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Stock up shopping: small Costco trip and vehicle update

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This is what $452.10 looks like.

This is a small shop, as I was too tired to do a large one. Plus, I wanted to focus on getting a few more cook out type things.

Before getting to Costco, I had a few other stops. A quick stop at the gas station, not to get gas, but an energy drink and a couple of small packages of nuts to tide me over until I could get breakfast in the city. While there, I checked messages and chatting with my brother and his wife briefly. The next stop was a side trip along the way, to the medical clinic. I needed to get my husband’s medical files to transfer to his new doctor. Turns out getting the physical copies would have cost more than $80, to cover the cost of printing. It would have been 221 pages.

It would have been a lot more, if his medical files from after he got out of the military hadn’t been lost! It was paper copies only, back then, and the clinic we went to destroyed files if they hadn’t seen the patient for more than 2 years. We have moved out of province again, by then.

So to get it loaded onto a thumb drive cost only $35. I brought one, but she ended up giving me a new one, when she saw my thumb drive had other files on it!

While waiting for that to be done (it took a while to transfer the files!), I chatted with my brother some more. They were going to be done their errands in the city fairly soon, and did I want to meet them for lunch? With another 45 minutes driving time after I got the files, it actually worked out really well.

We had a fantastic time together, of course. My brother had been able to visit my mother yesterday and help her with groceries, among other things. She was out of groceries, but never said a thing to me about needing a shopping trip! One odd thing, though. She’s been complaining to the social workers that come to her building about her glasses. It took a while for my husband to get the straight of it, but she is saying what when she got there, the staff member was behind plastic, eating her lunch (they no longer have those plastic shields), and that she got up right away, grabbed the bag with Mom’s glasses, gave them to her and then all but kicked her out.

Strangely, it sounds like I wasn’t even there, but that could be just the way my brother described what she was saying.

The social worker said that they should have tried the glasses on her and checked them, etc. My mother says they didn’t.

They did. They took really good care of her, even going out of their way to accommodate her mobility issues as much as possible!

Then she said something about the lady being Arabic.

The dentist she went to recently was Arabic. Not the people at the eye clinic.

So basically, my mother is just making things up, because she has suddenly decided she doesn’t like her glasses. And she doesn’t like her glasses, because the new prescription didn’t make her headaches go away. We even had the conversation about that; if her old prescription were the problem, the headaches would go away, but if her glasses were NOT the problem, that meant something else was causing them.

Not that we got that far in our conversation. Since I was the one who brought her there, helped her come in, spoke with the staff together with her, watched them make super sure her glasses were sitting right on her face and adjusting them for her, I could confirm that what she is saying now is pure BS.

I’d be tempted to say that this is a sign of cognitive decline in my mother but, to be honest, she’s always done stuff like this.

So that was interesting to find out!

While we were at the restaurant, I got a call from the garage about the truck we were looking into.

As expected, the payments were not in our budget. Even with his knocking the price down, and having the down payment that we could manage right now, it was still almost double what we can afford. Plus, the payments are calculated bi-weekly. We get paid monthly. I would hope they could change it to monthly, because with bi-weekly payments, there would be at least a couple of months out of the year where we would have three payments instead of two.

Ah, well. It was nice to think about, at least. Now that we’ve had a chance to talk about it directly, he knows that we’re good with something like a truck instead of a van, if that’s what he can find in our budget.

My brother and his wife have been trying to help by making various suggestions. One of them has been to try a dealership. They tend to offer no money down, 0% interest financing deals, etc. I finally had a chance to explain that we’ve had bad experiences going through dealerships before. As much as we loved the Grand Caravan, the dealership tried to screw us over. I remember I brought it back shortly after we got it for some warranty work we basically forced them to accept responsibility for. I was sitting in the waiting room, doing some crochet, when the guy who sold it to us came by. He came over with a big smile on his face and made a joke about whether or not I could knit him some socks or something (my fellow crocheters will understand the extra cringe on that), then he looked at my face, recognized me and practically ran away. It was that bad!

Then there was the Uplander. When getting a vehicle so cheap, I could use my debit card to pay for it, you don’t expect to have a perfect vehicle. Beggars can’t be choosers. But you do expect one that is at least safe. That one actually got reported to the regulatory organization, but nothing came of it. We had to put a lot of money into that thing. Once we did, it did really well by us for far longer than it should have, but still…

Then there were the other dealerships we tried. Nothing like talking to someone and saying, “we can afford X payments”, then get a call back saying, “we got a really good deal for you! Fantastic vehicle! Payments are only….” and the amount would be double what we said we could afford.

So… I really would rather not go through a dealership again. I have come to trust our mechanic. He’s taken good care of us.

Once I explained that, they understood.

After lunch, I finally made it to the Costco. With suddenly planning on a cookout tomorrow, that changed what I got a little bit. It was also going to be a smaller shop for now. I’ll do another Costco trip next week some time.

This is what we got. First, the “bottom of the basket” stuff.

case of Coke Zero: $14.69, plus 32¢ enviro fee
Kirkland brand puppy pads: $24.99 These are 30″x23″, rather than the 30″x30″ we’ve been getting at Walmart, but 100 of them cost less than the 50 pack at Walmart. Since I just got a Walmart pack recently, we should be good for puppy pads long enough to not need them anymore, I hope!
canned cat food: $38.99
9kg bags of dry cat food; four of them: $26.99 each
TP: $22.99

Then there was some actual food for humans. 😄

tube of ground beef: $31.49 I plan to partially freeze it, then simply cut rounds off for hamburgers.
fresh sausages: $18.18
eye of round roast: $45.19
three pack of jumbo all beef weiners: $21.99
canned chicken: $17.99 The price on that actually went down, so I got more for the pantry.
tortilla wraps, 2 packages: $9.99 each
ramen noodles, 30 pack: $13.99 I knew this size existed, but it’s the first time I saw them in stock, so I grabbed those for the pantry, too.
double trays of 60 eggs: $18.89
sausage buns, two bags with three packages of 6 buns in them: $6.49 each
hamburger buns, similar bag with three packages inside: $5.29

And that’s our Costco purchase this time. The sub-total was $426.90, plus $25.20 in taxes.

As my purchases were going through, I heard the cashier and the person reloading my flat cart say something about 8 items. I didn’t buy 8 of any one thing, so I asked, 8 what? It was the total number of items still on the cart being confirmed, to make sure they weren’t missing something. I told her, the only time that ever happened, they accidentally charged me for an extra bag of cat food, so I came back (not that I’m remembering this, I think I said the accidentally *under* charged me, by mistake!). So I just got another bag of cat food, instead, so it wasn’t a problem. She asked how many cats we have, so I told her, as best I could when it came to the outside cats. Her response?

Can I move in with you?

