All day, we’ve been under an ongoing thunderstorm watch.
Sort of.
These watches cover a massive area. Looking at the weather radar, none of it seems to be heading to us. Instead, all the systems seem to be splitting off to pass either the north or south of us.
I had been holding off watering the garden because of these possible thunderstorms, hoping we would at least get some rain. I finally started watering the old kitchen garden this morning, and it actually did start raining hard enough that I stopped and went inside, planning to continue later.
Then the power outage hit.
Finally, when it was time to head out and feed the outside cats, I planned to finish the watering.
I was still filling various bowls with kibble when my pocket started screaming at me.
We were getting a tornado warning to our cell phones, complete with instructions to find shelter.
I could hear some thunder in the distance, but there was nothing over us to suggest any sort of storm or rain, never mind a tornado.
My daughter was on her computer when her phone went off so she looked it up. It turns out that while we were in the service range for the warning, we weren’t in the geographical range. That was to the south of us. Nothing was headed our way.
So I finished feeding the cats, then wandered through the garden area, checking on things while deciding whether I was still going to water or not. I could hear equipment running and voices on the road, so I went closer to see what I could over the lilac hedge. The electric company was replacing the top of a power pole across the road from us.
I’m sure they would have gotten the same tornado warning we did and, if it had been for our geographical area, they would have been ordered to pack up and leave!
I started watering, including the new food forest additions. It was while I was there that a second tornado warning with instructions to take shelter came in.
I could hear thunder from both east and west, but that was it. Once again, our climate bubble was in action.
I was able to finish watering without interruption.
We’re still supposed to get some rain today. There is a system that is supposed to actually pass over us this evening, with the more severe portions still missing us. We might get actual rain for about an hour. For all the watering I did, any rain would still be a blessing.
However, I’d still be more than happy for the rain to miss us, if it means all those fires get the rain instead. The current count is something like 700 fires across the country, making it the worst fire season in 30 years.
While the severe weather missed us, a homesteading friend who lives south of my mother’s town posted some video she took. While I was outside, watering the garden, she was getting a massive down pour, and hail started to fall while she was recording. It was absolutely insane to watch! They were under the geographical tornado warning area which, thankfully, did not happen. We are still under an ongoing severe thunderstorm watch but, from what I’m seeing on the weather radar, the system has already passed us and moving on into the next province. For our area, we might, just maybe, get some rain. Which is supposed to be happening right now, but the system split off to pass on either side of us again!
When the outage start approaching 3 hours, we had a decision do make – except it was already made for us, really. We could get the fire pit going and start cooking lunch, or go into town and get take out.
We’re still under a fire ban (plus, cooking outdoors in this heat would have been brutal), so off to town I went!
As I reached the end of the gravel road, I started seeing large vehicles on the side of the road near the highway. One of them had an empty trailer attached to it. When I got to the stop sign, I could see the equipment it was hauling. A lift on tracks was at one of the power poles, surrounded by several trucks and a crowd of people.
The electric company has been upgrading stuff all over the province for the past year or so, so seeing workers these days is not unusual. Seeing that many, with so many vehicles right in the ditch with the workers (the ditch on that side is wide and flat enough to drive in) suggested this was not part of the maintenance projects.
While driving through our little hamlet, I passed two places that have exterior signs that are lit up, and they were both on. So the power outage clearly didn’t affect things East of the highway.
This is what the WP AI image generator came up with, with only the word “electricity” as a prompt. 😄
When I got to town, I got some gas then stopped at a DQ. I ordered enough for the four of us for two meals, just in case.
On the way home, when I got to where I’d seen the workers, all the vehicles were now mustered on the gravel road side of the highway, and it looked like they were packing up. When I saw I would pass one of the guys, I stopped to ask him about it. He confirmed that they had just finished repairing the damage, and the power would soon be turned back on. I made sure to express my thanks for their work, then headed home. It was only two more miles, but the power was on again before I got there.
While I was in town, I took advantage of having a data signal and messaged with my brother while waiting for the food. When I told him I was in town and why, and he asked about using the BBQ they have us a couple of years back. I told him, the last time I checked, BBQs were also part of the fire ban.
Once home and the computer was back on, I checked the RM website. Our fire pit is not an “approved” fire pit, in that it doesn’t have a screen, but even if it did, we could only have used it between 8pm and 8am. As for the BBQ, it is a propane one, and BBQs and fire pits fueled with propane tanks were still allowed. Which is good to know, should we find ourselves in this situation again. They also just recently lifted a ban on ATVs and off road vehicles.
That explains why I was suddenly seeing so many of them on the trail cams lately!
