After much fighting, the supports for the car port thingy were put together, slid through the channels in the cover, then dragged over to where it would be set up. What we needed to do next was get the whole thing upright, supported by the lengths of rebar I got to pound into the ground.
Well, here’s how it looks now.
That’s right. It’s all disassembled again.
I have no idea how this thing was put together originally. Clearly, it had been used. From the tool marks on the support pieces, it was also obvious others had struggled with it, too.
It simply would not go up.
This was how it was when I left it, yesterday.
The girls raised the first supports at the end by the tree, which took some doing as one side piece kept spinning, so instead of an arch shape, they were fighting with an S shape. Eventually, they had it so I could pound the rebar into the ground and they set the supports on them.
Of course, there was still the weight of all the other sections pulling on it, so even with the stakes supporting it, that first arch had to be held up. While they did that, I started to raise the next set of supports until they could reach out and hold it, too. They still could not let go of the first support, though.
Then one of the side supports fell off.
After pushing the cover up and over, we were able to get it back together again, but not completely. Plus, the pieces started spinning to the point that the top arch piece ended up upside down. There was just no way to get it back in position again. Particularly since the top arch piece was holding the cover, and the cover had the weight of several other support pieces hanging off of it.
There was simply no way it was going to work. Without any kind of horizontal supports, with the pieces constantly twisting and spinning, plus the weight of the cover, nothing would stay where it was supposed to. It’s not like we could put the supports up first, since they were designed to run through the channels in the cover. Maybe if we had two more people, we could have done it, but not with just the three of us.
Well, we’re just going to have to try and get things painted without any sort of shelter. We do have the market tent, but it’s broken on one side, so moving it would not be a good idea. We’re supposed to have rain in a few days, though when and how much changes depending on which app I’m looking at. If all goes well, we should be able to get at least a couple of coats done before it gets rained on.
I suppose we should take down that dead spruce, first. The only direction for it to fall without getting hung up on other trees is over the bench. The bench should be strong enough to hand it, though, since it’s built onto a tree stump in the middle, plus it has supports on each end. There are enough branches to keep the full weight of the tree from hitting the bench, too.
I managed to get a few things done before the heat finally drove me indoors. I had my lunch and a break in the blessedly air conditioned living room, then went back out again.
Alas, I was defeated, but not just by the heat.
As I write this, my computer tells me it’s 29C/84F out there. This is what the sun room thermometer shows.
Yeah, that reads 36C/97F. That’s with shade and the ceiling fan going. It felt cooler to go into the sun room than being outside.
Before it got too hot, though, the first thing I managed to do was complete our third raised bed cover. Here is how it looks, over our carrots.
I have to admit, it’s the best looking cover I’ve made so far! Appearances aside, there things I would both do, and not do, again.
The first is, I won’t use that plastic hardware cloth again. Aside from the “rigid” plastic being not rigid at all and needing support, the plastic mesh is thick enough to actually cast shade. Which would be great for a day like today over, say, a bed of lettuce or something. However, we don’t have lettuce growing in full sun right now and, as you can see, those carrots don’t need any more shade! However, it will protect them significantly. For more complete protection, I would close off the ends, too.
The second is, those hoops I took off the high raised bed worked MUCH better than the ones I tried using before. These were cut to length from a roll of PEX pipe, and I would definitely use more of this in the future. Once the hoops were secured and holding the plastic mesh taught, the excess was cut off, which was easy to do with just pruning shears. The pruning shears also turned out to be the best tool to cut the steal strapping I used to secure the mesh and the hoops to the wood. An added bonus with having the hoops is that, if this cover were used over a larger bed or directly on the soil, the ends of the hoops could be put over stakes to secure them.
The next thing I decided to do was see if I could assemble the parts and pieces for the carport thingy we found in the barn. The metal pieces had been stored in the hay loft, but the cover piece(s) were in the main area of the barn.
I didn’t realize what they were and used one of them to cover the pile of garden soil by the barn, which is why it’s so dirty in the photo. It wasn’t until I saw that the metal supports had no horizontals that I realized what the pockets in the “tarps” I found were for. Once I figured it out, I took it off the garden soil pile and tried to clean it, but it’s still pretty stained.
Each of the supports is in three pieces. Two side pieces that are hollow aluminum tubes, and one top piece that is the same material, with steel inserts at the ends to join with the side pieces. I tested it out with one set of supports, first, scrubbing the rust off the steel and wrestling the pieces together, then sliding it through a channel in the cover.
As expected, the support was far longer than the cover is wide, which would make for open sides. Which I am good with, but it does make me wonder if that’s how it’s supposed to be, or if the second cover is supposed to be used at the same time. That doesn’t make sense to me, since it would have an open “seam” at the top, from end to end. I’ve never seen this thing assembled, so I’m just guessing.
The test done, I brought the other pieces over. I plan to set it up above the tree stump bench by the main garden area, so I can paint it and not worry about it being rained on. There will be room enough to bring the folding table over for painting, too.
