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My laundry is cursed

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

Okay, I’m done. Just done.

Can anything else go wrong?

Don’t answer that…

I’ve just spent the last several hours fighting with a single load of laundry. The laundry I tried to do last night that ended up flooding the entryway.

Today, the first thing I did was remove the clothing that was still in the water, wringing it out as best I could, and putting it back in the laundry basket. While I was doing that, I realized…

I was seeing… daylight?

Check out how low that is. The top of the basin is usually just under the top of the washer. It was about 3 inches lower. There is a window in the wall behind the washer, with sunlight shining through some openings in the back of the machine, and I was seeing it only because it was so low.

Once the clothes were out, I used the new syphon pump to drain the water into a bucket. The breaking main door was opened and left open, to put as little stress on the hinges as possible.

I had to fight off cats, every time I came in and out. They were so excited to be able to see through the storm door, and sniff at the slightly open window!

Once as much water was removed from the basin as the pump could get, I left it be, hoping that without the weight of the water and clothes, it would lift itself up again.

While giving it time to do that, I dumped the basket of laundry into the tub. It had already been washed and needed to be rinsed, so I added water and stomped on it with my feet, like I was stomping grapes, to rinse it out. When the old washing machine broke, that was how we did our laundry until we could replace it.

The down side of doing laundry that way is, it’s hard to squeeze out the water. Which makes it much more work for the dryer. I did use one of the arm bars to twist as much water out as I could, but decided to take advantage of the sunny and warmer day, and hang them on the clothes line.

Before I did, though, I checked on the washing machine.

That was encouraging. The basin was almost at the top again.

I left it be to head outside and wipe down the clothes line – it hasn’t been used in a long time – while a daughter lugged the laundry basket out for me. While hanging the clothes, I made extra sure to pin them on well because, if they fell off, they’d fall right into mud, snow, water or even deer droppings, depending on where they were.

I did notice that we need to replace the clothes line. It’s a plastic coated wire line, and it’s so old, the plastic was cracking all over. I don’t want to get rust on the clothes.

One of the handy things we got were a couple of S clips. Our clothes line is on pulleys, so we can just stand on the laundry platform and move the clothes on the line, rather than having to drag a basket across the yard. With the weight of the clothes, it starts to sag, but S clips placed strategically between the clothes, holds the top and bottom together and reduces the sag. I had just put on the second S clip and was getting hear the bottom of the basket when…

… the clothesline snapped.

Almost all my laundry, now lying in the mud.

*sigh*

Well, we had to test the washing machine out at some point.

After a daughter and I picked up the laundry and brought it in, I decided to do a test run with half a load. I made sure the sump pump hose was set up out the window before even plugging the machine back in.

The cats were wild with curiosity.

Finally, it was time to plug it in and…

Nothing happened.

So far, so good.

I put in the half load of clothing, added the detergent, and finally hit the power button.

It turned on, and did nothing else.

Still, so far so good!

I started setting the machine for a normal load. All the buttons worked, and the timer showed 63 minutes, just as it should. I started the load, and it was soon filling with water.

I wasn’t sure it was so far so good, though. Didn’t it usually take longer before it started filling? The machine does a bit of a jig with the basin as part of its automated load size system. We don’t normally do small loads of laundry, so I’m not sure. Plus, there had still been some water at the bottom. Maybe that threw it off.

Being paranoid, I set up the household step ladder across from the machine and sat there on my phone, supervising it.

As the machine filled, the timer counted down.

It kept filling.

And filling.

And filling.

That was a small load. It should have stopped earlier.

Then I realized the countdown on the timer was at 55 minutes – and it wasn’t changing.

I do appreciate that the washing machine has a window in its lid. I kept watching the water level slowly rising. The basin did start to agitate a bit, but kept stopping, while the water kept going.

Finally I paused it, checked the load and restarted it.

It kept filling.

The timer stayed at 55 minutes.

About this time, my other daughter came down to see how my cursed load of laundry was doing, and I told her what was happening. When the machine still wouldn’t stop filling, and the level was just way too high, I finally shut it off. Clearly, there was something wrong with the machine.

I got my daughter to bring me the syphon pump while I removed the machine’s drain hose from the sump pump hose that was running out the window. The hose from the syphon pump fit into the sump pump hose, nice and snug – I could pump straight outside, instead of hauling buckets!

The cats REALLY wanted to check things out!

I started to pump, but there wasn’t enough of a seal and water started to leak from the join, so I went to get some electric tape to seal it.

I had just gotten the tape from another room, when I started to hear splashing sounds.

I came running to find water shooting out of the washing machine’s drainage hose. The machine had turned itself on and was draining!

This time, I had the presence of mind to shove the end into the washing machine. The little step ladder was still there, so I was able to climb up and reach the plug while staying dry.

Now that I think about it, the machine turning itself on to drain the basin may be a failsafe system, to make sure the basin wasn’t left with heavy water in it for too long. Which would be a good thing, if we actually had somewhere for it to drain, but with the pipe clogged, we don’t, and the only way to stop it is to unplug it!

