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Stripped

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A few days ago, I wrote about doing this…

Most of the sunflower stalks had been stripped of their leaves and tops, but the tallest ones were beyond the reach of the deer. I bent the stalks on each of those to bring the tops down.

This morning, they all looked like this.

They are all now stripped bare of leaves and seed heads! The deer were most efficient.

In other things I am happy to say I was able go pick up our new pasta maker in the mail. We look forward to using it soon! It had actually arrived on Friday, but I was expecting other things to be in by now, so I waited. Alas, nothing else had arrived. Including my Rare Seeds order. At this point, I suspect we won’t see either order from there from there until January, but the first part of my Veseys order should arrive next week.

Like everywhere else, people are ordering online a lot more, as local stores are either closed or not allowed to sell “non-essential” items. Like clothing. Our lock down was supposed to end on Dec. 11, but it’s already been announced that it will only be “relaxed” a bit. You still can’t buy new clothes, but now you can go to a thrift shop and buy used ones. You still can’t buy new toys for your kids, but you can buy wrapping paper and decorations, though those items are only temporarily allowed. Kids still can’t play hockey or go to the playground, but the NHL team is allowed to have practices now. They finally allowed the drive through light displays. Church services had been banned, but some had drive in services. After ticketing them for 10’s of thousands of dollars, the drive in services are now allowed, but with very stern warnings about compliance. The crazy thing is, these parking lot services went above and beyond, right from the start. Even the cars themselves were physically distanced, as if the virus can get through glass and steel and leap from vehicle to vehicle. They’re just a scapegoat, of course. Just like anyone who can’t wear a mask.

Something happened in the city just a few days ago that was incredibly disturbing. A young woman with PTSD had tried to go to a Giant Tiger to buy some groceries. Normally, why a person can’t wear a mask is not to be talked about, since it’s a privacy violation, but in this case, the young woman and her mother (who first shared the story on a group we’re on) were willing to tell why. This young woman had been raped as a child, and her rapist held his hand over her mouth as he attacked her. She now cannot have anything in front of her face without triggering her PTSD. Not a scarf or a blanket, nor a shield or mask.

When she went into the store, she was told she needed to wear a mask. She explained that she was medically exempt. Instead of honoring the mandate, which explicitly states when people are exempt from wearing a mask, they called the police.

What happened next was horrific. SIX squad cars responded. When she tried to explain she was medically exempt from wearing a mask, she was attacked, thrown to the ground, handcuffed, and a mask forcibly put over her face. She was then arrested and taken to a police station.

In the end, they let her go, because she had done nothing wrong. Later, after so many friends came to her door to check on her, she made a short video of herself, so she wouldn’t have to keep describing what happened, over and over. As you can imagine, the whole thing traumatized her all over again, but she assured those who cared for her that she was NOT suicidal, and that she was going to get through it. She just needed to be left alone for a little while.

This sort of thing is increasing. A politician in another locked down province recently shared what happened to his own son. His son and a friend were in a bar, which are allowed to be open. They are both medically exempt. His friend went to the bar to order a beer and was told he had to wear a mask. He explained he was medically exempt. They called the police. The politician’s son tried to stand up for his friend, explaining they were both medically exempt.

He ended up being tazed in the back.

As you can imagine, as someone who cannot wear a mask, these sorts of things really concern me. It’s not too bad when I go to local stores – I only go to the ones I know are safe – but I will have to go to the city to do the second half of our monthly shop. I was hoping to be able to do it after the lock down expired on the 11th, but that no longer matters. Nothing of substance is changing. I’m fortunate, in that I can get away with wearing a shield for a short time, but in some places, not even those are accepted. They say you have to wear a mask under it. Meanwhile, I struggle even with the shield, if I wear it for too long.

Part of what’s frustrating is when well meaning (and sometimes not so well meaning) people suggest wearing a mask anyway, to avoid all this. It’s just a few minutes, after all. That’s like telling someone with a peanut allergy that they should just try a different brand of peanut butter. :-/

Well, I’ve gone off on a tangent. I do try to keep things on this blog neutral but, from the start, I wanted to keep things as real as possible, talking about both the positives and the negatives of restarting our lives here. I didn’t want to put forward any illusions that things are sunshine and roses, because nothing ever is. Personally, I think we often learn more from the negatives than the positives! I never imagined I would find myself writing about being stripped of our basic human rights and dignity, but it is what it is. It’s one of the things we have to deal with.

I will say, though, that I am really, really glad we are no longer living in the city! The province we moved away from just entered a new lock down, too. Things are even worse, there – and I don’t mean with the virus.