All the pieces got scrubbed down, removing rust and dust (at least I hope it was dust). To assemble it, I worked most of a side piece into one of the channels in the cover, then attached a top piece.
What a pain that turned out to be.
After more scrubbing, liberal use of WD40 and, in some cases, flipping the top piece to use the other end, I got them together.
Maybe not perfectly snug in places, but close enough.
After that, the pieces were long enough to push the rest of the way through the channels in the cover, and still have a couple of feet sticking out to add the other side pieces.
After much fighting, I got them together.
Excpet for one.
I fought with this long enough that I had to get out of the heat and take a break before going back out and fighting with it some more, but I just can’t get it any farther than this. I’ve scrubbed both the top piece insert and inside the side piece tube. I scraped around, and there is nothing blocking it. I even found a tire iron that fit in the tube and tried using it to scrape and possibly widen the opening. I checked to see if the side piece had been flattened in any way, and it was not.
It simply will. Not. Go all the way in.
I finally had to go in to get out of the heat for the rest of the afternoon, and will likely try again later. It’s possible that, as the day cools, the metal will shrink enough for the pieces to finally slide together.
Part of the frustration is that, aside from the straight section where the pieces join, the tupes have bends in them, so I can’t even hammer them together from the other side!
Oh, and one more thing. There are six sets of supports.
I got 10 short lengths of coated rebar to hammer in the ground to secure the supports. I’m short two! Dangit! While I was at the store, I considered getting two more, just in case, but figured I already had two extra. For some reason, I thought there were only 4 supports for the canopy, maybe 5.
Ah, well. As long as the ends are secured, it shouldn’t matter if a set in the middle is not.
It’s starting to cool down outside. I’m going to go feed the outside cats and do my evening rounds, then fight with it again.
Today, I decided to go to Superstore instead of to Costco again, as there were a couple of things on my list I either didn’t see at Costco, or what I did see wasn’t in good shape. Plus, I had a hankering for Superstore’s torpedo buns! 😂
I passed on the photo of the fallen tree to my brother and his wife to let them know about it, and ended up arranging to meet with my SIL for lunch. We had a fantastic visit! After we parted ways, I decided to take advantage of the location and made a quick run through the Home Depot that was next door to the Superstore. I found the plastic conduit pipes I want to use to bury and protect the hose we want to run to the garden tap, which gave me an idea of how much we can expect to spend. While looking for something else, I found short lengths of rebar with a protective coating for under $3 each, so I got 10 of them. I think I need only eight. We found the parts and pieces for a car port in the barn, but if we want to set it up, we need to secure it to the ground somehow. These rebar pieces can be pounded into the ground, and the supports should fit right over them.
I hope.
If it doesn’t work, I can find many other uses for them!
Then it was off to the Superstore. This is was $224.45, after taxes, looks like.
I won’t list the prices for everything on there, but this is what I got.
At my husband’s request, I got nacho fixings – olives, chips and mozzarella cheese. He also requested canned beans as a quick heat and eat. There was a sale on one brand, with a limit of 4 of each type, so I got two flavours. Eight cans at $1.50 each. I had intended to buy a case, but a case of 9 cans was almost $16.
I stocked up on distilled water for my husband’s CPAP humidifier; the cost/4L jug was about half what they cost locally. There’s a 20 pound bag of “almost perfect” potatoes for $11, and a large package of house brand paper towels. I got another case of Coke Zero, even though I got one at the recent Costco trip. This one it to tuck away for later. There’s a couple of boxes of tea; Maple Rooibos and Vanilla Earl Grey. There’s a bag of Basmati rice that I hope is good. I couldn’t find it at Costco, and this is a different brand. We have not had much luck trying different brands! I also stocked up some more on Beaver Buzz energy drinks for my older daughter and I. The citrus flavour was on sale, but I also got root beer and saskatoon flavours. There’s a 2 pound clamshell of blueberries. Regular price was $6.99, but there was a sale at $3.20, with a limit of 1. For fruit, I also got a couple of bunches of bananas, as they were only 35¢ each, instead of the usual 79¢ or more.
There’s a couple of jars of mayonnaise, a loaf of French bread, 4 packages of 12 hamburger buns and a sourdough loaf. I also picked up some fresh Fettuccini noodles, to make the original Fettuccini Alfredo I’ve been wanting to try. I would make the pasta ourselves, but no one wants to do that in this heat.
Last of all, I got cold bottles of water and Coke Zero for the drive home. I ended up only drinking the water, so I’ve got a Coke for later.
All of that, before taxes, came to $216.38 The one thing on my list that I did not get was cat kibble. For that, I will make a trip to Costco. Their cheap dry cat food is too cheap – not even the outside cats want to eat it – but the other large bags cost more than Costco by quite a bit. We’re okay for cat food supply right now, but the difference in price is worth the extra trip to the city.
The shopping done, I swung by the nearby Costco to fill the gas tank. Most places have their gas prices from 157.9/L to 160.9/L for regular. Costco is still at 144.9/L That’s a significant difference!
Now that I’ve been home for a while and recuperated from being around so many other human beings for so long, I’m going to re-watch a video on how to make the original Fettuccini Alfredo, then make some for supper!
