Our 2024 garden: first peppers!

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I went to bottom water the seed trays and turn the lights over them for the night, when I made a happy discovery. Our first Cheyenne hot peppers have sprouted!

The peppers are in the row of cells on the left. It’s hard to see, but there is a second one barely visible in the cell at the top of the photo, just breaking ground!

Now that those are starting to sprout, I’ve unplugged the heat mat. Tomorrow, I want to set up the mini-greenhouse frame near the window and above the heat vent – we’ve got some shelves to move out of the way, but we now have a portable AC unit stored in the living room that we might have to move, too. Once these trays are out, the next batch of seeds will be started and set up in the aquarium greenhouses.

One nice thing about using those fruit and vegetable trays for starting seeds. They have a smaller, round space in the middle that had either a container of dip in it, or some strawberries, that’s not deep enough to plant anything in. I’ve got their lids under the trays, which is handy, as they have recesses that fit each section of the trays, but there’s not a lot of space to reach for bottom watering. Instead, I’ve made drainage holes in the empty spaces in the middle, and pour the water in there. They then drain slowly into the lids below. Bottom watering from above! 😁

The red onions are still very sparsely emerging, and not very many of them, so I want to put them into the big aquarium for at least a few days. 

Once everything is ready, I’ll have to make some decisions on what long season seeds to start next. Some herbs, for sure, but they don’t need to be in the remaining new tray with the larger cells. I want to save that for larger seeds. I should have room enough to start some tomatoes, I think. I don’t think they all need to be started this early, though. I’ll probably start more peppers, too. Yes, they are supposed to be short season varieties, but the only ones we had a really good harvest with last year were the ones we started much earlier. I don’t want to start as many pepper or fresh eating tomato seeds this time; we had such a high germination rate last year, we ended up giving away lots. Space for the trays will be an issue this year, as we were gifted a nice big armchair that is now the most comfortable chair in the house – but now we don’t have room for how I set up an extra “table” for seed trays like we did last year!

Setting up the living room as the cat free zone has become way too handy. The room is getting way too full of things we need to protect from the cats, because our house plants and seed trays!

The Re-Farmer

Good kitty news!

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Check this out!

Driver is putting full weight on that foot, and he’s no longer limping! He even followed me around while I was doing my rounds, running ahead, flinging himself to the ground and rolling in the snow.

I only counted about 23 or 25 yard cats this morning, but one of them was Judgement. He was hanging out in the sunroom again, and looking just fine. I wasn’t able to check his nethers to see how things were healing up, but he did allow me to pet him.

As for the indoor cats, Wolfman is behaving as if nothing happened. Beast is behaving normally, too, but has been avoiding me more. Tissue is still mad at me, even as she cuddles against my legs at night. PBC has been running away and hiding more. I think a couple of the other cats have been less than welcoming, and she’s nervous. She hasn’t allowed me to pet her lately. She is, however, exploring the house, and the girls have found her upstairs. We will still keep the basement door closed, at least until she’s healed up. We don’t want her getting her incision infected, dragging her belly on the floor while exploring under shelves. She’s all over the place! Meanwhile, Butterscotch barely even goes out the door and into the hallway at feeding time. The little one is much more willing to check things out, while the grand old lady just wants to sleep in my pants shelf all day. 😁

As much as we need to keep trying to find homes for all these beasts, and they’re eating us out of house and home, I sure do love them dearly!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 garden: new growth!!

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Oh, I am so, so excited!!!

Check out the new babies!

This photo was actually taken yesterday, when the sprouts first emerged. Today, they are bigger, and there are even more of them in other cells.

The middle row is the Classic Eggplant, which was all older seeds from last year. On the right are the Little Finger eggplant, which is a mix of new and old seeds. The Classic Eggplant is definitely coming up faster.

Still nothing from the peppers, though. Normally, once things start germinating, I’d unplug the heat mat, but not until the peppers start to sprout.

