jugs to refill, there wasn’t much room in the cart, but that’s okay. I’ll be doing Costco in a few days. One thing I was excited to find were boxes of papadam! I haven’t seen these in years. When we were living in the city, we picked some up at a Wholesale Club and loved them, but then they stopped carrying them, and we never saw them again. For some reason, I suddenly started craving them, and have been trying to keep an eye out for them for at least the past year. I supposed I could have looked up a recipe and tried making them, but I know I wouldn’t be able to do as good a job. Especially with rolling them so thin. Even in the city, yesterday, I was keeping an eye out for them, yet here I find them at the local grocery store, as a new product! The boxes have 10 each, so I grabbed the two boxes I could reach. 😄
Must… resist… cooking them now! I want to save them for later today. 😊
I’m just itching to be outside and working on something right now, but there isn’t anything that needs to be done, that can be done before the snow clears. Ah, well. I’ll just enjoy the lovely day, instead!
In other things, I’m quite happy to have my computer up and running again! Yesterday, I was able to upload the files from the memory cards I’d switched out a few weeks ago, then go through them. Normally, I keep quite a lot of the stills, and a few of the videos as well, but not anymore. Unless our vandal is in the file, or there’s something specific I want to keep (I’m a suck for critter catches!), I’m going to be ruthless about the deleting. 
When I uploaded the other set of cards this morning, I was glad I didn’t have to hurry. The sign cam typically doesn’t have many files on it, but it still had almost 200. Stills are fast to go through, though.
The gate cam is another story. It’s set to take one still, then one 10 second video, every time the motion sensor is triggers. The gate sees a lot more activity, partly because the motion trigger can be triggered again after a shorty time, and partly because if we are doing things like unlocking the gate, driving through, then locking again, or meet the prescription delivery driver, each even ends up with as many as half a dozen pairs of files. This time, though, it included my daughter using little Spewie to clear the driveway, so there would easily be a couple dozen files of her going back and forth.
There was almost 500 stills, which meant almost a thousand files to go through.
Again, the stills were fast to go through. The videos took quite a bit longer! I could skip through a lot of them, like my daughter with the snow blower, or any time we were driving through, but others needed to be watched all the way through. 
And yes, there were some with our vandal in them that were kept, just in case. 
Then I made sure to empty the recycle bin on my computer!
Now that the machine is up and running, I need to continue getting rid of old files and clear more space. I should have regularly purged older files over time, but just didn’t realize how much space these trail came files were taking up! Especially since we got the newest camera. Having better quality images is a trade off, as the files are so much larger.
Meanwhile, my computer has an operating system update that needs to be downloaded and installed. I’ll to that at the end of the day.
Last night, the fog rolled in. It was weird to see it rolling in on the garage cam live feed. The road and field beyond the gate was glowing! Really amazing to see.
It was still quite heavy this morning. The trees were covered in hoarfrost and looking gorgeous. Even Driver’s long black fur had hoarfrost on it!
I was 99% sure that my husband’s CPP Disability would come in today. It would normally come in on the third last business day of the month, but if that falls on a Monday, the funds get deposited on Saturday, which is what happened today. His private insurance disability payments, which comes in on the last business day of the month, also gets deposited on the Saturday, if that last business day falls on a Monday. It wasn’t always like this, but I’m not entirely sure when it changed!
No complaints, though. It meant I could go into the city and do the first stock up shopping trip – and finally pick up my desktop computer from the repair shop!
Yes, I am finally typing this post out on my computer, using my ergonomic keyboard and my nice big monitor! 
This is soooo much better than using my phone!!!!
Getting my computer was not my first stop off the day, though.
I left pretty much as soon as I was done my morning rounds, so things were still quite densely foggy out. It got denser the closer I got to my mother’s town, where I stopped briefly at the gas station. Her town was so thickly covered in fog, it was hard to see the turn off to the gas station! I didn’t actually want to get gas, as the prices there have gone up to 123.9/L (122.9 in the city), and I was planning to fill the tank at Costco, but I had someone tailgating me in the fog, and I wanted to get him off my a$$!
