Which I’m both happy and sad about, since it meant he’s basically maxed out his new credit card. Which means, after he gets his eyes tested later this month, he won’t be able to get new glasses.
So we’ll be working on paying that down as quickly as possible!!! I’ll be getting a caregiver tax credit that I was going to put towards his glasses, anyhow, so that’s going to his credit card.
I’ll be getting a SkyTech mini-gaming computer. Since I will be doing more photo and video work, a gaming computer will have the system requirements I need. A few things will probably need upgrading; it has only 500gigs of memory storage, for example. My current computer has 1.79T, plus I have a 3T external hard drive – which I currently can’t access on my current machine. But that’s easy enough to work around. The important part is having a machine that actually works!
Speaking of which…
I’ve downloaded a free version of the Advanced Systemcare software recommended to me, and have been trying to install it.
The installation bar shows it at what looks like 99% installed, and it’s been like that for over 10 minutes now.
The order for the new computer has just been placed, so we don’t have an estimated delivery date yet. Hopefully, it won’t take long. The way things are going, I won’t be surprised if this thing starts smoking or something!
Well, my computer is pretty much useless right now. I have been able to get to booted, but so many things just won’t work. Even my mouse suddenly stopped working. Then, when I was able to manually open the start menu and select shut down, it wouldn’t.
*sigh*
So much for making a little gardening video. I’m supposed to be able to use the software on my phone, but that would drive me insane.
So here are some photos, instead.
There were not a lot of seeds in the onion packets, but still decent. The Red Wethersfield had the fewest seeds. Those are this year’s red onions. The yellow onions are Frontier and the shallots are Creme Brulee. There wasn’t space to fit the three containers into the large aquarium greenhouse, so one went into the little one.
I used one of the new large-cell trays for the next seeds. The hot Cheyenne peppers were the last seeds from last year. There were only 9 seeds left, for the 7 cells in the row.
The Classic Eggplant were also the last of the seeds from last year. There were 14 left, which worked out well.
Hopefully, we will have at least a few germinate. If we had just two or three plants of these, that would be enough.
The last row is the Little Finger eggplant. I got a new packet of those, but last year’s packet still had 12 seeds. I put two in each of six cells, then added three new seeds in the last one, plus one more in each of the other cells. So, at the very least, we should have a decent number of Little Finger eggplant this year.
This tray is now on the heat mat; something the onions don’t particularly need.
When I did the onions, I had a smaller bag of Jiffy brand seed starting mix. I moistened the entire bag in a huge bowl, first, then filled the repurposed fruit and vegetable trays.
When filling the tray with the larger cells, I finished off that bag. I had a larger bag of Miracle-Gro seed starting mix and moistened about half of it to finish filling the tray. I am curious to see if there is any difference.
As for the aquarium set up, I’m going to have to look for new bulbs. The big aquarium has two sets of lights. The original set that came with the tank lay flat on the glass lids. The lids were constantly getting algea growing on them, under the warmth of the lights. When the hinges on the lids broke, we just took them off completely, but too much moisture was getting on the light cover. So we found a fixture with ends that hold it higher above the tank.
Now that we use the tanks for seed starting, we use both light fixtures. The higher one, however, now has a burnt out bulb. I need to confirm the size of bulb needed, then see what I can replace it with. I’m sure I can find some full spectrum bulbs that will be better for the plants. If they are affordable, I hope to get extras.
The light fixture on the small tank has two LED bulbs. It still works, but is slowly getting dimmer, so it will be time to replace those soon, too.
So there we have it! Our first seeds started for this year’s garden.
I popped outside briefly last night, when raccoons showed up in the sun room again. It was raining ever to lightly at the time.
By morning, we were still above zero, with a light fog. Things are pretty wet and slippery put there!
We’ve got the “moat” forming around the garage – something more typical or March or April.
That didn’t stop Driver from following me around and demanding attention! He kept flopping in front of my feet, until I finally picked him up and carried him.
I managed a head count this morning. The cats still aren’t all back to using the sunroom at night, but I think I counted 35 this morning!
Meanwhile…
I am having major computer issues again.
I tried using my movie making software last night. I finally started seeds and was going to make a quick little silent video.
The computer started making grinding noises.