That might also explain why we suddenly started seeing our vandal doing weird stuff in the driveway cam, too. We didn’t get a break because he was calming down. It was because his preferred method of transportation was temporarily banned.
Tomorrow, we have our planned outage from 9am to 2pm. They are upgrading the entire system so that it can handle more of a load and more people hooked into it. At the same time, they are replacing old poles, cutting away trees and branches from the power lines, and other general maintenance stuff.
I expect our power bills are going to be going up again next fiscal year. When we first got onto the equal payment plan, we were paying less than $300/month. Now, we’re creeping towards $400 a month. Without the equal payment plan, during our first winter here, the bill was over $600 for December and over $700 for January, so we really appreciated being able to get onto the equal payment plan after we lived here for a year! We’re still paying more for electricity every month than we are for our monthly truck payments. The bills have gone up even during years when our overall usage has gone down.
Anyhow.
This sort of thing is why I want to have an actual outdoor kitchen built. This is what we have planned for the structure.
The plan for the back of it is to have a brick or stone series of cooking areas, including an oven and a smoke house, that would be safe to use during dry years like this. It would also be built near the pump shack, so we would have access to the old well, and a simple extension cord from the pump shack can be set up to provide basic power, if we needed it. We originally thought to build it in a completely different area, until we realized it gets standing water during particularly wet springs.
Even if we just had the shelter built, we have old wood burning cook stoves we could set up temporarily. Between being under a roof and the fire being completely enclosed, it would not be included in any fire bans.
We’ll get there. Eventually.
For now, I’m just glad to have the power back on. It means my husband can sleep with his CPAP again.
I’m hoping I have enough data signal to post this!
Yesterday, we got a notification from the electric company that there would be a planned power outage.
Tomorrow.
They’ve been doing a lot of maintenance in the past years or so. This outage, however, is unplanned. I had to wander around outside to find enough signal to open their app and report our outage. I tried looking at their outage map. The pins loaded, but not the map itself.
I was able to get messages from my SIL while I was outside. They are in the middle of a storm. She was able to send me an outage map link that actually loaded. Our area and another just north of us are without power right now.
As I write this, our power has been out for almost 45 minutes. Hopefully, it will be back soon. I really don’t want to get into our alts.
This morning, my darling daughters took care of feeding the outside cats so that I could sleep in. Between the city shopping trips and having to get up extra early to get things done before driving out to do my mother’s morning med assists and other errands, I really needed it. I am NOT a morning person at the best of times!
Of course “sleeping in” is a relative statement. Especially with so many cats that like to use me as a bed. So it was still pretty early when I headed out to do the rest of my morning rounds.
I got to see the garage kittens.
The white and grey one was brave enough to sniff my fingers!
They have discovered my brother’s baler that’s parked beside the garage, and that’s their new playground.
The first couple of pictures are from this morning. Their mama came over and let me pet her, which gave me a chance to get closer to the kittens. There was an area they were hiding under where I could reach in from the side or the other end, so I was able to touch briefly before they moved. At one point, I just held my hand out and the white and grey one was juuuuust brave enough to touch my fingers with his/her nose and give them a sniff before backing away, several times.
While checking on the garden beds, I got some pictures of a couple of the pumpkins.
A couple of them are blooming, but only one has a female flower budding (second image above). That one is on the largest pumpkin plant. Since the beans are completely stagnated and not going to climb the trellis I prepared for them, I’m training the bigger pumpkin up the trellis netting. As the main vine gets bigger, I’m getting it to grow towards one of the vertical support posts, as well as to where a pair of vertical and horizontal netting support posts cross. Any pumpkins would get too heavy for this netting to support on its own, so I want to use the structural supports as much as possible.
Today was slightly cooler than yesterday, but I still wanted to stay out of direct sunlight while working outside. With that in mind, I decided to get back to the wattle weaving in the old kitchen garden.
Of course, things didn’t quite go as planned. Do they ever? But that will be in my next post!
I forgot. We’re coming up on a long weekend. Even though today is Thursday, Costco was insanely busy! When I was done, it took several minutes going further and further to the back of the store before I found the end of the line I needed. The self check out line was almost as long!
Thankfully, everything went quickly.
Before going to Costco, though, I made a stop at the mall nearby for breakfast, then made a quick run through the Dollarama. I found a few things for both kitchen and garden, totaling just over $35 – including a couple of boxes of McKenzie Seeds wildflower mix. I’m considering trying again in the same spot I tried winter sowing last year, only this time, I want to find some way to keep the cats from digging and rolling all over it, even though I never removed the leaf litter mulch. We really need more wildflowers for the pollinators. I’ve left the sections of the old garden area uncut because they were pretty much the only things blooming right now. Once they start dying back, I’ll start working on taming the jungle. I’m not seeing as many pollinators lately, though. The constant smoke from the wildflowers is causing them problems.
