Things went rather well!

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But first, the cuteness!

An increasingly rare picture of Ginger, in all his handsome glory!

Unfortunately, he’s been spending a lot of time off by himself, usually tucked under a side table, because a couple of cats have been bullying him, and he is not at all assertive. I don’t know why the bullying has increased, but I’m not happy about it. Among other things, it means he rarely comes into my room anymore, to snuggle on the soft warm bed with many of the other cats. The Cat Lady is still looking for someone to adopt him, as a priority. I’d sent her the above picture, and mentioned he’s still being bullied. She said she would try to open up a space for him in the cat shed, though she had another cat show up just today. I haven’t had an answer yet, if the cat just showed up, or if a human just showed up, with the cat! Both are possible. She’s well known in the neighborhood as the cat rescue. I told her we’d be fine hanging on to him until someone is found. Having him move to a temporary home, with strange cats, would just be exchanging one source of stress with another. That, and way too many of our cats have ended up with her, permanently!

Anyhow…

Today turned out to be another gorgeous day. It was supposed to be a few degrees colder than yesterday, but I still saw things melting. My weather app said we were at -12C/10F, but I’m sure our actual temperature was far warmer! I wasn’t home to check the thermometer outside at the warmest part of the day, though, so I can’t be sure.

I made a point of heading out early, hoping to pick up one of those hot dinners at the grocery store she likes so much. Unfortunately, they’ve stopped making them. In fact, their hot food display hasn’t been used for a while now. I asked about it, and it turns out things just weren’t selling well enough to keep it up. They’re hoping to start having them again before Easter. I mentioned that my mother really liked them, but… well, I’m only out there to pick them up for her maybe once a week.

So I ended up getting a Chef’s salad mostly for myself, and a pepperoni, bacon and mushroom “boat” pizza for my mother – it was long and narrow instead of round. I let myself into her apartment and started getting ready to warm half of the pizza up for her, putting the other half in the fridge for her, later.

My mother doesn’t use her oven. She can’t figure it out, and still complains that her old oven was replaced with a new one, when it was perfectly fine. She believes the caretaker at the time kept all the replaced ovens for himself to resell or something, too. This place is run by the province’s public housing department, which means they would have gone into storage until they had one of their surplus sales or auctions. I’ve tried to explain that to her, but she refuses to believe it.

Anyhow.

Since she doesn’t use her oven, she instead uses it as storage for her pots and pans! While emptying the oven, and even checking the drawer underneath, I discovered she has no baking sheet. She’s got plenty of pie pans and loaf pans, and even a small roaster, but no baking sheet. The small roaster had a flat bottom, though, so I ended up flipping it upside down, and using that to hold the pizza as it warmed in the oven. While adding more water to her kettle for tea, I noticed she was down to her last water jug. For some reason, people living where she is have been told not to drink their tap water, but to use a tap in the laundry room, which has softened water for drinking. At least, that’s what she’s told me. Her tap water is the same as everyone else in town, so I know it should be potable. No matter. I found her empties and refilled them for her, so she couldn’t have to use her walker to carry them around and refill them.

So by the time my mother got home from church, the table was set, tea was ready, and her pizza was nice and warm. She was very happy to come home to lunch all ready for her. She does make a point of having food prepared on Saturday, so that on Sunday, all she has to do is reheat things, but this saves her from even doing that. My being there early wasn’t a surprise, though. When I came in through the lobby, someone I saw busily working on a jigsaw puzzle at the table had noticed me going by and recognized me. She was still when my mother got back, and let her know she had company. 😊

She did try to make me have some of her pizza. I told her no, it’s Lent, and didn’t try to explain more. She still put a piece on my plate, saying it’s Sunday, and Sundays aren’t counted in Lent. Which is true, but I think it defeats the purpose of choosing a difficult fast, when you can “cheat” every 7th day! Thankfully, when I put the pizza back on her own plate and said I wasn’t going to eat pizza, she didn’t push.

She did, however, try to make disparaging comments about how I wanted her to get fat. So now, it seems that just eating anything at all is making her fat? I told her, you’ve been fat for as long as I can remember. It’s not about what you’re eating. I didn’t got into it, but considering the sheer amount of physical labour, as well as us eating all that home grown, home raised, home cooked food, with her and my dad still being fat, there’s more to it than diet! At least, not in the current conventional narrative. I think she did appreciate my saying it’s more than about food.