😂😂

Turns out, she has “only” six cats, and wants more, but her husband objects. She is also finding many strays that need help, so she tries to leave food out for them, at least. She wants to build shelters for them and stuff, but her husband objects, so I told her a bit about our set up. It’s different when we have access to at least old, scrap lumber to build things with, and it only costs us the paint.

It was nice to chat with a kindred soul. 😁

Once the shopping was done and loaded, I went to fill the gas tank. I was telling my brother, I left with a full tank of gas, and was down a quarter tank by the time I got to the restaurant we were meeting at. My brother, who knows my mother’s car really well, was quite surprised by that. He mused about whether there was a leak somewhere, but if there was, we’d be smelling gas when going into the garage, and we don’t. Hopefully, we’ll find the problem when I take the car in on Monday.

The gas station was really busy, and with good reason! While the rest of the city was at 161.9¢/L for regular gas, which has been getting slightly lower, Costco was at 144.9¢/L Even their premium gas was at 164.9¢/L That’s a huge difference! It ended up costing me just over $23 to fill the tank.

Then it was time to head home, though I did make one more stop at my mother’s town, to use the bank machine. Paying for my husband’s medical file transfer was by cash only, so I needed to replace it, since I used part of the cash I had for the septic guy.

Now that I’m home, I made sure to take the cash out and set it aside, and we can call the septic guy. He is sometimes really fast in responding, so I wanted to make sure I had enough to cover it, plus extra, just in case his rates had to go up again, on hand first!

I’m feeling pretty exhausted right now, but I want to get started on setting up the fire pit area. The picnic table that has to be moved still has tomatoes and onions on it!

Must. Not. Have. Another. Energy drink! 😅

The Re-Farmer

Voting changes, Vehicle update, and a new acquisition

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I was able to run a number of errands while out today. The predicted rain didn’t start until I was just leaving the gas station to go home. By the time I arrived and got out to open the gate, it was pouring, with plenty of thunder! It was severe enough to cause some power flickers, including one that was enough to cause our computers to shut down, which is always fun. Not.

My first stop was at the advance polling station. I had to look up the location, which turned out to be in an industrial park next to the airport, rather than in town!

Things have really changed since the last election. Our paper ballots of the past have always been a tri-fold ballot, with the only change in dimensions being due to how many candidates were running. In our riding, there was only four this time. There were a number of checks and balances, such as tearing off a strip with a number on it, matching a number on the rest of the ballot, that was kept by the scrutineers, and going through another scrutineer to make sure it was dropped into the ballot box properly, etc.

Well, we do still have paper ballots, which is good. May we never move away from paper ballots! I love my technology, but security is an illusion.

The ballot itself was the size of a sheet of printer paper. It was in a specially shaped folder that covered all but the security info at the top. The scrutineer that gave me my ballot gave me instructions; holding the front of the ballot facing me, she dropped the folder open (the fold was on the bottom) so I could see the candidates list, and I was told to colour in the circle by the name I wanted to vote for. No X’s or check marks. Fill in the circle. Then she made sure to close up the folder again before handing it to me, without ever touching the actual ballot.

At the voting booth, they had a permanent black marker available, rather than the usual pencils. After marking for my candidate, the folder is closed back up again and I took it to the scrutineer that had checked my ID when I came in. She took the ballot by the folder, then placed the part that stuck out into a slot on what looked like a big, office sized printer. It was actually a scanner. The machine grabbed the ballot out of the folder, and she put it aside, having never touched the ballot directly. I could watch the scanning progress on a screen, which did not display the actual vote. Once scanned, the ballot was dropped into the ballot box the machine was resting on. No one had access to the ballot box itself.

Every marked ballot now has both a physical and electronic copy. The machine helps with counting the physical ballots this way, making things faster for the scrutineers.

That done, I continued into town. Since the grocery store where I was going to is across the street from our garage, I went there first, to talk to our mechanic. As I went in, I passed him talking to a couple who were looking at a really nice SUV.

We went into his office and started talking about the financing situation. I told him, I knew it would be hard to find something in that budget limit. We are actually approved for up to $25,000, apparently, but couldn’t possibly afford the payments for that. He said it was be very hard to find a van within the budget, though. He asked if we would be okay with something else. That SUV I had just walked past turned out to be well under our budget!

A vehicle like that would work for us, though would not be ideal. It’s something my husband could get in and out of without hurting himself too much, and the back bench seat folds down and would accommodate his walker, folded up. We would be able to fill it with a larger load than my mother’s car, to be sure, but not as well as a van.

Would we be good with a truck, he asked?

I told him, I’d love a truck! Though we would need on with a cap over the box. My thoughts being on how we were able to fit the riding mower and snow blower in the back of the van, but also needing to protect our large monthly shops from the elements.

He did have a truck available and we went over to take a look at it. It had the extended cab, but the back seats folded up, so we’d be able to fold up and fit my husband’s walker in the back. The short box had a flat cover on it, which I wasn’t sure about, but if the walker fits in the back, it’s not as much of an issue. We’d also be able to load up our Costco shopping (I told him how many bags of cat food we go through!) and it would be protected from the elements. If we had to load some something like the snow blower or riding mower, should we need to, we could just roll up the cover. They wouldn’t be protected, but that should be okay.

It also already has a trailer hitch installed, which is something we would want. The clearance under the truck is higher, so we’d be able to get out of our driveway after a snowfall with less concern. It could be switched from front wheel drive to four wheel drive, and it also automatically adjusts from using 8 cylinders to 4 cylinders on the highway, to save on fuel consumption.

Yeah, it had some rust on the body, but the inside was in good shape, and I really don’t care about the looks.

The price was above budget, but he was going to see how much he could drop it for us, plus we do have a bit we could use as a down payment. Not much, but enough to make a difference. He is going to send info on the truck to the finance company to see if they can work with it and keep the payments to what we can afford. Keeping in mind that whatever those work out to be, we will also have the additional cost of registration and insurance on top of it.

Depending on how things go, we might have to suspend the insurance on my mother’s car for the winter. Whatever vehicle we get that’s suitable for my husband would not be suitable for her, even if it does have a built in step to get in. However, I would really prefer not to drive that car in the winter at all.

Which brings me to the other reason I stopped at the garage. I’m bringing my mother’s car in next week. I’m getting him to check the air filter and spark plugs. Talking to my brother, neither of us remember those ever being checked, never mind replaced. They might be contributing to the mileage on my mother’s car getting so bad, though. Plus, the check engine light is on again. *sigh*

So we’ll see how that goes. Even if it doesn’t work out with this truck, he at least knows that we are open to something other than a van. Beggars can’t be choosers! At long as it meets our needs for accessibility and load requirements, while remaining in budget, we’ll take it.

That done, I finally made it to the grocery store, picked up a few things along with getting the water refills, then had to fill the tank again before heading home, and into the pouring rain!

While at the gas station, I did pick up a book that I’d been eyeballing. Last month, I got a book on native edible plants. This month, I got the Canadian Outdoor Survival Guide.