I also got a couple of metal pinwheels that are weather vanes, so they will turn with the direction of the wind to spin. I plan to set one beside the peas that are trying to recover, and another near the plum and apple saplings. The plastic pinwheels I have now don’t seem to catch the wind very well, but something that moves with the wind should work better to distract the deer.
I’m glad I didn’t stop to get a bit of gas on the way into the city. I normally put in just a few bucks if I’m expecting to drop below half a tank. I did stop at the gas station in my mother’s town along the way, but that’s because the truck informed me that I was low on washer fluid. The only fluid I have in the truck right now is for winter. Gas prices there were $1.349/L At Costco, it was $1.199/L!! There rest of the city was $1.339/L It cost me $67.15 to fill my tank.
When it comes to shopping at Costco, this is where we bulk buy most of our non-food items, so that took up a significant portion of the budget. This is what $636.55 looks like.
There were two things on my list I didn’t get, because Costco doesn’t carry them. Those are for the next Walmart trip. I lost count somewhere along the line, as I ended up going a bit over my budget for this shop, when I thought I was still under budget. Ah, well.
With the long receipt, I ended up taking two pictures of it.
Unfortunately WP messes one of them up, due to the different dimensions. You should be able to see it properly if you click on the image.
For the non-food stuff, we got:
scent free laundry detergent
puppy pads
four 9kg bags of dry kibble
one case of canned cat food
toilet paper
Shake ‘n’ Feed fertilizer (on sale)
a 2 pack of parchment paper
All of that cost $250 and change before taxes.
*sigh*
For beverages, there is a flat of Monster energy drink, which I will be paid back for, and a 3 pack of oat milk for the girls.
Then there’s the actual food:
spaghetti
Ramen noodles
2 pack of Honey Nut Cheerios (on sale)
2 jars of Hellman’s Mayo (the sale price made them cheaper than the Kirkland brand)
double flat of eggs (5 dozen)
4 pounds butter
Old Cheddar, 1 block
Mozzarella, 1 block
pork tenderlion
pork sausage (on sale)
two packs of drumsticks (on sale)
two rotisserie chickens (cheaper than raw, whole chickens)
two 2 packs of salad mix
Basmati rice
two 2 packs of rye bread
two 2 packs of wraps
1 bag hazelnuts
The food and drink part of the shop came to about $348 and change, before taxes.
What I didn’t get was beef. I checked out a fairly small flank steak, and it was over $88! A family pack of stew meat was over $43. They had a sale on ground beef, but they came in long chubs that all cost in the $60 range, before discount. Then there were the larger cuts of beef that were in the $200 plus, range. *choke* Even the pork is starting to creep up in price again.
We aren’t even going to be able to buy a beef share this year. Normally, we would have made payments throughout the year until they butchered in the fall. We already dropped from a quarter beef to an eighth, the last time we got a beef share, because of how tight our budget got once we had truck payments. We talked when I met to pick up the meat in January, and she said they weren’t sure what they were going to be doing, nor what price/pound they’d have to charge yet. All they knew for sure was that they were going to have to increase the price. So we didn’t start making payments at the beginning of the year, like I planned. Which, I suppose, worked out for the best, because we’ve had so many things needing to be replaced or repaired – and we’re still not done with that – that we couldn’t have made monthly payments this year, anyhow. They haven’t updated their website, nor have they announced anything on their social media pages, so I have no idea if they were even still selling beef shares.
I wonder if we can buy a steer from the farmer that rents most of this property? We have enough pasture in the outer yard to sustain 1 or 2 calves. Then butcher in the fall.
Oh, dear Lord. I just looked up the average prices for feeder steers and heifers, per hundredweight, in Canada right now.
*choke*
Never mind that idea! Yeah, we’d save money in the long run, but yikes! No wonder beef prices are so high right now!
Okay, so beef is going to be a rare treat for the next while.
😢😢
Anyhow.
That’s our Costco stock up shop for this month. It won’t last us the month, either.
*sigh*
Oh, that reminds me. Our federal overlords graciously “gave” people on CPP and CPP Disability a 2.7% raise that kicked in for July’s payment, which was a couple of days ago. My husband gets both CPP Disability, plus Disability through his private insurance with SunLife. With private insurance he was “allowed” to make a certain amount above the payments, then everything else gets deducted. The CPP Disability uses up all that “allowance”, which is why I can’t get a job. Anything I earn would be deducted from his SunLife disability payments.
He recently got a letter from SunLife telling him what his payments will be, starting at the end of July, meaning today.
Yup. While the CPP Disability payments went up by a few bucks, his SunLife payments went down by a few bucks.