Hmmm. I wonder if some of her neighbours are making comments about her weight, and that’s why she seems to be more obsessed with it? From what I’m hearing, some of her neighbours are real dicks. Some of them are also telling her some very strange things that have turned out to be wildly wrong – like whoever told her she wouldn’t be able to make a phone call to Poland using a cordless phone.

She’s on a waiting list to move to another place in town that provides more assistance, including cooked meals. I really hope they get an opening soon. As much as she likes being so close to the church and the grocery store, she really needs to get away from some of the people there – along with whoever it is that keeps getting bedbugs, but not reporting it!

But I digress!

I was happy to see my mother did enjoy her little pizza, at least. It sure smelled good!

Before I headed out to do her shopping, we went over her list together. She mentioned some sales, and gave me the flier to look at. Then she gave me cash, with very specific instructions as to which bill for for the pharmacy purchase, and which for the grocery store! 😄 I like when she does it this way, as I can then put all the receipts and change back into the envelope for her. Otherwise, I pay for the stuff myself, then she pays me back, and… well… sometimes, she’s generous and overpays me, but more often then not, she gets angry over how expensive things are, and short changes me. It’s not the short changing that’s the problem, but how she acts like it’s somehow my fault that things are expensive.

Speaking of which, she should have had her bills reversed, because the 3 items I got at the pharmacy cost more than her groceries – and that was with all three items being on sale!!

Once at the grocery store, I was a bit confused while looking for what was on her shopping list. There was one item she said was on sale that I never found in the flier, and it was indeed on sale – though not at the price she remembered. Other items that should have been on sale, however, were not.

I should have checked the date on that flier she showed me!

I’ve shopped with her often enough to know what to substitute or change, if necessary, so it wasn’t a problem, though I did ask one of the cashiers as I was unloading onto the belt, if they had a new flier out or something. It turns out their new fliers with that week’s sales come out on Thursdays, so it looks like my mother may have shown me an older flier.

The main thing, though, is that she is now well stocked. In fact, I had a hard time fitting things into her fridge, for a change. Usually, she waits until she’s running out of everything before going shopping again. She doesn’t like to have too much food at home, she tells me, because then she eats it, and she doesn’t want to get fat.

*sigh*

She’s 92 flippin’ years old, and doing better than half the people in her building – and I think she’s the oldest person living there right now! This is not something she should be stressing about!

Anyhow… I’ve been trying to encourage her to ask me to help her get groceries before she runs out of food and, hopefully, this is the start of her actually doing that. We’ll see!

As I was putting her stuff away, I showed her what I changed and why, and she was quite happy. Apparently, I’m a “wise” grocery shopper. 😄 That didn’t stop her from lecturing me, just before I left, telling me not to buy lunches anymore, because of the cost. I told her, it’s a nice treat – plus, I don’t want to be eating up her food. Then she added how, she then has to pay for it. I told her no, she doesn’t!! Unfortunately, when I unpacked the lunch items I got, the receipt fell out and she found it on the table. She had just given me money for gas, so when I said she doesn’t need to pay for the lunch I bring, she just gave me a “yeah, right” kind of look. *sigh*

What she did give me filled my tank, though, so I was quite appreciative of her gift.

Overall, it was a really good visit with her. There were no racist rants. No sudden nasty comments about my daughters, and how I supposedly keep them tied to my apron strings. The topic of our vandal did come up, as he apparently brought a jar of borsch for her again – but she couldn’t remember what day he showed up. She isn’t too happy about it, because he tends to be slovenly, and so she’s unsure that he cooked it while clean. I told her, I really doubt he cooked it! That conversation started to devolve in her going on about how we need to forgive each other and not criticize each other. She made it sound like our vandal is the way he is because I’ve been overly critical of him. Which is really bizarre, since I haven’t spoken to him in years. Even in court last year, when he tried to sue me for the stuff here on the farm, we didn’t speak directly to each other. I was able to redirect that conversation, though, so it wasn’t too bad. I do wish he would stop showing up at her place, though. Another reason I hope an opening comes up in the other place! We can move her and hopefully, he won’t know where she has been moved to, though knowing how she tends to sabotage our efforts to protect her, she would probably phone him herself and tell him. A worry for another time. The one down side about hoping she gets into the other building, though, is knowing the only reason units open up there is either because someone has had to go into long term care, or has died.