My younger daughter, sweetheart that she is, went running for the mop and bucket as soon as she heard the splashing. We got the water cleaned up as best we could, then she dried off the hose connections so they could be taped together. Meanwhile, I started taking the clothes out – again! – squeezing as much water out them as I could, and putting them back in the basket, while my daughter started pumping water out.

We got that done, and then I took the laundry into the bath tub again, then headed outside, while my daughter used the syphon hose to empty out most of the mop bucket, so it would be easier to dump outside.

That pump and hose system through the door works really well.

While outside, I gathered up the broken clothes line. That took a while. It’s a long line! My daughter came to join me, and when we went into the sun room to put the line away until we had time to grab some tools and remove the line tightener, which is still good, we talked about how I want to set things up in the sun room to make a surface for plants above the swing bench.

Not something we’re going to do today.

Then we headed in, and I was talking about having to still do my laundry with my feet when my daughter started taking off her shoes by the tub.

She said I was having a bad enough day, so she would do it for me.

What a sweetheart!

So that’s done and, since no amount of manual squeezing matched the spin cycle of a machine, the load is being dried in two batches, so as not the overwork the dryer.

We went from not being able to do laundry because of a clogged drain, to now having a broken washing machine.

I hope it’s still under warranty. I’m not sure something like this would be covered, though.

As for the drain…

When I had the chance, I got my daughter to stand near the laundry and listen, while I ran both taps in the kitchen on full. She heard no gurgling and no sounds of water backing up the pipe.

Could we have finally cleared the clog?

I sure hope so. I’d really like something to go right!

Actually, something did go right. Wanting to cheer myself up, my daughter and I went to check on the seedlings in the big aquarium greenhouse. There are more sprooots! More Lady Godive and Kakai hulless pumpkins have sprouted, and I spotted a Styrian seedling just breaking ground. We also have more of the cantaloupe type melons! We have an almost 100% germination rate on those! There is only one out of 8 pots of Halona melons that hasn’t germinated – and those are seeds from last year’s garden, so they’re more than a year old. One of the grocery store melons, which has 4 pots, had only one seed germinated, but now the rest of them are up, too.

That did a great job in cheering us both up. :-)

Tomorrow, I want to call the plumber and, now that the washing machine is doing crazy things, call the appliance guy that came out to do warranty work on it before. I want to describe to him what happened, before trying to find the info for the company about possible warranty work.

What a day.

My other daughter commented on how all this was somehow to “make up” for our not being flooded outside, like so many others are!

It could most definitely be worse.

The Re-Farmer

Flooding of a different sort

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What a wet and terrible end to the day! And it’s not over yet.

No, I’m not talking about the storm related flooding outside. Nor am I talking about the water collecting in our old basement.

No, this is a completely different sort of flooding.

I tried to do laundry.

We’ve been having issues with our laundry. A while back, we discovered that when the washer tried to drain, the water would slowly back up the drain pipe and start spilling on the floor.

Cleaning that mess when it first happened was when we discovered that the septic had backed up into the old basement, and we figured it was related.

Photo by Hilary Halliwell on Pexels.com

It wasn’t.

Somewhere in the pipes, there’s a bottleneck block. Wherever the block is, it’s past the T where the drain pipe from the laundry joins the main pipe from the kitchen. The plumber’s snake won’t make the bend, so we haven’t been able to clear it.

We’ve used super strong (septic safe) drain cleaner. We’ve been doing regular pipe-cleaning bacterial treatments (that are also designed to help break down the contents of the septic tank). So far, nothing has worked. In fact, it was getting worse. We’ve had to hover around the washing machine, waiting for the drain stage, listen for the water coming up the pipe, pause the machine, wait for the pipe to drain, then start it up again. Repeatedly.

The length of time it takes for the pipe to fill has been getting shorter.

Today, it got impossible. Almost as soon as the water started to drain, the pipe would fill and water would literally start shooting out the opening. Of course, it takes a moment for the water to stop flowing after the pause button is hit, so there was basically no time for there to not be water coming up the pipe.

I tried using a smaller plumber’s snake that we have – one that has a bottle brush type of end that is great for pulling cat hair out of the bathroom sink. I think I even managed to get it to bend at the T. Pulling it up, though, there was no sign of anything stuck to the bristles that would show it had brushed up against something blocking the pipe.

There was no way I was going to be able to drain the washing machine this way, and it couldn’t possibly be good on the electronics to be constantly hitting the pause button over and over. I started thinking, if I could drain it into a bucket or something, but that would take a pretty large bucket, and quite a few pauses to empty it. If only I could just drain it straight out of the house.

*lightbulb moment*

I remembered we have that spare hose for the sump pump. The washing machine is in the entry, not far from the main doors we aren’t using because of the hinge problems. If the hose were long enough, I could open the inner door and run the hose out the storm door window, which has no screen.

So I went to the sun room and got the hose. It was more than long enough. I was in the process of checking to make sure the drain hose on the washing machine would fit, when it happened.

The washing machine, which was still on pause, turned itself on, and started to drain.

I was holding the drain hose.

Water started splashing all over me, the washing machine, the dryer and the floor, with remarkable pressure.

I hit the pause button.