They cancelled each other out.
🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
Honestly, I thank God that the company my husband worked for had such a good insurance plan. It’s keeping us afloat. I also thank God that we have the arrangement with my brother to live here and take care of the place in exchange for rent. We still have to be creative in making ends meet – like making these trips to the city to buy in bulk and stock up where we can. Especially in years like this, where we have next to nothing to harvest from the garden, never mind preserve for winter. Like my SIL said about their own garden, years ago: if we had to rely on our garden, we’d starve!
Well, it is what it is, and we do what we can with what we have.
This morning, I headed into the city to do our first stock up shopping trip. Usually, on this first trip of the month, I would visit a Canadian Tire, a Walmart and an international grocery store, which are all along one street. This time, I did the Walmart trip, but then went to a Superstore, instead.
At the Walmart, I got only cat supplies. Two 9kg size bags of dry kibble and two 32 count boxes of canned cat food. I did the “round up to the next dollar” donation option, so the total was exactly $137 for the whole thing.
It’s been a long time since I’ve gone to Superstore. It’s also been a long time since I did a shop that was just groceries. Not cat supplies or paper products or cleaners, etc. Just groceries.
Weird, right? 😂
This is what $263.49 looks like.
I got some good deals, too. It’s all packed pretty thoroughly, and you can’t see everything, so I took a picture of the receipt this time, too.
I must admit, I really like how organized their receipts are!
Under “groceries”, there’s a big bag of pasta, then some water flavours for my husband. I picked up some sunflower cooking oil, and a big bag of pretzels for my husband. The Monster energy drink was one of the things I got for the drive home.
There’s the soy sauce my husband prefers and some Basmati rice. We usually get a specific brand at Costco, but we were out, so I got a different brand today. I hope it’s good. We’ve tried other brands and not liked them at all.
In Dairy, there’s 3% milk, Old Cheddar and Mozza, plus a flat of eggs. I also got oat milk for the girls, but that’s under “Natural foods”. In Frozen, there are two bags of perogies. Odd that they only that that under “frozen” when I got frozen meats, too.
In Bulk Foods, I got more raw pumpkin seeds to supplement the cat food. Produce included a 6 count bag of avocados. I also got 8 ears of corn, cherries and blueberries. All were at much better prices than anywhere else.
Under Meats, there’s a frozen bag of chicken nuggets for quick eats, a pack of ground turkey consisting of 4 plastic chubs of meat. There’s a bag of cheese hoagie style sausages, and a pack of ground beef. The price of beef is insane, and that was the only beef I could justify picking up.
The boneless pork loin was frozen, and a very good price.
Under Seafood, I got a package of frozen Pollock fillets, a package with two fresh pink salmon, whole except for no heads, and a package with two salmon fillets.
It’s really saying something when salmon is cheaper than beef these days.
At the bakery, I was really looking forward to picking up their torpedo buns, but the bakery was mostly empty. Too early in the day, perhaps. All I was able to get there were three $1 baguettes.
Under Deli, I got a little package of fig goat cheese and a Camembert that was discounted 30%, and needs to be eaten quickly. I got an antipasto mix of meats and a dry salami. We have the makings of a charcutier! The “euro pepprini” on the list is a package of small “European Style” dry sausages I got to snack on, on the way home. I don’t know what “European Style” is supposed to mean, but they were a dry sausage with zero heat in them, so I knew I could safely eat them. They were oddly sweet, but quite tasty.
There was have it. A grocery shopping trip that is basically all just food for humans, totaling $263.49 after taxes.
On the way home, I put in $30 in gas and that was it.
There we have it. Our first, smaller, stock up shopping trip. The next one will be Costco, and that one will include more cat food and other sundries, like paper products.
That will be on the last day of the month, which means tomorrow, I get to stay home!
The purple bags were in one smaller box, with the two bigger ones in one big box that the inside cats are currently enjoying. 😄
Feeling so very grateful and thankful for the cat food donation. The Cat Lady sent them to us using her Amazon coupons to get a good deal. Considering how overwhelmed she is right now, and that she’s dropping out of rescue completely by the end if this summer, I so appreciate that she still thinks of us. I spoke to her on the phone today and she was telling me that she’s just had to use up their spay and neuter schedule on trapped strays that keep showing up at their place. The vet is not happy with all the ferals she’s bringing in, but they need to be done!
Also, a cat got into their house and refuses to leave. A neighbour recognized it as a cat they saw getting dumped in the area a few months ago, and she hadn’t seen it since. It first showed up on their critter cams, lounging on a catio roof. Now it’s inside, and they haven’t been able to lure it out. Some of their other cats are incredibly unhappy with the new addition! They’ve got a lot going on in their lives, so I really, really appreciate she took the time to help us out in the middle of it all, too.