There are Red Wethersfield onions starting to sprout, too, but they are still very few and very tiny. The onions in the big aquarium greenhouse as emerging much more quickly, and I’m seeing a lot more green. I have no doubt the difference in temperature between the two set ups is making the difference. The lights over the big tank actually produce some heat. While the heat mat wouldn’t contribute much, the tanks are lined with rigid insulation, so that would help keep any heat inside. The small tank’s light is LED, so no heat there, plus it’s not as bright.

Once I have space set up to move things out of the tank, so I can start different seeds, I might move the red onions into the big tank to give them a bit of a boost. We shall see.

I’m just so happy to see those eggplant sprouts!!!

The Re-Farmer

Exhausting change of plans

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My goodness, what a day!

What??? It’s not even 3pm yet???

Okay, let’s back up a bit!

First, the good news.

While doing my rounds this morning, I saw Driver limping around – and he’s starting to put that front foot down and putting weight on it. Not much, and only briefly, but that’s a good sign.

He went onto the cat house roof for breakfast, and while he wouldn’t let me look too closely, I was able to see this.

It looks like whatever injury he has involves a toe, but that’s all I can see. In fact, I can see more in this cropped picture than I could in person.

Yesterday, I saw Judgement hanging out in the sunroom through the evening, which I was happy with. He seemed fine and content to sit in the bottom of the shelf to look out the window. This morning, however, I saw no sign of him – but I got a headcount of “only” 29, so quite a few cats weren’t around at the time. Shop Towel was also nowhere to be seen.

They very much like their new beds, though! Checking through the window last night, there was a mass of cats curled up among the beds and blankets under the platform. The one smaller bed went on top of the platform, next to the self warming mat. Shop Towel was on that one. He basically covered the whole thing, he’s so big!

After my rounds were done, I was starting breakfast when the phone rang. It was my brother, letting me know he was going to our mother’s place today, to replace the peep hole in her door and get a visit in. He was wondering if I could join him.

Of course, I said yes! 

I had intended to go into town this afternoon to pick something up that my husband asked for, but I could do that at my mother’s town, too. So I left quite early to take care of that first. The grocery store turned out to open a lot later than I thought, so I ran my other errands first and was waiting when I got another call from my brother. He’d called our mother ahead (hands free, of course) to let her know he would be coming by. After giving him grief about how he should be in church with her, she asked him to pick up a couple of things at the grocery store. 😁 Knowing that’s where I needed to go myself, he let me know what she needed, so I picked her stuff up, too. By the time my brother arrived and met up with me, our mother would have already left for church, so we headed straight to her place; my brother and I are the only ones that have been entrusted with spare keys to her place, for times like this – and for emergency wellness checks, if that every becomes an issue.

Once we were settled inside, he very quickly popped out the damaged peep hole.

Check this out.

The last time we were there, and my brother discovered the damage, he’d tried scraping off the stuff, unsuccessfully. We were pretty sure it looked like Krazy Glue. Now that it’s off, it quite clearly is some sort of instant glue.

Kinda like the glue that was used on our gate locks a few times.

We have no real idea of how long it has been like this, since my mother never bothers to look through it.

The new one is very pretty, and has a little cover on the inside so no one can look in from the outside. It turned out to be ever so slightly bigger than the hole, but my brother was able to enlarge it with a pocket knife. He was kicking himself for not thinking to bring his drill. Frankly, I think the pocket knife did the job just fine. You can’t even tell the hole was enlarged, the different is so slight.

Of course, once it was in, we tested it out, with one of us going into the hall while the other looked through. My brother thought it wasn’t focusing right, but when I started from against the wall across from her door and walked forward, he could see me perfectly fine once I was at knocking distance. The peep hole has a 120° view, so that’s good, too.

After that, we had time to check my mother’s CID and messages, and clear some of them out for her (she’s never been able to figure out her answering machine!), leaving a couple of mystery messages for now. One, we’ve determined was a wrong number. The other, the person used my mother’s name, and left her own name – both of which were very hard to hear, with the strong Polish accent, but we were able to make it out. The message was for my mother to call her back, but no number was left. Whoever it was assumed my mother already had it.

We weren’t able to match the CID numbers with the messages, though. Her answering machine doesn’t leave the same date and time information on them. 

