I made a mistake, when writing about these trees, yesterday.
In this photo, the red lines mark the dead spruces. Counting the one by the garage, that makes a dozen trees on this side of the spruce grove, to take down.
I missed one. It can’t actually be seen in this photo, because it’s behind other trees. I didn’t notice becase I had the right number of trees that I’d counted before, not realizing that when I had been in the spruce grove, counting the dead trees, I missed the one that is in the far right of the photo, because I could see if from where I was standing at the time. It has a live tree growing next to it, and has some live branches wrapped around it.
This is one of the clusters of three trees that I’d mentioned (the broken tree in the foreground is the one that’s closest to the house). When my daughters and I were walking around in this area, I clued in that one of these dead trees is the one with the extension cord wrapped around it.
You can see what the extension cord is there for. There is a wooden star with lights on it, facing the roads. At Christmas, we would run a cord from the house to this tree to plug it in.
My late brother put that there. Best guess, I’d say it’s been up there for as long as 40 years.
My daughters and I joked about plugging it in to see if it worked, but we’d never do it. With how many breaks there are in the cord, just where we can see it, plugging it in could very well cause a fire!
So… that’s 13 dead trees on this side of the spruce grove that need to come down, plus the other 5 I found at the other end, that can wait.
It’s getting so that there aren’t that many spruces left in the spruce grove!!
It won’t be worked on today. The mechanic was missing some information on file to be able to order a new tire. Which is fine. I’m just glad I had my daughter follow me in the van!
I talked to him about what happened, and was saying the tires were maybe 2 years old. He told me they couldn’t be that old, because he hasn’t owned the garage for 2 years yet! He’s the one who replaced all 4 tires for us. I think he had just taken over the garage at the time; I remember the signs on the building still had the previous owner’s name. They have definitely seen two winters, though. So they are, at most, a year and a half old.
One of the things that I told him was that I had not hit anything, and the tire had been fine, previously. He thought perhaps the extreme cold we had might have had an effect, but I don’t think so. I mentioned the guy changing the tire thought it might be defected. Either way, I asked him to do an inspection of the other tires, just in case! Which he will do.
That done, my daughter and I headed to a nearby small town where we could drop off the paperwork for her taxes. We tried to do her taxes last night, using TurboTax, but weren’t able to Netfile it. We couldn’t tell if the problem was with TurboTax or the CRA. I actually think it was both. We figured it would be easier to just take them in and pay someone to do them. Our first year back, we’d gone to someone in town that had done my parents’ taxes for many years. He screwed up badly; my husband ended up owing thousands of dollars, and he didn’t even file a return for me, because I have no income. The next year, we went to another company in another town. The person who did our taxes has a disability herself, so not only did she fix the previous year’s taxes, but told me I qualified for the caregiver tax benefit, and was able to fix my husband’s file to reflect his disability tax credit. He still ended up owing money from the previous year, but that’s just part of moving back to this province. We’ve ended up owing money every time we’ve moved back here.
So I knew this was someone that we could trust!
I called her this morning and explained our situation. Which is when I found out that TurboTax has been really buggy this year. She had tried to use it to file her own personal taxes from home, and ended up doing them in the office, because she couldn’t get it to work! Plus, there is the CRA issue. There was some sort of security issue (but not a security breach) and they suspended the secure login information for 800,000 people. I got the email notification about that, but was able to log on through my bank (which is how I usually log on), and was able to reset things on my own file. My daughter, however, kept getting error messages, instead. We couldn’t even print out her file to mail it, because the printouts had a watermark saying, “Duplicate copy: do not mail” on them. We couldn’t get the proper forms for mailing in, anywhere! In the end, it just wasn’t worth the hassle.
With the crazy doing on right now, the tax preparers just ask people to drop off their paperwork, and they’ll call for pick up when they are done, so that is what my daughter and I did, after dropping off my mother’s car. It’ll take longer for her to get her return, but at least it’ll be done. Her sister is going to try the software first, but if it messes up for her, we’ll do the same for hers. After talking to the tax preparer, I don’t expect it to work, to be honest. The software couldn’t handle a bare bones return, never mind a self-employment one.
We took the opportunity to run some errands, and even remembered to go to the post office.
There was one odd thing that happened when we were heading out. After my daughter backed the van out of the garage, I started to close the door…
… and something fell, hitting me on the way to the ground.