Nothing.

I hit the power button.

Nothing.

I kept trying to turn the machine off, but it just would not respond. Then I noticed the display showed something about the door. So I tried to lift it.

With the machine running, it should have been locked.

It opened.

Meanwhile, I was trying to hold the hose, with water spraying, away from the machines and the outlets behind them, to spray onto the floor instead, but there’s not a lot of length to work with. The machine needed to be unplugged, but I was soaking wet.

By then, I was already calling for help, and the family came running. I quickly said that someone needed to unplug the washing machine while staying dry to do it. My older daughter launched herself over the steps (there are only 2, but they were also wet) and onto the machine to reach the plug and got it done.

By this time, half the water of a very full drum was flooding the entryway and pouring down the basement steps.

Another time when I’m glad we have unfinished basements.

I asked for a broom and my younger daughter got it for me while her sister got down from the washing machine – with considerable more care than how she got on it! I started sweeping the water down the stairs, while we also tried to move various things off the sopping floor, untangle the sump pump hose, and so on. After a while, my daughter took over with the broom, and I went into the basement to see what the status was, there. The basement floor is not the least bit level, and the water was starting to run under the root cellar door and pool behind it. Nothing else in the root cellar was affected, though.

Back upstairs I went, and got our mop and bucket. My daughter started mopping up the entryway to get as much as she could, then headed into the basement to clean up as much as she could there, too. The water had continued to flow past the root cellar door and was starting to puddle about half way to the other end.

That washing machine has a huge drum. The machine adjusts the fill size automatically, based on how much is in the tub (I’m assuming by weight), and it had been full to the top. The first time I tried to stop the water, I’d accidently hit the power button instead of the pause button. That meant I had to start the load over. I think the weight of water in the drum messed things up, and it filled for a much larger load.

My daughter also adjusted the pedestal fan I had moved to help dry out the far corner of the basement that was getting damp, then set it to oscillate to try and get air circulating to both ends of the basement as much as possible.

I went back to the entryway and started drying off the washer and dryer, which also got unplugged. After a while, I got the sump pump hose again. The washing machine’s hose fit into the end, but wouldn’t stay. I ended up duct taping them together. I was then going to tape the hose to the side of the drier to hold it in place, but the duct tape wouldn’t stick to the drier. Wiping it down apparently didn’t get it dry enough. So I left it for now.

Since we were dealing with water, anyhow, I went into the old basement to sweep the standing water into the drain. As I was thinking about what happened, wondering out the machine turning itself on and not turning itself off, and why the door didn’t lock, it finally occurred to me.

Once I realised I could open the door to the washing machine, I could have aimed the drain hose into the drum. In the middle of everything going on, it just never occurred to me.

*sigh*

Extending the hose out the door, however, will work. Once everything is dry again, we’ll plug the dryer in. Then, after making sure the hose is set up to drain through the door, we’ll plug the washing machine in and see what happens.

Hmm… this would actually be a good time to test out the new syphon pump and drain the tub that way. The washing machine can’t be set to go straight to another part of the cycle; you can only start a full wash cycle, or pause part way through one. If we plug it in and it doesn’t, say, turn itself on again, the only way to get the machine to drain the tub would be to start a new load.

What a pain.

Meanwhile, I’m going to have to see what numbers in the budget I can juggle, so we can get a plumber in.

Not that that will happen anytime soon, with all the flooding happening right now. I had expected the main road to wash out in a particular spot, but I’ve since seen photos people shared showing that it has washed out right at the highway – and the (no longer used) church and bell tower at that intersection is completely surrounded by water.

Even if I called a plumber now, I wouldn’t expect them to have a chance to get out here for days, if not weeks. I imagine all the plumbers are insanely busy right now!

How bizarre that, with all the flooding going on around us, the flooding we’re having to deal with is from our own washing machine.

It’s past midnight now. I’m going to go to the old basement and do one more sweep before bed. I’ll leave dealing with the washing machine for day time.

What a way to end the day.

The Re-Farmer

In a state

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I just found out that, this afternoon, our rural municipality, among many others, was declared in a state of emergency. People were informed where to pick up sand and sand bags, if they need it, and where to muster if they need to evacuate.

Where we are, things are not so dire. One of my neighbours drove the roads in the area, including the one past our place that I’ve been checking. It is nowhere near the worst if them. He drove through all the washed out areas, as he has a truck that can handle it, but I wasn’t sure he would make it through some!

Around our home, however, the water continues to slowly recede. The rain has stopped, though we did see a few snowflakes. The water seeping into the old basement has not increased, though it hasn’t decreased, either. One corner of the new basement is damp, so I put a fan on it. Before we moved here, my brother had found that corner full of water, with mold all up the wall. It was a huge job to clean up. A rain barrel had been left unattended outside that corner, during a rainy summer. It overflowed right at the wall. We now believe the weeping tile, at least near that corner, is filled with sand and soil, which I see washing through the drain to the septic tank, because of this. That corner now still gets damp occasionally, and we need to keep an eye on it.

We are very fortunate where we are. We aren’t much higher than other areas, but it’s enough to make a huge difference. I’ve been seeing other photos people are sharing on Facebook, and it is pretty devastating.