We’re living in a house that needs major renovations, on a farm where most of the usable tools disappeared before we moved here, are being sued by the person who took them, for more money than replacing the roof would cost, and have to maintain security cameras in case our vandal does something stupid again, while our peace bond application against him has been delayed due to the Covid restrictions.

And I am still grateful to be living here.

The Re-Farmer

Wood carving: testing the new gouge

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Lo and behold, I had an open day today! Which means I finally had the chance to do a bit of wood carving and test out the wood gouge I got a month ago.

I had a particular piece of maple from clearing behind the pump shack that I wanted to use. After looking at ideas for a while, I decided to make an olive server. Something along the lines of this.

It took me about 5 or 6 hours, but I got it done! :-D

Photo heavy post ahead! :-D

Here is what I started with.

This is about half the length of the original piece. The length was decided by a bend in the wood. :-)

I now needed to create a slightly flat bottom, and take about 1/3 off the opposite side to create the top of the bowl.

I used what tools I had on hand, which was this beast of a knife.

We’ve dragged this thing around for many moves! I’ll have to get my husband to tell the story behind it. :-D It turned out to be perfect for the job. Especially that little sunken in part of the blade, near the handle. It was the perfect width to set at an end of the wood, then I hammered it with a rubber mallet to split off the pieces I needed to remove

Then I used it as draw knife to debark it!

Once that was done, I made a rough sketch on the wood.

The narrower end is where I placed the handle, and I decided to leave a little bit of a “foot” for an extra touch of stability.

Before I started carving, though, I decided I should try and use my new angle grinder to level off the flat parts, take off excess wood, and maybe even shape that handle.

It came with 2 metal grinding wheels. Not wood.

I tested it anyhow, just to get to know the machine. All it really did was leave some marks in the wood. :-/ Ah, well!

Finally, it was time to use the gouge!

This thing is awesome! Oh, my goodness, it cut through the maple like nothing. I could also switch hands with it. I can use my right hand, but I am left dominant. The sloyd knife from my carving kit is for righties. I can use it with my left hand, but it takes some doing, and I still need to use my right hand to control the blade. I did use the sloyd knife a bit, to give my hands a break, since it is held in a completely different way. As I got deeper, though, it just wasn’t possible to use the sloyd knife any more.

Which is exactly why I wanted the gouge!

As I went deeper, I hit the middle heart wood, and discovered it was rotten!

This would not be an issue for the bowl part of the server, since I would be cutting it out completely, but would it affect the handle or the end?

The bowl portion is done!

Along with the gouge, I used carving knives to thin the wood at the top edges, which made it easier to set the gouge to go deeper.

You can see a spot of discoloration at the near end of the bowl. That’s the heartwood. It’s really small, so I’m hoping it won’t be an issue.

The next thing to do was remove excess wood to shape the outside.

I was going to use my coping saw for the handle part, but the darn thing keeps trying to spin on me. So I used a different hand saw, and a chisel to take off the wood under the handle. I almost took off a bit too much, though. !!

The next several hours were spent using carving blades to shape the handle and ends, and smooth out the inside. The handle and the ends were a real pain to work on!

Then it was finally time to sand.

Sanding the inside of the bowl was also a real pain! Getting the curved ends smooth was the worst of it, but sanding the inside in general was really awkward. Still, working my way through ever finer grits of sandpaper, I finally got it to where I was happy with it. It’s a good thing I wanted to keep some of the “rustic” texture in there!

Here it is, all sanded.

It was worth the fight! :-D I am quite happy with it.

Here’s a closer look at the handle end of the bowl.

Hmm… Do you see that little divot?

That’s the heartwood.

While shaping the handle, I did end up reaching the soft heartwood from underneath, so I was very careful not to expose any more of it.

Oiling the wood should help protect it. Before I did that, though, I made a last minute change.

I decided to drill a hole though the “foot” of the handle, for a hanging cord of some kind.

Finally, it was time to oil it! I use mineral oil, as it is food safe, and does not go rancid.

I love how the oil brings out the beauty of the wood, as well as protecting and preserving it!

Just a couple more detail shots. :-)

I have since threaded some twin that’s almost the same colour as the wood, though the hole.

I think I will give this to my brother. They may never use it, but I know he and his wife will appreciate it. Especially since it was made using wood from maples I had to clear away to fix the pump shack window. :-) A little piece of the farm!

The Re-Farmer

Half shop, and bubble!

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First up, Happy Thanksgiving to all our visitors from the US! I hope you are having a wonderful day! :-)

Today was my day to go into the city for our monthly stock up.

I was really dreading it.