I found a large screw.
I quickly popped into the garage and closed the door the rest of the way
Above the door, there is a part of the garage door mechanism, held in place with a plate. That plate is now sticking out, behind held in place with only one screw at the top.
The garage door is larger than usual, and I was thinking it looked like it’s starting to sag in the middle. My guess is that that’s exactly what’s happening, and as it sags, every time we opened the door, it was hitting that piece, pulling it further and further out, every time, until the screw finally fell out. Of course, this can only be seen if we are inside the garage, while it’s empty, and the door is closed. Which pretty much only happens when we’re trying to repair things (or get rid of wasp nests).
So for now, the door is going to stay closed, so as not to damage things even more. We’ll need to drag out the A-frame ladder from by the building my parents’ stuff is stored in, and see if we can simply screw it back on again. It’s really windy right now, so while it’s a marvelous 12C/54F right now, I’m in no hurry to be carrying a ladder across the outer yard …as I watch the trees out my window suddenly start waving around even more, in an especially strong gust! This is a day when I’m going to be checking for broken branches, and seeing if any new trees have fallen down, as part of my rounds. I might even skip the evening rounds and save it for morning!
Not knowing how quickly we’ll be able to get it done, I decided to park the van in the inner yard, where it won’t be visible from the road, in case our vandal decides to take a walk past our place again. With my mom’s car in town, that means the garage is actually empty right now! This would be a good time to take a rake to the dirt floor and tidy up a bit. :-)
After the plate is fixed and we can open the door again, though. Otherwise the dust will be insane in there! :-D
Little by little, things will get done.
The Re-farmer
Obligatory fundraising promo! Ginger’s surgery is scheduled for 2 days from now. If you would like to help support him, you can buy him a coffee (donations can be as little as $1 Canadian), or share the Ko-fi page on your own blog, or social media.
So this lends weight to the “defective tire” theory.
I checked the trail cam files from yesterday. With the one camera, there just isn’t a view of that tire, but with the other…
I cropped this from a screen cap of the video. It’s the best I could get.
Even taking into account that the tire is sunk in mud, it looks really low!
The last time the car was used was then I took my mother grocery shopping about a week ago. It has been sitting in the garage every since. The only reason I took it out at all is because my sister helped my mother with grocery shopping, so I wanted to make sure the car got some time on the road.
I’ve just taken it out and checked the rest of the tires as much as I can. I’ll be asking the mechanic to give them a quick inspection once he has it up on the lift.
I was telling my brother and his wife about what happened, and they had the same immediate thoughts I did; could it have been deliberate? In their case, they actually know someone who had … issues… with someone else, and that person vandalized the inside of their tires. All four of them!
I don’t think our vandal did anything, though. Not just because it would be physically difficult; where the car is parked is so cramped, there is no way anyone of his size and lack of mobility could have gotten to that tire. Plus, he wouldn’t have been that subtle. If he was going to damage our tires, he would have just slashed our tires. So I don’t think this is the result of an act of vandalism.
It should be interesting to hear what the mechanic has to say when he finally sees the tire this afternoon!
Actually, I’m paranoid about vehicle break downs and troubles in general, but especially about tires.
My mother’s car got all new tires after we didn’t hit a deer, a couple of winters ago, and drove through a ditch, instead. With how infrequently my mother’s car is used, they are still in very new condition. In fact, the coloured markings on them haven’t worn off yet!
I have no idea what I could have hit that caused this! I hadn’t reached even 5 miles from home when it blew.
This is my best guess.
Every winter, as the snows melt off the gravel roads, the surface gravel is mostly gone, and a lot of rocks start protruding. These tend to be very rounded rocks, not angular ones, but sometimes they end up sticking out quite far. Because of the direction I was going, I took a different route to get to the highway. It added an extra mile of gravel road, and the final two miles are a smaller road than the one we usually take to get to the highway. (This route has the added bonus of us not having to drive past our vandal’s place.) It was a rough ride, and though I drove slower and tried to avoid the rocks, I did hit some. My mother’s car is very light in the back, so I was feeling every bump more than with our van, as it was.
However, it was about a mile and a half on the highway when it happened, and there was nothing on the highway for me to hit. I just suddenly started hearing the noise in the back, and immediately pulled over. I didn’t even feel anything different in how the car handled. At least, not with how quickly I pulled over.