It’s aimed at people who go hiking or camping, flying to remote areas, snowmobiling, boating, etc., where you might get lost or have an accident. The info is still useful in general. Things like making a small personal first aid kit, or one for your car, is useful in general. Being Canadian, there’s plenty of focus on winter conditions, as well as regional conditions, which are wildly different in different parts of the country. It’s just a handy thing to add to our library.

Which reminds me of one of the books my friend sent me in a care package not long ago. The one on safe preservation methods. I’m loving it! Even the pressure canning section is pretty much up to date. What I really liked about that section is when it talked about preserving meat. It doesn’t just talk about how to can various proteins, but actually has photos and instructions on how to butcher the animals! Very useful!

We had to leave a lot of books behind when we moved here, because the weight was just too expensive. It feels good to be slowly rebuilding our library again.

The Re-Farmer

First stock up shop: a triple whammy for $544

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Today was our first trip into the city to stock up for next month. I’ll be doing the Costco trip in a couple of days. This time, I went to three different places.

The first was a Walmart. This is what $249 looks like.

For this stop, I didn’t go to the grocery section at all, but while waiting in line, I saw the display of canned bean cases (9 cans). The price was about what Costco’s price for used to be. $9.97 instead of almost $13. So I grabbed one.

Aside from that one grocery item, I got:

Paper towels: $22.97
Wet cat food (shredded): $28.77
Dry cat food, 7kg size, cheap house brand: $19.97 each. I got 3 for the outside cats, plus one anti-hairball bag for the indoor cats to try.
Puppy pads, 50pk of 30″x30″: $26.97 The kittens are getting better and I’m not changing those as often, but ever now and then, a kitten just decides to pee right next to the litter box. They seem to wait until I’m not in the room to do it!
Men’s t-shirts: one for my husband, one for me, at $8 each
Shampoo and conditioner: $15.47 each Those have sure gone up in price – if I can even find bottles in that size at all!
bright orange acrylic yarn: $5.27 I plan to make baseball cap ear warmers and see if our grocery store/post office will let me sell them there. It took me forever to find yarn in that orange, for the hunters. I also have grey, which I will use together with reflective thread I have.
Dawn Platinum: $2.47 I got a tiny bottle of this to test out in the laundry. I got a couple of new t-shirts for myself not long ago, and both already have stains on them! Unfortunately, I didn’t see the stains until I put the shirts on after washing them. Which is why I ended up buying more t-shirts. From what I’ve been able to find, this stuff will actually get out stains, even after they’ve gone through the dryer. If not… well, I’ve got myself a couple more work shirts. 😕

The total was $223.24, plus $10.66 GST and $14.93 PST, bringing the grand total to $248.83 Plus, I added $100 cash back, which was their maximum.

So that was stop number one.

The next two stops were right next to each other, so it was just one trip. The first was a Dollarama. I was specifically looking for new food dishes for the kittens in my room. We’ve been using old take out containers, which is great for temporary use, or for adult cats, but they’re too big. Since we’re using my room as an isolation ward, it’s time to get proper food bowls. Unfortunately, they tend to be quite expensive, so I tried here. They did have some nice, stainless steel bowls with non-slip rings on their bases that I picked up.

Of course, that’s not all I got. This is what $75 looks like.

Pet food bowls, 8 in total: $2 each
Pet bed (for the kittens): $5
Cat tunnel (for the rest of the cats): $4
Cat toy (for the rest of the cats): $4.75
Cooling rack: $4.75 I’ll be slowly getting more of these. This style, with the squares, will be much better for dehydrating in the oven than the ones I’m using now, which have the wires running in one direction, with only a single support wire down the middle.
Odour remover, 2 of them: $1.50 each
Towel holder: $4 – to replace the wonky one we’re using now, that I made when I was in Junior high, so… about 1980 or so!

I don’t usually get food at the dollar store, but this store has a decent selection, and the prices are a lot better than the grocery stores. Especially the tinned meats. So I got a selection to try out and see if this is something we like enough to be worth stocking in our pantry for the winter, when we are likely to get snowed in for a while.

Chicken flakes, 4 cans: $1.75 each
Light Tuna, 4 cans: $1.00 each
Pink Salmon, 4 cans: $2.25 each
Black olives: $1.75
Artichoke hearts: $2.50
Chestnuts: $1.25 These are cooked chestnuts that I got as a snack for the drive home. 😊
Ice pack: $3.50 We’ve had to throw away some of our smaller gel ice packs, so I got a hard sided type to replace them.

This all came out to $69.25, plus $2.19 in GST and $3.06 in PST for a grand total of $74.50

After that was loaded into the car, it was a walk across the parking lot to my next stop, the international grocery store.

This is a store where we get a few treats or items that we don’t find in any of the other stores we normally go to, plus were we often find new things to try. This is also where I stop for some dim sum for lunch which, together with my drink, cost just over $20.

This is what $206 looks like.

Cleaning vinegar: $5.99 There’s a thing being passed around on social media about how companies have sneakily reduced the acidity of vinegar from 5% to 4%. For people who can, vinegar must be 5% for safety reasons. Well, I’ve looked around, and I’ve yet to see any vinegar at 4% Maybe it’s a US thing. What I did see was 7%. In this store, they have three kinds of white vinegar. Regular vinegar at 5%, canning vinegar at 7% and cleaning vinegar, what I picked up, at 10%. I got their large jug

Bananas: $4.27 for 2 bunches.
Beaver Buzz, 3 Saskatoon berry and 3 Citrus: on sale at 2 for $4.50, or $2.25 each, instead of $2.69 each, plus one cent per can for the enviro fee
Coke Zero: $7.29 plus 12¢ enviro fee
Blade roast: $20.50
Two frying chickens, locally produced and free range: $15.36 (usually, that’s about the price of just one whole chicken)
Smoked applewood bacon (unsliced): $11.24
Smoked bacon (unsliced): $8.17 Both bacons are a locally produced item that we get as a treat.
Raw white prawns, frozen: $9.99, on sale. Regular price, $14.99 These are a treat for the girls.
Truffle olive oil: $15.99 – another treat!
Old Cheddar: $13.99
Mozzarella: $13.99 Normally, we get these cheeses we use mostly for cooking at Costco, but we’re out of cheese, so I got smaller packages for now.
Truffle Gouda cheese: $12.52 This is something we don’t usually see in stock, so I made sure to grab some. Yes, another treat!
Mild goat Gouda: $10.06 Cheese like Gouda are something we get as an “eating cheese” that we enjoy as snacks, rather than in cooking.
Eggs, 1 flat of 30: $9.79
Soy sauce: two at $4.59 each. This is a Philippine brand my husband likes, so I like to stock up on it for the pantry.
fresh green peppercorns: $2.02 We’ve never used these before! We’ll have to look up what to do with them.
Stash Tea, three different flavours: on sale for $3.99 each (regular price, $4.49 each)
Coke Zero: $7.29 plus 12¢ enviro fee
bottled caramel frapp, cold, for the drive home: $3.99 plus 3¢ enviro fee
Jarritos Grapefruit soft drink, cold, for the drive home: $1.99 plus 3¢ enviro fee. At least it was supposed to be for the drive home. I made the mistake of drinking the dairy drink, first. I forgot the caps aren’t a twist off, and I wasn’t going to pull over to the side of the road to dig out a bottle opener! I think I do have one. I’ve returned a multi-tool knife to keep in the car, and I’m pretty sure it has a bottle opener in it.