We have much to be thankful for right now!

The Re-Farmer

Road conditions – extended!

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This morning, while switching out the trail cam memory cards, I found a new sign on the main road past our place.

That is not where I expected to see a road closed sign! This road has a lot of traffic, as it’s the main road to get to quite a few farms. I wasn’t surprised that there might be a problem, though. The municipal drainage ditch that washed out the road I’ve been checking crossed the main road about a half mile up from here. I just would have expected the road to be closed further to the east of this intersection.

I saw a large excavator going by our place yesterday, so I decided to walk to the washout and see what, if anything, was done there.

It turns out, nothing. I could see the tread marks continue past the washed out area.

This is the section that’s too deep for me to try and cross with my short rubber boots. The third area I saw yesterday that was starting to wash out has gotten bigger, but overall, things have not gotten much worse. During my walk up, it seemed that the water had receded in a few places in the fields, too.

I did get some video; this is raw from the camera, with no editing.

The winds from the north were quite high – enough to make me glad I wore my winter parka this morning, as I was walking back against the wind!

With the amount of snow that has melted away, and the water around the inner and outer yards somewhat receded, I went over to check on the septic field (which, as my brother pointed out when I called it that, isn’t actually a septic field, because we have an ejector. It’s the area where the grey water and, this spring, at least, runoff collects) and the sheds that I could get at. There was enough snow gone that I decided to check our back gate.

I’m glad I did!

It’s completely torn loose! The other end is held up by the chain and lock. You can see the U nails/staples in the gate post. The wire mesh of the gate was torn right off. Considering there is snow on top of the mesh, this happened quite some time ago, but we haven’t been able to get over this way to see it.

My guess: deer on the road got startled and plowed their way through the gate.

This secondary driveway accesses the main road. Since the gate was down anyway, I decided to walk up the road and see why it was closed.

I found out what the excavator was doing, yesterday!

It patched a section of road that had been washed out completely, at a culvert that drains into our quarter section. As you can see, the patch is already starting to wash out!

I didn’t try to walk any further (I’d already walked about 2 1/2 miles by then), but looking further down the road, I thought I could see another area that was washed out, maybe a quarter mile up the road. I’m thinking at, or near, the municipal drainage ditch.

Just look how far that new gravel has been washed down!

This culvert is not part of the municipal drainage ditch system. I believe it’s been here since before my parents acquired the farm. I remember playing in the culvert when I was a kid and, from what I can see of it, I think it’s still the same culvert, and hasn’t been upgraded or anything like that. No need to fix what ain’t broke!

Not far beyond the fence line is an area that I remember being just a really rough spot across the low area. There is water flowing here only during spring melt, or in excessively wet years. When the cows walked through it, their hooves would sink into the mud, squishing the soil into hills and holes. At some point while I was living in other provinces, a pair of narrow culverts were buried here, to create a sort of low driving lane. The washed out gravel is actually starting to go over this “lane”, and you can see just beyond it, where water is flowing through the small culverts. This seasonal “creek” continues on to the field the renter has been growing corn in the past two years, and eventually connects with the municipal drainage ditch. Which means that this water is contributing to the flooding that has washed out the other road.

On the way back, I freed up the gate from the remaining snow on it, and make it look like it’s fixed. :-D

It’s actually being held up by a single barb on the lower strand of barbed wire. We’ll have to come back with tools to fix it properly. For now, it’ll likely come down again with a stiff breeze! :-D What I should probably do is find a post to wrap the wire mesh around, then affix it to the gate post in a way that’s more flexible. Maybe even add hinges. We’ll see.

On the list of things we want to do is extend the main driveway all the way to this secondary driveway with gravel. It came in handy the first time we found our gate’s lock glued shut, and we had to go out this way to get to town – and buy bolt cutters! Once we get past the collapsing log building in the inner yard, it gets very bumpy. At some point, someone had driven through when it was muddy, leaving deep ruts all over an area of it. We’ve tried to keep at least a lane mowed, so we can see where we can drive through without hitting rocks, or who knows what else that’s hidden in the grass and thatch.

When I have the chance, I want to make my way through the fence around the outer yard and check the gravel pit that the renter dug out last year. It should be very full of water, right now!

After checking out the road conditions, I also checked out newly accessible parts of the inner yard and found some things that got me very excited – but that will be for my next post! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Water levels, on the road

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After seeing the sign the municipality put on our road, I decided to check out the status of where things are washed out.

While walking over, I was paying to much attention to the state of the road and the ditches, I completely missed the 4 sandhill cranes in a tree, until they suddenly took off, making their croaking sounds. Startled the heck out of me! :-D

Along with the sign at the intersection, they also marked off the flood zone with high visibility markers.

There was a new section, just starting to wash out.

This is the smaller washed out area – smaller, as in how deep the water was, and how much was washed away. It actually covers more area. You can see all that gravel washed into the ditch!

This is the same area, from the other side.

I didn’t try to cross the bigger washed out area; my rubber boots aren’t tall enough for that water!