Then I noticed something new. A picture. That, in itself, is not odd; my mother has photos, prints, pictures from newspaper articles, etc. all over the place. It wasn’t until we had the table set up for lunch, with me in the extra chair that’s normally never at the table, due to lack of space, that I was facing the picture and getting a real look at it.

It was a picture of my mother, with our vandal and his wife, sitting at a table in a local restaurant.

Which made the location of the picture downright creepy. She set it up on the little mirrored altar that my brother had repaired the light on for her not long ago.

There was nothing to tell us when she had gone out to dinner with them, but it had to have been fairly recently.

After a while, with lunch set up and tea ready, my brother was starting to wonder where Mom was, as she normally would have been home by then. Church is right across the street, so it’s not far for her to go. So he went out to look through the lobby window – and found Mom! She had sat herself down in front of the window to watch people as they left church, completely forgetting that my brother had told her he was coming over!

She was very happy to come in and have everything ready and waiting for her. Of course, that didn’t stop her from finding something to complain about, but we were able to distract her and settle in. My SIL had prepared lunch for us, including a Greek salad that was in a larger Feta container that sealed nicely and could be left behind. My mother, in the most convoluted way possible, eventually managed to tell my brother that he could take the container home, because it was such a nice container, etc. Once we were able to decipher what she was saying (I think she thought it was a yogurt container, so we were quite confused when she started talking about the yogurt container, when she turned out to actually be talking about the salad inside), my brother tried to explain that the container was used specifically so that it could be left behind. There was more than enough for her to have with another meal or two, and then the container could be put in recycling. Oh, no! It was far too good of a container to throw away…

…

After a while, we got to explaining to her about the peep hole being replaced, and my brother showed her the old one, with the glue clearly visible on it. None of the other doors had damage to their peep holes (my brother checked), only hers, and there’s only one person we know who goes around vandalizing things with Krazy Glue.

She then made a big deal about how we were fussing so much about the peep hole that she doesn’t use. We were just explaining to her what was done and showing her what we found. To her, that was “fussing” about it. Meanwhile, she was the one getting all worked up about it.

It did give us an opening to ask about the picture.

It took time to piece together her explanation, as she kept jumping all over the place, and we could see she was trying to protect our vandal. It turns out he and his wife had shown up at her place on his birthday, which was at the beginning of the month. This would have been before I’d come over to her place most recently, to help her with groceries. She’d never mentioned it to me. 

She then told us that he said he’d been trying to phone her first, but couldn’t get through – so she told him that my brother had set up her phone to block scam calls, and after listening to the last message our vandal had left with her, his number was blocked, too. So he now knows all about it, she told us.

*sigh*

Around that point, I told her, we’re working so hard to try and protect her from him, but she keeps undoing what we’ve done!

From there, she tried to lecture us. What’s between us and him has nothing to do with her! I reminded her, it has everything to do with her, and 10 years of abusive messages he’s been leaving with her, among other things. Then it had to be clarified that it was abuse with words, because yes, when he tells her that she’s not going to heaven because she won’t give him the property that we’re on, that now belongs to my brother (somehow, he seems to think she can still give it to him, even as he ranted in his answering machine messages about how she’s apparently given the property to me!). 

Then she started the whole “we need to forgive each other” and “none of us are perfect”, as if we were the ones going out of our way to cause problems! At one point, she went on about how she prays every night that we will reconcile with him, and that we shouldn’t hate him. I told her, we don’t hate him! He hates us! Especially me, at this point. She tries to say that he is somehow harmless, though she is still really upset about what he did to the gate.

…

*sigh*

Then she started going on about how he’s the only one still keeping in touch with my late brother’s (now adult) children. I told her, I did try to reach out to them. They didn’t respond. Our vandal has been lying to them and driving them away from us. Even in one of his answering machine messages, he complained about how they weren’t allowed on the farm. He’s the only one that’s not allowed here anymore. We’ve never said my brother’s children weren’t allowed here! 

She just doesn’t get it, and keeps making excuses for him. 