The total for all this was $202.04, plus $1.65 in GST and $2.29 in PST, for a grand total of $205.98 Plus, I was able to take out another $100 in cash back. We now have enough to get the septic guy in to clean our tank for the winter. He’s really fast about getting to us, so I wanted to make sure I had more than enough cash on hand, before we made the call! Otherwise, I’d have to rush to my mother’s town, where there is a branch of my bank, to take money out before he arrives.

As I was loading up the car, I checked my phone and found my daughter had transferred funds over. I messaged her, asking if there was anything in particular it was for, but it was mostly to just help with the groceries – but it did remind me of a couple of things I meant to pick up for them that I forgot! So, once everything was loaded (with most of the frozen ice packs I brought from home), I went back in and got:

Coffee creamer, largest size bottle: $7.99
soya drink, 1 gallon size: $6.39 This is one of those specific items we don’t find anywhere else. I do wish the girls weren’t drinking soy, though. That stuff’s pretty nasty. Especially since they both have PCOS.

Anyhow. That totalled another $14.38

So that was the damage for today, plus gas, which was just over $20 to fill the tank. Prices have dropped to 163.9¢/L recently, though in the city, I saw places at 162.9 and 161.9 With an energy drink and a snack for breakfast, plus some lotto tickets, the gas station purchases totalled a little over $40.

Not counting my lunch and gas station purchases, the total for today was $543.69 in total.

The international grocery store printed out entry forms with every receipt for a contest to win free groceries for a year. Since I came back for stuff I’d forgotten, I ended up with two entries. Today is the last day for the contest, so I’m glad I made it today. Plus, the receipts for the grocery store, and the Walmart, both have entries to win $1000 gift cards after filling out a “how did we do” survey. Normally, I don’t bother with those, but with the prices of groceries these days, I think I’ll be entering those!

After this will be the Costco and Canadian Tire shop. Canadian Tire is for the litter pellets and another few fire bricks for our outdoor kitchen, if they have them in stock. Since we don’t have a replacement van yet, we will likely have to make a second trip to Costco, just for more bags of dry cat food, now that I know that twelve 9kg bags will not last us a month. In that size, we would need 16 bags for 1 month! If we don’t get anything else that’s large or heavy (like the litter pellets), I can fit eight 9kg bags in my mother’s car, though it really doesn’t like it.

That reminds me. I should book it to get checked. I mentioned how the mileage seems to be getting worse, and he has some suggestions for me to get looked at.

That would be a good time to talk to our mechanic about how things are looking for finding us a vehicle within the financing budget.

I keep saying to myself, as long as we have it before winter, I’m good. In truth, I feel dread, every time I drive my mother’s car. It has had so many problems since my mother bought it, and since we took over keeping it registered so we have a vehicle she can get in and out of, it has had more problems then our van did! The faster we can get a replacement vehicle, the better.

The Re-Farmer

This is why…

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… our monthly stock up shops are getting so expensive.

Yes. We really are being taxed on so many levels, then getting taxed on the taxes.

And our idiot Prime Dictator thinks adding a grocery tax on top of everything else is a solution.

This is why our goal of self sufficiency keeps getting more urgent.

The Re-Farmer

Some good stuff, and some nope! 😄

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My husband was expecting a parcel at the post office so, before the post office reopened for the afternoon, I called the Chinese food place in town to see if they were open. They were, so I was able to place the order (thanks to my daughter, again!) we’d wanted to place, yesterday.

Also, it turns out they just changed their name. Everything else is the same, but it seems there are two restaurants with the same name in the city, and they were getting calls meant for the city locations, instead. Enough calls to warrant the name change!

My post office trip was an unexpected surprise. My husband’s package wasn’t there, but there was a surprise package for me!

More on that later.

Since I was going to town after the post office, anyway, I took advantage of the trip and refilled a couple of our 5 gallon drinking water jugs – and some energy drinks for my daughter and I.

I should learn to drink coffee. It’s much cheaper than energy drinks. I just don’t like coffee as a beverage, unless it’s so adulterated, it’s more coffee flavour than coffee, and the amount of caffeine in tea just doesn’t cut it for me.

But I digress!

Because ordering take out is such a big deal, when living in the boonies, we tend to order enough to last us for several days, and this was no exception. Plus, when the orders at this place are more than a certain amount, they start adding things like free rice or deep fried won ton chips, so there was even more than we ordered. They were kind enough to provide boxes to make it easier to carry, and I had help carrying them out to the car, too.

Once at home and unloaded, we had ourselves some excellent food – with lots left over! I think it’s been about a year since we last ordered from then, and boy did it hit the spot! What a treat.

After that, I got the parcel that came in the mail – after removing the cat that decided it was her bed – and opened it up. So many amazing things! Thank you, M! You’re a sweetheart!

There were a few things for the garden, including packages of catnip seeds, and seed “eggs” with pollinator seeds in them. There were some toy mice for the kitties, treats and two different bags of catnip, including this herbal mix.

I have not seen this brand since we moved out here, but then, I haven’t been seeing catnip of any kind, except for one small, insanely expensive, bag just a few weeks ago at the local grocery store. I have no idea why there would be an apparent shortage of cat nip in this province. Granted, I haven’t been hunting it down at pet stores, but the pet sections of the stores I do go to used to always have cat nip, and now they just don’t.

The other bag in the care package was the usual catnip and nothing else. This one has valerian, honeysuckle and catmint, too.

So I gave the mix to the cats to try, first! Valerian is supposed to have a calming affect, and we could really use some of that! Especially for the night. 😄

The adult cats sure got excited when I started strewing out some of the cat herbs. Even TTT, who has never had any before, was real interested in it!

The kittens even got some but, while they were all over the packaging when I got it out, they weren’t as interested in it once the herbs were actually available. I even put some right next to Soot Sprite, curled up on their favourite blanket bed, and he just curled back up and went to sleep, surrounded by herbs!

They did eventually discover it and have some, and that calming thing really does seem to be working right now! All but one of the kittens are asleep, which is not unusual for this time of day, but one of them is away, and very laid back while playing with a strip of carboard from off the parcel package.