At about 5:30 am, I was awakened, first by a flash of light, then about a half second later, a massive peal of thunder! That I even saw the flash of light at all, through my mostly sheltered, small, west facing window, tells me more than anything just how bright it was, never mind being awakened by it.
Almost immediately after, we got hit with a sudden downpour, along with a light show and more thunder. It was gone as suddenly as it started, moving quickly across the region. Looking at the weather radar, the system was a wide, narrow band of severe weather sweeping to the southeast. Later in the day, I was hearing reports from various other towns and cities that experienced much the same thing. Mostly clear skies with just a few clouds, a quick deluge as the system hit, then clear and sunny again!
My plan had been to head to the city early in the day to do our second stock-up shop, so as to avoid the storms predicted for the afternoon. Instead, we got the storms early, and I headed out later!
While doing my morning rounds, I found there was very little damage. A couple of downed branches, and this…
This dead spruce was actually on the ditch side of the fence line. I remember looking at it, earlier this summer, and thinking we could probably take that down before it falls…
I’m not sure how we’re going to clean this up now. It’s not really accessible. The lilac hedge envelops the base, and I don’t want to create a gap in the hedge. It’ll just give the deer another place to jump through.
We’ll figure it out. Assuming the lilacs holding it up don’t just give out and it falls the rest of the way down on its own.
As for the rest of the day, it has been hot and muggy. According to the weather app on my computer, we’re at 28C/82F, but it feels like 30C/86F. We’re supposed to hit 30C/86F tomorrow, then again a couple of days after, before things start to cool down slightly, again. I check different apps, and some say we’ll get more thunderstorms, while other don’t even say rain.
I’d like at least a couple of days of no rain and lower humidity, though, so I can get some painting done outside. Or cooler days without rain, so I can take down more dead trees.
The heat, however looks like it will be hanging around for a while, though!
My brother came out this morning to install a vent for the portable air conditioner they brought for us. It look longer than expected, of course, but we now have an AC in the living room! Yay!
Once that was done, it was almost lunch time, and we both left at the same time. I’d hoped to be able to at least buy him lunch as a thank you, but he had too much to do when he got home. His day was already a long one by then!
Once in the city, I had two places to go. The first was Canadian Tire.
I almost got a heavy duty hose on sale for the water tap project, but then I saw something else and put the hose back.
We needed this kit, more!
We’ve found all sorts of drill bits all over the place, but they’re all mixed up, many are worn out, and quite a few have broken as we tried to use them. What we don’t have is this range of sizes – or maybe we do. Somewhere. These can be used for metal, wood or plastic, and was 69% off. A much better deal than the hose, which would have cost more, even on sale! I had a budget for today for one, not both, so the hose went back.
Altogether, I got:
A 2 gallon watering can, to replace the one by the Crespo squash that is falling apart. $16.99 Plastic hardware cloth, 3′ x 25′ for the raised bed cover. I hope it works out. $34.99 Replacement spool for our weed trimmer. $12.99 A gallon of outdoor paint for the garden bench and “new” folding table. $54.99 The drill bit set, which would have been almost $150. Instead, it was $39.99
The total, after taxes, came out to $179.15
One thing I was looking for was more fire bricks for our eventual outdoor bread oven that I am slowly accumulating, but apparently this location didn’t even have a section for things like wood burning stoves, etc. The woman I asked while she was mixing my paint thought it was a seasonal thing.
Well, at least I got the paint and something to use on the third raised bed cover. If it works out, I’ll use it on the fourth frame, too.
Then it was off to Costco. I actually picked up gas, first. Driving through the town my mother lives in, one station was up to 160.9/L, while the other was still at 158.9/L Costco was 144.9/L !! I wanted to fill my tank but, unfortunately, the dust from driving on gravel roads tricks the gas pump into thinking it’s full, so it kept doing the auto shut off. I kept turning it back on until it was getting close to $25, then just hoped that was enough. When I started the car, the needle was just barely touching full!
Then it was time to do the shopping.
This being a Saturday, I was expecting it to be busy, but still, I find the crowds so draining! That, and so many people just park their carts willy nilly. Annoying enough at the best of times, but I’m using a flat cart!
When it was time to check out, though, the staff was absolutely fabulous, and I was through in no time.
This is what $682.30 looks like.
Ouch.
This trip was a big bigger with some things, as I’m also thinking ahead to our winter stockpile and pantry.
First, there was the “bottom of the basket” stuff that didn’t get unloaded.
Cat kibble; four 9kg bags at $29.99 each I would have gotten more, but not while using my mother’s car. Wet cat food, $38.99 Two packs of Kirkland toilet paper; $22.99 A flat of Coke Zero; $14.69, plus 32¢ enviro fee Box of spaghetti; $13.49 9 pack of mixed pasta; $13.99
Then there was the stuff that got unloaded onto the belt.