So we finally got past that conversation, but it did give my brother the segue to get my mother to look out the new peep hole. She got upset and tried refusing to get up, because we were making such a big deal out of is, but my brother got her up and to the door. Then he stepped outside into the hall, so she could see him through the peep hole.

Oh, I just had to laugh!

I’m on the short side of things, but even I need to bend down a bit to look through the peep hole.

The peep hole is higher than her head. 

She tried going onto tip toes, but all she could see was the ceiling, because she was still having to look up to see anything at all!

Well, no matter. The damaged peep hole has been replaced.

My brother did bring up about possible getting one that will record when someone’s at the door, and he and I can later check to see who’s been leaving stuff at her door. She said she knows who’s leaving stuff, and to be sure, with some things, she does. The social workers regularly leave little care packages for all the people in her building. That stuff, however, gets left at everyone’s doors. She has stuff being left at only her door. While we can be almost certain that it’s our vandal, we have no proof. Plus, she’s found notes taped to her door that were clearly not written by him, or his wife, telling her to give the farm to our vandal. We’ve never been able to figure out who did that.

We didn’t push, though. That sort of thing is more than she can grasp, and she was still upset that my brother fixed the peep hole.

The last challenge was just before we had to leave, as we suddenly realized it was starting to snow hard, and my brother had a long drive home on open highways. My mother remembered that she had a phone number for a relative in Poland she wanted to call, but was having troubles. As my brother asked her questions and tried the number himself – it didn’t work – my mother told him that she’s been told she would never be able to make a call to Poland on the cordless phone. Only on the corded phone.

???

My brother told her that was not at all true and asked who told her that. All I could figure out was that it was someone in her building, but whether it was someone who lived there, a visitor, or one of the social workers from the senior’s centre, I could never get the straight of it.

After a quick search, my brother found the problem. The number may have been written correctly for someone in Poland, but not for someone trying to call from another country! 

The other problem was that my mother had written the information out on a scrap piece of paper. As my brother tried to write down the corrected information, she started flipping out about it having to be written clearly – which there was no room for! – while she went digging for the original letter from among her papers. Once she got that out, my brother worked on deciphering the hand written numbers – some numbers are written differently in Polish than is typically written in English – for both a land line and cell phone, I was able to get her to find an actual note pad, where I could write out what she needed without anything else on there to confuse things. 

My brother then helped her call the land line, which worked by got a busy signal. The cell phone number kept ringing until it stopped, with no voice mail. The land line was tried a couple more time, and it finally started ringing, but no one answers – that that number didn’t have voice mail or an answering machine, either.

The concerning thing was that my brother had to walk my mother through pushing the button to hand up the cordless phone. A phone she’s had for at least 10 years. I’ve had to try and find the right buttons myself when using her phone, as it’s different from mine, and poorly labelled. She had been the one to confirm which buttons were for “picking up” and “hanging up.” Now, she can’t seem to remember how to hang up her own phone.

Whether or not she’ll try to call again on her own, I don’t know, but my brother and I had to leave, before the weather got worse.

As we left her place, I could see my brother was looking even more exhausted than I felt! I’m glad I could be there, as she really does behave better towards him while I am there, then when he’s there on his own.

For me, at least, once I got out of town, the weather cleared the further north I drove. My brother, however, had to go south, and I think the weather was getting worse in that direction. He should be home by now, so I should finish this off and send a message to check if he got home okay. Knowing him, he probably found errands to run in the city before going home! 😁

On a different note, I didn’t even turn my new computer on until after I was home and settled. This thing boots up so quickly, it’s amazing! Even before my computer started dying, it was take several minutes to finish booting up. Now, it’s almost no time at all!

I’ve started to set up a few things, but I suspect it’s going to take quite a long time. Yesterday, for example, I installed my movie making software. I found the original .exe in my downloads on the back up external hard drive, but the initial set up assumes a free trial. I also had two versions, but couldn’t tell which one was the upgrade. You’d think it would be the one with the more recent download date, but nope. Turned out to be the other one. Once I finally got the right on installed, it still wasn’t what it should have been. I bought the software, rather than getting the subscription, and it kept wanting me to set up a subscription. After some fussing about, I spotted the “activate” button, logged onto the website and found the activation key. It’s now up and running.