I’m part of a local, private, online group where people around our province share where it is safe to shop for people who can’t wear masks. Since our province went into “enhanced lock down,” some places have gone full gestapo. The Costco I normally go to has always been really great, but something changed. Now, masks or shields are required, or no one is allowed in. I know quite a few people who cannot wear even a face shield, at all (largely due to PTSD), and they reported some pretty awful responses from the management. Worse, people were reporting that police have started patrolling the stores and parking lots at all Costco locations. They have been approaching people in their vehicles, when there is more than one person, demanding to know if they were from the same household. One woman had an officer come back to her vehicle and ticket her, for being part of a freedom protest a couple of weeks ago. How the officer determined who she was or if she were even at that protest, she didn’t know. Inside the store, people were reporting being hassled, medical exemptions being denied, and management being downright abusive. A different Costco location than the one I usually go to, which was already known for not being a safe place, has gotten even worse.

As you can imagine, I was quite concerned. Yes, I would be wearing a shield, but even people with shields were reporting being denied entry to some stores, getting harassed by security, and so on.

Normally, a daughter comes with me, but with the “enhanced lock down”, I wasn’t sure we would both be allowed into any stores at the same time. So I went alone, just in case.

Normally, we do a drive through breakfast, then Walmart, then an international grocery store, then Costco, so that stuff that is frozen, or needs refrigeration, is in the vehicle for the shortest possible time.

Today, I skipped the drive through, and bought most of what was on my list at Walmart. I walked in with my shield, and no one batted an eye. I was the only person I saw with a shield instead of a mask, the entire time. I did get odd looks from a couple of customers, but with their faces hidden, I really couldn’t tell what their full expressions where. One old guy just stopped dead in his tracks and stared at me. ???

The last thing I got at the Walmart was a small tray of sushi for breakfast to eat in the van, then headed to the international grocery store. I was able to get the rest of what was on my list there. This place is awesome, and I probably would have been fine without even the face shield, but I didn’t want to take a chance of them getting fined $5000; something else our provincial government has started to do.

Along with what was on my list, I also found something I was quite excited about, in the Indian food aisle.

Duram wheat flour!

We’re going to be making pasta! :-D

It doesn’t take much for me to get excited. ;-)

Best of all, though, I was able to skip Costco entirely.

Since neither place had flat carts, I wasn’t able to get things in the same amount we normally would. I basically did a half-shop, as far as quantities go, so we will need to make a second trip. Especially for the heavy stuff, like cat food and litter. Most of the smaller, lighter stuff, we can get locally without hurting the budget too badly. The lock down is supposed to end on Dec. 11, so we have at least enough to last until then. I don’t expect the lock down to actually end, though. From what I’m seeing, I expect things to get worse, not better. And I don’t mean the virus. I hope I’m wrong.

Once I got home, and the girls and I were putting everything away, I happened to see something odd through the semi-transparent lid of our flour container. So I opened it to check.

It’s a bubble!!

The “bread egg” I buried in there managed to expand a bubble far enough to break through the top of the flour!

Well, at least I know that yeast is still active and happy! :-D

Tonight, I’ll be fishing it out to soak overnight, to continue my Babcia’s bread experiment.

But I digress…

One thing I made sure to do as I headed out, was bring our pulse oximeter. After the issues I had before, I wanted to monitor myself. I used it before I left and I can’t say I was surprised to see my heart rate was at 112 – I was already pretty stressed! – but my oxygen was at 95%. I typically read at 97 or 98, so this is low for me. The “normal” range is 95-100%, unless a person has something like COPD or some other lung disease. Anything from 88-94% is still considered safe, but below that, it’s recommended to get medical help.

While I was shopping, every now and then I would pause and take a reading. When my levels were below 95%, I would do some breathing exercises, watch my levels go back up again, then continue. I remember one reading where my % was okay, but my heart rate had gone up to 126!

I am really glad I brought it along.

I’m really glad we had one I could bring along!

One thing all of these mask mandates and trying to wear a shield has done, is make me more aware of my own breathing. I mean, really, who even thinks about it normally, right? Well, I’ve started to notice that I’m having issues at other times. Like while I was driving home, I found myself short of breath, and opening the window a bit to get more air flow. I’ve even noticed times when I’d be sitting at my computer, then suddenly gasping for air. What the heck?

I have kept the oximeter with me since getting home, and every now and then, I’ll do a quick test.

My heart rate has gone down to about 68-70, which is good.

My oxygen has dropped down as low as 93%.

What the heck is going on?

I don’t feel anything is off or out of the ordinary, except possibly my sinuses. My husband suggested I might be having an allergic reaction to something. Normally, I get that in the summer, when I’m working outside. I have no idea what I’m allergic to, other than it’s something environmental. I’ve had allergy tests to try and find the source of my chronic cough, and I’m not allergic to pollen or cats or any of the other usual stuff. So I think I will try taking antihistamines for a few days and see if that changes anything. This is all so very strange.