All, in all, things went well with my mother, and I’ll take every good day with her with gratitude. There are so few of them! Still, I was glad to get home, and I’m looking forward to not having to drive anywhere for at least a day! 😄

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 garden: 100%

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I have just enough time for a quick post, before heading to my mother’s.

Check it out…

I had actually forgotten that I had a whole 9 seeds left from last year’s package of Cheyenne peppers until I saw this, this morning. The last two cells in the tray have two seeds each, and all four are now germinating. What makes for a 100% germination rate on seeds from last year. Which is awesome!

Unfortunately, the Red Wethersfield onions are not doing as well. Since putting them in the big aquarium greenhouse, there have been more sprouts and they are definitely getting bigger and greener, but there aren’t all that many of them. The conditions in that little aquarium greenhouse may have killed off some of the seeds. That tank isn’t as warm as the big one – even without using the heat mat, one of the light fixtures adds a bit of warmth – but onions like cooler temperatures, so that’s not likely the problem. I’d say it’s the light on that tank. It’s definitely dimmer, even from when we used it last year, and the light is more blue than red.

So for now, at least, we’ve got just one usable aquarium greenhouse for seed starting.

I’m really thrilled at how well everything else is doing, though!

The Re-Farmer

Ah, well.

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First, the cuteness!

PBC has settled in so quickly – and very quickly discovered the cats’ window shelf on my craft table! What a cutie. Some human will be very lucky to have her. 🩷

I made it out today to do a bit of shopping. It was absolutely gorgeous today. We even reached -2C/28F! That’s warm enough for snow to be melting off the roof of the house and the garage. When I was in the sun room to feed the yard cats for the evening, I actually found it too warm, so I checked the thermometer on the wall. It was at about 16C/61F!!!

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We were running low on kibble and, for the price difference, it was worth the cost of gas to go to the nearest Walmart. Since I was there anyhow, I looked for other things as well. My first stop was a Canadian Tire, where I found some replacement trays for under my next seed starts. The ones I have in the house are cracked and, with the platform set up in the sun room, I can’t get at the ones stored in there. They also had a variety of grow lights, including a smaller one that would fit over our small aquarium greenhouse perfectly, but I didn’t have the budget for it. Hopefully, I’ll be able to pick it up next month. There were some affordable standard bulb sized grow lights available, but we don’t have lamps suitable to use them.

After getting some kibble and a few other items at the Walmart, I decided to also check out a Dollarama nearby. They’re just starting to get their gardening and Easter supplies, so it was filled with unpacked boxes. The few gardening items on the shelf were not the sorts of things I could use. I did, however, spot a toy/scratch pad in the pet section I decided to get two of. It’s one of those round rings with a ball trapped in it for the cats to play with, but the middle has one of those corrugated cardboard scratch pads. The scratching posts we have now are pretty much destroyed, so I figured it was worth a try! One of them went upstairs, since the girls have no cat toys or scratching posts at all up there. Hopefully, it will help reduce some of the damage!

The stores were very busy, and rather loud, so it wasn’t until I got my phone to send a message home, letting them know I’d be on my way, that I saw a message from the Cat Lady. She was asking when I’d be in this city next – our usual half-way meeting spot is next to the Dollarama. I told her I was already there, and was just finishing up. Unfortunately, the timing wasn’t right, and we weren’t able to connect. Which is unfortunate, because she’s got a kibble donation for us! Four 7k bags. I don’t expect to be there again until next month, since the next time we’ll be doing any major shopping, it’ll be our stock up shopping in the larger city. However, I told her to let me know when’s good for her. My schedule is flexible, and for that much donated cat food, it’s more than worth the drive to meet her!

But not tomorrow.

While I was out, my mother called. I called her back, and we now have an arrangement for me to go over tomorrow afternoon and do her grocery shopping and run some errands in the afternoon. I might come over earlier and bring a lunch, though by the end of the conversation, I don’t know if it’s worth the hassle. As we were talking, she mentioned that she was about to cook up a package of ground beef I brought for her, from our quarter beef. She started saying how that amount of meat should last her for about a week, because she’s avoiding eating meat, so she doesn’t get fat.