Pork chips: $20.10 lean ground beef, one package at $27.38, another at $26.29 ground turkey: $27.88, minus $5 at the till for a sale ground pork chub: $19.99 4 pk of bacon: $19.99 Marble cheddar: $14.99 Old cheddar: $14.99 Extra Old cheddar (a white cheddar): $19.99 two 1L cartons of whipping cream at $4.79 each 4pk of cream cheese: $9.49 Large bottle of Coffee creamer for the girls: $7.49 – that is typically a good price for the smaller bottles anywhere else! 6pk canned chicken: $17.99 (it’s actually gone down in price! A bit.) Walnuts for baking: $11.49 Butter, 5 pounds at $5.49 each 2pk of lemon juice: $4.89 Kirkland brand chocolate chips: $15.99 Glass cleaner; we keep losing our glass cleaner, so I got a set with one spray bottle and a huge refill jug: $17.99 Pork rinds (and this time I remembered to tell my husband it’s for cooking with!): $10.79 Iced tea mix: $9.99 Peanut butter, 2kg size: $10.49 Rotisserie chicken; two at $7.99 each 2pk rye bread: $4.49 two packages of tortilla wraps at $9.99 each A double flat of eggs (60 eggs): $18.89
Sub total was $651.97, plus $30.33 in taxes, for a grand total of $682.30
Ouch.
The sad thing is, I didn’t get everything on my list. I was running out of space. I’ll have to go over the list – and the budget – and make another trip out. The price for dry cat food alone makes the drive worth it.
I was feeling dehydrated by the time I was done Tetrising everything into the car, so I stopped at a gas station just outside the city to pick up something to drink. There was a fruit stand just across the parking lot, so I checked it out. I ended up getting some plums (actually a plum hybrid; he told me what it was, but I can’t remember now), cherries and avocados. The avocados were only a dollar each, which is much cheaper that most places. Altogether, it was another $26 for fruit.
I am so glad to be home now.
I think I’ll make myself a supper using rotisserie chicken and enjoy it in an air conditioned room! We’re at “only” 22C/72F outside right now. It’s almost 7pm, but my weather app says we’re still supposed to go up to 23C/73F before things start cooling down for the night. Last night, we actually dropped to 7C/45F – I had my window open and almost felt cold! 😄 Today is a brief respite, though. Long range forecasts have us approaching, and reaching, for one day, 30C/86F. No rain in the forecast, though, so we’ll be watering the garden. I’ll get to use the nice new watering can, with a rose that doesn’t have a crack in it, nor chunks of plastic braking off the opening! 😄
So yesterday was an interesting one… thankfully, not too interesting!
We hit 30C/86F and the rain that was forecast for our area was suddenly not being forecasted anymore. It was still insanely humid, though. The garden was wilting from the heat, so I set up the sprinklers to water the beds.
Which is when my phone started screaming at me.
Several times.
We were getting tornado warnings. However, the alerts were for the “mobile coverage area”. Which is pretty darn big. Looking at the weather radar after the first alert, the system was right on top of the smaller, nearer city we sometimes go to. My sister lives near there. The system continued to move northward, passing to the east of us.
As far as I know, there were no funnel clouds sighted, but some of the downs got walloped by massive rain, winds and, in some places, softball sized hail! I later saw photos people were posting on some local weather watching groups I’m on, and the damage in places from the wind and hail was pretty bad in places.
We had some pretty clouds blow over our area, and the odd gust of wind.
I’m okay with that.
There was no respite from the heat and humidity, though. My poor daughters, upstairs! My older daughter was working, but my younger daughter tried, and failed, to get any sleep.
I fared somewhat better, at least. Aside from being tackled by kittens, repeatedly, my room was much cooler, and I’ve started to partly sleep through the kitten attacks. I do have to be increasingly careful moving around, though. Question has decided I am her human, so I often have her climbing my leg while I’m on the computer and either sitting on my knee, or forcing her way up into my arms so she can sleep on my chest. During the night, at one point, I woke to find her snuggled over one of my arms.
She wasn’t alone.
One of the grey tabbies was also draped over my bicep.
Something still seemed odd, though. Thankfully, I could reach my phone and use the camera and flash to try and see. Which is how I found Ghosty stretched out in front of my leg and belly. Which is imressive, for such a tiny kitten!
When I had to roll over, I carefully scooped up Question and moved with her. The other kittens took off, but Question just settled in wherever I happened to stop moving, which means she spent most of the night sleeping in the palm of my hand! Another time, I woke to find her draped across my neck, and another kitten curled up around my head.
When my older daughter came in to help do Leyendecker’s meds (letting her sister, who usually does it, to finally get some sleep!), Question had moved to my pillow, curled up next to my face, and slowly slid down until she was on my shoulder, instead. I’m told it was an adorable sight!
After doing Leyendecker’s medications, I did my morning rounds (I’m pretty sure I’m seeing new kittens, but at this point, it’s getting hard to tell!), then grabbed an insulated bag with ice packs in it and headed to the city.
I ended up stopping at a gas station in the town my mother lives in, after discovering I was out of washer fluid. For some reason, the light that’s supposed to turn on and tell me it’s empty, doesn’t. I had some in the car, but after filling the reservoir, I went in to replace the jug. As I was leaving, a woman outside started chatting with me, asking if we’d gotten the storm. I told her it passed us by, but I’d heard about other places that got hit really hard.