Anyhow.

We are now stocked for about half the month. With Christmas coming, we don’t expect to do much for special shopping. Most of us have already purchased gifts online, which I hate doing unless it’s for things we cannot buy locally. I’ll have to increase the number of times we go to the post office for the next while. :-)

One thing I did do, since we will be starting to make pasta, is order a manual pasta machine and a pasta drying rack. They should arrive in the first week of December.

Meanwhile, my daughters let me know we were running low on yeast. At the Walmart, they were mostly out. I got a vacuum packed brick of “instant yeast”, and a small jar of traditional yeast, which is what we prefer. At the international grocery store, however, they had plenty of large jars of the traditional yeast, so I snagged one.

Between our ample stock of flour, yeast and other basic ingredients, we’ll be able to do all sorts of bread baking in the next while, if we want. :-)

Now that this trip is done, we shouldn’t need to go anywhere, other than the post office or the dump, for quite some time! Hopefully, I’ll at least be able to help my mother with a grocery shopping trip. No visitors are allowed in her building right now, but I can pick her up outside, then bring her bags to the outside doors. The social workers at the senior’s centre have offered to get groceries for her, too, so she should be okay. In her building, they slid notes under everyone’s door, telling everyone that they had to wear masks, even in the hallways – but “graciously” allowed them to be mask free inside their own apartments. !!

How did we ever get to this point? Have we learned nothing from history?

The Re-Farmer

It’s working!

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There was a light snow overnight, and while I was out doing my morning rounds.

I noticed this, on the roof of the cat shelter.

Melted snow on the roof of the cat shelter, above the ceramic terrarium heater.

You can certainly tell where the heat bulb is!

There is no insulation on the walls or under the roof at all, so it wouldn’t take much for there to be heat leaking through, even with the aluminum shield between the bulb and the roof.

The cats are quite enjoying their warm shelter! There’s usually several that can be seen, watching me through the window closest to the heater. :-)

They will also sit inside the kibble house, even while not eating. Sometimes, I’ll spot one of the more skittish ones under the floor, watching to see if I come closer, before squeezing out again.

We still have very little snow right now. When it starts getting to where we need to shovel it, I want to make sure the cats still have access to under the shelters, as well as into them. They have claimed every bit of shelter these structures provide! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Caged

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The kittens have been pushing the limits on things they’re not allowed to do.

Like go into our plant pots.

The problem is, if we’re not in the room, there isn’t much we can do about it!

I have a large, self watering pot that had 5 avocados that I’ve managed to grow to a decent size, until one of the kittens decided she liked it as a bed. We even tried putting Duct tape, with the sticky side up, to try and stop them, but that only lasted as long as the tape was sticky!

Today, we discovered a cat had dug deep into the pot, scattering dirt everywhere.

This is not what I had in mind when I bought the hardware cloth.

There is 1 avocado and a stick left in the pot. Whatever cat did the damage had dug down enough that I could see the stick still has live roots under it, so it might actually sprout leaves again. The other one has lots of leaves with tooth marks in them, but it has managed to survive. Hopefully, it will still survive this latest feline attack!

Unfortunately, this is not the only plant they dig in, but it’s the only one I can protect with a cage like this. Along with the avocado pot, I found a pile of dirt on the carpet under the umbrella tree. After the messes were cleaned up, I went into the living room not long after and found a new pile of soil from the umbrella tree, sitting on the shelf beside it.

*sigh*

The worst are the jade trees. We have a lot of those. The leaves are toxic to cats. They don’t eat them, but they do like to bite the leaves off the plant, then chase them around the house. They break off pieces of aloe vera, too. My younger daughter has her orchids in kokedama hanging in windows, and the kittens have been trying to get at them, too!

We have a spray bottle handy for when we catch them doing stuff, but several of the kittens have decided they don’t mind being sprayed with water at all, and just sit there, looking at us, while getting soaked! :-D

How do you keep cats from getting into things, when you’re not there?

This has put us into an interesting conundrum.

What are we going to do for a Christmas tree? There’s no way we can use our usual 6 ft artificial tree. We’ve decided to use my daughter’s 4 ft Ikea tree, and see if we can put it on something higher, and have some sort of guard to prevent cats from getting up to it. Except we don’t really have anything like that. Whatever we figure out, our usual custom is to put the tree up, with nothing on it, for quite a while before decorating it, so we can train the cats to stay out of it. That has worked before, but we haven’t had so many cats in the house before.