After quickly messaging the family to let them know what happened, I called up CAA to get a tire change. I then spent the next 10-15 minutes, trying to explain to the person I was talking to, where I was. CAA, of course, wants an address. I had none. There was nothing but trees around me. I finally got out to see if what may have been a driveway up ahead had a marker number (I couldn’t actually see one, and they are supposed to be highly visible, which means the driveway was likely to an unoccupied piece of land). As I got out, I was able to see there was actually a road behind me. It took a couple of minutes to walk close enough to be able to read the road number.
The poor woman on the phone just could not find me. She couldn’t find our little hamlet. She couldn’t find the provincial route number it’s on. She was using Google Maps, so I tried giving her the names of larger towns in the area. Every now and then, she’s say, “near [suburb near the city, an hour’s drive away]?” or “near [small town I know the name of, couldn’t tell anyone where it us, other than “somewhere north of us”]?” The road number I gave her did not come up for her at all, as if it didn’t exist.
I swear, it was like trying to explain to a delivery company, how to find the farm!
Eventually, she had enough information to give to a driver and told me it would take about an hour for them to arrive.
An hour???
That done, I messaged my family, asking someone to come with the van. My younger daughter has her license, but with all the crap going on right now, she has not been able to book the 2 hours of driver’s training she needs to do, before she can take her a road test for her full license. Which meant my husband had to accompany her for the drive.
My husband, who has been having extremely bad pain days for the past couple of weeks.
My husband, whose walker is now kept in the sun room, where it is easier for him to get in and out through the doors. Where Ginger is camped out right now.
He didn’t even bring a cane! Not that it mattered. We keep several canes in the van, and there’s at least one in my mother’s car. We collect canes! :-D
While I was waiting, I got a call from the driver, much sooner than expected. He asked some more questions about where I was. Since he’s actually from the area, I could tell him some land marks (you know that radio tower? I’m looking at it right now.) that he knew. He arrived not long after my husband and daughter did.
I would really like to invest in the tools he had! Especially the jack. The tire was changed in almost no time at all. The little jack that came with the car would have taken three times as long, just to lift the car.
Once he had the tire off, we could see the damage, and I was just amazed!! I was half expecting to see a piece of glass or something (I’d seen some on the shoulder as I walked to read the road sign for CAA).
My daughter and I were talking about how these were quite new tires, so wear and tear can’t be blamed. He took a closer look and said he thought the tire might have been defective.
The spare tire is the little donut, not a full size tire, so I drove home at almost half speed, with the flashers on, with my husband and daughter following behind.
Because at this point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the spare tire went flat or something. :-/
Once we got home, I still wanted to run my errands, but I decided to go to town, rather than the small city I was originally planning to. That allowed me to swing by the garage and talk about bringing my mother’s car in.
I’m bringing it in tomorrow afternoon.
*sigh*
First the cat, now my mother’s car? What more can go wrong?
Never mind. I don’t want to know. The list would be too long! :-D
When we moved out there to take care of the property for my mother, our adult daughters could have stayed behind. Instead, they chose to give up their jobs and move out to the sticks to help me in caring for their father, as well as the property. They gave up a lot, though considering what’s going on in the world right now, it turns out to have been the right decision on a level no one could have expected.
One of the things I love about them is their sense of humour. Especially when it comes to mundane things.
Like descaling the kettle.
Our well water is very high in iron and minerals, so it doesn’t take long for the bottom of the kettle to get thickly coated. I decided it was time to do the vinegar treatment. After scrubbing out as much as possible by hand, the kettle is half filled with a vinegar water mixture and brought to a boil. The mixture is left to sit until the water has cooled down to safely give it another scrub. Rinse and repeat. It had been way too long since we did this, so I planned to leave the vinegar to soak overnight.
With that in mind, when I started the process, I make a sticky note to leave on the counter for the other household members to know what was in the kettle.
I decided to get cute about it.
Did I mention our water is high in iron and minerals?
As the vinegar mixture came to a boil, the liquid turned a very nasty rusty-orange colour, and was completely opaque.
The girls came down to use the kitchen while it was in the cooling down stage.
They added to the note.
Too funny!!!