She was in one of those places!
They were in a trailer, attending the Treaty Days events when the storm hit. Thankfully, they did not get any damage, though the ground was white with hail after it passed. A nearby town, closer to the lake, got the softball sized hail. She said some of the trucks she saw looked like someone had gone at them with a sledgehammer! Absolutely wild!
I’m really thankful it missed us. There are people in my local gardening groups that already had their gardens smashed to bits from hail in the last set of storms. I’ve since seen other photos posted online from the aftermath, and there were thing like large trucks blown over, pieces of sheds in the middle of fields, downed trees, pieces of roof torn off, and sheds blown apart.
I’ve not been home long, so I haven’t had a chance to see what sort of response there has been. So far, I have not heard of any people injured.
I’m glad I ran into the lady at the gas station. She was really nice.
Once in the city, my first stop was at a Walmart. This shop was mostly stuff we don’t normally buy.
This is what $203.24, after taxes, looks like.
The main thing I was looking for was puppy pads. There are a couple of places the kitten keep making messes in, once of which we will have to do some serious rearranging to access. The other is under my desk, where I was able to put some old disposable diapers we’d hung onto over the years. That, at least, will be easier to clean up this time, but I didn’t have anything to replace the diapers with. I was quite happy to see the Walmart was well stocked in the puppy pads!
The facial tissue was on my list; I didn’t want to get a Costco sized package of those, so I got them at Walmart. The tinned cat food was also on the list. I got a replacement package pectin, which was not officially on the list, but I do try to pick some up as I’m able. I would have also picked up replacement wide mouth canning lids, but they only had regular mouth size. There’s some toothpaste and deodorant, which are also things that I try to pick up extras of, when I can.
Not at all on the list was the broom. It’s just a cheap one, but it has stiffer bristles. The carpet in my room is a strange, felted-looking surface. It attracts cat hair, dust and everything else like nobody’s business! With the kittens, I’m not able to vacuum as often as I should, but I try to at least sweep it. All the brooms we have are soft bristled, so they don’t work very well. I’ve already tried this one out, and it’s exactly what I wanted. It pulls up so much cat hair! That’s make life easier for the vacuum cleaner!
I also got a cheap little toy for the kittens. It’s meant for dogs, but it’s a little fox that crinkles when squeezed, and the kittens will have a blast with it.
Also not on the list, but I did remember we needed, are a couple of pairs of kitchen sheers. They were both quite affordable, but one was less than $3. We’ll see how long they last, compared to the one that cost just over $10. I also grabbed a wooden spatula. We’ve got lots or plastic ones for the non-stick pans, and most have heat damage. The one that doesn’t has a crack in it. I’ve looked at wooden ones before, but they were all oddly thick. This one seemed properly thin enough to actually get under things, rather than just push them around the pan. 😄 It was less than $5, so that was nice, too.
The one big purchase this time, though, was a new pair of shoes! I finally remembered to look for some.
A nice pair of steel toes work shoes! I love the boots I have now, but I’ve been wearing them so much, one of the heels is giving out, and the zipper and Velcro closure are starting to wear out. All the work shoes had security cables on them, so I had to find an employee to unlock a couple of pairs to try on. It was funny when the first thing she did was point out that they were men’s shoes, not women’s. I told her I knew – I can’t fit women’s shoes! What made it funnier is that there was another lady looking at shoes to try on, and she was only looking at men’s shoes, too!
The ones I ended up getting were slightly more expensive, but at $69.97, that’s still a good price for steel toed shoes.
I put them on as soon as I finished loading everything else in the car!
The one last thing not on the list that I got was an actual food item. There was a really good sale on large package of blueberries, so I got two. They were only $3.84 each!
That put me at a before-tax total of $182.68.
My next stop was at the international grocery store, where I was also able to pick up some dim sum for lunch. That really hit the spot!
This is wat $215.21, after taxes, looks like.
This time, it was the strawberries that were at a great price! The bananas weren’t on sale, but still pretty cheap. The Coke Zero wasn’t on sale, but still cheaper than the local prices. The raspberry drink was a cold one for the ride home.
This store is one of the few places I can get the Beaver Buzz brand of energy drinks, so I try to pick up quite a few for my older daughter and I. It’s also where we can find the Philippine soy sauce my husband likes, and a 4L size of soy milk my lactose intolerant daughters drink. There is an uncut piece of locally produced Applewood smoked bacon in there; they didn’t have the big chunks, or I would have gotten a much larger one! There’s regular 3% cows milk in there, and I found the wide mouth canning lids I wanted. There’s some truffle infused olive oil; a real treat that is often not in stock. I picked up some sweet potatoes, because I’m getting a hankering for a sweet potato and peanut soup from a recipe my SIL gave us.