This would be a time to have one of those trees that hang from the ceiling! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Got it done

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What a gorgeous morning today, while I was doing my rounds! The ground looked like it was covered in frost, but it wasn’t frost. We were having an ever so slight snowfall, and it was making the very air glitter and sparkle!

I couldn’t resist trying for some shots of snowflakes on spruce needles. My phone can take some very good photos, but it doesn’t do zoom very well. Unfortunately, zooming in was the only way I could get right in there without creating a shadow. This one turned out pretty good, though!

I waited until shortly after noon before heading out to the court office to file my defense against the lawsuit our vandal has made against us. Well. Not “us”. Just me. Which I’m good with. I doubt he even remembers the names of the rest of my family well enough to spell them.

The last couple of times I was there, I had some minor issues with the mask mandate. The first time, there was no one in the lobby, and I just told the clerk in the office that I was medically exempt. The second time, there was a pair of sheriffs on duty and, while my exemption was accepted, the guy I spoke to clearly didn’t believe me. So this time, I put my face shield on before going in, just in case, even though I shouldn’t have to wear even that. The mandates say nothing about face shields.

There were no sheriffs in the lobby this time. I am pretty sure this is because court is in session only in the mornings. The chairs were even back in the lobby!

There was already someone in the office, and someone else in a chair (three chairs, right next to each other… no attempt at physical distancing at all!). It was an older gentleman, filling out some paperwork, with his mask under his nose. :-D I took advantage of the wait and made a quick dash to the bathroom. When I came out, the first guy in the chair was in the office, and there was a different older gentleman sitting in one of the other chairs, filling out paperwork, with his mask under his chin.

It looks like the court office is being more reasonable about things.

When it was my turn to go in, the clerk seemed to do a double take when she saw me, but said absolutely nothing about my shield. I think she just didn’t expect it. The face shield is shielding me more from being hassled, than anything else!

I had pretty much everything ready before I came in, so all I needed to do was sign and date the form in front of her. She double checked everything was in order, did her own stamping, dating and so on. It took hardly any time at all, even with her having to disappear in the back to check on things. She apologized, explaining that she was still new to the job and wanted to make sure of things. Which was just fine by me! Then she made a couple of copies; one for me and one for me to serve our vandal with. She also gave me a declaration of service form. We talked a bit about that, because I wasn’t quite sure how I was to do that. Since I plan to serve via registered mail, I just need to keep an eye on the tracking number online. Once it shows that our vandal has signed for it, I can fill out the form (I should be able to print out proof of pick up), then go back and file it.

This is for a February teleconference court date. I have my own court date with him in 4 days, and that will be in person. It looks like I’ll be going to that building 3 times in one week. I suppose I could file the declaration of service on the same day as court, but I wouldn’t want to wait that long if he, say, picked it up tomorrow (which is not assured; we drive in to get our mail only once or twice a week, and I think that’s pretty common out here). Plus, I know that once the court session is done, I’m unlikely to have the sanity points to deal with anything else! I expect him to fight the restraining order, of course. Likely, that will mean a trial date will be set. However, the judge may decide to make a decision right then and there, too. Considering the type of restraining order I am applying for includes “fear of property damage”, which he has already done, there is no ambiguity for my concerns on that part, so it is a real possibility. It would certainly save the court time.

It’s unlikely but, after seeing my defense, it’s entirely possible he’ll drop the suit against me. Especially with the list of things my brother could potentially sue him for, topping an estimated $45,000. Replacement value would easily double, possibly even triple, that amount. The fact that he was already given the opportunity to remove anything he could prove was his, more than 2 years ago, is probably all a judge would need to throw it out.

Ah, well. It will be what it will be.

I’d come prepared with an envelope, so as soon as I was done at the court office, I got our vandal’s copy ready and went to the post office to mail it. I’ve already checked the tracking number, and can tell that all the postmaster had to do was print out a pick up card and tuck it into his mail box. I had some concern that it would have to be sent to the city for processing, first! :-D Actually, I had more concern that I might run into him at the post office, which has happened before.

I am sorry that this has all had to get to the level of the courts, but now that it has, I really hope this will finally put a stop to the things he’s been doing. A restraining order is just a piece of paper, but it’s better than nothing, and gives the police more authority to act, if he does something stupid again.

All we can do it take it one step at a time.

The Re-Farmer

Three

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Three years ago today, in the wee hours of the morning, we finally made it. My older daughter and I, with our two cats, a couple of fish, and the van stuffed with plants and as much more as we could squeeze in, arrived here at the farm. We were finally reunited with my husband and younger daughter.

It would be several more weeks before we could get the house cleared up enough for our own stuff to be brought by the movers, with all the disaster they wrought in the process.

It was a brutal move.