As the noises got worse, I tried shutting down the machine, but it wouldn’t shut down. After numerous attempts, I finally did a hard shut down and tried again, after waiting the 20 minutes or more it takes to boot up now.
After doing a few things to make sure it was functioning, I tried the movie making software again. As I was going through Windows Explorer to find some images to include, it started locking up on me.
Oh, and I can’t see my external hard drive, where i have been moving my photos and video to conserve space.
When I tried navigating around WE, it started “not responding” on me. Of course, with WE, you can’t just End Task it. The only option is to restart it.
Which locked up even worse. I got a white screen that wouldn’t go away.
After having to do hard shut downs several times, I called it a night.
This morning, I tried turning on my computer.
It wouldn’t boot up.
After having to do a couple of hard shut downs, I got the dreaded blue screen, and the “this device needs repair” message.
Much to my surprise, though, I was able to go through the prompts and get it started! While I’ve been tapping this on my phone, it managed to finish booting up.
Meanwhile, my husband has been looking up computers on Amazon for me. Not that we can afford one that has what I need. He was even looking at ones with payment plans, but those were even out of budget.
As much as I love the truck, the payments we ended up with were over budget, and that’s really affecting what other things we can do.
We have GOT to get more of the inside cats adopted out.
Last night was a rough one.
With my arm still giving me grief, I tried going to be early again. While I could move my right arm forward and back as normal, if painfully, I still couldn’t get it move more than a few inches straight outward.
When I go to bed, I often has several cats that insist they MUST be either right against me, or me, and they don’t often give me a chance to finish getting into bed before they do it! Cheddar is one of several that has decided where I sleep is his spot. He’s a big boy, so moving him with one wonky arm was a challenge! Others will move as I pull the covers back, but not Shadow in the Dark. He’s one that likes to curly up near my face or against the back of my neck, and he won’t move. So lifting the covers usually results in him being rolled over and over, then he lies there, all sprawled out, looking at me like I’ve offended him somehow!
That’s not unusual, though.
Butterscotch made things unusual.
She’s been doing quite well, and even gotten to the point that she has started to leave my room, if only to go as far as the steps to the dining room, or peak around the corner at the basement door, to look down the hallway, before running back into my room.
Lately, however, she has taken to growling and snarling.
Sometimes, I can see that there’s a cat nearby that she’s snarling at, but they’re usually just there, and not even looking at her. A couple of times, one of them would go at her, but it seems more a response to her snarling, and not the other way around. Other times, I’ll hear her snarling, and I can’t even see any other cats around her.
Well, it seems that having so many cats in my room, usually covering my bed, sleeping in groups, is stressing her out to the point that she isn’t going to the litter boxes. She’d have to go past the other cats to do that.
The first time I heard the odd noises, I found her squeezed onto one of the boxes I’ve set in front of the wall shelf, under my craft table. I’ve got other boxes inside the bottom shelves; with the table there, they can’t be accessed for us, but when they were empty and I thought the cats were just using them as places to sleep, we discovered they were defecating in them, so we blocked them off with empty boxes. One of those overhangs the edge of the shelf, and she was squeezed between the box on the floor and the overhanging box.
Then I started hearing a very strange sound indeed.
The sound of hard turds dropping onto the box she was on!
I managed to get her out of there, but then she went into a shelf above where I sleep; the shelf I keep my glasses in, as well as where I put my phone on a stand to charge at night, among other things.
I got her out of that, and she squeezed herself into the space of another shelf, in between my cookbooks and the top of the mattress. I tried lying down again, but more noised had me getting up again to investigate, and this time she was digging into the shelf that I use for some of my clothes. I got her out of there and tucked her into the nearby cat cave, and she stayed there.
Not for long.
I was again awakened by strange noises, and this time I found she was making a mess on my bed, between my pillow, and my leaning sheep – a large stuffed sheep I sometimes use to lean against when sitting up in bed, but is normally stored in the shelve under where I keep my glasses. It’s large enough to almost fill the space completely.
Well, this time, it was a very messy mess.
My daughters are still timing things so that one of them is always available to help me with his, so I messaged my older daughter to help me. We wiped up as much as we could, then stripped the bed. The fitted sheet and the leaning sheep had to be washed, along with one pillow case, but the mess was bad enough that we had to strip the waterproof mattress cover for washing, too!