You can see the clay that’s left behind, after the gravel got washed away. In some areas, I think that clay is the only thing keeping the damage down.

That’s a lot of gravel in the ditch!

Before improvements were made, when this area washed out, there would basically be a ravine, cutting through the road. Right now, if someone had a sturdy enough vehicle, one could still drive through this – so I was only a little surprised during my walk home, when I heard a vehicle coming up behind me!

I wouldn’t dare go through this with our van.

I’m seeing traffic using the main road, so hopefully that is still in good shape. Mind you, if it did wash out, it would be after the first mile, and people would have to take other roads to get around it, and I don’t know what those roads are like right now, either.

I’m quite thankful we don’t need to go anywhere. Our work is right here at home.

The rain continues to fall as I write this, though it’s so light right now, I can’t really see it. We’re supposed to get up to another centimeter of rain this evening – less than half an inch – with even less, overnight. We are on high enough ground that we should not have issues with overland flooding, but flat enough that the water is mostly just staying in place, as the soil slowly thaws out enough to actually absorb it in places. We just have to keep on top of monitoring the old basement for water.

I haven’t been online much, so I haven’t heard how things are in the south, which was expected to get hit with a lot more rain. The city was bracing for more flooding. South of the city is a flood plain, with a lot of small towns dotting it. Many of them have dikes around them, and houses built outside of towns are supposed to be built at a minimum height above grade, because of the regular flooding, but there comes a point where even those measures just aren’t enough. My brother built a dike around his house near the city (but not on the flood plain) and for now, things are under control there. He was even able to pick up a pair of new pumps, on sale, even!, to help drain any water inside the dike faster. The dike has a one way culvert to drain water from the inside of the dike, but sometimes it needs a little extra help, and this was one of those times. It took him years to slowly build up his flood control measures, and all that work is paying off very well right now.

The Colorado Low is still sweeping its way across parts of US and Canada. We are still expecting more rain, but not anything usually severe. There’s still the possibility of mixed rain and snow by tomorrow morning. Then things are supposed to warm right up. If things stay as predicted, farmers will soon be able to start seeding their fields, right on “schedule” (at least for our area), and it’ll be the first spring with adequate moisture in years.

The Re-Farmer

Water levels, close to home

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When I headed out this morning, there were a lot of areas to check during my morning rounds!

Things are actually pretty good.

The storage house pretty much has a moat right now. It doesn’t go quite all the way around, but pretty close!

That’s a lot of water for the cats to get through. It looks like it goes all the way to the opening they use here, to get under the storage house. The only other way for them to get in and out is through a broken window at the back, which also has an old bench under it, so there is at least that access to one of their primary shelters.

This is the area by the feeding station, where a lane had been made for the septic truck. There is a lot spot near where the pile of poplar wood is that always gets water when the snow melts, but this is the first time I’ve seen the water extend to far towards the gate in the chain link fence!

Before and after pictures of the area in front of the house that we would normally drive up to, when loading and unloading the van. Though the pictures were taken a week apart, there had been another snowfall, so there was actually more snow there, just a couple of days ago.

The water in front of the outhouse and behind the garage is the deepest, and most wide spread, I’ve ever seen it. I don’t know if any critters are using those two old dog houses near the outhouse, but I think that might be where Potato Beetle came from, to get so wet and have straw stuck to him. I’m not sure where the burs would have come from, though.

As deep as it is here, the usual lake that forms at the driveway to the garage isn’t particularly large. It looks like the water is actually being absorbed, since it doesn’t look like it’s draining anywhere.

The driveway itself isn’t draining very well. We can still drive through, but I wouldn’t want to unless we absolutely had to, as we’d be just causing more damage.

I took the route outside the fence to get to the sign cam, pausing to check the state of things as best I could. You can see where the rows of corn had been planted, and further back, where there had been a pile of pulled up plants from the garden that were meant to be buried in new plots. The deer had dug them up and eaten most of them, which is why that spot is melted away a bit faster.

Much of the garden area has about a foot of snow still on it, with a few bare patches exposed here and there.

There was a new sign near the sign cam…

The road hasn’t been closed, but drivers are forewarned!

I decided to check the status of the road after this. I’ll share those photos in my next post. :-)

When my daughters went out later on, they checked things in directions I did not go. They were able to get to the shed that has all my parents’ stuff stored in it, and check out the field our septic ejector drains into. There’s water there, of course, but all looks well.

At this rate, we might even be able to get to the barn again, soon! :-D

While talking about the state of things with the girls, one of my daughters commented on what a good thing it was, that we were able to do the big shopping trip to the city when we did! We may not have gotten everything, but we’re easily good for a couple of weeks, and even then, the only thing we’d be running out of is the dry cat kibble.

All in all, we’re doing pretty good. Even the water seeping into the basement isn’t too bad.

Hopefully, all is well with our neighbours, too.

The Re-Farmer

Washout video

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After many interruptions and a bit of experimenting, I used my new software to make this video from this morning.

I didn’t add any sound to it, because I didn’t want to drown out the sounds from the video portions. In the first clip, the strange, almost squeaky noises are being made by the water trying to form a whirlpool at the culvert, under a layer of ice. At the end of the video, you can hear the deer crashing through the surface ice as they bound through the field! Considering how far away they were, that’s pretty impressive.