The girls and I had recently been talking about liverwurst. We used to get it all the time. When my oldest daughter was a baby, I’d picked one up and, while continuing to shop, gave it to her to hold and play with. She was very happy with it. It took a while to realize why she was so quiet and content. She had bitten a hole in the package and was happily sucking the liverwurst out! After that, for a long time, we would start our grocery shopping by buying a small tube of liverwurst for her to enjoy while we shopped, then did the same thing again with her sister. The girls were remembering that we used to get it all the time, but we just… stopped. So when I saw large tubes of it in the grocery store, I grabbed one. The thing cost over $11, though!
I also picked up some cheeses from the “fancy cheese” counter. I got an Alexis de Portneuf and a Ceddar with Caramelized onion. I was also looking for some parmesan that was not grated, because I would really like to make …
… the original Fettuccine Alfredo.
The price of parmesan is insane! In the end, I only got a little chunk, and it still cost almost $8 – on sale! Hopefully it will be enough for one recipe of Fettuccine Alfredo.
Other things were better priced. I picked up a 2 pack of whole chicken that was only $13.35 These days, I’d be hard pressed to find a single whole chicken for that price.
The big indulgence, however, was a beef brisket. I’ve never bought a brisket before. I’m going to have to look up how to cook it properly. It cost $55.40, and I normally would never buy a single piece of meat at that price, but it was really a good deal. It was on sale for about $9.90/kg ($4.49/lb was on the signs, if I remember correctly). Looking at the other cuts of beef, they were generally $20+/kg. Even the ground beef wasn’t much cheaper! So that was my major splurge.
What I did not get today was any dry cat food. Normally, I would have picked some up at Walmart., but they didn’t have the large sized bags, and the smaller sized bags were more expensive than what I find at Costco for bigger bags. Plus, I no longer had room in my mother’s car.
I so look forward to getting a replacement van!!!
So after this, I headed towards home. My husband’s bubble packs were in and I was supposed to pick them up tomorrow, but I decided to take a different route and get those, too.
Since I remembered to bring the ice packs, I could do that! 😁
His bubble packs, plus a container of diabetic candies (the last one!!) and a gallon of distilled water for his CPAP, because I forgot to get it at Walmart, came out to $89 and change.
Ouch.
Thank God for his private insurance prescription coverage!
My last stop was to fill the gas tank. The last time I filled it, the prices were still at 149.9 ¢/L, but the next day, the prices went up. Now it’s the same price as in the city; 157.9/L
I did, however, make one more unexpected purchase.
This gas station was newly renovated. It closed down as a Husky and reopened as a Shell. Aside from the fancy new pumps and new signs, not a lot has changed, but there was a new display of books that caught my eye. I was torn between several that would be very useful but, in the end, decided that this one would be the most immediately useful. For all that I grew up in the prairies, I don’t actually know a lot about what native species we have that are edible.
Or maybe I know more than I think. Flipping through it in the store, I did recognise a lot of the photos. I think mostly it’s that there are some that I don’t know if they are safe to eat or not.
I’m going to enjoy going through it more thoroughly!
Filling the tank cost $32.26, and the book was another $24.95, though I did get a slight discount for using my CAA card. According to my receipt, I was also discounted 0.03/L on my fuel. I’ll take what I can get!
So that is our first city shopping trip for the month. There will at least be one Costco trip – maybe two, if the price of cat food is crazy enough to warrant a second trip.
I really miss having a van. I don’t like making so many trips to the city like this!
Yesterday, I headed out to fix the water pipe to the garden tap. It was hot and muggy, and I had sweat pouring off my face, so if you hear me sounding out of breath in the video below, that is why!
The couplings did work. I had to use both of them.
But then… well… here’s the video.
So… that’s a write off.
In theory, I could just dig out the section between where the couplings are, and my unexpected find, figure out where the third leak is and repair that. However, the pipe is so old, and clearly splitting apart easily, it’s not worth it. It needs to be replaced completely.
So now my plan is to take advantage of end of season sales to pick up a heavy duty garden hose long enough to reach from the house to the garden tap, with slack. I am also thinking of picking up some pipe wide enough to run the hose through it. This way, the hose would be protected by the pipe after it’s buried, but if it does need repair, it can be easily pulled out, then put back in again, without having to dig another trench. It would be even easier to attach a line to one end before pulling it out the other way, do any repaires, then use the line to pull it back through the pipe.
I won’t dig up the water pipe until we have what we need to install a replacement, but I am now very curious as to just why there is that wider diameter section of pipe, and how far it extends. I’m also curious as to just how far the hose section coming out of the ground to attach to the house extends, and how it’s joined to the pipe.
Whatever was done obviously made sense at the time, and it did work for about 50 years, which is pretty darn good!
While the power was out, my husband was able to get a weak data signal from the living room on his tablet, so he was able to report our outage to the electric company and check the status of things. The power went out at about 8:30am, and we were expected to get it back around 11:30am.
With no electricity for that length of time, we considered firing up the BBQ or getting the fire pit going to make breakfast. After checking the budget, however, we decided to be lazy. We had a couple of water jugs that needed refilling (we have 4 of these 18.9L jugs, and try to make sure they get refilled when 2 are empty and dry), which meant a trip into town. If they had power, of course. We decided we could afford to get some take out, rather than opening the fridge with no power and losing the cold.