By then it was past 1am – so much for going to bed early!
While my daughter got the laundry going, I started putting out wet cat food. That lured all but one cat out of my room. I set wet cat food out in the bowls I have there, which allows for Butterscotch and a few of the the shier cats to get some, without being pushed around by the other cats. This time, I was able to close the door and keep the other cats from coming back in during the night.
Of course, that meant frequent interruptions by cats trying to claw the door open.
Eventually, though, I did hear Butterscotch going into a litter box, which should have been a good thing, but… something didn’t sound right. So I used the flashlight on my phone to try and see her.
*sigh*
Yeah, she was using the litter box, finally, but didn’t quite go all the way in.
She ran off again and hid in her cat cave while I got up and cleaned up the mess.
*sigh*
After that, things did finally quiet down, and I managed to get some sleep, but all this having to get up and check things was quite painful.
I have discovered on thing, though. While my girth may make it seem otherwise, I’ve got some pretty decent abs! I had to sit myself up many times using just my abs, and not being able to use my arms at all.
With just Butterscotch in her cave and what turned out to be Susan sleeping somewhere else, I actually was able to get some decent sleep, if only for a few hours.
This morning, I felt good enough that, when my younger daughter went to feed the outside cats, I went along to help out, then do the rest of my rounds and switch out the trail cam memory cards.
I was very happy to demonstrate to her that I can now lift my right arm straight out again! While there is still some pain, I have almost full mobility of my arm again! The level of improvement since yesterday is amazing. I’m so relieved! There were times I seriously considered getting my daughter to drive me to the hospital, but giving it a couple of days of rest seems to be what I really needed. In fact, while writing this, I just tested my arm again, and I could do a full rotation at the shoulder, with no pain! Not even my left shoulder, which was not strained as badly, still has more pain now than my right shoulder does. I’m so relieved!
While doing the morning feeding, neither of us tried to do a head count. There were clearly fewer cats than usual, but they were also running around a lot, making it hard to keep track. There were these two, though…
The cats still aren’t going into the sunroom as much as usual. Checking it just a short while ago, there was a small pile of maybe three or four cats on the platform, and that’s it. Usually, we’d see about 6 or ten on the platform, and almost as many under the heat lamp or on the cat bed below, plus more in the shelf, at the food bowls or just wandering around. It’s going to take time for them to start feeling safe in there again.
These two are almost always in the sunroom. Syndol can’t get enough attention, but the little one (can you believe they’re only about a month or so apart in age?) is now getting to the point of enjoying pets and being picked up. We’d brought this one into the house a couple of times to give his nethers a thorough washing. He was so patient about it, the girls have named him Patience.
Even his tortie sister has started to allow me to pet her more often, and will tolerate being picked up more. Which is good, because it means we can bring her indoors for overnight fasting at the end of the week, before taking her to get spayed. Oh, how I wish more of the females could be socialized enough to get them done! My daughter was able to pet Broccoli this morning, but she wouldn’t let me near her. I did manage to pet Junk Pile – the first time in ages. She seemed shocked at being pet, and liking the shoulder skritches, but didn’t allow it for long. Even Caramel was around, but I only managed to touch her while she had her back to me while eating. Brussel won’t let us near her, but she will go into the kibble house and even into the sunroom. Sprout keeps her distance. If we’re around, she won’t eat at all, and she prefers to eat from the bowls under the shrine, across the yard. We’ve seen Slick around, I think (aka: Octomom), and there’s another grey tabby that’s more spotted then striped that I think is also female. That one will eat at the kibble house or on the cat house roof, but is even shier than Sprout, so we haven’t been able to confirm, either way. Another one we have not been able to confirm is one more from that late litter of either kittens; a small grey tabby with dense longer fur. It will go into the sunroom to eat, and I’ve been able to sneak a pet on its back, if it can’t see me, but that’s it. Given how it won’t let us near it, I’m going to just assume it’s female. 😕
Anyhow, that’s the current status.