A couple of days ago, when checking our trail cam files, I saw our vandal. He was driving his quad and, at the sign cam, drove onto the space between the fence and the road, got off his quad and walked up to the fence, where the camera is. He showed off his colostomy bag, then got back onto his quad and drove off.
About minute or two later, he was pulled into our driveway where he got off his quad, went to the gate, then went back to his quad and left. If he did any more, it was in the 5 second gap of time before the motion sensor could be triggered again after recording.
It was creepy and weird.
It’s been too windy to get anything done outside, even without the high temperatures, so I grabbed our water bottles and went into town. Since I was there anyhow, I was able to get my husband’s prescription refills, so we won’t have a delivery, tomorrow.
As I was heading home and turning onto our road, I could see a tractor further down the road, moving slowly. I had plenty of time to pull into our driveway before it got closer. As I got out to open the gate, then go back to truck, it was close enough that I could see the driver – and it was slowing down.
It was our vandal.
Okay. He’s just going to drive by. No problem. I got into my truck and drove through the gate, then stopped to go back and close up the gate.
As I was putting the chain on, the tractor stopped at the end of our driveway, and our vandal got off. He had his shirt open and his colostomy bag hanging out. As he walked towards me, he grabbed it and sort of shook it at me.
My only respond, as I kept closing up the gate, was to say, “yeah, I know about that.”
He came closer and started yelling at me, in an absolute rage.
He had cancer. He was dying. Because of me. (I caused his cancer, apparently.) He’s dying. It’s my fault.
I pretty much ignored him and was walking away when he said that I put him in jail. I just paused and said, “I put you in jail?” shook my head and kept walking. As for as I know, he’s never been jailed because of my pressing charges against him after he vandalized our gate. Nor after I got a retraining order against him. The restraining order was just for a year and long expired, but he’s been staying away – until I saw him doing on the trail cam files a couple of days ago. My brother has had a few really horrible voice mail messages, where it was clear I remain the focus of our vandal’s hate, and he has only gotten worse, but he stopped calling and texting me, long ago.
He also started yelling about how I never needed to work again, and neither do my daughters. I have no clue what he was talking about there. All I can guess is, he’s seeing all sorts of stuff here at the farm, and he things we suddenly bought all this stuff, so we much have oodles of money somehow. It must be driving him insane, to see all this stuff and not be able to come here and help himself to it, like he did while my father was still living here, and during the couple of years no one was living here. He still seems to think he’s entitled to the property – or at least access to it, any time he wants – and everything on it.
As I ignored him, he started yelling and waving his arm, saying for me to call the police, call the police. I just got into the truck and drove away, so he got onto his tractor and left.
I pulled up to the house to unload, so I couldn’t see through the trees, but I could hear the tractor. As slow going as it was, it seemed to be on the road for a very long time. I wonder if he stopped at the other camera again or something. I’ll have to be extra observant when I do my evening rounds.
The whole incident lasted only a couple of minutes. It was pure chance that he was driving on the road with his tractor as I was getting home.
Now I have to decide if I want to go through the hassle of reporting the incident to the police. I’m not even sure which RCMP detachment covers our area anymore. It’s changed a few times. It’s not like they’ll do anything about it, but at least there would be a record of the incident.
*sigh*
Ha! This is what the WordPress AI image generator came up with for this post…
Imaged created by WordPress AI.
He didn’t come anywhere near that close to me, and the gate was closed between us, but… that’s hilarious.
Also, that’s not what a colostomy bag looks like but, whatever!
Gotta find the humour of the situation, somewhere!
The Re-Farmer
Adendum:
Well now.
As I was outside, watering the garden, I heard a quad coming up the road. With the lilac hedge providing a privacy screen, I couldn’t see who was going by, but I had my suspicions.
I was right.
Our vandal went up the road, then drove into our secondary driveway. This is completely overgrown with grass on the road side of the gate. When I realized the quad was in the driveway, I started walking over and recording video with my phone. After a while, I was able to see through the trees as the quad backed up into the road again, in a herky jerky sort of way. I could identify our vandal at that point. I think he was drunk again, from the way he was driving. Eventually, he got completely back on the road and kept on going, probably to visit at one of the other farms in that direction.
I went to the driveway and could just see where his tires had flattened some of the tall grass, so I could tell how far he went in, and how he was facing. He was checking out my brother’s stuff stored by the warehouse. Of course, our vandal has no way of knowing who the stuff belongs to. From his earlier ranting, he seems to believe they belong to me, which means – in his mind, at least – I’ve suddenly come into a whole lot of money or something.