There were some other lovely things, including treats like Truffle salt – something else I haven’t seen since we moved – and useful things like medical glass droppers. Considering how easily the plastic ones that come with the cat medication break, these will be very handy! There was even a old Canadian cookbook I look forward to going through, and an old book on preserving food that is going to be so handy. Some of the canning recipes may not be considered safe to use anymore, but it also includes other methods of preservation, and I even saw a section on sheds and attics for storing preserved foods!

Oh, that last kitten is now asleep, too. It’s so nice and quiet right now!! Even the adult cats seem to have all quieted down, even though not all of them eat catnip. It might be a good idea to give them some after their evening feeding, instead of the late afternoon, as I did today. We might just get some proper sleep, for a change!

While I was out, the lady from the financing company had tried to call and left some messages, so I called her back.

Ha. That was an amusing call!

First of all, yes, we have been preapproved for financing a car, up to a maximum amount of $22,000 (that’s roughlyUS$16,200 at the current exchange rates). Way higher than anything we’d actually be getting.

This was the funny part.

We were also approved for a maximum of $800 a month in payments.

Nope!!!

That is NOT going to happen!

Yeah, I laughed out loud with that. I told her, if we could make payments like that, we wouldn’t need a loan! She understood.

Here’s the other thing.

This would be for just 1 year, as we rebuild our credit. After a year, they would expect us to either trade in the vehicle, or refinance it.

That’s another nope. I don’t want a temporary vehcile!

Now, I already talked to our mechanic about what we can afford for monthly payments. Whatever upper limit we might be approved for, he would be looking for something for us that we can actually afford the payments on.

I told the lady what we could afford for monthly payments on our budget. We’re on a fixed income, but the cost of living is increasing at insane rates, so we have to take that into account, too. Plus, of course, we’d have the monthly insurance and registration payments, so that adds another $100 a month, give or take, depending on the vehicle. She confirmed that our mechanic knew this, and I told her I’ve been very open with him about what we can manage.

Getting payments that low will not be easy; she was up front about that. However, there is still one more bank she’s waiting to hear from, and she said they would start going at it from a different angle to get us a vehicle on payments we can afford. She assured me, however, that they would get us a vehicle.

Oh, that reminds me. Any vehicle we get can have a maximum 250,000 km on it. The first time we went through this, we were applying for a Caravan, and that company’s limit was 180,000 km. The van we wanted was 1000 km over, so they wouldn’t finance it.

One of the things she asked about was the possibility of a down payment. I told her how much we could potentially put down, but said we would prefer not to, because it’s basically our emergency fund. Which mostly goes to vet bills. I mentioned having a recent cat leg amputation. Yes, my daughters did cover it between them but it still needed to be paid for first, then get replaced later.

She completely understood and told me she found herself with an $1100 vet bill after her dog ate a sock! Sadly, after 6 months, the dog passed away due to complications from the surgery, but she at least got those last 6 months with the dog.

So, yeah; she completely understood the need for a contingency fund!

Anyhow.

She once again promised me that they would find us a vehicle we could afford, and we will likely get another call about it tomorrow.

We shall see how it works out!

Until then, I’m just thankful we at least have my mother’s car to use.

The Re-Farmer

Some of this, some of that

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I really look forward to when we can let the bigger kittens out. Once or twice during the night, they all wake up and the bigger ones spend about an hour going insane all over the place. Even the littles – except for the newest, tiniest one – try to get in on the action. This morning, I discovered they somehow managed to remove the liner on one of my steel toe shoes. I hadn’t picked up insoles for them yet, so this was the permanent inner part! Thankfully I was able to fit it back in, but there was a sort of padded layer in between has mostly disappeared. I only discovered there was something missing because bits of it, deepest into the toe, were still there.

I never found the bits they pulled out.

On the plus side, they are very cuddly when they sleep. When I woke this morning, I had one kitten on a hip, and another cuddled against my back. Except it turned out to be three of them cuddled against my back, including the tiny new baby I brought in.

It still needs a name.

So… sleep is a precious and rare commodity right now.

I did try leaving my door open once. The bigger kittens sure liked it, but the little ones were not at all happy about strange adult cats coming over to sniff them. Then Tissue decided to pick fights with some of the bigger kittens, and that was the end of that. For now, at least.

Anyhow.

My husband was a sweetheart and fed the outside cats for me, earlier on. While checking on the garden beds, it seems that one of the hot pepper plants in the grow bags may have been more frost damaged than it looked at first. I still have hope for the melons, though.

The wattle weave bed in the old kitchen garden seems to have really lived up to what I hoped it would be. The second frost did in most of the luffa – at least the parts climbing up the lilac bush – but all the peppers, strawberries and herbs look completely free of frost damage. I’m really impressed by this…

The Classic Eggplant is still blooming!

A lot of the peppers are still blooming, too, but only one Classic Eggplant started indoors survived to be transplanted.

It has been raining off and on since yesterday, so not a lot of outside work is going to get done today. I’ll be heading out this afternoon to pick up a parcel in the mail, and will be likely heading into town after that. My daughter treated us to take out yesterday, but the Chinese food place turned out to be closed, and we got fried chicken, instead. Which was good, but now we’re all craving Chinese food. So she’s treating us again! We had been in town yesterday for my husband’s medical appointment, so we didn’t phone ahead. This time, we have no other reason to go into town, so I’ll call first to make sure they’re open, and then place the order if they are. If they’re still closed, we’ll try again tomorrow.

In other things, my daughter’s house sitting is going well. She made a trip to the grocery store yesterday, which involved driving over in one of my brother’s two mobility scooters (they got them for my mother, who refuses to take one, while also complaining about not being able to go far with her walker because her knees are so bad). It was funny, because when she got to there and parked it before walking into the store, a guy passing by complimented her on her sweet ride! 😄

Meanwhile, my brother and his wife are having the time of their lives, and have managed to take in several countries so far. What a way to celebrate their 40th anniversary! I’m so glad they were able to do this.

Well, time to see if I can get anything productive done today.

What I’d really like to do is go for a good, long nap!

Without kittens.

The Re-Farmer

Another outing

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My big shopping trips to the city may be done, but that doesn’t mean I get to stay home!

I was going to start roasting tomatoes today, but got a call from my mother last night.

She said she called because we (my sister and I) hadn’t called her, and she was bored.

Gee. Thanks, Mom.

Well, it turned out to be not just that. She has a birthday coming up soon and I asked about taking her out to dinner for that, which got her to talking about needing groceries. After much waffling back and forth, it was arranged that I would come over today. We’d do lunch, then run errands.

I will say, it was a “good” outing with my mother, as far as such things go. There were a few things she tried, ranging from assuming my SIL, who is absolute gold and someone who has always been so incredibly kind and patient with my mother, was just a terrible person that would make my brother do things my mother doesn’t want him to do. Which is crazy enough in the first place (starting with the fact that my mother is still trying to control my brother, who is in his 60’s), but it also was about her trying to control us, after her death.

She’s most definitely worried about the wrong people, to begin with.