In other things, my daughter was able to help me move a chair out of the living room so I have access to the aquarium greenhouses again. With my arm mobile again, my goal for today is to get the big aquarium ready for seed trays, then hopefully actually get seeds started. We’ve got the red onions, yellow onions and shallots that should have already been started by now, plus some peppers and eggplant. Possibly some oregano and thyme, too, but those can probably wait a couple more weeks. I’ll have to go through our seeds that need to be started the earliest and make some decisions. With having to build or rebuild so many beds, once things are thawed out enough, I’m going to work on the assumption we won’t have room for everything we want to plant. Especially for things that would need to be planted in ground, like corn.
We shall see how things work out. For now, I’m just glad to 1) be pain free and mobile enough to get back at it and 2) not have any unexpected running around to do, but actually be home to get my own stuff done!
Time to grab a stool and get at those aquarium greenhouses!
Well, I really did a number on my right rotator cuff yesterday. I can’t raise my arm at all in two directions, with limited mobility in other directions.
During the night, I heard a commotion on my craft table and discovered Ginger peeing on it. Getting up to chase him off was quite difficult, and I ended up having to put weight on the injured arm. By the time I was done getting him off and cleaning the mess, I was in a cold sweat and feeling ready to throw up.
Yes, I did take painkillers. In fact, I went so far as to take one of my husband’s prescription pain meds.
It made no difference at all.
After a couple more hours of attempted sleep, things have improved. I will probably need to see a doctor, but I’m not sure where to go. I don’t really have one, and my interim doctor isn’t in the clinic on Fridays, anyhow. I really don’t want to spend hours waiting in an emergency room, either.
My daughters are taking shifts to be available to help me. My younger daughter has the day shift. She fed and watered the outside cats and tried to do a head count. She counted about 20 or so, which has been typical for our warmer days of late.
My daughter is cooking breakfast for me now, so I will have to de-cat myself and get up. I have been trying to at least lie down, if not sleep. Oddly, lying on my left side has been more painful, and not just because of my arthritic hip. I just can’t find a good position for my right arm that doesn’t strain the joint. Lying on my right side, I can at least find a position that supports the shoulder, rather than strains it.
I’m going to start this with some cuteness. I could really use some cuteness right now.
Not a very clear picture, but it was getting pretty dark and the time. This little sweetie is starting to actually enjoy being pet and even picked up, if only briefly.
Also, I’m very happy that he’s alive and unhurt.
I’ll have to explain that particular statement in a bit, but I’m rather unhappy right now.
I had called my mother last night and made arrangements to help her with her groceries today. At her request, I was going to pick up a hot lunch at the grocery store first, if they had them ready, so I left earlier and expected to be away for some hours.
They didn’t have the hot lunches, but I was still able to pick up a meal for us, and we had lunch together, then went over her grocery list. Grocery shopping by myself, with just her list, is a lot faster, and even got a bit more of a visit in before she left for a regularly scheduled social gathering some social workers arrange in her building.
I hadn’t had much sleep the night before, having discovered a huge puddle on my bed and needing to do laundry in the wee hours! Once I was back home and settled, I tried lying down for a bit, on the half of my bed that wasn’t still air drying. Yes, I had the new waterproof mattress cover on, and yes, the puddle actually soaked through it in spots.
While I was lying down, I had my phone on the charger on my desk when it started making notification noises. I ignored them, partly because I was buried in cats. After a while, though, my husband came by, commenting on how surprised he was that no one commented on the photo he’s sent.
Before I left my mother’s, she gave me some stuff to take with me. One of them was a baggie of different types of candies and chocolates that the social workers give out to everyone in her building. The girls and I had split them up, with a few going to my husband, including some caramels.
The picture he’d sent was of a caramel.
This a crown stuck to it.
The candy had actually pulled it right off!
After talking about it briefly, my husband made a phone call to the dentist. It was shortly after 3, and they were willing to take him in right away, but with how long it takes to drive into down, it was too early. So they said to come in for 4.
I could hear his side of the conversation and, once I realized he was able to get in right away, I extricated myself from the cats and started getting ready to head out again. I drove the truck into the yard, then went to the sunroom, which had only the outer door tied off, so I could open it from the outside, to get his walker.
I reached in to untie the door, and it growled at me.
I opened the door, and there was a big white dog standing there, looking at me.
At first glance, I thought it was the dog belonging to the younger of my brothers, who lives on the quarter across from our driveway. He doesn’t come around anymore, so that was a surprise.