I just no longer have any photos or my old project files. Most, I can get on the new back up external hard drive, so that will take more time to get all set up before I even try to make any new videos.

But not today. Today is supposed to be my day of rest!

I do have one more short post to write after this, though, and I’m quite excited about it! Especially giving the snowy weather we’ve been having lately. 

The Re-Farmer

Five more down!

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We are home!!!

Shortly before 6:30 am, I got the girls to try and get Shop Towel into the big carrier in the sun room while I got the others into the smaller carriers. They made sure to put on jackets and gloves to protect themselves from getting clawed! It didn’t work, so we ended up snagging Judgement.

By the time we got them all set up (Tissue started to panic as soon as she saw the carriers lined up on my bed!), the gate open (the slide bar was frozen in place by recent rain), and the carriers into the truck, it was almost 7 am. Road conditions were good and the drive went well. It was still full dark when I left, but full light when I got to the clinic, about 10 minutes before the 8am drop off time.

I was the first one there, which I appreciated, since it gave me time to warn them about Tissue and Judgement, both of whom tried to tear their way out of the carriers during the drive out. I never saw which one it was, but from the smell, one of the cats had a stress poop along the way. 😞

After the paperwork was done, I paid for two, then hung out until the Cat Lady arrived. She called ahead to say she was going to be a bit later than expected. Muffin has had all her teeth removed, so they had to force feed her, since her gums are not healed yet. Her husband tried to hold Muffin wrapped in a towel, but she got out. The Cat Lady got clawed up, and even got bit – or should I say, gummed – on her palm. It all took far longer than expected, and in the end, she had to leave her husband to try and finish feeding her.

We’ve been talking about getting that fluffy tortie – now called Peanut Butter Cup, or PBC – adopted out. She needed to get back to me about whether or not she could take PBC today or not. She recently took in three rescued males; they’d been dumped near a farm, and the farmer didn’t want cats, so he never fed them. Which isn’t too bad in the summer, but in the winter, hunting is very lean. So she’s treating them for worms while getting them carefully fed to get to a healthy weight before she can put them up for adoption. 

The good thing is, she now has a completely separate, heated shed that she can use for cases like this!

She said she would get back to me within an hour or so to let me know about taking PBC right away or not.

Once we connected and she took care of the bill for the other three cats, she passed on some donated supplies for us. Several cat beds, blankets and a fluffy towel, a new litter box, some cat food and treats, and a cat-size hard sided carrier. The carrier is missing most of the wing nuts to hold the two halves together, but I’m sure I can find new ones, somewhere.

After that, I could finally go for some breakfast and hang out until I got a call to pick up the cats. I ended up just going to a nearby Walmart, with a McDonald’s inside, because not much else was open, yet. Plus, it gave me a chance to do a bit of shopping, since I was there, anyhow. I ended up getting a larger, covered litter box. Eventually, I want to replace all our open litter boxes with covered ones, but they have to be larger. The one smaller one I have in my room doesn’t get used as much, and I think it’s mostly because of the size. Most of the adult cats don’t seem to like it, though they’ll use the one big one we already have, just fine. That one has three broken latches, so it needs to be replaced, too. We’ll see how the cats do with this one before getting more.

I did hear back from the Cat Lady, letting me know she would not be taking PBC quite yet. She’s going to focus on getting the three starved and sick males she took in. Once she has the space again, she’ll take PBC and Ginger, with a priority on getting Ginger adopted to a calm home, where he won’t be bullied by other cats.

I’m pretty pragmatic about saying goodbye to the cats, but just thinking about adopting out Ginger gets me a bit choked up. I’m going to hate saying goodbye to him, but he really deserves a better situation. Frankly, I’d rather adopt out the bullies, but they’d be much harder to place than him!

I ended up getting a call from the vet shortly after 11, letting me know they were ready for pick up. Really fast! They probably didn’t even start surgeries until 9 am, at the earliest.