Things have not gone to plan. Nothing ever does! However, we’ve managed to meet, or at least progress on, a number of goals. My husband ending up in the hospital with a heart condition last year threw quite a few things off, but he is still with us, and that’s the main thing. Of course, we never dreamed we’d have such a mess with our own personal vandal (the list of things he’s taken from from here over the years now tops $45,000 in estimated value, and it’s still just what my brother can be sure of!). The deal we had with our mother to take care of the farm is now with my brother, and it has been quite mutually beneficial.

Among our goals, we want to slowly get ourselves as self-sufficient as possible. Being able to garden this year was a major step forward in meeting that goal. It just happened to also be a year when absolutely everyone who could, decided to grow their own pandemic gardens! It did make it a bit harder to find some things, but overall, we did all right.

Little by little, we’re moving forward in our plans. Looking at the list of stuff that disappeared has had me thinking of just how much further forward we could be, if we had all those tools, equipment and supplies to use! Ah, well. It is what it is. We have had to get creative, and I’m looking forward to some of the projects we’ve got in mind for the next few years.

Looking ahead, we will be slowly expanding our gardening; I will probably continue to focus more on the vegetable gardening, while my daughters will focus more on flowers. We hope to be able to plant a nut orchard as soon as we can, since the trees will take so long to mature and produce. Berry bushes and fruit trees are also on the list. My goal of clearing out the spruce grove continues, though I will have to divide that with working on the outer yard more. There are things that need to be done there that really shouldn’t wait, some of which I’ve already started on. Hopefully, we will be able to expand our gardening to the outer yard, where there is more direct sunshine, and at some point set up some poly-tunnels or greenhouses.

There is still a lot to clean up, repair and replace. We still have to figure out how to come up with the money for a new roof. Though there is much more renovation that needs to be done, none of that matters very much if we don’t get the roof done!

We still plan to build a cordwood shed that will be an outdoor bathroom with composting toilet. As much as we need a second bathroom in the house, if we have another disaster with the septic like we had earlier this year, we need a back up, and the old outhouse we’ve got now isn’t really usable. I’d be worried someone would fall through the floor!

There have certainly been challenges, and of course there will be more. In the end, however, I still think moving out here was the right decision for us. Especially with all that’s been going on this year. I don’t even want to think about what things would have been like, if we were still living in the heart of the city right now! It was stressful enough, even before the world went crazy with Covid. Still living in the city through all this would have been disastrous for my husband’s health – and that’s without getting the virus! For all the unexpected difficulties, living here has still given us an oasis of relative peace from the world, and I am grateful for it.

Here’s to another year of moving forward!

The Re-Farmer

That’s convenient, and sooo tired!

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With feeding the critters outside, I needed a good, sturdy scoop to hold the cat kibble, deer feed or bird seed. At first, we tried re-purposing the gallon plastic jugs from distilled water. They’re basically the same that milk comes in. We would just cut the bottom off to form a scoop and, with the cap on, the jug itself became the carrying vessel.

The plastic, however, was too flimsy and bendy. I believe it was my husband who first cut the bottom off of an empty popcorn container from Costco. The plastic is much stronger, and even the handle is a better shape. Very convenient!

There is something else that’s convenient.

When we fixed up the old platform bird feeder, I’d taken off the rotten seed platform, but left the supports. I figured I might add another platform in the future, but as soon as it was set back up, the birds started using the supports to perch on. Being so handy for the birds, they’ll be left as is.

Which is working out for me, too.

After refilling the new bird feeder, I need to hands to be able to put it back on the hook.

The supports are the perfect width and height to hold my scoop for me while I hang the feeder! LOL

Also, while doing my rounds, I couldn’t resist getting a picture of this clump of trees by the barn.

They are just so tired!

I know. Lame. I couldn’t help myself! :-D

The Re-Farmer

A new day

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Today dawned a beautifully sunny, bitterly cold day. It doesn’t take much for the wind chill to bring a -12C (10F) morning to -22C (-7F)! It was good to get outside, though, where a whole crowd of furry adorableness was out waiting for me.

I didn’t post yesterday, other than the critter of the day photo, and I’m still debating where I should write about it at all. I generally try to focus on the things we do and find around the property, but this blog is also about our transition to life out here, and the things we deal with. Obviously, there are things I’ll never write about in a public blog, even anonymously, but I do try to cover what I can, as openly as possible. The good and the bad.

Yesterday was both.

Yesterday is also the first time it brought me to tears.

Believe me. It takes a lot to get me to that point.

The first tears were tears of … how do I even describe it? Humiliation? Frustration, to be sure. Emotional pain. Even a sense of betrayal.