My mother is already fat, and has been for as long as I can remember. It’s never slowed her down. It still doesn’t slow her down, even with her knees wrecked from a car accident!

I told her that, at 92 years, that’s not something she should be worried about. Just eat well, and beef is some of the healthiest meat out there. To which she responded that she could see how “healthy” it is just by looking at me and my daughters. Then she started laughing like she’d made the best joke, ever.

I told her, there was nothing funny about what she’d said (my daughters both have PCOS, which is something she couldn’t begin to understand), and pointed out that she was using our conversation to insult us for no reason. She started to justify by saying, well, we eat lots of meat, so that must be why we’re so fat. I told her no, we don’t eat lots of meat. We eat too much bread and pasta and rice (who can afford to eat lots of meat these days, when you’re not in a position to raise it yourself??). I wasn’t going to bother telling her that the girls eat almost no meat at all, though they do eat seafood when they can. She wouldn’t believe me, anyhow. I called her out, again, on her going out of her way to insult us. She back tracked and started to say how she shouldn’t worry about what we do; we’re all adults now.

This from the person who would justify trying to run every aspect of our lives by saying, “I’m still the mama” so that gives her the right to try to control us. Not hust my own family, but my older brother’s as well. Strangely, she doesn’t do it with my sister, but she sure does try to play us against each other!

Ugh. I need to stop that train of thought. I’m starting to dread going over there now. Honestly, she’s been pretty good lately. Either that, or I’ve gotten better at redirecting her.

But then, I haven’t told her that I’ve given up sugar and simple carbs for Lent again this year. Last year, she mocked me about it, every time we were together, when I kept refusing all the high carb food she kept insisting I eat. She was even offering me sugar for my tea, which she never did any other time. She makes a big deal about staying away from sugar because of her diabetes (she’s not diabetic), so she never takes sugar in her tea, therefore she doesn’t think that anyone else might want it. Which is fine. I have no problem drinking most teas without sugar. It’s when she starts offering the bland cookies, carrot muffins or whatever crackers she has on hand at the time, to go with that tea. Things that, to her, don’t taste very sweet, therefore they don’t have much sugar in them. Except they do. She also doesn’t get that her whole wheat bread is still “sugar” – and she eats a LOT of bread!

Which is fine. It’s only irritating because she insisting things like eating meat makes her feel bad, so it must be bad for her – while continuing to eat foods that contribute to her acid reflux, and when she gets heartburn, she thinks she’s having a heart attack. I’ve printed out a whole list of foods, colour coded and everything, to help her remember which ones can contribute to these pains, and which ones won’t, but she just ignores it, keeps on complaining and blaming whatever other foods that the TV or magazines, or people in her building, told her are “bad”.

*sigh*

It’s really hard to help my mother, when she sabotages our efforts. She does that as much with her health issues as she does with our vandal! I can’t even say this is part of her ageing, though we are definitely seeing increased cognition issues. She’s been like this for as long as my brother can remember, and he’s almost 10 years older than me!

Ah, well. It is what it is. Hopefully, tomorrow, she will be having one of her good days, and things will go smoothly.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 garden: germination

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While checking on the seedling this morning, have to say, I am very impressed with our germination rates!

It’s hard to judge the percentage with the onion seeds, since I don’t know exactly how many were sown in each section of their growing trays, but I know exactly how many seeds were planted in the big tray.

With the Classic Eggplant in the middle, there were just enough seeds left from last year to plant two to a cell. We have a 100% germination rate!

The Cheyenne peppers, in the row closest to the window, had just enough seeds left from last year for one per cell. Five are up, and one is just breaking ground, so we’ve got 6 out of 7 germinating.

The Little Finger Eggplant are a mix of old and new seeds. The cell on the bottom left has 3 new seeds planted in it. The other six cells have 2 seeds from last year, plus one from this year, in them. All but one seed has germinated – and that one might still emerge soon.

I’m rather impressed by this!