The Beast was in the soft sided carrier, so she got the front seat. 

The other carriers stacked up securely in the back.

I think Judgement was done last, as he was still pretty groggy. Wolfman was, surprisingly, the most desperate to get out of his carrier. He almost knocked his carrier right off of Tissue’s! He and Beast where the most alert and active. PBC was quite calm on the drive home. Tissue, while still pretty groggy, was clearly in half-panic mode.

The drive home was… interesting!

As soon as I was outside the city, I was driving into light snowfall. The further north and west I drove, the heavier the snow. By the time I was in the final stretch of highway from my mother’s town, the snowfall was heavy, the highway was covered, and visibility was poor! It was light, fluffy snow. The sort of snow I could appreciate as being very beautiful – once I was no longer driving in it!

I was very glad to get home, that’s for sure.

Once we got them inside, the carriers were all stacked on my bed to start with. I made sure there was food and water in the sun room, along with a couple of new beds for the outside cats, before putting Judgement in the carrier in. I set a bowl of food inside with him, and the heated water bowl was just outside the carrier, then left the carrier door mostly closed, so he could come out whenever he felt ready to.

Tissue was starting to try and tear her way out of the carrier by the time I got back. We put food out for the other cats to lure them away, then food in my room – with the door closed – before letting them out of the carriers. Normally, they should have been left in the carriers longer, but we didn’t want them to hurt themselves. Tissue was still in panic mode. Strangely, Wolfman was pretty wired up, too! The Beast actually stayed in her carrier and had to be persuaded out. The problem with the soft sided carrier is that other cats try to climb on top, and don’t care if there’s a cat inside, getting squished! 

I wanted to leave my door open, but we had concerns that PBC would end up hiding somewhere in the basement. So, after making sure not cats were in the basement, I closed the door.

It’s a good thing we got extra litter boxes because, with the door closed, they no longer have access to the litter boxes down there!

The new litter boxes are now set up. 

It’s getting hard to find space for litter boxes.

So far, all seems well. We do have a few cats that are growling at PBC, but most of them are pretty laid back out there being a new cat in the house. We did keep her closed up in my room for the night. To make it easier for fasting, we put all the food bowls away, so there was no need to close up any other cats. Which meant I was getting up many times during the night, opening and closing my door as the night wore on. They were looking for the food bowls. Finding another cat in the process was far less interesting to them! On top of that, PBC tried exploring my room, which meant things getting knocked down that needed to be picked up.

I got next to no sleep. It’s all I can do to not go back to bed right now, but if I do that, I’ll really mess myself up!

The usual cats have hissed at PBC. Fenrir, of course. Big Rig. Meanwhile, Cheddar and our old grandma were all ready to start grooming her, though she only allowed sniffing. When it comes to human attention, though, she is quite enjoying the pets. Still not keen on being picked up, but starts purring almost instantly when we pet her! She’s going to love being an indoor cat. Whoever adopts her is going to get a real long haired beauty!

As I’ve been writing this, I’ve been able to keep an eye on her. She’s made no effort to leave my room, yet, and I’ve seen her eating, which is good. 

I’ll feel much better once I’ve seen her use a litter box, though! 😂

So, that’s five more done. No more inside cats need to be fixed. We can now focus entirely on the outside cats. 

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The only problem is, without being able to do the females right away, we’re going to be dealing with more kittens before we can get much progress!

Ah, well. We do what we can, when we can

The Re-Farmer

It’s alive!!!!!

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Oh, my goodness!

I am now writing my first blog post on my new computer!

It WORKED!!!

It took a day and a half, and five tries at reinstalling Windows. My husband ended up creating a new recovery drive on another USB thumb drive before it finally worked.

It took a while to get that initial set up, of course, but it went through the whole thing.

Also, Windows 11 really, really wanted me to give it access to all sorts of things, then tried to sell me stuff. Granted, giving them access to things might make doing some stuff more convenient, but I’m not about to allow them access to my personal data for that.