Then I realized, it was not my brother’s dog. First off, this dog was not as fluffy. My brother’s dog gets very fluffy in the winter. Also, this dog had very distinctive eyes; one blue, one half blue, half brown.
I stepped aside and the dog left the sunroom, but it didn’t go far. It was very nervous and wagging it’s tail, but it was the sort of “if I reach out, will he lick my hand, or bite it?” nervous behavior. I didn’t reach out to it, of course, but the dog did start barking at me.
I still had to get the walker, though, so I went into the sunroom. There, I found a few things knocked out of the shelf against the window and onto the floor under the platform. The only cat I saw was the little fluffy tortie, and she was clambering her way up the shelf to the very top. It wasn’t until I was outside with the walker, after picking some stuff back up again, that I saw there was another cat already up there. They were watching me – and the dog – out the window.
The dog was still barking as I got the walker set up. My daughters, of course, came out to see what was going on, so while I fussed with the walker, they were on the other side of the kibble and water bowl shelters, and able to see what I missed.
A cat, lying dead in one of the paths in the snow leading to the food bowls under the shrine.
It was the single calico cat among last summer’s kittens. We’ve never been able to socialize her, but she was a talkative one and would always greet me when I came out to feed them.
I had to confirm that she was dead, of course, and she had clearly not been gone for long. I was able to move her to where she will later be cremated, and I’m sure that if I’d touched her with my bare hands, she would still have been warm.
Needless to say, that dog was no longer welcome.
We did some banging around and commended him to go home, but he just ran around the house. I chased him away some more, and he eventually ran out of the yard.
We were all quite unhappy with the situation.
My husband, meanwhile, had come out of the house and was in the truck. We needed to get going. We left the girls to take care of things, including locking the gate behind us, so we could get to the dentist.
It was just 4:00 as we came through the doors!
They got my husband in quickly and, while I waited for him, I posted a message on an FB page for our community, as well as on my personal profiles (since recovering my stolen original account, I still keep both old and new accounts active), about the dog, what happened, and our general location.
We did have a bit of a surprise at the dentist.
They already had a file for my husband.
Neither one of us remember him going to the dentist since we moved out here, but apparently they have him on file for 2021.
I was in the process of messaging my daughters to update them when my husband came out.
He was done.
When he made the appointment, they asked him to bring in the broken off crown. It turns out, all they needed to do was cement it back on again!
Then it was time to pay the bill. They do direct billing with the insurance company, but when they tried to process the payment, they got a message to get the new card information. There had been some changes within the system and we got new cards, but they had the exact same information on them. In fact, they sent us new cards twice, because of some other issue. I had both older cards, plus the newest on, in my wallet, so we were able to look at all three to compare.
They all had identical information on them.
Rather than fuss with it then, the receptionist said they’d clear it up with the insurance company, then bill use the rest later.
I remembered to ask how much it was, and it came out to $190. Our coverage is 90%, so we won’t have much to pay at all, when the time comes.
Since we were in town anyhow, my husband suggested we get something to eat. Clearly, his mouth was feeling just fine!
So we went to small restaurant nearby, and I was a very rude person, frequently checking my phone. There had been a number of reactions to my posting about the dog and what happened.
Then I started getting some private messages. A friend and neighbour sent me a picture of a dog. I couldn’t tell if it was the same dog, though. It had its fluffy winter fur, for starters, but I couldn’t make out the colour of the eyes. I asked about the eyes, and my friend said it was his brother’s dog (they live on the same quarter section), but he wasn’t sure about the eyes.
Then he sent me another picture. This time, it was a summer picture, so the dog’s fur was sleek. More importantly, it was a clear shot of the dog’s face – complete with porcupine quills in its snout!
Once I saw the eyes, though, it was confirmed. This was the dog that we found at our place.
We messaged back and forth a bit, and he gave me his brother’s phone numbers.
When we were done eating, and getting some take out for the girls, we headed straight home. The light was fading fast, so as soon as I parked the truck, I wandered around the house to see what I could see. Which was nothing obvious, but it was really getting too dark by then.
While we were out, our daughters kept an eye out for the dog, and did the evening feeding of the outside cats. A few of the cats had started to come back, including some friendlies that wanted pets.