For this trip, we decided not to do the Costco shopping, but the “little” shopping, and save the Costco trip for when main pay comes in next week. My first stop was at the international grocery store. There were a few things we wanted to get there that we don’t find anywhere else, plus I was planning to have breakfast there.
Sadly, I was a bit too early for dim sum or the Chinese buffet. There was none set up, yet. The self serve chicken wing and pierogi bars were open, though, so I picked up some hot food there. I was just going to get a variety of wings at first, but all but one type were spicy hot, which I can’t tolerateðŸ˜so I got some pierogi and sausage.
It was disappointing. None of it was out there long enough to be fully hot, yet. It was just barely warm.
Note for future reference. Don’t leave home before 9am, if I plan to get breakfast at the international grocery store!
With a variety of these buffet items, sold by weight, plus a drink, my breakfast cost about $15. Not too bad. Dim sum would have cost more, but would have been worth it!
It turned out to be a good day to shop in this store, as they had some really good sales on, so I got more of what was on my list than what was specifically for this store.
I realized I forgot to take a picture of my cart only after I left for the computer store, so… this is what bagged up $187.37 looks like.
Normally, I would have picked up the paper products at Walmart or Superstore (I ended up not going to Superstore), but the toilet paper, paper towels and facial tissue were all on sale. I’ll still get more TP at Costco, but extra toilet paper is never a bad thing!
That gallon jug had been on the other side of the red bag, but I had to brake harder than usual as I drove to the computer shop, and it went flying to the front of the truck box! It’s a good thing I keep that garden cultivator tool in the stuck, as I had to use it to retrieve it! 
The gallon jug is a soy beverage my daughters requested. One of those items we don’t find anywhere else. In the hard sided bags, we have: avocados (bag of 4), bananas, 2 clamshell packages of blueberries, 3 Saskatoon and 3 Citrus Beaver Buzz, blocks of marble, Old cheddar, Extra Old and Old White cheddar (they were 50% off), two different flavours of coffee creamers, rice vinegar, seasoned rice vinegar, two different flavours of frozen dumplings, smoke bacon (slab, not sliced), Sockeye salmon fillets (package of 2 big fillets for $20, which is an unusually low price for salmon), frozen cooked prawns, Bergamot Earl Grey tea, powdered milk and dental floss picks.
All of which fit into those two bags and cost almost $200 – and that’s with almost $30 off for the various sales. *sigh*
Then it was time to get my computer.
The computer did not get repaired. He got it running again, but for the cost of replacing everything that needs to be replaced, it would be better to get a new machine. So I was charged for the diagnosis, not any repair. That was about $60. He was able to do a “premium” data save, which was almost $80, plus I got at 2T external hard drive to put the data on. That was just over $110. After taxes, the bill came to $280 and change.
Ouch.
I’ll get to how things are with the computer, later.
Costco is pretty much across the street, so gas at Costco was my next stop. I was at just over half a tank. Costco’s price was 114.9/L, and a fill cost me $56.89 Much better than if I’d filled anywhere else!
From there, I went to Walmart. This is what $264.90 looks like.
*sigh*
Those three bags of cat food are 10kg bags, and they cost $32.97 each. The canned cat food cost $28.77 each.
Besides food for the cats, I got a family pack of breakfast sausages and a family pack of pork chops. There’s 2 loaves of rye bread, a 2L of soy milk for the girls, a large jar of olives, 2 bottles of hydrogen peroxide for shocking the hot water tank, and a new toilet roll holder, because the cats knocked over and broke the one we had before. Plus a bottle of water for the drive home.
That’s 17 items for almost $260.
*sigh*
So the groceries cost $452.27 altogether, plus the computer, lunch and gas, which means I spent over $800 in total just today. I decided I didn’t want to go to the Superstore and spend more money! The rest of the stuff on my list can wait until the Costco trip.