One of my daughters came along with me, with their own shopping list. I knew we had lost power during the night, which must have been a problem for my older daughter! She would have been working on commissions on her computer. The power only flickered, however. Enough to have the garage cam reset itself and be resting in its default position – which is how I knew the power had gone out during the night – but not enough to shut down her computer. My husband didn’t mention having problems with his CPAP, either, so that was good.
As we were leaving and stopped on the driveway while my daughter closed the gate behind us, one of our neighbours was driving by and stopped to talk. He told us the power outage was quite extensive, ranging from the town my mother lives in, to the next large town to the north of us. He had heard the power was expected to return by 11am, though, which was a bit sooner than what my husband had found.
While driving to town, my daughter and I considered our options, should they be without power, too. Happily, they were completely unaffected. Which makes sense. The transformer system runs north and south along the main highways, not east and west, so what affected us would be a different branch of the system than any towns to the east of us.
We hit the grocery store first and I did our refills while my daughter did her shopping. Since we were there, I picked up a couple other things, too – like more paper towels! Leyendecker may not be eating, but clearly he’s drinking, and still doesn’t seem to have much bladder control. We’re going through a lot of paper towels cleaning up, then sanitizing, after him. Yes, we should be using rags, but somehow, they’ve all disappeared! We didn’t have a lot, anyhow.
We then decided to go to a Greek place for take out. My husband and I went there once, shortly after we moved here and he was still more mobile. They have gyros, which none of us have had in years. Personally, I’d love to have a good Donair, but the best place we’ve ever had them was in Victoria, BC, before we had children, and I don’t even know if the place exists anymore. Still, the gyros here are quite good.
Since we had stuff for the refrigerator in the car, my daughter stayed in it with the engine running and the AC going, as it was so hot and muggy already. While waiting for the gyros to be made, I realized they also had deep fried pickles – something else we haven’t had in years! So I got an order of those, too. 😊
While I was there, my daughter got a message from my husband that the power was back. It was out for only 2 hours! That’s the longest we’ve been without power since moving out here, but I’m not complaining at all. That was a very fast return.
So we had a treat for the day. Except my older daughter, who’s in bed for the day. It’ll be “breakfast” for her, when she gets up for the night.
One the way home, I remembered to stop to get the mail, and picked up these.
The couplings are in! We can finally try and fix that water pipe to the garden tap. I really hope this works, because I’d hate to have to dig up the entire line.
It’s going to be a challenge just to dig around where the crack is, there are so many roots around the pipe. From what I can tell, the roots are small enough I should be able to cut through them with a spade or loppers.
My other thought is, what to use to cut the pipe itself. All our cutting tools are designed to cut wood, not PVC pipe. I’m sure I’ve got something I can use, though. The main thing is digging enough space around it to have room for a cutting tool to work without biting into the soil. We do have a pipe cutter, but it’s for cutting much smaller copper pipe, not something like this.
Yesterday, my daughter juiced the cherries we picked, and the pulp has been hanging to drain in the cat free zone overnight. We’ve got a total of 5 cups of juice. A basic jelly recipe is for 3 1/2 cups. The remaining juice isn’t worth doing a second batch, so I’ll make a syrup with that. We plan to actually water bath can the jelly, so it will be shelf stable. With cooking the jelly, preparing the jars, then using the water bath canner, plus making the syrup, we’re looking at a lot of time over a hot stove, on a hot and muggy day. My daughter and I decided to wait until things start to cool down.
All the more reason to have an outdoor kitchen!
Hot and muggy though it may be, I think I’ll go out and see if I can fix the water pipe! I’m really eager to see if it’ll work. I’m already thinking ahead to fixing the support post the tap it attached to, which is rotting at its base, and bringing over the double laundry sink we found in the shed, to set up a vegetable washing station.
I never thought I’d ever get so excited about fixing a pipe. 😄
I will, however, have to pry Question off my shoulder. She’s been napping on me since I sat down at the computer!
I am standing in our driveway right now, where I can get a decent data signal. At least enough to do text.
As I write this, we have been without power for about half an hour or more. We had storms blow past us, and a lot of rain last night. I could tell we lost power, at least briefly, while I was asleep. Right now, things are pleasant, but from the weather radar, the city is being hit with a severe storm at this very moment. Which likely explains our power outage.
This whole, “go to bed early to wake up early” thing seems to be backfiring. I didn’t finally fall asleep until past 6am, which was when I was intending to be outside and working! Then my daughter came in for Leyendecker’s 8am medicine and all round cat feeding. After he got his meds, she stayed with him in the bathroom to make sure he ate his new UTI food. I fed the rest of the cats inside, then went to feed the other cats, but skipped my morning rounds, going back to bed to try for another hour or two of sleep. So here is a picture from yesterday!
The mystery squash in our compost pile are doing amazing! There are at least two varieties in there; one can be distinguished by the whitish patterning on the leaves.