The sunroom doors were also secured with both doors tied off, and tightly. There would be enough room for cats to squeeze into the sunroom, but no dog is getting in there!
My husband took his walker in through the main doors and is now storing it in the entry, in front of the washing machine, again. It’s more in the way, there, but we can’t get into the sunroom from outside anymore, when both doors are tied off like that.
Once things were settled indoors, I went through the old kitchen to go to the sunroom. There were only 3 cats in there; the fuzzy black one in the photo above, Syndol and one of the white and greys that’s really friendly. When I had been walking around outside, I did see a few cats around, but they were understandably very nervous and quick to run off. I did see Rolando Moon as we drove into the yard, and Brussel by the garage, plus a few more identifiable ones. It won’t be until tomorrow morning that I’ll be able to try and get a head count and take a good look around.
Meanwhile, I did phone the guy the dog belongs to. He had already been told what happened by my friend, and was in total shock. When he got home from work, the dog was at home and everything seemed normal. Plus, this is a dog that is not prone to wandering, even when chasing deer out of the yard. The dog looks like it’s part Pyrenees, and they like to guard their own territory. That he should wander to another farm a mile away, then kill a cat, is extremely odd behaviour.
Had my husband not had to go to the dentist unexpectedly, I wouldn’t have gone out for at least another hour, to do the evening cat feeding. I would have found the sun room half trashed and almost devoid of cats, and I would have found that little calico in the path, and never known what happened – and the dog’s owner would never have known his dog had wandered off.
As we were talking, one of the things he asked me is if we had a BB gun or pellet gun. We do have a pellet gun. I have permission to use it to scare the dog off.
Which is unlikely to happen. I don’t typically carry it with me when I do my rounds!
To be honest, though, I was thinking thoughts about having our crossbow handy.
I am seriously unhappy.
We are dog lovers in this household, but a dog that’s a killer is a different situation altogether.
Hopefully, we will never see it again.
I’m going to miss seeing that gorgeous little calico.
Oh, and jus to top things off, I’ve wrenched my shoulder. When the dog had gone around the back of the house, and my daughter could see it through the sunroom window, in the old kitchen garden, I went around to chase him off. Right now, instead of a rain barrel at the corner, we have the diverter set up. It extends as far as the hand rail with the rose bush growing at it, near the steps for the laundry platform. With how warm things have been lately, there’s been a lot of melted snow from the roof that flowed onto the ground in the space between the handrail and the laundry platform, and towards the cat shelter.
The very space I needed to go through, to get to the old kitchen garden.
It was, of course, very slippery. I used the hand rail to keep myself upright, but still came very close to falling a couple of times. I didn’t think I’d hurt myself, but the more time goes by, the stiffer my shoulders are getting. My right shoulder, in particular, is getting so that it’s painful to move, or raise my arm at all. I’m going to have to pain killer up if I’m going to get any sleep tonight!
This morning, I did remember to grab some meat out of the freezer to drop off at my mother’s on the way to the city. I called her ahead of time, but only left a message, as she would have gone to bed again, after taking her morning meds.
I was supposed to just drop things off and go, but of course, it never quite works out that way! 😁
As I put the meat in her freezer, I showed her what I’d brought for her. Her response was to say, too bad I didn’t bring her any milk.
*sigh*
Then she started talking about my being on the way home, which confused me. It was shortly after 10 when I got to her place. For me to be on the way home, I would have had to leave early enough to get to Costco just as they opened, rushed through my shopping, and done nothing else at all. Plus, I’d even told her several times already, I was on my way to the city. I think because our vandal has stopped at her place on the way home from Costco in the past, she got it in her mind that that’s the only time anyone would stop by at her place. Personally, I’m not into having my frozen stuff thawing out in the vehicle any longer than I have to!
I did offer to go get some milk for her right away, but she insisted that no, she didn’t want to trouble me. I’ve got so much to do, so much trouble to deal with… ???
It was literally the most convenient time to do it, but nope.
Looks like I’ll be popping over to her place in the next day or two, do help her with her grocery shopping.
Before I left, my mother mentioned getting confusing messages on her answering machine, so of course I checked that right away!
I was just as confused as she was with two of them.