The daughter that added the hilarious doodle is having a birthday this month. We don’t tend to celebrate birthdays on the actual day, but prefer to do things for the birthday person throughout the months, so she got her gifts from my husband and I already.
Her younger sister has been spending the last several weeks working on a gift for her. Today, she finished it, and it is amazing!
Also, she made this completely herself, including the pattern.
She taught herself to sew about a year or two ago, and starting making plushies using patterns she could find for free online, as well as clothes for herself.
Over the past couple of months, we’ve been finding cats – usually Tissue – batting around something metallic sounding on the floor. On checking to see what was making the unusual sound, we have been finding all sorts of nails and screws! The cats (probably just Tissue, but we’re not 100% sure) have been digging into the various containers in the basement, taking out a single nail or screw, and carrying them upstairs to play with.
Yes, we did place these in locations the kittens couldn’t reach, but they’re almost adults now, and they can get into a lot more trouble!
We keep taking away the nails, but it usually isn’t long before a new one gets dragged up from who knows where. Tissue does not like having her toys taken away, and it is most amusing, if annoying, to see her pick up a nail and running off with it in her mouth.
Last night, I heard that familiar metallic noise.
There was Tissue, under the dining table, batting at something.
The noise was … different, somehow.
Of course, I went to take latest nail from Tissue and…
… this is what I found.
!!!
Now, there has not been a gun in this house since years before we moved here, and while I’ve found spent cartridges in the barn, in all our clean up of the house, I don’t recall ever finding bullets like this.
I tucked it away into a container on a shelf, only to have a daughter bring it to me, a couple of hours later. Tissue was playing with it again! So I put it in a slide lock baggie and tucked it onto a shelf the cats can’t get at.
Then my other daughter found Tissue playing with another one.
When she brought it to me and I realized it wasn’t possible for the cats to have retrieved the one I’d just hidden away, I went and looked… Sure enough, the bullet I’d found was still in the container I’d left it in.
The cats had dragged out a total of three bullets from… somewhere.
My daughter and I went digging around the basement, trying to see where they could have come from, to no avail. I did find a higher caliber bullet in a container that I remember seeing when we were cleaning out the basement, so I grabbed that to tuck away with the others.
We still have no idea where the cats found those three bullets. The only place we could think of was the top of the closet in the entry. We’ve never been able to clear it out, but the cats have started to find their way up there, knocking things about. We rescued a couple of more fragile objects that we could reach, but there is more we can’t reach at all. My husband – the tallest of us – did use our little step ladder to try and see, but there’s too much clutter up there. Still, if anyone had stored bullets there, back when my late father’s guns were still around, they wouldn’t have been tucked in the back, but have been near the edges, where they could be reached. Even so, they would have been in their boxes, not loose.
One of the things about visiting my mother is, she tends to … pass things on to us.
Basically, she is foisting off things she doesn’t want or need on us, because there’s lots of room on the farm, right?
Four decades, friends in the city doing that to my parents. A lot of that stuff is still lying about in various places. Now she’s doing it to us! :-D
Most of the time, it’s not an issue. I just got a bag full of plastic containers that will be just fine for putting leftovers in the fridge (some of them are what I used to bring meals to her! :-D).
Previously, we got a bag full of odds and ends that included small flashlights so old, the batteries were on the verge of leaking.
We just never know what to expect!
One thing she has been pretty consistent in including has been sweets. She “can’t eat” sweet things (yes, she can. She knows enough to limit herself, but she has her preferences, and that’s just fine).
Most of the sweets are little baggies of candies the social workers have been including in little gift bags they’ve been giving to people in my mother’s building, since they aren’t allowed to have bingo or coffee nights or any of the other many social events they used to organize.
Someone, however, has been giving my mother Polish chocolates!
The last box she passed on to us was around Christmas, and they were quite excellent.
Today, she gave me these.
Wawel (VAH-vel) is a place. Czarny Las (CHArny Laas) means Black Forest (and is the site of the WWII massacre of 250-300 Poles by the Gestapo). Czekolada Nadkiewana (Che-ko-lada Na-jye-vana) means stuffed chocolate. The info in the back says this is from Krakow, which is not all that far from where my mother lived during WWI until the province was turned over to the USSR after the war, and Poles were expelled.