And to think, by doing these stock up trips to the city, then buying mostly fresh stuff locally, we’re saving at least a couple hundred dollars a month. The big difference in cost is with the cat food. Those 10kg bags – if we can find bags that size in the first place – cost about $45 each locally. A 7kg bag will cost about $32 locally – and that’s going with the cheap brands (not too cheap, as the quality is so bad with those). 
We’re also going to be increasing the amount of wet cat food we’re giving the inside cats. The outside cats can supplement with hunting (no mouse problems here!), but the inside cats can’t. I think the ratio of dry:wet cat food is causing problems with some of the cats. Our vet budget is going to spays and neuters right now, so we can’t afford any sick cats! 
Speaking of which…
I’ve been chatting with the Cat Lady. She has some donated items for us that will be passed on when we meet up on Feb. 10 for the cheap spay/neuter day. She has us booked for 5 cats. We have three inside cats to do, plus we should be able to grab the fluffy tortie from outside, plus one outside male. Hopefully, Shop Towel. The Cat Lady will be paying for two of them. She was talking to the lady who is donating the cat supplies, having just lost her cat of many years, that will be passed on to us. After being told about how we’re taking care of so many cats, she donated enough funds to cover another spay! That was so sweet of her! 
Okay, back to the topic at hand!
Once at home with the shopping and everything was brought in, we let the computer warm up to room temperature before turning it on. 
The first time, it wouldn’t boot. I had to do a hard shut down and tried again. After letting it spin for almost half an hour, I had to do another hard shut down. After talking to my husband about it, he asked if I’d tried his power cord, which he’d leant me to try before we took my tower into the stop. It turned out, that’s the one I was using. I found my original power cord and tried again.
This time, it actually booted up!
It took almost half an hour to finish booting up, but it did finally happen!
Everything is sooooo slow to open right now. At this point, I’m not sure I dare shut if off anymore, given the crunchy noises I was hearing from the hard drive the first time I tried turning it on. 
The main thing is that it’s running right now. I don’t know how much time I’ll get out of it before it finally dies, but hopefully not before we are able to set some funds aside and find a refurbished computer! Or maybe find somewhere with a payment plan. 
This machine is on borrowed time, but there are so many other things pulling at the budget – a much tighter budget, not just because of increased costs of everything, but because we have truck payments that have taken up pretty much all our unallocated funds. 
Thank God my husband’s private insurance was such a good plan. Who ever thinks they’d ever need to go on disability? We can still get by.
Okay, we’d be getting by a lot better if we weren’t buying so much cat food! But that’s a choice we’ve made, so nothing we can complain about. 
All right now. Time to finish this off and really put this computer to the test. I’ve got trail cam files to upload!
I woke this morning to find a message from my early riser brother, asking me if I could meet him at my mother’s to help with the phone again.
Of course, I said yes. I don’t mind changing my plans for him!
So while my mother was in church, we went in and fiddled with her phone. While the call blocking device is set up and working, this was call blocking through the phone system, which was intended to block thousands of known scammer numbers, plus any numbers manually entered.
Last time, while going through the process to activate it at my mother’s phone, then adding numbers, we kept getting a busy signal, instead. After many calls and an urgent call to tell them – again! – to NOT call my mother (they did, anyhow, which really got her going) nor send over a tech (they had someone booked!), because our mother would not understand any of this, my brother finally got through to someone who knew what they are talking about.
After the new guy went over the file, my brother got many apologies. It should NOT have been so much trouble.
In the end, it turned out the blocking service was something that needed to be turned on at the junction in my mother’s town. However, the system is so antiquated that they weren’t sure it could even BE turned on.
Well, it turns out it could, so now my brother needed to activate it at my mother’s phone.
Which he did, then tested it by blocking his work cell phone number, then trying to use that phone to call our mother.
It worked, but when he went to add our vandal’s numbers, he got a message saying the service was turned off.
So he went through the process again, turning it back on and adding in two other numbers our vandal is known to use.
They couldn’t be blocked.