Part of the problem is that my mother thinks she understands thing she can’t even begin to grasp, they are so outside of her experience. But, because she’s turning 92 and lived through so much, that means she knows everything. Including people’s thoughts and motivations.

It was very difficult to reign in the conversation. I even tried to show photos of my brother and his wife that they sent me, but she didn’t even care to look at them. Even just ordering food was an ordeal. She was going to order nothing but a bowl of soup, because she has to “watch what she eats”. She wasn’t even going to order something to drink with it. Well, I certainly wasn’t going to eat a meal while she watched me, hungry, so I was just going to have my pop. She started telling me to order whatever I wanted, then suddenly remembered this restaurant has pizza and said that if I ordered a pizza, she’d share with me, got all excited, then told me to order a medium pizza.

I would not have ordered a pizza for myself, but if it meant she would actually eat, I went ahead and ordered one. I didn’t even try to ask her what kind she wanted.

She must’ve been famished, because she just inhaled that incredibly hot soup and was very happy to see the pizza when it arrived. Then suddenly she decided she needed coffee to go with it. She was all excited about having pizza to take home and not have to cook tomorrow, so I ended up having just a couple of pieces with her, and half the pizza was boxed up.

So… now that I’m home, I think I’ll have lunch. 😄

Oh, and as we were eating, she started commenting on how her small lunch was suddenly a big lunch, because of me. She said it like it was a joke, but she wasn’t actually joking, but trying to make it my “fault” that she *gasp* had an actual meal.

I’m not really complaining. This was supposed to be her birthday lunch, so I’m just happy that she actually ate something instead of starving herself for no reason. She doesn’t understand nutrition, either, but thinks she does, because she watched daytime talk shows in the past, and some guy somewhere said that if you eat soup, you’ll lose weight. Which is probably not what was actually said, but that’s what she remembers. She keeps cutting out the most nutritionally dense food and replacing it with empty carbs, then wonders why she’s hungry all the time.

Which reminds me. I didn’t see any meat left in her freezer, and she only bought some deli turkey that was on sale. I’ll have to grab some of the smaller packages of meat from our freezer and sneak them into hers.

Ultimately, though, I think I will just take her out to a birthday dinner, without her insisting she’s going to pay for it, and have a proper meal.

But then again, maybe not. If I do that, I’ll just get a constant barrage about what a terrible thing I’m doing, and constant complaining.

I was just thinking that she is having a harder time moving around, so maybe I could bring take out, instead, but that would just result in different insults and complaints.

*sigh*

I want to do nice things for my mother. I really do. It just gets so hard, sometimes. I’m not after any sort of grandiose thanks for it, but I’d at least like to not be treated like crap for it.

Ah, well. If she hasn’t figured it out by her 90’s, I don’t expect her to figure it out now.

In other things…

Today has been a really bad day for smoke from the fires up north. There are no fires near us at all, but we’ve got high winds blowing. Yesterday, we got such wonderful rain – real downpours! – but apparently none of it hit the areas with the fires. Most of them are just being monitored; they’re smaller and not threatening any populations, because no one lives where they are. A few others are listed as under control. That’s it. But there is one fire to the north of us, listed as under control, that is a bigger, and I guess that’s the one that we’re getting all the smoke from.

Kitty status: Pom Pom is getting more comfortable with us. I’ve been able to snag him and hold him for a while, and while he does try to run away if I get too close, once I’ve got him, he’s okay with sitting in my hands (he’s that small!) and getting pets. He hasn’t figured out the litter yet, but he did figure out the puppy pads, until just now. He actually went under my desk, while I was sitting here, writing this post, and started digging in the puppy pads. I put him in the litter box he was right next to and blocked him from coming out again, so he used it. It’s a start!

There is still no sign of Nosencrantz, Butterscotch or Marlee. Not even sightings in the distance. I’ve posted their photos on a local group online, asking people to keep an eye out for them. No responses.

I did get a message from someone interested in adopting Ghosty, asking if she were still available. I said yes, and asked if she would be an indoor cat. I was told no; they were looking for a mouser.

Ghosty is not going to be an outside cat again! I did mention we had some older outdoor kittens, but they wanted a female, and all the most socialized ones are male.

Oh, my goodness! Looking out my window, there was such a huge gust of wind blowing the big maple round!

Now that we have the small scaffolding, I wonder if we can use it to get that one huge branch down, piece by piece, before the tree finally breaks off at that weak spot on the trunk.

Well, there isn’t going to be much we can get done outside in this wind.

Mind you, after visiting with my mother, even on one of her good days, I am going to need a few hours to decompress, anyhow.

The Re-Farmer

Last “big” shopping trip, and…wow

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Today, the plan was to drive out to the smaller, nearer city and hit the Canadian Tire and Walmart.

Of course, plans changed, but I at least got those done!

We’ve been keeping in touch with my daughter that is house sitting, and last night she asked me a bit favour.

Could I come over today?

With antihistimines?

There aren’t any in the house, and she normally doesn’t have allergic reactions, but it seems she is allergic to the pillow she’s using! Or, at least, something on it. The house is a fair distance from town, and she wasn’t about to go hunting for a pharmacy on the mobility scooter! 😄

Well, I just happened to pick up some antihistamines while at Costco, so I wouldn’t even have to stop anywhere to get more. Plus, I got to visit her and get hugs.

Of course, none of us wanted to tell my brother and his wife about this, since they would feel bad.

After I left, though, I got a message from my brother.

I forgot about all his security cameras. His door bell cam picked me up, so he saw that I was at the house, and he was wondering if everything was okay! I told him that I was doing another shopping trip and swung by. He’d contacted my daughter as well, and she just said I dropped something off.

Very hard to sneak one past my brother! 😄😄

Meanwhile, I was also in contact with the Cat Lady and we arranged to meet up. I did my Canadian Tire shopping first, getting three 40lb bags of hardwood pellets for the litter boxes, and another 4 fire bricks for our stockpile. I considered more pellets, but I think three of those bags is about as much as my mother’s car can handle well.

Have I mentioned how much I look forward to a getting another van?

It turned out for the better. The Cat Lady and I arranged to meet behind a dollar type store, where the parking lot tends to be empty. She returned our 1 hard sided carrier and 2 soft sided carriers, then added one of their own hard sided carriers for when she comes to pick up Turmeric. We had a chance to chat as well, and, my goodness. This woman just blows me away. They’ve got so much going on, and yet she’s still so dedicated to rescuing, getting care for and adopting out cats and kittens.

I got there a bit early, so I had time to go into the dollar store and picked up a few things. One of them was a cheap hallway mat to go under my desk and chair. Another layer of protection for the carpet, beyond the puppy pads and litter box under my desk.

Then it was off to the Walmart, for the largest shop of the day.