One was a very brief and cheerful greeting – at least I think it was a greeting, it was spoken so quickly – followed by a hang up. Male voice. Strong Middle Eastern type accent. No name left, and clue who it could have been. The other was a female voice leaving a much longer message. Strong European accent, fast talking, neither of us could follow what she was saying. My mother didn’t recognize the voice (she gets phone calls from Poland, and this was not from one of her relatives).
So I left those messages to listen to again later, when I had more time to try and figure them out.
Curious, I decided to check the caller ID to see if the numbers could tell me anything.
They didn’t, but there was a familiar number, right after mine from when I called this morning.
I double checked to be sure.
It was our vandal’s number.
My mother’s phone gives the time a call came in, but not the date, which is frustrating, but my mother was surprised it was there. I explained to her that our vandal’s number has been blocked, to stop his abusive calls. Clearly, the call blocking device worked, but I did not expect his number to still show up on caller ID. Knowing this, I warned her that, after not getting through to her, he might simply show up at her door. She started going on about what a great visit she had with him and his wife that last time he did that. I told her, that’s because his wife was there. If he brings a witness, he’s going to be on his best behaviour, putting on a performance. That way, later on, his witnesses can say how well they get along, etc. As if that would somehow make up for more than a decade of abusive phone calls, messages and visits! My mother actually seemed to get it, right away, which is encouraging.
Then it was time for me to continue to the city. My first stop was at a Canadian Tire to get the litter pellets. I noticed the oil pressure gauge was dropping a lot, so when I got there, I asked how much an oil change would cost, juggled some numbers, and was able to get the truck in right away.
I got a package deal that included 5L of oil, tire rotation, inspection of the brake, cooling, exhaust and suspensions systems, a lights check, lubrication of the door locks and hinges, battery test, and a fluids top up – washer, brake, power steering and coolant. The truck is a 5.6L, so I did get charged for an extra litre of oil, but they had a weekly special going on that gave me 15% off, so in the end, the whole thing cost me just under $80.
I did make sure to let them know that there are a number of codes coming up that I am aware of, and am taking care of little by little.
They were able to take the truck in right away, but I still had more than enough time to do the shopping I needed. Along with 2 bags of litter pellets, I ended up getting another bag of seed starting mix, and some seed starting trays with larger, deeper cells in them. I only got two to try out. One of things I think was an issue last year was trying to start some of our seeds in the smaller Jiffy pellets. I considered getting a seed starting set with the big Jiffy pellets, but decided against it when I saw the other trays. We will be starting some eggplants and peppers soon.
After getting all that, I still had a while to wait. Shortly before it was done, I was called over to talk about some of the things found in the inspection. One was a burnt out license plate light, which I knew about. There’s two of them, and one is still working. It turns out that having just one burnt out bulb can get me a ticket. That’s something we can do ourselves. Another thing was a recommendation to do a power steering fluid flush in the near future. The last one was one I’ll definitely talk to our mechanic about, first. It seems one of the bearings on the front driver’s side tire is starting to show a little play.
If I were to get all the recommended work done right away, the final bill would be over $600.
Uhm… no.
I told him, I don’t live in the city, and I’ll talk to our regular mechanic about this.
Here’s the thing.
While I don’t mind going to Canadian Tire for something as basic as an oil change, I won’t go there for any other work. We’ve been burned badly by them in the past, even in other provinces, before we knew how notorious they are for “finding” extra work. It would be a very long story to tell how badly we got screwed over in the past. It was a long time ago, but their reputation has not improved over the years. Unless I know exactly what is going to be done, in every detail, I will not go to them again for mechanical work.
I did remember to ask how the tires were rotated, though. I explained that one tire needed to have its valve replaced, so I needed to know if they did a front to back rotation, or an X rotation. So he checked that for me, and it was front to back.
That done, my next stop was gas at Costco. Their price for regular is 113.9/L right now (122.9 or 123.9/L everywhere else). Half a tank cost me just under $55.
From there, I finally got into Costco to do the shopping.
I got a separate bill for the cat supplies, but altogether, this is what $532.56 looks like.
The pet supplies cost almost as much as the stuff we got for ourselves.
We got more pee pads – those have been coming in remarkably handy – a case of canned cat food and six 9kg bags of dry cat food, for a grand total of $245.08
Then there was the stuff for us.