You can also see the tire tracks where someone had driven up to the wash out, then backed up and turned around.

This isn’t actually too bad of a washout. For now. While making this, one of the interruptions was a robo-call from our municipality. Part of it was just repeating the rainfall warning that all the weather apps have right now. It then went on to say that our council is keeping on top of things, and is aware of flooding issues, like what I was looking at this morning. They also specified that they have an emergency plan in place, and that pumps, generators and sandbags are available for those who need them (we shouldn’t need anything like that). It went on to suggest people make sure their sump pumps are working (ours is), and that items in basements are raised up off the floor (which is how we keep things in the old basement all the time), and to have things put together and ready, in case an evacuation becomes necessary. In other words, have a bug out bag!

Where we are, we won’t have much to be concerned about. If there is any flooding, there are other areas on our quarter section that water will drain to, rather than towards the house, which in turn drains into the municipal drainage ditch in the video above.

As I write this, it’s just reaching 6pm, and we are at 11C/52F, which is several degrees Celsius higher than the most recent forecast. Which means things have been not only melting outside, but in many places, the water has actually receded, with the ground warming up enough to absorb some of it. Granted, if we do get the rains that are predicted to start tonight and continue through tomorrow and the day after, with cooler temperatures, all that is going to fill up again, but there is noticeably less snow to melt away and add to the total amount of water.

Meanwhile, we continue to make trips into the old basement, check the sump pump and sweep the puddles into the flor drain or sump pump reservoir. Both the sump pump and the septic pump are going off fairly frequently, and doing their jobs. The main areas where we would expect water to be a problem in the inner and outer yard is around the garage – but not the garage itself – parts of the driveway, and other areas that are far enough away from the house that it won’t affect us. At least not directly.

We should be okay where we are. There are others in the area we are more concerned about!

The Re-Farmer

Change of plans

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I made a trip to the general store and post office today, to pick up a big bag of bird seed. We’re switching from the deer feed to black oil seed now.

Yikes.

The gravel road was bad yesterday, but it was much worse today. The road itself was drier, but the last mile had water levels from the north that were higher. On the way back, I made a point of stopping near one of the municipal drainage ditches to take photos.

Further back, you can see where the water is creeping onto the road. This section wasn’t too bad for potholes. I was more concerned about the culvert.

You can tell where it is by the whirlpool. It was barely keeping the water flowing at an adequate rate. The field behind is completely underwater. That line of snow you see? That’s the drainage ditch.

On the other side, the ditch continues through a bison ranch. That’s why the fence is so fortified right into the ditch. A bison still manages to get out, every now and then.

That is some fast flowing water! The drainage ditch on this side is full, but is still containing most of the water.

It was at a culvert like this, near my brother’s place, where the highway was undermined and had to be closed completely.

Thankfully, we’re a bit higher and don’t have anything like this for the last mile to our turnoff. That last mile, however, is the worst stretch for potholes. It’s really hard to play “dodge the pothole”, when it’s all potholes.

Our own driveway is also getting wetter, and I could feel the van trying to sink as I drove through. I wouldn’t want to drive over it with the van loaded down with more weight, as it would be if I were able to get the rest of the month’s cat kibble. So I decided another trip to the city to do the rest of the monthly shopping can wait.

Of course, I came home to a message from my mother, She was wondering if I could take her shopping tomorrow.

The road is rough enough on our van. I’m not sure how her car can handle it. The last time I drove her car in conditions less severe than this, a tire blew out on the highway soon after. I am sure of exactly when the tired was damaged, too, when I hit a rock that was uncovered inside a pothole.

I haven’t checked the road to the south we would normally take as an alternate rough yet, but it was taking her car down that route that led to the tire blowout.

When I mentioned the main road’s condition, my mother suggested we wait. The grocery store is able to deliver her groceries for her, if she needs it, and that’s what she thinks she will do. She then started talking about years when the main road would get washed out completely – right about where the municipal drainage ditch is now! – we had to take the road to the north to get around it. Likely because the road was also washed out to the south. To the north, there are a lot of marshes, though, and that’s the direction water is building up from.

Gosh, I remember the roads around here washing out every spring through most of my childhood!

If we do get more rain – and our weather alert has now switched to a rainfall warning – I am not sure that the culvert in the photos above will be able to handle the increase in water. Unless it washes out in another spot, first! The temperature is suppose to increase quite a bit tomorrow, which means there will be more snow melt as well as any rain we might get. It’s going to be touch and go.

Until all this clears up, there’s no point in the municipality even trying to do anything about the potholes, and they’ll have much more to worry about if the roads start washing out!

We can wait a while on the shopping. We got a bit of rain this afternoon, and I can see on the security camera’s live feed that our driveway has even more water on it.

A reminder that we really need to get more gravel on that driveway!

I’ll just add that to the list of things we need to do, when we win the lottery. :-/

The Re-Farmer

Cha-ching! … Ouch

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I’m going to try something different.