Seeing this stuff and not knowing what’s going on seems to be driving him insane. Possibly literally.
Looks like my morning and evening rounds will now need to include checking on that gate, and my brother’s stuff in that corner.
The strip loin grilling steak was $47.89/kg. One kilogram is 2.2 pounds. For those of you in the US, that’s US$15.99 per pound, as of today’s exchange rate.
The whole strip sirloin in the second picture is actually cheaper at “only” $41.99/kg or US$14/pound.
These weren’t even the highest prices/kg for beef. They are some of the largest cuts of beef, which made for a savings/kg compared to buying them in smaller, more prepared packages.
Even ground beef was off the menu on this trip.
So this is what we got for our $606.14, after taxes. I got a lot of stuff on sale, too.
Yeah. That’s it.
We ended up getting six 9.1kg bags of dry kibble. Normally, I like to get at least a couple of 11kg bags, but the price per kg was better with the Kirkland brand. At $27.99 each, or $167.94 in total, I think these have actually gone down in price. At the very least, they haven’t changed. There are two cases of wet cat food at $37.99 each, which is about the same, too. The puppy pads were $20.99 which I don’t think has changed, either.
The Kirkland brand toilet paper was $23.99, which is high, but unchanged from the last couple of shopping trips – they used to be under $20.
Also on the non-food list, we stocked up on a double pack of large Head and Shoulders at $22.99. This has been working well for my daughter as a anti-fungal wash. My husband has similar issues, particularly in this heat, so he will be using it as a body wash, too. We picked up the Kirkland brand of laundry detergent at $19.99 The cold water detergent was cheaper but my daughter is having to wash all her clothing and bedding with hot water (anti-fungal), so we aren’t doing cold water washes anymore.
The flat of Coke Zero, at $16.99, is the same. The flat of Monster (which my older daughter paid for) is normally $44.99, but were on sale for $9 off. We ended up getting two containers of iced tea mix because they were on sale for only $9.99 each. The regular Costco price was $12.99, which is still a good price. At local grocery stores, I’ve seen them as much as $26. We also got a three pack of 2L oat milk for my daughters, at $11.99
For breads, we finally found the tortilla wraps; the last couple of times, they were out. We picked up two packs of 36 wraps for $9.99 each. We also got two 2 packs of rye bread for $6.99 each.
We still had some butter in the freezer, so we got only four pounds today, at $5.45 each. That was it for dairy.
For protein, we got our double flat of eggs (60 eggs) for $20.39, and a pork loin for $24.15. We got two panini packs this time. Normally, they are $14.99 each, but they were $3.50 off today. The biggest sale price, however, was for wild caught salmon. They were normally about $49.99/kg, but were on sale for $24.99/kg, so I got two fillets for the girls; one at $10.05 and the other at $8.45. Both were on the smaller size of what was available.
Then we stopped, because we’d reached my budget for this trip.
*sigh*
The gas prices, at least, were a huge savings. While everywhere else was at $1.349 or $1.359 per liter for regular gas, Costco was at $1.099/L It still cost me $72.05 to fill the tank.
We did have other purchases today. When we got to the city, the first thing we did was have lunch for breakfast. We went to a nearby mall’s food court and got food and bubble teas from different places, which totaled over $40. I ate only half of my Chinese food meal. The other half was supper.
We also made a quick stop at the Dollarama, where I got a few things for the garden, including supports for that black currant bush. I also found a broom for outside with plastic bristles, so it’ll last longer than the straw broom we have for outside, now, which is ready for the trash. I got more plant clips, and my one splurge was for some solar powered LED string lights. I’m torn between using it in the garden, or replacing the string of lights on the fence by the gate, which are getting old and starting to dim quite a bit. The total was just under $30 for everything.
We also stopped at the Canadian Tire to get a metal replacement winch for the clothes line. The one that came with the kit for the new line was slipping. There were several options available, but we went with the one that turned out to be exactly the same as what’s on the older clothes line. We also got four more line separators; the kind with the wheels on them. Now, each line has three of these.
While there, we found more clothes line kits that got us rather excited. The kit I got, locally, was the only option available, and had a medium duty line. Canadian Tire had kits for heavy duty and super heavy duty lines. The super heavy duty kit was about $90. Looking at the contents of the kit, sold separately, and it’s actually a huge savings. The 150′ of heavy duty line alone cost more than half what the kit cost. So when we’re ready to set up a third line, we’ll definitely be getting one of these sturdier kits. That way we can have an extra strong line for things that are very heavy when wet, like towels or blankets, while light stuff can go on the medium duty lines.
The winch and four line separators cost just over $40.
So, everything together today cost about $788, give or take a few dollars.