They are cell phone numbers from a different company. Only the land line, which is with the same company as my mother’s, could be blocked.
In the end, my brother erased the one number that worked and shut the system off. He was willing to pay a monthly fee for this service, but there’s no point if it can’t block numbers from other service providers. He’s going to simply cancel the service.
We are very glad the physical device is set up, so there is at least that! Our vandal still can’t call our mother and leave abusive messages anymore.
That done, we went through a few other things and did minor repairs. Then we started talking about the peep hole in my mother’s door.
Since things are being left at our mother’s door, and we have no confirmation on who it is, even though it can only be one person, my brother has been looking up peep hole cameras, with motion sensors triggering them to take images. It would have to be completely stand-alone, since our mother has zero ability to understand technology.
That led us to looking at and measuring the peep hole on her door.
Which was covered with packing tape she used to stick a plastic picture on the door.
I think it’s a place mat with a scenic image on it, but I’m not sure.
It got moved, but not until after my brother tried looking through it, and found he couldn’t see anything.
After it was moved, he still couldn’t see much.
Oh, you could see light, and the contrast between the wall across the hall and the hall carpet, but my brother remembers being able to see more of the hallway. I even stepped outside so he could look at me through the peep hole, and he couldn’t see me!
Looking at the outside of the peep hole, we discovered it had something on it.
After trying to scrape it clean, we’re pretty sure it’s Krazy Glue.
How long it’s been like this, we have no idea. My mother doesn’t use the peep hole (I think it’s low enough for her to look through). My brother thinks it’s been at least a year since he’s looked through it. I can’t remember if I ever fid, but if I did, it would have been shortly after we moved to the farm.
So… yeah. At some unknown point, it seems that someone put glue on the outside of the peep hole, rendering it useless.
Of course, we can think of only one person who would do that, and that would be the same person who glued the locks on our gate a few times.
Just suspicion, on our part, of course.
So my brother is now thinking if it’s worth spending the money on the peep hole he was thinking of getting, if it’s likely to get vandalized like that.
No decision has been made.
When our mother got back from church, we had tea and lunch waiting for her. She was expecting my brother, but he didn’t know if I could come, so he didn’t say anything about whether I would be there.
We had a nice lunch, then talked about a few things that needed to be discussed, from letting her know what we fixed, to addressing letters she received but didn’t understand.
When it was time to go, my mother started giving us a hard time about leaving so soon, even though we’d been there with her for quite a while. After parting ways, I made a quick stop at the grocery store to get more cat kibble. *sigh*
It was an awesome day to be out and about!
No surprise that -10C feels really warm right now, but check this long range forecast out!
They’re actually expecting us to go above freezing at the end of the month!
Of course, this will change several times before we get to the end of the month, but it’s been pretty consistently saying we should at least be just a couple of degrees below freezing.
Since I will be driving to the city around that time, I’m quite happy to see this.
I’m also going to be very happy to pick 6 my computer, too! I’m quite looking forward to making these posts on my ergonomic keyboard again, instead of tapping on my phone!!
Interestingly, as I check the weather app this evening, we have actually warmed up a bit from this afternoon. We are at -14C right now. We are at -16C when I headed out shortly after noon to run errands.
But then, there is the windchill.
It feels like -27C out there!
To be honest, when I went out to feed the cats outside somewhere between 4 and 5 pm, it felt colder. The wind is from the south, which means we are getting the full force of it.
We really need a windbreak on our south side!
I’m so glad that heat lamp for the outside cats came in when it did!
While it’s still -23 or -24C right now, with no wind chill, our high today is supposed to be a balmy -15C this afternoon. By the middle of next week, we are supposed to reach highs just below freezing!