My husband needed a prescription refill. The pharmacy was closed on Remembrance Day, so he ended up calling it in on the first day of our province locking things down again. They’re also pushing the mask mandates even harder, despite all evidence showing that it’s not actually accomplishing anything. Pretty much everyone is complying, but the test positivity numbers continue to go up, as we work our way through flu season.

My husband forgot to ask the pharmacy about my medical exemption. I’ve never had a problem there before. I’ve always used the sanitizer, kept my distance, but have never worn a mask, and they have never said a thing about it. However, after what happened while in a pharmacy with my mother, I figured I should ask first.

Maybe I shouldn’t have. Would it have been any different, if I just came in, as usual?

I called the pharmacy and asked if they would still honour my medical exemption. I did add that I now have a shield.

At first, the pharmacist I spoke to said yes, of course. He even joked that I might have to wrestle my way in, but added that I just needed to explain to whomever was at the door. That was a relief.

I got a call back less than a minute later.

The pharmacist had just been told that no, even with a shield, I could not come in.

This really threw me. I didn’t really get a chance to respond, as he was already offering delivery, which we can’t do because we don’t have a credit card, and debit Visa is not an alternative they can do. He said they could bring the prescription to me in the parking lot and asked if I were paying by cash. I told him by debit. It turned out they did have a wireless debit machine, so I could pay in the parking lot. I told him I had other things I needed to get, so I was transferred so floor staff. Thankfully, I already had made a list. Usually, I just go by memory.

By the time the staff member finished getting what was on my list, I was was in tears. I did make a point of telling her I had a problem with having to do this, how humiliating it was, and yeah, she could certainly hear I was crying by then.

Here’s the thing. If they offered this as a service, which I knew they already did, for anyone who chose it, that is simply good customer service. The problem is that, for someone like myself, who cannot wear a mask, there is no choice. We are simply banned. There’s a whole list of things that we can still do. Masking is the last thing recommended, and only in specific situations, and the mandates have several exemptions. Yet, outside of websites and pdfs, it’s the other way around. Masks have become the end all-be all, and if anyone has a problem with them, they become pariahs. Even as the mandates allow for medical exemptions, people insist that there is no medical reason to not wear a mask, or that it’s just for a short time, so wear it anyway. I know people who are wheelchair users that can walk short distances. It would be like telling them that, since they can walk at least a little bit, they have to leave their wheelchairs outside. Or worse, that if they can walk at all, they shouldn’t be allowed to use a wheelchair. Or they should just stay home. It’s the exact same sort of discrimination.

Anyhow.

The other place I needed to go to was the grocery store, so I pulled myself together and phoned them, too.

Will they still honour my medical exemption? I do have a shield I can wear.

Of course, was the response. Everyone does!

I told the woman I was talking to that the pharmacy would not let me in, even with a shield. She was stunned, but went to double check, just in case. She came back to assure me that I would have no problem.

I was crying again as I thanked her, this time in gratitude.

When I got to town, my first stop was the pharmacy. I called from the parking lot to let them know I was there, and two people came out with my stuff. I recognized the manager was one of them, simply because he was male and not a pharmacist; all the other staff are female. Most of the pharmacists are, too. There was a cashier with him, and I think I recognized her by her hair. They put my stuff in the van, behind my seat, for me. The manager commented that this was the first time their wireless debit machine had ever been used. The cashier was there to be trained on it.

Oh, the irony.

Because my purchase was over $100, tap wouldn’t work, so he had to hand me the machine. The cashier had the till receipt, so after they got the printout from the handheld machine, she put them together and handed me both.

I came into physical contact with both of them in the process. I would have had less physical contact with anyone, had I gone into the store.

That done, I decided to fill my tank before going into the grocery store. Normally, I go in to pay, and usually pick up some cheap energy drinks for the cooler in the van in the process.

I paid at the pump, instead.

I’ve never had a problem there before, either. At least not from the staff. I just didn’t have the energy to find out if things had changed.

At the grocery store, nothing had changed. I did wear the shield. It keeps hitting my chest and shoulders as I move around and, having put it on in the van, the wind almost blew it off as I walked to the store. It was when I coughed that the sense of irony hit me again. My chronic cough is what wearing a mask exacerbates. Usually, I cough into my sleeve or shoulder, never my hand but with the shield on, I coughed into my hand before I even realized what I was doing. :-/

As I was finishing up with my groceries, I made a point of telling the cashier how much I appreciated that they honoured medical exemptions. Like the woman I spoke to on the phone, she sounded surprised that anyone wouldn’t. I told her about the pharmacy, that the hardware store next door had kicked me out the previous week, and of the pharmacy in my mother’s town kicking me out. She could hardly believe it. The mandate has exemptions, and everyone is supposed to honour them. She was so surprised by the places I’d mentioned.