About $265 of that, before taxes, was just cat stuff. Closer to $244, if we don’t count the puppy pads.
Actual food and beverages for us humans came out to about $225.
There is something wrong with that picture. Especially considering the prices of cat food hasn’t gone up in quite a while.
Hey, did you know there’s a Ko-fi donation button at the top? All proceeds go directly to the care and feeding of cats!
*sigh*
So our stock up shopping was a bit short on the “stock up” part, but we did get a few really good prices in there. We’re supposed to be buying extra for the pantry, though, so that we have at least an extra month’s supplies for the winter, in case we can’t get out again. We can’t count on having another mild winter, or on not having spring flooding washing out the roads again.
We are actually very fortunate in our situation, too. I’m counting my blessings here. If we were still living in the city, we’d be in far worse shape, that’s for sure!
So I give thanks for what we have, and ma grateful for it.
We got the first shop done, though, were able to get some good deals today, and got home early enough to be here for when the door guy comes out.
The first issue was a very unfortunate awakening shortly after 3:30am. Two cats started fighting, basically on my head. As if that weren’t bad enough, while flinging whatever cat was there at the time, I found myself with a very wet hand.
It took a while to figure things out. Butterscotch was sleeping next to my head, as she usually does. In the wall shelf that is my headboard, right at pillow height, I have my “leaning sheep”. A large stuffed sheep my daughters got for me for a laugh that has turned out to be an incredibly comfortable back support while sitting in bed, so I keep is stuffed into the shelf near my head to keep it handy.
Leyendecker, for some reason, sprays. Yes, he’s neutered. We have not been able to stop him, and have resorted to setting puppy pads out at areas that are the most commonly targeted.
It seems that last night, he decided to spray my leaning sheep. After the altercation was done, I was looking all over for the wet spot I knew had to be somewhere, and it was only on the sheep, and the edge of the mattress that was directly in front of it.
My older daughter, sweetheart that she is, helped me change my bedding and got the laundry going during the night, as I went back to bed.
Not for long.
At about 5:30, I started hearing a commotion, and it was Ghosty at my computer desk. She was trying to dig into a container of small items she likes to steal, trying to get under the cover. She stopped and ran off when I brought out the spray bottle, but she was soon back, trying to steal the trail cam memory cards.
I have up trying to sleep and got up to do my morning rounds.
As usual, the first thing on the to-do list is feed the outside cats. This time, I just went ahead and put several kitten food bowls on the old kitchen floor before heading out with the dry kibble. I soon had all 7 of them enjoying their special cat soup, without having to fight off any big cats.
My morning rounds were typical, with no extra jobs added on, since we had to head out early. I immediately noticed that, aside from the scratches on my right wrist, the cat altercation caused issues with my injured left arm. Any healing was definitely set back.
We ended up leaving just before 7am. Along the way, we made a stop at a gas station convenience store in two to grab some drinks and snacks to tide us over until we got to the city. Which is when I realized I would need my daughter to let me out of the truck, due to the broken handle on this inside. There was no way I was going to twist my arm over and over, by opening the truck door through the window.
My daughter ended up doing all the even more moderate lifting and carrying for me, today!
Our first stop in the city was the Canadian Tire. We needed more stove pellets for the litter boxes, but we also did some looking around. I ended up getting a very sturdy 25′ tape measure on clearance. We keep either losing or breaking ours, and it was more than half price, so I snagged it. That, with the litter pellets, cost under $20, so I didn’t bother taking my usual picture. My daughter, sweetheart that she is, got the 40 pound bags into the box of the truck for me.
Our next stop was the Walmart, with a quick side trip to Domo gas station along the way, since today is Thursday, and that’s one of their 4¢ off per liter days. We just got $40 in gas. We’ll do a fill at Costco, when I’ll reset my trip meter.
The main things we needed to get at the Walmart was cat food to last us until we do the Costco shop. Aside from that, my older daughter requested some energy drinks, and we were thinking to grab things that were quick to cook, as we’ll be doing a lot of running around in the next while.
This is what $266.47 looks like.
We got some Fresca for my husband and energy drinks (2 for $6) for the girls and I. I decided to get paper towel here instead of Costco, for space reasons. They were on sale, but not as good a sale as the facial tissues. My daughter remembered that we were getting low on spray cleaner, so we grabbed one of those. There are also three 9.1kg backs of dry kibble and two 32pack boxes of wet cat food. My daughter chose some frozen popcorn chicken and pizza bites for the quick eats. There was also a really good price on Sea Bass steaks for my daughters, so I grabbed two of those. The bag of potatoes was also on sale.