Of course, we don’t need anywhere near that many eggplants. We’ll thin them to one per cell. I’ll have to resist thinning by transplanting. I hate “wasting” a seedling! Still, even if we’re just down to 7 of each type of eggplant, that’s more than enough, even if they don’t all survive transplanting in the spring. With eggplant, we’re still working out if these are something we will want to plant regularly or not. The first time we grew the Little Finger eggplant, one plant barely managed to fruit, but even those little eggplants were enjoyed. Last year, none of them grew much after transplanting. Last year, we had only one Classic Eggplant seedling survive and it did remarkably well, though we ran out of growing season and had only a couple small eggplants to try out.

As for the Cheyenne peppers, if we have only one surviving transplant, that would probably be enough for our needs; the one that was able to produce peppers last year had lots on it, though we had to harvest them while still green. Hopefully, by starting them early like this, they’ll have time to mature on the plant.

We shall see how they do over the weeks again, but I do like what I’m seeing so far!

The Re-Farmer

What a start to the day!

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First, the cuteness!

Look at these three handsome boys, posing so nicely for me!

We still haven’t named the orange and white one. He’s mostly friendly, but not too keen on attention. Syndol, on the left, can’t get enough. Patience, in the middle, is becoming more tolerant and accepts pets – on his own terms!

I didn’t get a head count among the outside cats this morning, but there didn’t seem to be as many. I didn’t see Rolando Moon, but Judgement is hanging out more. Which I like because Shop Towel is also hanging out more, but they don’t seem to be fighting anymore. It was usually those two that would go at each other the most. It seems having just one of the boys nipped has made a difference.

The cats indoors have been more of a pain. Ginger is still being bullied, particularly by the tuxedo boys.

When the kittens were small and kept isolated in my room, it was pretty hard on the girls. Especially my younger daughter. Many of the cats would gravitate to her bed – with her in it. There’s not a lot of room, so she would basically be stuck under the weight of all these cats on her covers, with a couple that would worm their way under the covers. They would also cause a lot of destruction in the studio half of their upstairs “apartment”. As you can imagine, it made sleep a difficult thing! Once we could start leaving my door open, that made life a bit easier for them. The cats would instead take over my king size bed! I even have blankets and cat beds in one corner for them, though it’s not unusual for my entire bed to be covered with piles of cats, all mashed together. Even little Peanut Butter Cup now hangs out on my bed, sometimes even in one of the cuddle piles! She’s adapted really well to being indoors, and even lets us see her naked belly and her well healing surgical wound. It’s been harder to check Tiny Beast and Tissue!

With having the door open again, we hoped Butterscotch would finally start leaving the room – and she did start to! We’d be putting food out in the dining room feeding area, before filling the bowls in my room, and I’d find her at the two steps between the old and new parts of the house, very interested in those food bowls! She’d immediately run back into my room, but at least she was starting to check things out.

Well, some altercation must have happened that we missed, because suddenly that stopped. Not only did she stop leaving my room, she even started to isolated herself in my room. Since coming indoors, she’s been in full retirement mode, and spends much of her time in one of the cat caves or – her favorite spot – in the wall shelf that my bed is against, sleeping on my clothes – but she used to also sleep on one of my pillows, with the other cats around. We’d even see her cuddled up with another cat or two, and sometimes engaging in mutual grooming.

Well, that suddenly stopped. She now spends almost all her time in the wall shelf. She stopped coming out to eat or drink, unless there were almost no other cats around. She also started growling at other cats, even when they weren’t anywhere near her. Once we saw she would go to a litter box, see a cat, then run back into her hidey hole, we knew something had to have happened.

When it’s feeding time, the majority of the food bowls are all in the dining room now; we stopped feeding them in the basement months ago, because Ginger was struggling with the stairs. Once those food bowls were filled, we’d go to my room and add food to the few bowls that are there. Unfortunately, for some reason, some of the cats will abandon the food in the dining room and all but attack the food in the bowls in my room, as if they were starving. Somehow, they prefer eating in my room, and I don’t know why!

We used to be able to set a bowl aside on my craft table, or their window seat that’s on my craft table, for Butterscotch so she would get some food while the vultures circled around the other food bowls. However, she will no longer come out for food if they are around. So now, as we go into my room with the food, we close the door so none of the other cats can rush in. There are some we do allow in that Butterscotch seems to be okay with, like our elderly Freya. Then we leave the door closed long enough for Butterscotch to be able to get, drink and use one of the litter boxes before opening the door again.