I now have to go through what will be a long and tedious process to set everything back up again. Windows, of course, wants to us Edge as the default browser – it doesn’t come with any other – but in the data the computer repair guy saved for me on the external hard drive had a couple of browser files in my downloads. I installed that, but Firefox was not my default browser. I ended up going back to Chrome, which is where all my bookmarks are, but apparently, I don’t have the download to reinstall it anymore.

It’s going to take me weeks to get everything installed and back where I want them.

Meanwhile, the entire layout and appearance of the computer is different. Even the task bar is different.

I am not going to work on that tonight, though. I need a break.

My alarm just went off. I need to find and bring that fluffy tortie in for the night. Then I’m going to install @$%&*@#$ Alien Crossfire and de-stress with some mindless gaming.

I’ll work on it tomorrow, after I bring the cats home from the vet.

The Re-Farmer

Seriously???

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

We have had repeatedly failures, trying to reinstall Windows on my new computer.

I just got this.

We got that with my old computer.

We might be dealing with a hard disk error.

My husband is setting up to try one more time.

Meanwhile, I’ve sent an email to tech support, briefly saying what’s been happening, and including this image.  In their time zone, there’s a possibility I might get a call back, but if not, I won’t get a response until Monday, at the earliest.

In my email, I mentioned that, at this point, we might need to just send it back.

Good grief.

The Re-Farmer

Still not there yet…

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

So we’ve tried to reinstall Windows on my new machine.

This is the farthest we got.

It would then cancel the installation, because of missing drivers.

It took a while for my husband to figure it out.

The recovery drive has Windows 10.

The new computer apparently has Windows 11.

I didn’t think it would, since it was last quality control checked before the update went out, but I guess new machines had it in advance?  Who knows.

My husband’s machine is updated, so he’s wiping the recovery drive and will get Windows 11 on it.

Hopefully, that will solve the problem.

It’s now been over continuous hours, trying to get this thing up and running!

We’re pretty sure it was our Wi-Fi set up, and my logging into the Orbi network instead of the primary router that messed things up.  The fact that I never got the option to log in again and select our Starlink router instead didn’t help matters.

We shall see how it goes! 

The Re-Farmer

We have an answer

/ Re-Farmer / 13 Comments

I just got off the phone with tech support at Skytech Gaming.  I ended up downloading an app to my phone that gave me a code that allowed him to see through my phone’s camera.   As we were talking, the computer restarted it’s loop again, and I told him what had been going on.

As we went through the prompts, he said he was looking for logging into the internet, and that was the one thing that has never been part of the loop.

Long story short, by the end of the call, he very apologetically told me that we will have to reinstall Windows.  Something went wrong in the start up and this installation got corrupted.

Which means we either hook up to another computer or get a recovery thumb drive.

*sigh*

One of the things that came with the paperwork in the box was a quality control check certificate.

The date on that is August 2, 2023.  So as of then, the computer was fine.

What a pain.  At least it’s a relatively easy fix, though.  I’m just not sure if I want to hook up to another computer, or just get a recovery thumb drive.  I like the idea of having the thumb drive.  Smaller and more convenient.  I’m going to have several hours after dropping the cats off at the vet tomorrow morning, so I could probably find one.

We shall see.

Not at all the sort of problem I would have anticipated!

Having said that, I can add that customer service was good and very prompt.  There wasn’t much he could do over the phone, but he could at least give me a solution.  With that, at least, I am happy.

I love technology, but my goodness, it doesn’t take much to mess it up!

The Re-Farmer

Still going!!

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

Good grief.

My new computer still isn’t set up.

Yyo.  I’m still blogging with my phone.  Please forgive any typos I miss!

With the constant restarting, followed by the screen saying to check our Wi-Fi, and no way to bypass it, we tried something different.

My husband had suggested setting the computer up in the living room, where the Orbi signal boosting device is located. 

There was no way I was going to haul everything over to do that.

So,,my husband brought the device to my room, instead.

The risk of that is twofold.  One, the log walls of my room could affect its ability to improve signal to other parts of the house and two, my room is not a cat free zone.  The risk of the device being pulled down, knocked over, etc. was much higher.  We ended up setting it on the top of my wall shelf, so it’s now just the power cord that needs to be watched out for.