By the time I got home, I was pretty drained. It didn’t help when I was on my personal Facebook page. A friend of mine, who works at the gas station where I paid at the pump instead of going in, had posted about people not wearing masks. She talked about people being a**holes about it and giving her a hard time, and if that were the only point, I would have been completely in agreement with her. Staff are supposed to tell people about the mandate, and shouldn’t be hassled for it. Instead, she started attacking people for not wearing masks, and making digs about people buying cigarettes but not being willing to wear a mask for 5 minutes. When I tried to point out medical exemptions can include all sorts of things, it basically came down to, if she had to wear a mask, everyone else should, too. The next thing I knew, I was the subject of an onslaught of personal attacks. I actually had to get off the computer soon after and haven’t been back to Facebook since, but it was bad enough that a mutual friend messaged me privately, telling me how sorry she was to see me being bullied so badly. I’m loathe to log on again, but she did try to defend me, which means she was probably targeted, too, so I would want to come to her defense.

*sigh*

I have long been against the covering of faces in general (other than the obvious exceptions, like protecting your face from the weather), whether it be protestors wearing masks, or burkas or whatever. One of the biggest reasons is psychological. Hiding our faces dehumanizes us, even if only subconsciously. It creates a mental, as well as physical, barrier between people. And when we no longer see others as people, even the most gentle of people can become quite cruel, and believe themselves completely justified for it. With so many people hidden behind masks now, my observations have been verified, over and over, and the psychological damage is even worse than I’d originally believed.

How can we ever heal from this? Especially with so many people trying to convince everyone that masking should become permanent, so we should all just get used to it?

The “cure” is becoming so much worse than the disease.

The Re-Farmer

Frosted

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It was a really gorgeous morning out, while I was doing my rounds.

The trees were covered with frost – but only the tops! :-D

It was not a very productive day today, unfortunately. I think I spent too much time on the computer yesterday, leaving me with a weird headache all night, making it difficult to sleep. I was also getting up to check the computer to monitor a download. I wanted to use the electronic files to type out my defense response to the suit our vandal has filed against us. They are available in Word documents, but I allowed my subscription to MS Office lapse, long ago. I decided to start that up again.

The first fight was trying to go through the process of paying for it, which kept looping back to the step one, every time I tried to use my Debit Visa. I finally started up a chat request for assistance.

It took over an hour for someone to respond.

I had no idea there was an Xbox launch that day. :-D

He was very helpful. It turned out there was a whole bunch of stuff needing to be updated, but my card kept getting declined. That’s why it was looping when I tried before. All he could see at his end was that it had something to do with it being a Debit Visa, instead of a regular credit card (I haven’t had a credit card for many years). I finally used the card for an account I have in a different bank, and it worked just fine.

So that took about 2 hours in total.

Then I had to download it. A 10 gig download, on satellite. After another couple of hours, I think it got to almost 40% before it completely stalled. It decided my computer wasn’t online. Our signal may indeed have kicked out; it does that fairly regularly, but our systems log on again automatically, and it typically is working again so quickly, whatever we are working is not affected much. Whatever happened, the download just died. I finally had to end-task it and tried again. It was still frozen. In the end, I had to restart my computer, then start the download all over again.

It still took most of the night, but it worked!

Today, I spent time time getting the various parts of the suite set up, then started working on my response. When looking up the form online, I found a similar one that could be used.

Defense and counterclaim.

!!

If we were under different circumstances, I could counterclaim for all the stuff that disappeared from here that we know is at our vandal’s place. Except 1) it happened before we moved here, so I don’t actually know much about what has gone missing and 2) this all belonged to my mother, so I can’t make any claim for it, nor would I be able to claim on her behalf. At least, not for this.

I’ve been talking to my brother, however, and he has a much better idea of what has gone missing, so he agreed to start a list, including estimated value. I may not be able to claim it, but I can include it. It actually fits in with the email I am including to show he could have taken stuff he claims as his own at any time, if he had only produced proof of ownership.

Well, I got a partial list today, and I must say, I was shocked. I knew a lot was taken, but I was still not prepared for this!

Almost $45,000 worth of stuff has been taken from here – and that’s just the stuff he knows of, and has remembered so far.

Looking at the list, I found myself thinking just how much easier our job of taking care of this place could have been, these past few years! We wouldn’t be having to scrounge through the junk for whatever isn’t too badly damaged, for starters. And the tools!! Oh, my goodness! I had no idea many of them were even here in the first place.

By the time I finished reading the list, the trees were not the only things that were frosted!

The Re-Farmer