Well, this morning was a problem.

First, a problem for me, getting any sleep! Aside from waking up because I had so many cats lying on my legs, it was getting painful, I found myself losing about 2/3 of my bed space. It’s a good thing I have such a huge bed! Getting up to go to the bathroom requires a wrestling match with cats that don’t seem to care one bit if I start moving around and pulling back the covers. They don’t move unless I move them!

Then I’d come back and find the only space left for me is the top half of the bed.

I don’t mind sleeping across the bed, though. It’s just more awkward to get in and out.

Which is how I found myself sleeping across the top of my bed, with my head near the shelf Butterscotch hangs out in. She even came out for pets, which was encouraging.

Not for long.

I had finally fallen asleep again when I became instantly awake because my elbow was suddenly feeling very, very warm. I opened my eyes to see Butterscotch next to my pillow, hunched over. I immediately chased her off, then scrambled out of bed, searching for the wet spot. Turning on a light, I spotted Butterscotch, who was not at all happy. I managed to grab her, and put in the most accessible litter box.

The other cats, of course, were milling around. It was getting close to feeding time, after all. At least, in their minds!

Butterscotch ran off.

I managed to grab her again, and this time I tucked her into the big covered litter box. She started to run away, but I guess she just had to go too badly, because I could soon hear her actually using it.

On checking my bed, I finally found a small wet spot on an excess part of a pillow case – I’ve got king size pillow cases, but no king size pillows, so there’s quite a lot of extra pillow case. Thankfully, that’s all I had to change.

Then I went to check on Butterscotch and found David standing in front of the litter box she’d been using, while she was frantically climbing a chair to get away and back to her hiding place.

I could hear that the girls were up, so I got them to help me feed the cats early. While they made noise filling the other bowls, I snuck off with some food for the bowls in my room and made sure to close the door behind me. We left it closed until after I finished doing my morning rounds, to give Butterscotch a good long time to get food, water and use the litter again, if she needed to.

Once the door was opened again, the rush of cats into my room was insane. They converged on the food bowls, as if they hadn’t eaten in a week, scaring poor Butterscotch back into her shelf.

I wish I knew what happened to set her back like this. You’d think a cat that spent most of her life surviving the outdoors would not be intimidated by a bunch of house cats. You’d think she would be more like Toni or PBC; when the usual bullies tried to hiss and growl at them, they would just ignore them completely. Expect PBC. She’ll sometimes hiss back, if they get too annoying.

I know that, in time, she’ll eventually get over it. It just seems to take longer, since she already preferred to spend her retirement curled up and sleeping.

So we continue to try and make life easier for her and keep the other cats away, so she can get a break from them.

We are such sucks for the cats.

The Re-Farmer

Into the light

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Another gardening video from Gardening in Canada, about whether you need light to start seeds or not.

Considering the differences between our big aquarium greenhouse and the little one, light is definitely an issue. Unfortunately, we’re not in a position to invest in lights – especially not full spectrum lights or red grow lights – right now. The bright LED shop lights I was able to get at Costco, however, do seem to be helping a lot, once the trays move out of the aquarium greenhouses.

The Re-Farmer

One extreme to the other!

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After the early start and running around, yesterday, I asked my daughters to take care of the outside stuff for me so I could sleep in. 

I’m extra happy to not go out there this morning!

After many very mild days, yesterday saw a steep drop in our daytime high, then temperatures were supposed to slowly climb back up again.

I did NOT expect to see temperatures like this, this morning!

-25C at 8am?  With a wind chill of -32C???

Then we are supposed to warm up to -11C this afternoon?

The temperatures are just lurching back and forth all over the place!

I’m quite appreciating not having to go anywhere right now!

The Re-Farmer

Shifting plans

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This morning, my husband had if first eye appointment in many years.

He also took an appointment time just 15 minutes after they opened. I normally book for the afternoons, because of travel time and… well… I’m just not a morning person!