With all the stuff going on, prices going up, and so many looking to stock up, I figured I would share a detailed post about what we got during our trip to the city today, and how much things cost. Because we get paid at the end of the month only, we budget to do a major shopping trip in the city (which saves us hundreds of dollars compared to buying many things locally) to stock up for the month, plus a bit extra for our stash. Let me know in the comments if this is something that interests you, and if you’d like me to keep doing these.

Before I get to it, I want to add a few notes about what will not be on the list, or not much of.

Beef: we now buy our beef direct from a local (ish) farmer, and recently got a large freezer pack. We won’t buy beef unless there is a spectacular sale of some kind. Our freezer is pretty full right now, so we didn’t get a lot of meat for the freezer this trip.
Fresh fruits and vegetables: there will be some on the list, but with a few exceptions, we buy fresh produce locally.
Personal hygiene and household items: the girls buy their own, and we’ve already stocked up on a lot of the basics, so we don’t need any on this trip.
Stuff that will have to wait for another trip: because we get so many heavy items, and our van is a delicate old thing, we can no longer do all the city shopping on one trip. We’ve had to split it into at least two trips. Sometimes three, if things are out of stock or we have to go to a different city.

With that said, here is today’s shopping, starting with fuel!

On the way out, I stopped to put $30 gas in the tank, so I wouldn’t go below half a tank before reaching the city. I headed out at about 10am so that I could pick up some parcels at the post office, and didn’t have breakfast before I left. I normally would have picked up some fried chicken at the gas station, but they didn’t have any yet, so I got some drinks (including an extra for the cooler we keep in the van) and some pierogi for the road. I also got a lottery ticket, for a total of $54.93 Before heading home, I filled the tank at Costco, which cost $51.87.

Grand total of fuel and a bit extra: $106.80

Once in the city, we start with where we get the least perishable times first. Today, that was Canadian Tire.

This is where we get our hardwood pellets that we use for cat litter. We still have a couple of unopened bags at home, and these last a LONG time, but I wanted to stock up. They’re only $6.99 per 40 pound bag. I also picked up a case of canning jars. We usually pick up 500ml or 750ml sizes, but this time I got quart jars (1L). I like the wide mouth jars better. I’ve also been picking up extra lids every now and then, but I did that at our last Walmart trip, so for this one, I got more jars. We have lots more seeds to plant, so I got a couple of square fibre pots that fit into the trays we have, and can be planted directly into the soil. I also picked up a BBQ lighter that was on sale; I’ve been picking those up whenever I see a good price, as they are very handy for lighting the burn barrel or fire pit. I also finally found an LED light with a switch. It runs on AAA batteries and can be hung or adhered to a wall with self adhesive Velcro strips. This is what I’ve been wanting to have for the outhouse, but hadn’t found until today. Not that we can get to the outhouse right now to install it, but I grabbed it while I could. They’re a novelty item, and not always in stock.

My major splurge was the syphon pump. That cost $39.99. I got it in case our sump pump has issues again. The last two times this happened, we had to manually empty the reservoir using an old ice cream pail with a wire attached to the handle. I’d drop the bucket alongside the pump, then push it under the water with a broom handle to fill it, lift it out with the wire, then empty it into larger buckets that my daughters would haul outside, assembly line style. With this, I can just stick the syphon pump into the reservoir, have the hose go into the large bucket, and pump it out that way. Much easier! Hopefully, we’ll never need to use it for that, but even if we don’t use it there, I can see using it to, say, get water from the bottom of a rain barrel to fill a watering can or something.

Final tally for this purchase, after taxes, was $103.18

The next stop was an international grocery store we really like.

I forgot to get a picture before I packed it all. :-D We keep a variety of reusable bags in our van and usually pack our items there, rather than in the store.

Here we have bananas (normally we get those locally, but they looked really good today), Ambrosia apples (they were on sale), Beaver Buzz (a Canadian brand of energy drinks that we like, but few places carry; we got citrus, mango-pineapple and Saskatoon flavours), traditional yeast (I prefer it over the quick acting yeast), frozen udon noodles, a 2 pack of chicken (it had a sale price that made it cheaper than Costco), Maple Latte creamer (my daughters are coffee drinkers and like their creamers), a case of Kraft dinner (it was almost half price, and my daughters like it for a quick meal), instant milk (for our emergency stash), coarse salt (I got 2, because we use it more than we use regular table salt), a brand of soy sauce from the Philippines that my husband likes, a local brand of uncut smoked bacon; one piece plain smoked, one piece Applewood smoked (no difference in price), rooibos tea (for me!) and 2 packages of old fashioned rolled oats (which we prefer over quick oats). They happened to be on a really good sale, so I wanted to stock up on those.

Then, because I’d had such a small “breakfast” on the way out, I picked up from fresh dim sum at the hot food counter for “lunch”.

Grand total for this trip, after my loyalty card discounts and taxes: $135.39

Those were the small trips.

Next was Costco.

It was flat cart time! :-D

I did not get everything on this trip, but I did get most of it.