For well insulated cats like Brussel, here, it doesn’t seem to make much difference how cold it gets! The less fluffy cats prefer to hang out in the cat house or the sun room. 🌞
My goodness, Brussel does look permanently angry, though! 😆
Speaking of warming up, the upside cats were so happy to have access to my room – and bed! – again last night! My attempt at napping before getting Soot Sprite was disrupted by their antics, so I was really flagging. I finally gave up and went to bed at 8:30, which is insanely early for me. I barely got under the covers before I was surrounded by cats snuggling against me, with 2 or 3 right on me. Butterscotch was in her usual corner on my bed again – she quite enjoyed her night with only Soot Sprite in the room, and wasn’t impressed that they were allowed in. She did allow Cheddar to cuddle next to her, while she used my hand as a pillow, and even tolerated our greasy grandma slithering off my hip and squeezing herself between them and my face, demanding pets. She is a skinny cat, and likes to take advantage of all the body heat she can borrow!
Unfortunately, she makes the most disgusting noises while grooming. 😆
I was so tired, though, I still managed to fall asleep and stay asleep until about 5:30! I can’t remember the last time I got more than 4 or 5 hours of sleep in one stretch.
That I managed to fall asleep at all, never mind sleep all night, is very unusual!
As for Soot Sprite, he commandeered my daughter and slept in her arms for a couple of hours. My daughter is, unfortunately, paying for all the squirming and crawling around under the kitchen sink the other day, and couldn’t lift her arms above her shoulders, then got stuck cuddling the little voidling for hour. He’s another one that has to borrow body heat from others!
The hot water tap on our kitchen faucet has been dripping for quite a while.
When we replaced the entire tap and faucet set, choosing a design that allowed us to fit out large stock pot under it, the cold water connector hose needed replacing. There is a lack of shut-off valves in our plumbing, so when I got a new connector hose, I made sure to get the type with a built-in shut-off valve, and hot one for the hot water, too.
The hot water hose, however, was fine and did not need replacing. So the second new hose, with the shut-off valve, was set aside.
You probably see where this is going.
In order to fix the leaking tap, we would have to close the main shut-off valve from the pressure tank. Which means no water for the house.
Which is why the drip didn’t get fixed.
We even took advantage of it and would put containers that needed to soak before washing, under the drip, where the container would soon be filled.
The drip, however, has been getting worse and eventually became more of a trickle than a drip.
So the first thing that needed to be done was to replace the connector hose with the new one with the built-in shut-off valve. That way, the hot water to the dripping tap could be closed, but the rest of the house could still have water.
Of course, this was not an easy job. It should have been, but it wasn’t.
You see, someone – most likely my mother, in her younger days – painted the inside of the cupboard under the sink.
Including the copper water pipes.
And the connectors.
My daughter had to cut through what turned out to be layers of paint to cut the copper pipe. The connector hose may still be good, but it’s painted into place. This was old, oil based paint, too, which gives an idea of how long it’s been there!
Once the connector hose was cut off, she then spent at least half an hour trying to scrub the paint off the end of the pipe, as well as smooth the inside edges of the pipe, which were too jagged from being freshly cut, to install the new connector hose.
My daughter is the only person in the household physically able to crawl under there, but she’s pretty broken, too, so it was quite painful. All I could do was hand her things and keep the kittens away.
It did get done, though. I turned the main water back on so it could be tested, and everything worked.
She could finally shut off just the hot water, and start taking the tap apart.
This is the cartridge she pulled out, AFTER I scrubbed it in the bathroom sink.
The part between the two black O rings was completely black, like what is still in the crevices of the white plastic. The metal inside the hole is supposed to be silver.
When we shock the hot water tank with hydrogen peroxide, which requires shutting the water off to the hot water tank and partially draining it, the water runs black when we next use it. Not only was this cartridge all black, but the space it sat in was all black, too. My daughter cleaned out as much of that as she could, while I cleaned the cartridge.
There was the possibility that it would stop leaking after getting all cleaned up, so after I took a picture of the cartridge, plus the numbers on the bottom, she put it all back together, and turned the water on.
There was nothing.
She turned on the cold.
Nothing.
She had mentioned that the pressure was low when she first tested it, but now, nothing was getting through at all. In fact, she had thought I’d turned the main shut-off valve, off again.