We left early, in case road conditions were still slippery. They were not, so we got there half an hour before they opened. Which neither of us minded. It was a painful drive for my husband, so sitting in comfortable seat while it wasn’t moving was a good thing for him! He also decided to leave the walker at home, since he only intended to walk from truck to door and back again. We were planning to swing by a grocery store afterwards, but he was intending to stay in the truck while I picked things up.

He ended up getting the dilation test as well, which meant spending some time in the waiting area while the drops did their work, then back to finish the testing. By the time he had everything done, and they processed the direct billing on his insurance, with our provincial health care covering any diabetic testing 100%, the final bill was a whole $5! Which was less than my first tests! They also said he could come back in a year, instead of 6 months, with me. It seems I have more damage to my eyes to monitor than he does.

He did not get glasses, though.

He talked to the eye doctor about various options, including contact lenses, which he’s interested in trying again. Personally, I’m not a fan of using something you have to buy over and over, anywhere from every few weeks to every 6 months. Not when a pair of glasses can last many years. To get glasses, though, is going to be a large initial outlay. Aside from needing things like prisms, he needs some of the more extreme concave prescription lenses. The super thick ones would be cheaper, but heavier. They can do thinner ones, but that jumps the cost significantly. The woman helping us (she also helped my mother, and was fabulous with her) has extreme lenses in the opposite direction – hers are convex rather than concave. She also gets the thinnest possible lenses to reduce the weight, plus photo-sensitivity and so on. Her lenses alone cost her $1100. When lenses are that extreme, the types of frames that will hold them becomes more limited, and at that level, start at around $200-$300.

Which we don’t have.

Since he needs to talk to them some more about his options, we’ll come back another time to talk about contact lens options. They can then order some testers for him, and he can see how that goes.

When we were done, he wanted to grab something to eat, but nothing was open yet. We ended up driving to my mother’s town, but the place we wanted to go to, there, wasn’t open yet, either! It was finally past 11am, though, so there was one fried chicken place I knew for sure was open.

It wasn’t until we were driving to the highway to do that, when my husband remembered we were supposed to hit the grocery store. I wasn’t about to turn around, though. Instead, I decided that, after we ate, I’d drop my husband off at home, then go to the town nearest us. One of the things on my list was a pharmacy item, anyhow, and if I was going to the pharmacy there, I could get prescription refills, too.

Once settled in the restaurant, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to order. I have given up sugar and simply carbs again for Lent, and the meals all included carb heavy sides. I asked and found that I could order just chicken or just shrimp, with no sides. They still had a bread crumb coating, but for the amount on them, it was not really an issue. So I ordered a some fried shrimp while my husband got fries and chicken – it was the fries he was really craving!

During all this time, of course, his eyes were quite uncomfortable, and he was wearing his sunglasses over his regular glasses – we have several pairs of sunglasses designed to fit over regular glasses! When he asked me to check his eyes, I just had to take a picture, so he could see for himself!

This is about an hour after getting the drops! 😂 He was quite happy to put the sunglasses back on while he ate!

Also, my husband has the most gorgeous eyes. *melt*

That done, we headed home, I dropped him off then left immediately for town. After getting a few groceries – a bit more than intended, as there were some really good sales on – I went to the pharmacy. We actually had his bubble packs delivered yesterday, but he forgot to call them back to add on his insulin. While getting that done, I asked what the status of his Ozempic was, more because they have had such a hard time getting it in the dose he needs, since it became so popular as a weight loss drug. I’m glad I asked about it, as it turned out his prescription renewal had run out. So the pharmacy sent a fax to his new doctor and, once they get the new prescription, they’ll have his refill delivered next week. Then there was my one prescription. I still have almost half a month at home, but since I was there, I figured I’d take care of it, too. I was able to refill it, but that was the last of my refills on file, so they sent a fax to my interim doctor, who is also now my mother’s new doctor. So in the end, it’s a good thing we forgot to go to the grocery store after the eye appointment!

By the time all the running around was done, it was far later than I expected to be home! In fact, in a few minutes, I’ll get heading out to feed the yard cats so they can finish eating before it gets dark and the raccoons come out.

I am really appreciating the longer days, that’s for sure.