There are four 9kg bags of cat kibble – less than half what we need for the month – plus a case of wet cat food. The yellow plastic container that looks like laundry soap is dish detergent; not the brand we usually get, but it was a bit cheaper, so I decided it was worth a try. Just one package of toilet paper; we’ll get more on the next trip. Basmati rice (my husband’s preferred type) and a 9 pack of beans. At $10.99 for the case, they’ve gone up in price since our last trip, but are still a lot cheaper than at the regular grocery store. There is 10 pounds of butter (we don’t use margarine or shortening). Butter has also gone up and is now $4.99 a pound at Costco, which is cheaper than the regular grocery store. There is olive oil, but I didn’t get vegetable oil on this trip. We got a gallon sized plastic container of popcorn. Popcorn is our primary snack, plus the containers are very sturdy, food safe plastic, so we keep those. (We’ve got several of them with the bottoms cut off that make great scoops for the outside cat kibble and bird/deer feed.) There’s also mayonnaise, baking powder (a 2 pack; one for the kitchen, one for the stash), vinegar (another 2 pack, both for the stash), peanut butter, a 2 pack of butter chicken sauce, 2 packages of tortilla wraps, one for the freezer, a large block of extra old cheddar, and a smaller block of mozzarella. I normally would have gotten a large block of marble as well, but they were out of stock. There’s a 3 pack of hot dog wieners, plus a couple of bags of hot dog buns, for our next wiener roast. A pork loin, pork chops and a package of tilapia – the fish is for the girls. My husband and I are not fish fans. Frozen wontons, Saskatoon berry jam, canned chicken (the only canned meat we buy; it’s just too expensive!), a couple of containers of sour cream, whipping cream, icing sugar, brown sugar, a package of prosciutto, chocolate chips, a 5 dozen pack of eggs (nowhere near enough for the entire month), yellow flesh potatoes and red potatoes.

Finally, on top of all this was my Costco Executive membership renewal fee of $120. The grand total, including the fee and taxes was $784.29. Minus the fee, $664.29.

Then, because it was getting late and I wanted to treat the family, I swung by a McDonald’s drive through on the way home and picked up 4 double quarter pounders with cheese, plus bacon. Which came out to pennies over $45.

*choke*

Oh, I almost forgot.

I had another splurge when I got home. This one came out of the “unallocated funds” part of the budget. One of the YouTube channels I follow, Maritime Gardening, mentioned the software he uses to make his videos; Movavi. I got the trial version and was incredibly happy with how quickly I could figure out how to use it and make my first, simple video. However, because it was a trial version, it had a watermark on the final, exported version. When I downloaded the free trial version, the software had been on sale, but when the trial time was done, it offered a steeper discount to purchase. They had several options, including a cheaper yearly subscription version, but I opted for the next level up, one time purchase. After taxes, it cost $114.95

I’ve made a few videos using (much!) older software I have and posted them on YouTube and Rumble, but have been considering making videos of more than just deer, or the occasional video of me walking around the property. Please let me know if you would be interested in seeing Re-Farmer videos on top of blog posts. :-)

So, including the video editing software, the grand total for the day is: $1244.61

Ouch.

This is higher than typical. It’s not unusual for us to find things we’ll need, like the pump or the case of canning jars, so those “extras” are not out of the ordinary. However, even taking that into account, as well as the extra we’re getting for our stash, and taking out the 1 time software purchase and the annual Costco renewal fee, a total of $1009.66 is higher than typical by at least $100. That would be due directly to increased prices. It would be a lot higher, if we weren’t able to direct-purchase beef, and hadn’t already stocked up on things like laundry detergent or bars of soap.

And we will have to make another trip in a couple of days to get the rest, while still keeping a budget for fresh foods for the rest of the month to buy locally.

*sigh*

I headed out at 10 and didn’t get home until about 5:30.

Ugh.

At least the next trip won’t involve running around the city so much, and will likely be just to one place.

And that’s what our big monthly shopping trip is like. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Is this for real??

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While I was in the city today, I got an alert on my phone.

A weather alert.

Can you believe this?

We’re nowhere near the border, so it is unlikely to affect us, but my goodness, we could really use a break! Yeah, we still need the moisture, but not all at once!

The city is largely snow free right now, other than the hills from clearing the roads. The river is about as high as I’ve ever seen it, except during one of those “flood of the century” events that happen rather more often then that. Some fields on the outskirts of the city were completely flooded as far as I could see.

The potholes were merciless.

Coming home, there was a rather dramatic, if gradual, change from open fields and water, to more snow and ice and water. The worst part of the drive, though, was the main gravel road from the highway. It was bad in the morning, but so much worse by the time I got home. With so much weight in the van, I was slowing down to a crawl, trying to avoid potholes as much as possible. Which really wasn’t possible. It ware more like navigating a path that was the least destructive to my suspension! From the tire tracks in the muck, I could tell many other vehicles had done the same. I had seriously considered taking a different route, but it would have added an extra mile of gravel road, and I wasn’t sure if one particular spot was washed over or not. I didn’t want to take a chance.

The sad part is, I’m going to have to do this again in a couple of days. I didn’t get everything we’ll need for the month. Too many heavy things.

But I will talk about that in my next post. :-)

The Re-Farmer