On a hunch, I started taking off the end of the faucet, where the aerator is.
Though the taps were off, water started to spray out as I unscrewed it! Once I got it off, we could see the problem. The screen inside was completely full of black gunk!!
Without the aerator, suddenly water could flow again!
I went and scrubbed the aerator in the bathroom sink while my daughter fiddled with the kitchen sink.
Once the aerator was returned, we ran the hot water for a bit, then shut it off.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
*sigh*
Well, it was worth a shot. At least it wasn’t a trickle anymore.
After all that, my daughter went to shower while I headed into town.
There are 2 hardware stores in town. One, I won’t go to anymore, after they kicked me out for being medically exempt from wearing a mask during the illegal lockdowns and mask mandates. (Yes, they actually were illegal, and there are many court cases going through the system now. I don’t think the governments have won one, yet.) I didn’t even want to go into the store to shop, but had gone to the cash desk by the doors to pay for a car wash. The location got blacklisted as unsafe to go to by many others who could not wear masks. After how badly they treated their loyal customers, none of us are going back there anymore.
The other hardware store, however, was fantastic, so I go there all the time now, even though they are a smaller store and have a much smaller inventory.
When I got there, I had someone offering to help me right away, and I showed her the picture of what I needed. She found the part for me on the shelf. The package number was different from the number on the cartridge itself, but they were in clamshell packages, making them easy to open and confirm the numbers there. To my shock, one cartridge cost almost $25!!
Then she realized it was a Moen product.
Moen has a lifetime guarantee on their products.
Which means I should be getting a replacement cartridge for free.
She ended up getting the manager over to talk to me about it. It turns out they have a stock of replacement parts that are sent to them for free, to be used for these sorts of times. What was on the shelf is stuff they have to pay for, so they couldn’t give those out.
He looked in their supply, but they did not have the cartridge I needed.
He then recommended I try the other hardware store, or another place I’d never been to before. As far as I knew, they were mostly a lumber and landscaping place.
When I said I wouldn’t go to the first place, he didn’t even blink, and said to try the other place. I’ve had this manager help me a number of times, and I get the impression he hears that a lot.
Well, I’ve been wanting to check this place out for a while, and if they had plumbing supplies, this was as good a time as any.
Oh.
My.
Goodness.
This is going to be a dangerous place for me to go to, with money!
Yes, their focus is definitely on their huge yard, filled with lumber and landscaping supplies. The store itself is relatively small, but covers all the bases for basic hardware supplies. I had no idea there was a third hardware store in town! And I’ve known about this place for years. I’ve even gone to their website, which turned out basically be a single splash page.
I didn’t see the cartridges I needed in their plumbing section, so I went to the counter. I explained what I needed, and that the other hardware store thought they might have inventory of the free replacement part I needed.
It took him a while, but he did find the part. He’d never had to check the number on the cartridge itself before, and they are darn hard to see when you can’t open the packaging!
Then he asked me how many I needed. I’d hoped to buy a spare, until I’d seen the $25 price tag, so I told him I needed one, but if I could have a spare, that would be great!
So he gave me two! Since I didn’t have the packaging product number, he said to try it out, and if it didn’t fit, bring it back and he’d help find the right one.
He was really nice about it, too.
That done, I ran a couple more errands, then headed home. As soon as everything was put away, my daughter started on the tap.
Which was easy to do, now that it has its own shut off valve!
It took some fussing, but she got it in and put back together. Then there was the test!
She ran the water for a bit, then shut off the tap.
Drip.
…
…
…
Nothing! It’s fixed!!
It was a big, messy, painful and frustrating job for my daughter, but she got it done. I’m so grateful for her being able to do it. Otherwise, we would have had to call in a plumber to replace that connector hose, or keep having to shut off the main water valve and leaving it off until it was fixed.
She did a great job!