Did it work?

Well… sort of?

We dud a hard shut down to set things up.  When I turned it on again, it went back to where it left off – this machine behaves as if it was in sleep mode, rather than powered down  – when through the first part of the loop, got to the “Just a moment…” screen…

…and stayed there.

I left it and went to bed.  Of course, I couldn’t sleep, so I checked it frequently.   No change.

I finally fell asleep, and when I got uo this morning, there was still no change!

I went to do my morning rounds, and when I got back, there was finally a change.

It was off.

I turned it back on, and it went straight to the “Just a moment…” screen.

Then it restarted.

Since then, it has restarted itself and gone through the loop 5 or 6 times in the last hour.

I dud call the customer support number, but they aren’t open in California, yet.  I left a message, asking for a call back.  With the time zones, they won’t be open for almost another hour from the time I’m writing this.

What I hope is happening is that the computer is finding updates, downloading them, installing them, then restarting.  After restarting, it finds another update, and goes through the process again.

The problem is that “Why did my PC restart?” screen.  That screen is always part of the loop, which tells me there is a Wi-Fi problem.

Also, there is no other information.  No download status bars.  No installation status bars. Just “checking for updates” followed by “just a moment…” and then the restart. 

I would expect it would take a while to find , download and install updates.  I have NEVER had it take this long.  We’re at almost 20 hours of this, at the time I’m writing this post.

It’s gotten to the point that I am considering setting up my old computer in the l8ving room and using the TV as a monitor.  We have spare keyboards, though not ergonomic ones, and I’m using the new mouse on the new computer, so the old mouse is available.  I just don’t know if we have a spare HDMI cable to attach the TV as a monitor.  My husband might have one.

Oh, look at that.

The computer is restarting itself again.

*sigh*

Meanwhile…

Temperatures have been dropping since yesterday after, and a light snow started.  My highway conditions group has been very busy.   Everything is incredibly slippery, with several reports of vehicles in ditches, and at least one very major accident.   People were reporting the need to drive at very low speeds, and advising others to stay at home, if at all possible.   The high winds were causing many problems, too. 

This morning, the snow had stopped where we are, and there was only a light layer on top of the frozen slush.  I’m very glad we don’t need to go anywhere today.  I hear the sand crews are out, so when it’s time to go to the vet with 5 cats tomorrow  things should be safer. I still plan to leave very early, and expect to be taking it slow.

I counted about 30 or 31 cats outside, this morning. Nineteen, just in the sunroom.

Driver, here, is still not using that front leg.  It doesn’t stop him from jumping up to the cat house roof, though!  I am really unhappy that we can’t take him to the vet.

After he ate and seemed to want attention, I picked him up and cuddled him fir a bit.  He was nervous, so I took him into the shelter of the sunroom and gently put him down.

Which, for some reason, caused all the other cats to explode in all directions, which also caused Driver to panic and bolt out of the sunroom, then squeeze his fluffy bulk under the kibble house. 

I have no idea what trigged all that!

The ground under the kibble house is coveted by a sheet of rigid insulation, with another under the floor panels above, so that’s a good spot for cats to be.  He was still under there, when I finished my rounds.

Tonight, we will grab that fluffy tortie and bring her inside for her overnight fast.  Hopefully, in the morning, Sad Face will be around, and we’ll be able to get him in the big carrier.  The carrier is already in the sum room, so the cats are used to it.  If we can’t get Sad Face, there are many friendly males we can bring in, instead.

I have a sinking feeling, though, that if we bring that fluffy tortie in, we won’t be able to let her outside again.  She will need more recovery time than a male, and with the sunroom bring used as winter shelter, it’s not available as an isolation ward.

Unless the Cat Lady is able to take her.  The rescue is paying for three of the five cats.  She thought the tortie might be easier to adopt, but I don’t know if she got any responses, or was even able to share the picture.   I’ll have to ask her about that, today.

We shall see.  It would be good if all three littles went off for adoption, rather than coming back here!

I cam dream, can’t I?

The Re-Farmer