The cat food is heavy enough to put in the back of the truck without risk of it being blown away, along with the canned drinks. My daughter just put a bag of cat food over the drink box to keep it from sliding around.
That packed up, we were off to our last stop of the day at the international grocery store. We ended up getting quite a bit more than expected today, as there were some really good sales on.
This is what $324.15 looks like.
There were some really good deals on cheeses today, so we ended up getting the makings of a charcuterie. We got a blue triple cream brie, plus a small regular brie, as my daughter isn’t a big fan of the blue version, a “Pure Perfection” (the brand, I think) gouda, as well as a small jar of clotted cream (we haven’t had that since before we moved out here!), a red wine salami, some Prosciutto and a charcuterie trio of meats, plus a couple of loaves of French bread.
I also found a container of 7 Layer Dip, which my husband has been craving but, for some reason, no one has had in stock for months. So we got one of those, plus a couple of bags of tortilla chips to go with it.
For non-charcuterie protein, there’s a frozen Coho salmon filet for my daughters, a smoked bacon piece and an applewood smoked bacon piece, and a large package of chicken drumsticks. The drumsticks were one of the best deals we saw today, at more than half off. We also picked up an 18 count of eggs to tide us over until we get our usual double flat at Costco. They had an unusually good sale on Pizza Pops, so we got a box of those, too.
In fresh produce, we took advantage of more sales. Black plums, nectarines and plumcots, plus four bags each of two different types of salad mixes.
We also got some plain vanilla ice cream, which my daughters like to add to their coffees. We got some Katsuo Furikaka seasoning, pearl couscous, red rooibos and instant milk tea. In the non-food stuff, we got some argan oil for my hair, and Dabur hair oil for my daughter.
Then, for lunch at home, my daughter picked a couple of sushi for herself and her sister, we got a giant Lumberjack sandwich for my husband, and a teriyaki bento box for me. For the drive home, I got a lime Jarritos soft drink, my daughter got a green tea for herself and a jasmine green tea for her sister.
With all the sales, we got $55.12 in loyalty card discounts, though that doesn’t include sales on items sold by weight. There were deals on loyalty points, too. Normally, it’s $1 gets 1 point. Today, that was double, plus I had an accumulative offer available for spending over $200, resulting in over 10,600 points for our purchase. Come Christmas time, I should be able to get at couple of free turkeys, at least.
So that was our first stock up shopping trip done, and I’m happy with how much we were able to get, with our still limited use of the box until the new cover is installed.
Meanwhile, I’ve had plenty of distractions while writing this!
The door guy has come and gone. He thinks they can save the storm door! That would be good. As for the new exterior door, they do have the style with the window that opens that I was wanting. The need to replace the frame, not just the door, was quite obvious. They will be able to put the arm bar back. There is a hand rail outside that will need to be removed, and that will be put back, too. The only thing that might be an issue is that the frame is partially under the stucco outside, and there’s no way to know what’s under there until the start taking things out. He figures there is a stucco on stucco situation.
Then I got a call from home care.
Not for tonight, thankfully.
Tomorrow morning. So I’ll be going to my mother’s to take care of that. When I called to let her know, though, she told me she had a shopping list for me… that way, I don’t have to come back next week.
I told her, you’re going to need another shopping trip next week, too! 😄
On the plus side, I’ve been chatting with my SIL. They are coming out to stay at their trailer this weekend, but she is coming out tonight. My brother will be able to meet me at my mother’s, tomorrow, and help me out with the med assist, and the shopping. That will be less stress on my arm, and greatly appreciated.
Oh, and on top of all that, I’ve been in contact with the large animal rescue about Poirot’s babies. They will have a cat cage set up for the kittens tonight, and we’re just working out whether we’re taking the kittens to them tomorrow, or if they’re coming to us to get the kittens. My daughter wants to meet them and chat with them about animal care, so I’ve suggested we go to them. Plus, we’ll need to go into town anyhow, to refill our water bottles.
I hope to be done with my mother’s shopping before her Meals on Wheels gets delivered, so we’ll be able to get the kittens delivered in the afternoon.
Tomorrow had started out as an open day, where I could focus on work outside again.
Ha! That didn’t last long!
Meanwhile, we will most likely be doing our Costco shopping in the city on Saturday. If all goes well, we’ll be able to do a proper shop, and not end up making so many extra runs to get things throughout the month. We’ve put in more than twice the usual mileage in June than is typical for us, and the extra cost in fuel is painful on the budget.
July is going to have a lot of driving, too, including for medical reasons.
At least all this extra driving is happening now, and not during the winter months!
I’d love to just crawl into bed right now and hopefully not be awakened by fighting cats landing on my head.
Butterscotch is still hiding under the armchair, poor thing.
The Re-Farmer 