This is $112 and change, though not all of it was mine. My daughter sent me some funds and a request for the energy drinks and ice cream. The wet cat food is shredded only; no paté. I find the kittens prefer the shredded, and it’s much easier to split up between 6 bowls! There are two 2lb containers of grapes, red and green seedless, that were at an excellent price. Though we have the bread machine now, we don’t use it to make rye bread, which I really like. A 2L of milk to replace the expired one on our fridge. 🙄 We don’t actually use a lot of milk in general. The cream of tarter is an unusual thing for our cupboard. We pretty much never use it, but there are some things I’d like to make, and I’d rather have it on hand now, than have to run out and get some when I finally get around to making the things that need it.

I also got 2 more t-shirts for myself, since, in a smaller size than I got last time. I like my shirts big, but not so big they become a safety risk when working outside! I also got a third one for my husband, which I just realized is completely hidden in the photo.

Aside from this, I ended up having to gas up the tank on my mother’s car twice. That was about $55 in total.

*sigh*

My mother’s car is not very fuel efficient and seems to be getting worse. There’s only so much I can attribute to using the AC.

Have I mentioned how much I’m looking forward to a replacement van?

It’s been almost 6 months since I’ve been using a credit card to rebuild my credit rating. Which means that next month, I should be able to actively start looking for a suitable vehicle, apply for financing and not get dinged with insane interest rates or monthly payments.

Anyhow.

The running around shopping is done. For the rest of the month, we will be able to get what we need locally.

Once at home and everything was put away, I tested out something else I picked up at the dollar store. a long, microfibre duster with telescoping handle, to try and get all the cat hair off the walls in the dining room. The cats tend to hang out by the window the most, but also by the door in the summer, as we open the inner door so they can look out the window of the outer door. All along that wall, a thick layer of cat fur has accumulated. The wall itself, near the ceiling, the curtain rod we don’t use, and all the framed photos hanging on the wall between the window and the door.

Well, that new duster works like a charm! Some things it couldn’t get, like all the sliders that hooks on a curtain would be handing on, or the pull cords to open and close the drapes, but I was able to clear the hair off just about everything else. It looks so much better!

There is another area that’s really bad; in the hallway, I’ve got a decorative garland of flowers running up the hand rail of the stairs and along the ceiling, with fairy lights wound around it. Those flowers have become completely coated with a thick layer of cat fur! Considering that the garland if all flexible fake flowers and leaves, I was surprised to get off as much as I did. What we really need to do is take it down and carefully wash it in hot, soapy water, but at least it doesn’t have a thick coat of fur on it anymore!

While I was doing that, my husband asked me to do the shade on the hallway light. That was not a job for the duster, though. Since he’s so much taller than I am, he was able to go up the stairs and reach the screw to remove the shade for me to wash.

Not until after I got rid of this.

What an insane cloud of cat hair in there! It was about an inch thick!

At least it came off easily.

It may not have been useful for the light shade, but I’m really glad I got the fancy duster.

In other things, we’ve reached our high of 33C/91F today, though at one point, I was seeing the forecast change to a high of 35C/95F/ They hit that in the city. For our area, the 30 year record high was 30C/86F, so we’ve gone past that. We’re getting conflicting predictions for rain over the next while. I’ll probably end up watering the garden tomorrow. At least today looks like it’ll be the last really hot day of the year.

Oh, I just made a liar out of myself. I double checked the monthly forecast, and it’s now saying we’ll have a 30C/86F day on the very last day of September!

The first day of October is supposed to be less than half that, so I expect the predictions to change a lot between now and then.

Either way, the garden is going to lover the warmer temperatures!

The Re-Farmer

Monthly stock up: this is what $314 looks like

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Today, I headed back to Costco, pretty much just for cat food. That way, I could fit more bags into my mother’s car and not have to worry about the weight or space.

I am so looking forward to when we can finally get another van!!!

I did end up getting a couple more things, of course.

That is eight 9kg size bags of kibble on there. With what I got on my last trip, it makes for a total of 12 of these bags. Hopefully, that means we will finally not have to pick up more near the end of the month, and maybe even have enough to last beyond our next shopping trip! Especially with being able to adopt out 2 adult cats and a kitten, with one more adult to go, too.

Oh! There has been a change in plans with those.

Yesterday afternoon, I got a message from the Cat Lady, asking if it was okay if they hung on to the kitten. It’s so sweet and tiny, she wanted to try and adopt it out to an indoor only home. For the lady that wanted the cats, she is okay with taking Turmeric, instead.

I told her I would trust her judgement. The kitten had been indoors for only about a week, so it wouldn’t be bothered with being outside again, but… well, it is such a little thing, and very, very sweet!

So probably on Monday (3 days from now), the Cat Lady will come for Turmeric.

I think Turmeric is going to be much happier somewhere with fewer cats. She’s been a real beeeatch to some of the cats here. Sweet as honey with others, though!

Anyhow.

This was today’s shopping.

Kibble, 8 bags at $26.99 each: $215.92
5 dozen eggs: $18.89 (the price went up again)
Coke Zero: $14.69 plus 32¢ enviro fee
Socks, 12 pk: regular $17.99 with $4 off at the till. I broke down and got those for me. I prefer ankle socks, but I’m down to one pair, and just discovered a hole in one of them. LOL
Hoodie: regular $24.99 with $6 off at the till. At that price, I figured it was worth it. I got an XXL, so it’ll work for both myself and the girls as something any of us can just grab if we need to go outside on a chilly night. Which we aren’t having right now, but fall is coming.

Sub total, $282.80
Taxes: $31.62
Total: $314.47

*sigh*

Then, of course, I had to get gas. At least I could fill up at Costco, where the price was 154.9/L A couple of days ago, it was 155.9 Everywhere else in the city was 165.9

Between the difference in gas prices and the cat food prices, it is well worth the drive to the city to get this stuff. Locally, they have 7kg bags, not 9kg, but they cost $10 more. I could get the “economy” Walmart brand at a lower price, but they’re still only 7kg bags and… well, there’s a reason they are so cheap. The quality of kibble is poorer, and even the outside cats don’t like it as much. They’ll at least eat it, though. The Superstore no-name brand is so bad, the cats won’t eat it unless they’re super hungry. Costco does carry a brand in 11kg bags, but the price per kg is still higher than the 9kg bags.

So on cat food alone, driving to the city to stock up at Costco saves us at least $100. Then there’s the difference in gas prices. That leaves us with room in the budget to buy the fresh things we need to get more often, locally.

I will still need to make one more city trip, though it can be the smaller, nearer city this time. I will need to go to a Canadian Tire and get more litter pellets. We still have, but we need to stock up.

The last time I was at Walmart, just a couple of days ago, I noticed they had the softwood pellets in stock – but they are now the same price as Canadian Tire, which is $7.98. Previously, the Walmart price had been $5 a bag! The hardwood pellets, which Canadian Tire carries, but I’ve never seen in Walmart, is 50¢ less than the softwood. It used to be that the softwood pellets were the cheaper ones, though they rarely had them in stock.