I did manage to get about an hour of sleep when my daughter came in at the time I asked her to, because we needed to go to the dump. Thankfully, today the dump is open long hours, so I got another hour or so of sleep, if sleep it could be called, before finally giving up and getting up.
Mind you, only part of it can be blamed on simply not being able to fall asleep. I can’t actually say how much of it is because of that. Last night in particular, it had more to do with being turned into a jungle gym! A couple of times during the night, the kittens got very playful, and decided my legs were the perfect place to play. It was a hot night, so I wasn’t under the covers, which made my toes fair game for nibbling and nuzzling. I had at least three kittens wrestling on my left leg and my ankle ended up completely covered with the tiniest of scratches from the tiniest of feet. Just enough to start itching!
The kittens did sleep most of the night, though, so they can’t be entirely to blame, either.
Then there was Decimus, who wanted in and out a couple of times. She’ll come in long enough to nurse the babies, then leaves. At least she is very polite when she asks to be let out. Especially at night. She knows that when the motion sensor light turns on, I will check to see why it turned on and let her out. Only if I’m asleep does she actually scratch at the door.
Then, once the kittens quiet down, Nosencrantz creeps over to try and have her nightly snuggles and face rubs.
Marlee is quite unhappy with the kittens, so I often hear her snarling and growling, night and day, even if she just sees them and they’re ignoring her. Kittens being kittens, however, they are starting to want to go over and play with her, and she’s not having that! Her solace has been to go to the door and scratch at it as if she wants out. But she doesn’t want out. She wants attention. So when I sit up to see who is scratching at the door, she jumps up on the bed for attention. Given her abandonment by previous owners, and 2 years surviving harsh conditions, I’m not about to turn her away. She’s gotten comfortable enough with me that she will actually curl up on the backs of my top leg, using my bottom leg as a bed and go to sleep!
The only one that’s not keeping me up at night is Butterscotch. Retired Grandma has no interest in such things. She has, however, gotten to the point that if a kitten comes near her, she not longer hisses in alarm, but will actually give them kisses, and let them share a food bowl with her.
Almost the entire time I’ve been trying to write the above, I’ve also been fighting off Question, who would climb up my leg, then try to climb onto the keyboard!
Or do this.
Believe it or not, we do wash her face often!
I am finally get a break from her, as she tries to nurse on Decimus while she is at the food bowls. Oh! She managed to twist around and get nip! 😄
When my older daughter finished her work for the night, she came down and we chatted for a while. She suggested I try sleeping in the cat-free living room. That couch is quite comfortable to sleep on. I might just try that.
Anyhow.
After a few disjointed hours of sleep, my younger daughter and I loaded up the car and did a dump run, then continued on to town. We picked up some cranberry juice to try Leyendecker with. I’m still not sure how to give it to him. There were no supplements that we could mix into his food, instead. We also swung by the vet clinic to see if they had puppy pads. I need to put some under my desk, because at least a couple of kittens have decided right up against the wall is THE place to make a mess. They actually seem to wait until I’m out of the room to do it. I’ve caught them going for the spot and repeatedly put them in the litter box, and they still managed to sneak in and make a mess. Cleaning it up requires lying down on the floor and reaching, which is incredibly painful. My daughters both have damaged knees and joints, so it’s not like it’ll be any easier for them to clean it up. I want to lay puppy pads down. The clinic turns out to not sell them. Which means a trip to the nearest Walmart, I guess. Not something I’m up to, today. I did have some disposable diapers, though. We got them to have on hand for a friend with a baby and a less than ideal home situation, who would sometimes need them. Her children are much older now, but we just left them, and even brought them along when we moved. I had intended to open them up to collect the liquid absorbent crystals they contain, to try mixing them into potting soil, but never got around to it. So, I just cut off the elastic parts so the absorbent part could lay flat, and spread them out under my desk where the kittens go. It did make clean up MUCH easier, but I didn’t have that many to begin with. They will do for now, I hope (as I look under my desk and dread using a flashlight to check if there’s a mess on one of them or not).
Oh, my goodness. Everything has been quiet behind me, so I turned around to look. Decimus is lying on the floor with all 6 kittens contentedly nursing. What a good little mama she is!
Well, it’s time to do the afternoon feeding of the cats, with Leyendecker being fed separately in the bathroom. At least this time, we don’t have to try and shove meds down his throat! It’s too early for them to be making a difference, yet, which means we’re still finding and cleaning up big puddles.
*sigh*
It’s a good thing we’re such sucks for the cats!
I still need to go outside and check the garden beds. I was intending to set up the sprinklers and soaker hoses, but when I fed the cats outside, it did seem like we got rain at some point. I don’t think it was enough, though. Still, after yesterday’s heat, and today being just as hot, the garden could use a good watering! At least we’re only slightly above average temperature for this time of year. The 30 year record high was 32C/88F in 2007, while the record low was 10C/50F in 2004. I’m okay with what we have now! I just can’t tolerate the heat as much, as I get older.
Okay, Re-Farmer. Time to stop procrastinating and get something useful done!
The Re-Farmer 