As for me, I want to get a look at that aerator and see if I can take it apart to clean it, like we have to do with the one in the bathroom. That one builds up with scale and rust. This one would have that, too, but now we know the black stuff that’s in the pipes after we shock the hot water tank is more of a problem in the kitchen.
I left early today, so I could run some errands before going to my mother’s to do her grocery shopping for her. I was able to pick up a couple of hot meals at the grocery store for our lunch. They had rib dinners today, and she was really happy with it. I think it’s the first time I’ve brought lunches over where she didn’t find something to complain about! The price is right, too. The grocery store seems to make a limited number of these dinners for the lunch crowd, and that’s it. They don’t make them again. I’ll have to remember that.
As we were eating, she made a comment about “when we leave…”
We??
As far as I knew, she was giving me a list to do her shopping for her.
Nope. She decided she did need to go to the bank after all.
So when we were done lunch, I had to move things around a bit, in the truck – the few groceries I picked up for ourselves were in an insulated bag to keep things from freezing in the cab. For the length of time I would be with my mother, if they were in the box, they would freeze, anyhow.
I also moved the truck to the loading zone by the main doors, where there was more room for her to maneuver with her walker. Usually, we use a side door closer to her apartment, but the sidewalk is narrower, with a ditch on each side. A ditch filled with snow. In the summer, while helping her in or out her car, I’ve had her walker roll away and into the ditch, because it’s so uneven on the sides. With the snow blown even across, chances were greater that one of us would step off the safe section of sidewalk and end up in the ditch, ourselves!
I had the little step stool ready for her at the truck, too. It was awkward for her partly due to space. She needed to hang on to both the door and her walker to be able to use the step stool. From there, she could use the handle in the door frame, and the seat, to climb up the truck’s step under the door, and finally climb into the cab. It was definitely a tough climb, but she did much better than I expected! Thankfully, she seemed to be having a good knees day today. I know there are days when a climb like this would be out of the question.
Our first stop was the bank, and I cheated a bit. I used my husband’s disabled parking permit to park in the disabled parking zone. This put my mother close to the automated doors that she normally won’t use. Access from the parking spot up onto the sidewalk wasn’t shoveled, though. She made it through a spot that was almost clear, with a bit of help lifting her walker through the snow.
Once done at the bank, it was time to climb back into the truck and then off to the grocery store. Once again, I was able to park closest to the doors for her, where there was no chance of another car blocking her side of the truck.
She did a fairly large shopping trip today, which I was glad to see. She did have issues getting meat. She was going to pick up some deli chicken and wanted just a chunk of meat, rather than sliced, as she says the meat keeps longer. The guy behind the counter didn’t understand what she wanted, at first, and thought she meant thicker slices. I explained to him she wanted a piece, not a slice. So he tried asking her how much she wanted. I tried to explain to her what he needed to know, suggesting something about an inch thick, which is what I saw her get before. She got frustrated and said, “give me 2 pounds.” The guy and I looked at each other, and I could see we were thinking the same thing. Two pounds is a LOT for deli meat. We tried to explain again, but she started getting mad and said, “just give me 2 pounds.”
So the guy ended up cutting off about 1 1/2 inches, then putting it on the scale. It was under 2 pounds, but he gave her the weight in kilos, since all weights are in metric, and the amount, with was almost $15.
And that was one of the cheapest cuts they had available!
My mother got angry, said to take it away, and walked off.
The poor guy.
I apologized to him, but he assured me they could still use the cut. It was large enough that their machine could still slice it.
My mother ended up getting a sausage, instead, and that was it for meat.
At least she got eggs.
I found out from my brother, when he spoke to her this evening, that she said the guy at the deli was rude and was using the “wrong” weights. He was very polite and patient with her! Not the slightest bit rude at all. But she had trouble understanding what he was asking her, so to her, that means he was rude.
*sigh*
That shopping done, we had to make one more trip, to the pharmacy. My mother didn’t get put of the truck this time, though. I ran in and picked up a couple things for her.