I’ve made sure to tell my husband, though; the next time he makes an appointment, book it for the afternoon, if at all possible! 😂🤣

The Re-Farmer

Well, that sucked

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One of the strange things we have cats doing, is bringing objects from the basement up and using them as toys.  Things like roofing nails (there’s a bucket of those down there), various types of electrical connectors, bolts, etc.  Tissue used to bring up bullets.  We never found where she was getting them, but she must have got them all, because that finally stopped.

We’ve seen several of the kittens come up from the basement and dropping things on the dining room floor.  Even the Tiny Beast! 

Of course, we take the stuff away as soon as we spot them.  There’s a container in one of our shelves that has quite a collection, now. 

With PBC in the house now, and not isolated in one room, we have the basement door closed until she and the other ladies heal up.  Bonus: mo more weird metal things on the floor!

Some are not happy with that.

Yesterday, Ghosty found the container in the shelf and began violently digging into it, to reach the objects on the bottom.  She had stuff flying all over the place before I could get to her and stop her.  Of course, I picked up the objects she flung all around.  Our lino has a very busy pattern, though.  I knew it was possible I missed something.  I made sure to let the family know.  Especially my husband, who is almost always barefoot.

Well, I missed something.

I got up to feed the cats this morning, not bothering to put on my inside shoes.

This is what I ended up pulling out of my foot.

Good grief.

Thankfully, my feet are rather calloused, so it didn’t do much damage.  Still, I got the girls to feed the outside cats while I cleaned the wound.

What a start to the day.

I’m going back to bed, now.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 garden: shifting spaces, and computer frustration

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Things got moved around so I could set the mini greenhouse frame at the window, and the new seedlings have been shifted out of the aquarium greenhouses.

Also, we’ve got a massive jade tree in a large, square, self watering pot that is very awkward to move! And it has to be moved in order for the shelf it’s on to be moved, because the shelf cannot be moved with the weight of the jade tree on it. Aside from the weight of shelf and plant together, it sinks deep into the 1970’s shag carpet! 😂

It’s not even our biggest jade tree.

Anyhow.

Here is the new set up.

On the top shelf, we’ve got the mulberries next to the coffee tree. The yellow onions are in the round tray beside them. The shallots are underneath, and the eggplants and hot peppers on the bottom. The red onions got shifted into the large aquarium greenhouse for a little while, and I swear, in the space of an hour or two, I could already see more onions sprouting, and more green, rather than almost white.

The thermometer in the living room is pretty consistently at 17C/63F. I think, in the evening, I’ll run the little space heater for a while. That big picture window may be triple pane, but it still gets pretty cold beside it at night!

After getting that done, I made a run into town where I picked up my new card reader. I can now finally upload trail cam files again. 

I really don’t like Windows 11.

Unfortunately, as I tried navigating through Windows Explorer, it kept “not responding” on me. Just as frustrating was navigating to where the pictures fold should have been, but it’s not there.

Turns out it’s now in OneDrive. Windows 11 wants images to be uploaded to the cloud. Which I absolutely do not want to do.

I ended up managing to upload them to the new external hard drive, until I can figure out where I can set up a folder for my image and video files.

I haven’t been doing much in trying to set the new computer up with what I had in my old system. Partly because it feels rather overwhelming – and I’ll probably have to link up with my old computer to get some of the most recent data. The other part is learning the differences in Windows 11. Even cut and paste is suddenly a pain. 

My husband, sweetheart that he is, fussed with it for a while, and it seems my suspicions are correct. There just isn’t enough RAM. Not that there was much choice in the matter. When researching a new computer, I noticed they all seemed to have much less RAM and must less memory on the hard drive. Granted, I got my other computer more than 10 years ago, so it’s been that long since I’ve even looked as this stuff, but it seems most computer are 8G of RAM with 500G hard drives. If you want a terabyte, the price jumps dramatically. 

It’s that lack of RAM that is making it a pain to navigate in Explorer. Yeah. The RAM is already almost completely used up.

The good news is, this system has extra slots, we have room to add more RAM.

Not that we can do that anytime soon, as far as the budget goes, but at least it’s an option.

Meanwhile, my husband went looking through task manager to see what was running that could be making the machine more inefficient. Windows 11 has a lot of stuff running in the background, that’s for sure! 

Ah, well. I’ll get used to the new user interface. 

For now, I will enjoy thinking garden thoughts, while the snow starts to fall more heavily outside.

The Re-Farmer