I find myself curious as to who is finding these Polish chocolates for my mother, and where are they finding them! The only place I can think of is the city, which has a substantial Polish community my parents used to be a part of, but I just don’t know of anyone in her building would even know the area exists, never mind knowing where to buy Polish products.
When I got home, I opened the box, discovering that it had already been opened. My mother had tried them before passing them on to us. :-D
Unfortunately…
… they were not stored properly! :-D
It looks horrible, but it’s just a bloom that happens when the chocolate gets exposed to temperature extremes, instead of being in a consistent cooler temperature.
I was not expecting to see all those mouths when I unwrapped the chocolate!
Yes, I did try a piece.
Not a fan of the cherry filling. I’ve never been a fan of fruit in chocolate, really, so that’s not a surprise. I suspect the temperature fluctuations that caused the bloom also affected the texture of the filling.
Another day where some things went to plan, and others… not so much!
But that’s not always a bad thing. :-)
While today wasn’t as warm as yesterday, we were still very mild. For the first time in ages, there was no ice at all on the cats’ water bowls!
Things are very messy out there. While checking on things, I saw that one purchase we made in the fall had most definitely paid off!
This is the waterproof case covering the plugs for the power cords between the cats’ house and the sun room. The cords themselves are encased in ice. I’d have to chip them loose. The waterproof case, however, seems to be absorbing heat and has melted out it’s own little space. It is not sitting in water at all, but everything around it is very wet.
We did have to buy them (it came in a three pack) online, because no local stores carried any. It was well worth the time and effort to find them!
Later this morning, I brought our van in to get the new EGR valve cleaned out of whatever crud came loose from the lines that were too far to reach to clean. It was just a drop off, and he was really busy with other customers, so I just left the keys in the office and headed out. Thankfully, it was much warmer than the last time the van was brought in, so I had no problems walking around outside while I waited.
There were two things that I wanted to get with my tax return. The garden soil, which will have to wait until it thaws out enough to be loaded onto the trucks, and a chainsaw. We’ve been doing some research and are leaning towards a battery operated chainsaw. I could have bought one online, but there is the place I took our riding mower to last summer, not far from the garage. They sell and service riding mowers, chain saws, weed trimmers and a whole host of landscaping related tools, and I wanted a chance to actually talk to someone and get feedback and advice.
I am glad I did!
Also, they had zero issues with medical mask exemptions. I walked in with my Mingle Mask, and they didn’t even blink. Bonus!
So I started talking to the guy about what I was thinking of (and what my budget was!), and about the sort of work I need to do. The main thing is, I’ve got those dead spruce trees to take down. They’re about 60 ft tall, and there’s probably 6 of them.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t really show me different models suitable for the job, as he just got new inventory for the season, and they weren’t even in the computer yet, never mind on the shelves. Of what he did have on display, they were waaayyy out of my budget, and designed more for commercial needs.
For a job like the dead trees, they recommended a gas powered chainsaw, because a battery powered one would drain way too quickly, even with the high end, high power models. And you don’t want to run out of juice half-way through cutting down a tree! Given what I would be using a chainsaw for the most, they suggested I might want to simply rent a gas powered chainsaw to take down the trees.
And when I mean “they”, I mean the owner/manager I was talking to, and the guy at the counter that chimed into the conversation.
Who turned out to be the Stihl rep that just happened to be there when I came in.
We are already fans of Stihl products. We’d had a Stihl chainsaw that we gave to my late brother when we last moved out of province and to a city. We had been very happy with it, and so was my brother. I don’t know what happened to it after he died, but it certainly isn’t here on the farm.
Having a guy from Stihl right there to give me advice was welcome, indeed!
We spent quite a bit of time talking about what I needed and, in the end, they suggested that I wait until the end of the month to get a battery powered chainsaw. That’s when a sale is starting, and I’d be able to get one with a higher powered battery for the price of one with the regular powered battery.
As we were talking about the dead trees I need to take down, I mentioned that we have other ones that are closer to the house that we plan to hire someone to take down. It would probably be easier – and safer – to get them to take down all the other dead trees as well. The manager started looking something up on the computer when I added that we’d already hired a particular company to take down the trees that were hanging over our roof, and to clear our power lines. As soon as I said the name, he turned back to me from the computer, saying he was just about to look up the contact information for the same company to give me as a recommendation! This company has a most excellent reputation. :-)
So I had pretty much decided that I would wait until the end of the month, then come back to buy the chainsaw, when I remembered something else I ask about. Little hand held chainsaws, and if they had any.