Then it was time to go home, and she insisted I park by the side entrance, because it’s closer to her door. I ended up parking half in the street, to make sure she had space to move and no chance of either of us ending up in the ditch! Once she was safely out and I helped her through the doors – which are not designed at all for accessibility! – I had to go back and park properly. She waited at the doors for me, so the outside door wouldn’t fall closed and lock me out!
Once inside, we had a surprise waiting. Some stuff on the floor at her door. An insulated bag, and what I at first thought was her mail. There is a neighbor in her building that regularly brings her mail for her, but he usually slips it under her door.
My mother figured our vandal had swung by.
I think she was right.
There was no note, but the insulated bag had a jar labeled pickled herring, but I think it held some kind of home made borscht. There was a hummus dip container, but I could not tell through the labels, what was in it. Plus, two chocolate cupcakes.
What I had thought was mail turned out to be a magazine, plus a weekly paper that my mother doesn’t get in her town, which also confirmed it was from our vandal.
There were social activities happening in the lobby, so when I left, I asked if anyone saw who left things at my mother’s door. No one saw anyone go by. They would have recognized our vandal.
After I put my mother’s groceries away and we sat to talk for a bit, she told me she didn’t like how our vandal would show up unannounced at her place. She has her own things to do, appointments, etc. He has never called her in advance before. I didn’t think to mention, he couldn’t call her in advance, anyhow. My brother arranged for call blocking of several numbers our vandal uses. No more abusive phone calls or answering machine messages!
By the time all the running around was done, the weather was starting to turn. It didn’t get colder, but the winds picked up again, and even in town, visibility was starting to drop. The highway was still good for my drive home, though.
So my mother did manage all right with the truck, though it was a struggle. Having to get in and out so many times was definitely taking its toll on her. Still, she did really well. I think I found it scarier than she did!
She even had nice things to say about the inside of the truck!
This is not something she should do often, but at least I know I can use the truck to get her to a doctor’s appointment or anything like that.
I’m not sure what it says, that she would rather do all that climbing so I can drive her around, rather than have my sister drive her around in her much nicer, newer, car that’s easier to get into!
Well, I’m just happy to be able to do it, and thankful we are in a position to be available for her. It takes quite a load off my brother! There are still some things only he can do, since he has power of attorney, but he doesn’t have to take time off work and drive the hour plus to do them!
So things worked out rather well. When my brother called her later, he said she was in very good spirits – and cut the call short because her show was starting! 😆
Now, if only we could find a way to keep our vandal from showing up at her place! I think he still somehow believes she can give him the property, even though she already transferred ownership of this place to my brother.
One more night, before the cold snap is dupposed to end, in our area.
I headed out to feed the outside cats and do partial evening rounds. We have reached our expected high of -20C, and are not expected to drop much lower overnight. The windchill, however, is -32C right now, and it’s expected to reach -37C overnight! While walking around the inner yard, there is a section that isn’t sheltered from north winds, and wow, what a difference! The winds have certainly increased, and we are supposed to get a light snowfall, too.
The cats are handling it well, and making good use of the shelter and sunroom. I did find they had somehow managed to unplug the heat lamp, though! The power bar is on the wall, on the far side of the platform, so reaching to plug it back in was a bit of a challenge. Even with it unplugged, though, the room was still around -10C. I made sure the lamp was pushing heat properly, before heading in.
Tomorrow our high is supposed to be -15 or -16C. I have some errands to run, and hope to head over to help my mother as well. I haven’t gotten through to her on the phone, yet. My brother spoke to her yesterday, and she had told him she is willing to try doing her errands in our truck! I do have the step stool, the truck has a step under the door, and the passenger side has a handle she can use to pull herself in. I’m willing to try it if she is, but my goodness, it concerns me! However, her car is out of commission, my sister isn’t able to come out, and my brother would have to plan ahead to arrange a day off work to help out with his car. So there isn’t much choice.
I hope it works out, because then I can get her to a doctor’s appointment, so she can get referred to a specialist. Errands, tomorrow, will be the test!
The Re-Farmer 