Once I get the litter pellets, that should be it for city shopping trips. Anything we need after this can be done locally until the end of the month!

With the prices going up, it’s getting a lot harder to stock up extra for the winter, when we will inevitably find ourselves unable to get out. Usually for January and/or February. At least we’ll have the quarter beef for the freezer in November or December. I’ve been making monthly payments towards that, but once we have car payments again, we probably won’t be able to do that again. Maybe just a freezer pack, once in a while.

What’s really frustrating is that all these price increases are artificial, and the direct result of our idiotic government spending like a drunken sailor on everything but what they’re responsible for, while adding more and more taxes and destroying small businesses. Then they vote themselves pay increases. Meanwhile, I was just hearing today, the number of people – especially in the under 35 age category – living paycheck to paycheck has increased to something like 35%, with more than 50% of them afraid they will lose their jobs within the year. I never thought I’d be so thankful for my husband being disabled. It’s a fixed income, but he has excellent private insurance, putting us in a much better position than so many others. I can’t imagine how people living on just CPP Disability are managing. The highest amount for that doesn’t even cover rent in most places, even with subsidies. Ten years from now, that’s all my husband and I will be living on, as that’s when he ages out of his private insurance.

Maybe we’ll get lucky and die first.

The Re-Farmer

Three kitties gone, three still missing, and we have scaffolding!

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Well, it’s done.

Decimus, The Phantom and the kitten have been dropped off at the vet. They had to contact the Cat Lady for details, as I only knew about the spay, but not if they were getting anything else done, too. We did talk a bit about how the kitten might be too small to spay, but I had no idea what her actual weight was.

I didn’t get a chance to take photos. I put the wrong cat in the hard sided carrier. I thought The Phantom would have more issues, but nope. It was Decimus. Once in a soft sided carrier, she really tried to claw her way out, so it was a quick load into the car and off I went. I didn’t even stop to close the gate, and my daughter followed after me to take care of that for me.

It was a good thing I left early, because I drove right past the place. I knew I’d missed it, so I found a place to pull over and found it on the map. Turns out we’ve seen the place right from the road, but had no idea it was a vet clinic. We even somehow managed to miss seeing the great big sign in the yard in front of it! 😄

Once I was gone, my daughter brought the food bowls out again and took care of feeding the other cats, since the only way to maintain a fast for the three of them was to not have any food out at all for any of the cats.

Anyhow, the drop off went smoothly; even Decimus had calmed down by the time I got there. The Cat Lady has already picked up our carriers and will return them to us later. She’ll pick up the cats when they are done last this afternoon, though I’m not sure if they’re going straight to their new home for recovery, or if she’s taking them to her own home, first. I do know there is already a recovery and isolation area ready for them to stay at their new home for a couple of weeks, before they are allowed outside.

Speaking of outside, Phantom was really putting the cat proof screen to the test last night! She wanted outside so badly! But she also wanted love and cuddles. I think she’s going to be very happy in her new home, where she’ll be able to go in and out as she pleases, after her recovery period.

As for the cats that escaped out my window, there is still no sign of them. I’ll be heading outside fairly soon and hopefully I’ll see them at some point, but they weren’t around when my daughter fed them this morning. I even went out with a flash light last night before going to bed. Nothing.

So for now, I just have TTT and five kittens in my room with me. At this point, I don’t mind letting TTT go out and explore – she did that yesterday, and there were no issues. This morning, I caught her starting to dig around my pillow and got her off my bed before she could pee on it. Before I left, I scattered bins and packages and all sorts of things all over my bed to dissuade her from peeing on it.

It worked, but…

Yeah. There was a puddle on the puppy pad under my desk. Right next to the litter box with the new clay litter in it. She even dug around the puppy pad enough to pull it part way out from under the litter box. So now I’ve got two of the new larger size pads under there. One under the litter box and right against the wall. The other, partly under the litter box, but more in the area she seems to prefer to go on.

Of course, while I’m at my computer, she won’t go anywhere near it, but she won’t use any of the other litter boxes, either. I just don’t know what else I can do. After I caught her about to pee on my bed, I put her in a litter box, but she just wanted to get out of it. With other cats, I’ve caught them about to make a mess, picked them up and put them in a litter box, and they went right to using it. She holds it and waits for me to leave, instead.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

After dropping the cats off at the vet in the smaller, closer city, I headed to the larger city to meet a guy about some scaffolding. We’d arranged a location to meet, but just had to finalize a time. He wife was having a medical procedure done this morning, so it depended on how long it took for her to recover enough to be released That worked out, since we were meeting at an A&W parking lot, and I got there early enough to finally have breakfast!

When we finally met up, he brought the scaffolding out and set it up, right there. I even climbed up on it, and was quite happy with how well it held my weight (it’s rated for far heavier than I am, but still…) and how stable it was. It also folds up nice and compact, fitting easily into the back of my mother’s car.

As he was putting it in the car for me, he asked me about the hamlet I’m from, and how long I’d lived there. I explained I grew up there, but have been back for only a few years.

Then we had a small world moment. The neighbors that lived across the road from us when I was growing up here turned out to be his godparents! They passed on during the years we were away, and the property sold, and he only remembered that they lived down a gravel road from the highway. It was nice to connect through mutual contacts, though.

So I now have a small scaffolding set up.

That would have made cleaning the eaves on the garage much more secure! The cross pieces can also fit side by side for a wider platform, and it cost me less than half what it would have cost for a new one. I even have a couple of boards that are long enough to go under the legs at each end, should we want to use it on softer ground, though these are intended for indoor use. The girls want to paint the basement ceiling this winter, and this will make that job much easier, too.

Now that I’m looking at the picture as I write this, I can see that the frame doesn’t really have an upside down or right side up. It could be used either way. It would change the height of the steps slightly, which might be desirable, depending on the job.

I’m happy with it.

Oh, I almost forgot. It was really nice and cool this morning, and we had the most amazing ground fog! No chance of taking photos, though, as I had a panicking cat in the back of the car. As I was driving the cats in, I’d go through a few clear, sunny patches, then drive into a wall of fog. It was so gorgeous, though at one point I had to slow down. I could no longer see my usual landmarks, and I wanted to make sure I saw the stop sign at the highway before I drove right through the intersection! I haven’t seen fog like that since we lived on the West coast!

Now, it’s time to head outside and see what I can get done before it gets too hot, and hopefully spot the missing ladies. We’re looking at a high of 24C/75F, and it’s just supposed to get hotter. The forecast for the weekend is insane. Either Saturday or Sunday (currently, it’s saying Saturday) is supposed to hit at least 30C/86F. Last night, the girls saw forecasted highs for Saturday of 37C/99F!!! That has since dropped to 31C/88F or 33C/91F. The weather forecasters can’t make up their mind. Either way, I want to get as much done outside as I can, before things get hotter over the next few days!

The Re-Farmer.