I swear, both of them got so excited! Especially the Stihl rep.
The manager wasn’t sure if he had any, then spotted them and pointed them out.
I was confused. All I saw was a display of weed trimmers.
It turned out the boxes were on the shelf above the trimmers. His last three of the dozen he’d just added to his inventory. There were none actually on display, because he’d never had a chance to add any!
They got one down for me and opened the box.
Oh, if only I’d had this in the last few years! I didn’t even know they existed until a month or two ago. There are so many jobs I’ve been doing with pruning saws, a carpenter saw, and the reciprocating saw (which seemed to be giving up the ghost when I last used it around the pump shack) – even buck saws – that would have been much, much easier with this tool!
Yup. I picked it up.
I now have a baby chainsaw.
Okay, it’s really a “cordless garden pruner”. Whatever. It’s a baby chainsaw. :-)
I decided not to wait until the sale at the end of the month, because there was no way of knowing there would be any left. These things are so insanely popular, the manufacture can’t keep up with the demand. I can totally see why.
As I was getting ready to pay for it and we continued to chat, I mentioned that I’d first discovered these existed online.
Both of them practically jumped in horror, almost simultaneously saying, “noooo!!!!Don’t get it online!” They both had stories to recount of people coming to them with these little chainsaws that they’d bought on Amazon that had already broken. The Stihl rep had a woman insist that she’d bought hers from Stihl, and wanted it repaired or replaced. A $20 hand held “chainsaw”. The one they carry – that I was in the process of buying – is just under $200. His comment to her had been, why would Stihl sell their $200 product for $20 – and also undercut their distributors?
My comment was, you get what you pay for!!!
So, I have a new “baby” in the house. One that’s going to get a real work out this spring! Eventually, I’ll be getting a second battery.
We will still need a chainsaw, but I will bring in the little electric one I found in the garage and see what they can do with it. It likely just needs to have its chain sharpened, but the chain might need replacing.
Which had reminded me that I want to bring in our new push mower. I mentioned this to them, telling them how it had worked fine when I bought it in the spring, then didn’t use it for most of the summer (when it got too dry for grass to grow), then suddenly I wasn’t able to start it anymore.
The first question they both asked: where do you buy your gas?
Yup. Just like with our van. That poor quality co-op gas! Even though we only used premium, it makes no difference. They had both seen all sorts of problems from people who bought their gas from the co-op. It seems that not only do they provide the poorest quality of fuel, but also the oldest. Gas is only good for about a month. This fuel seems to already be old before it gets to the stations. Leave it sitting in the tank of a lawn mower or something over the summer, then try and start it, and it’s likely the fuel is several months old. After I described what was happening with our new push mower, he figures he’ll probably have to take the carburetor off to clean it.
Sounds a lot like what was going on with the EGR valve in our van!
Speaking of which…
I was able to leave my purchase at the store until after I picked up the van. The new valve did, indeed, have crud in it. It only took the mechanic half an hour to clean it, so the bill was very small. He cleared the codes, too, of course. Once again, he recommended I just drive it as much as I could.
I needed to use up time so that I could stop at the post office after it re-opened on the way home, as we are expecting packages to come in this week, so I ran some errands, then drove to different areas where I could park and play Pokemon Go for a while. At one point, I was pulled over and left the engine running while doing a gym battle in the game. After finishing and getting ready to move on…
I saw the check engine light was on again!
After finding a better place to park, I hooked up the OBD II reader, and got the same two codes as before.
*sigh*
So I phoned the garage and left a message, adding that there was no need to call me back today. We might just leave it until I bring the van back for regular maintenance, which would be to put the summer tires back on, next month or so.
Too bad we didn’t have to run the van so much back when gas was really cheap for a while.
Today turned out to be a lovely, warm and sunny day!
While doing my morning rounds, I had a chance to check on Potato Beetle’s wound, and it’s looking very good. After the trip to the vet, though, I don’t think he trusts me as much, though! :-D
I called up the company we want to buy garden soil from. I spoke to someone else this time, so I went over what I’d been told before, then said that we were looking to get two truck loads of soil, but first I wanted to know of someone could come over to see where to dump the loads. For one load, it’s not an issue, but for the other, there are low hanging branches that might be a problem, so I wanted to look at that with whomever would be delivering the soil.
She said that she was unable to call any of the guys during the day, as there is no cell phone reception where they are (boy, does that sound familiar!) but she will pass it on to them and call me back on the weekend. The one thing she wasn’t sure of is if the soil was too frozen to load into the trucks or not. They usually do gravel, which will break up, even if frozen, but soil behaves differently. If all goes well, though, I’m hoping well have delivery as early as next week! Otherwise, we’ll see what they advise. We’re going to be above freezing for several more days, so I don’t think it’ll be much of an issue.
Later on, I called my mother to ask if she needed any help with errands or grocery shopping. For now, she’s good, so I’ll probably be heading over next week to give her a hand. Then she asked me what was new.
I made the mistake of answering her honestly.
*sigh*
I told her about the garden soil we were arranging to buy.
She was FURIOUS! I barely finished telling her about it when she lit into me about how she had this big wonderful garden there, and it seemed I just wanted to do things the hard way and had to spend money…
It went on for a while. In a nut shell, I should be growing a garden exactly like she did, back when I was a kid (which isn’t even possible, since they squeezed in so many trees, a significant portion of the garden of my childhood now has either trees, or shade from trees, in it), I should not be spending any money on anything, not even seeds. Also, I should not be thinking about planting trees (I’d reminded her of our plans to grow fruit and nut trees), but should be growing lots of vegetables to store for the winter, like she did, and since she didn’t have a problem with the rocks, I should just plant things like she did, rocks and all. The real problem was the “weeds” I “allowed” to grow, and there wouldn’t be any if we’d have plowed it, which she offered to pay someone to do, but I said no. I asked her if she was offering again? She repeated that she had offered and I said no. I told her, two and three years ago, we weren’t ready. We’re ready now. If she’s offering now, we’re saying yes.
*heavy pause*
She said she’ll think about it.
Uh huh.
So that was an … interesting phone call.
The reason I’d wanted to talk to her, though, was because I finally got a copy of the calls our vandal had left on her answering machine a while back. He’d been saying he wanted to meet with her to talk. She had misunderstood, thinking he meant on the phone, but he was saying in person. I wanted to make sure she knew it was not safe for her to meet with him alone. Not that I think he would physically harm her, but he would be emotionally and psychologically abusive towards her.
We also talked about the possibility of her changing her phone number. She hadn’t thought of that. She doesn’t want to, but at least now it’s a possibility that’s on her radar.
Once the phone calls were done, I decided to take advantage of the warmer weather, and headed out to the garden area.
It was time to do a burn!
The stack of diseased apple tree branches we’d pruned last summer needed to be dealt with.
The pile was just dry enough to burn well, but also snow covered enough for the flames to never get big enough to be a concern, as it would have been if I’d try to do this in the summer. This was no bon fire! When we first moved here, there was a huge pile of pruned wood in the middle of the garden that my family wanted to set a match to. We’d just left a province that had been devastated by forest fires, so we were not exactly keen on having a bon fire with resin torches, aka spruce trees, nearby. This was much smaller and could be better controlled.
As the fire worked its way to the other end of the stack, I shoveled snow over the remaining coals and ashes, little by little.
I was able to spend a couple of hours outside, tending it, but by the time the fire burned away all the small stuff and only the larger logs were left, I was finally chilled enough that it was time to go inside.
The fire itself was so hot at times, I could feel it from 6 or 7 feet away, but it wasn’t enough to make up for damp boots and cold toes!
So the last of it got buried in snow. We’ll finish burning the remains after it’s melted away again.
Even if we’re not able to finish burning the diseased branches here, there’s just a few large pieces left that would be easy to move somewhere else to finish burning away.
Unfortunately, I expect we’ll have to cut down several more crab apple trees completely, not just in this area, but in others. All of that wood will need to be burned. We won’t even be able to use it in the fire pit for cookouts. That’s going to be a lot of wood to burn, so until we can get it done, we’ll have to keep the wood separate from any other wood we clean up that we will make use of as much as possible, even if they end up being chipped and used for mulch. The last thing we want is to have is infected wood chips!
There may still be snow on the ground, but it sure feels good to be warm enough to start doing jobs like this, outside!
The Re-Farmer 