Gosh, some of those item names are hard to figure out at times!
We got a case of Coke Zero for my husband, the big Kirkland package of toilet paper, 5 pounds of butter, a 6 pack of pasta, a bag of Basmati rice, two flats of eggs, a big bag of walnuts, 3 packages of tortilla wraps, a big box of Ramen noodles, two 2 packs of Asian Cashew salad mixes, a round of Brie, a 2pk of goat cheese, mini portabella mushrooms, a block of Old cheddar, a big jar of mayonnaise and another of peanut butter, and finally a couple of bottles of painkillers; ibuprofen for the girls, and acetaminophen for me. This time, not Tylenol Arthritis, which does absolutely nothing for my arthritis. Just generic extra strength acetaminophen.
Oh, I almost forgot. I got a fresh, heat and eat lasagna for supper.
Which the girls have heated up and is waiting for me right now! I didn’t realize it, but my older daughter and my husband don’t eat lasagna anymore. All that cheese does nasty things to their insides, and we’re out of lactase. So they made something else, and my younger daughter and I get to enjoy the lasagna all to ourselves! 😁😁
I have to remember to call my mother later on, though, and figure out when I’m coming over to help her with her shopping.
I’m in the city right now. I decided to get an oil change before heading into Costco, so I’m just waiting on that right now. I decided to check the weather conditions back home.
Wow!!
The highest temperature I saw in the forecasts was 6C, but we are at 8C now – and it’s not even the hottest part of the day, yet!
The is going to make the temperature drop tomorrow feel even colder. 😆
The city is usually a couple degrees warmer, but right now, it’s a couple degrees cooler where I am.
This year’s quarter beef filled 5 boxes this time. The finished weight for our share came out to 210 pounds (just over 95kg). They did have to increase their price per pound this year, so it was $6.25 per pound, instead of $6, making for a total of $1312.50 Our first order of a quarter beef was under $800, at $6/lb.
I’m going to have to go over the budget and see if we can still make the $100 a month payments for another quarter beef at the end of this year, but with the new truck payment, and various things that need to be repaired or replaced, I’m not sure we’ll be able to do it. We can still get their freezer packs out of the regular budget, but would be paying more per pound that way. It’s only by getting at least a quarter beef share that we can get things like prime rib and big T-bone steaks at only $6.25 a pound.
When letting them know more of less what kinds of cuts we wanted (we’re more interested in a nice variety, so I really don’t care that much), I mentioned we are a household of 4 adults, asking if it was at all possible to get items in groups of four. So, if one type of steak is normally packaged two together, to get two packages of that steak. They don’t do the butchering themselves, but send the beef to a provincially certified butcher, so I knew it wasn’t really up to them, and would depend on just how much our share worked out to be as it was being cut. The closest they could get would be satisfactory. I didn’t count the packages, but from the looks of things as I put them in the freezer, the butcher did try to do that! The minute steaks used to be smaller packages of two. This time, they were in larger packages of four. Some of the bigger steaks used to be one to a package, and we’d have two packages of one type, and two of another, so when we had a steak dinner for the four of us, we wouldn’t all have the same kind of steak. This time I saw them packed in pairs, and two packages of each type of steak. I’m quite pleased!
The chest freezer is now quite full. I’ve got some minute steaks out for tonight, since they’ll thaw out more quickly, plus a 2 lb package of ground beef thawing out for tomorrow. I’ll be doing our Costco shopping tomorrow, and won’t need to buy any meat at all this time! My mother has been refusing to buy meat at the grocery store lately, because of the prices, and buying things like a ring of garlic sausage, instead. I think she’s still got a package of venison from my sister in her freezer, but I want to bring her some ground beef and something else that’s in a smaller package, since it’s just for one person. I think some stew meat might do well for her. I’ll try to remember to grab some and drop by her place on the way to the city to drop it off.
Oh, we got an extra little gift with our beef order this time, too – a pair of ball caps with their logo on it. I was quite happy to see them. I wear a cap all the time these days, and the one they gave us before with our very first order is starting to look a bit stained and beaten up! 😄 We got one black hat and one burgundy. My younger daughter loves the red one, and has been wearing it since they were brought inside!
I am so happy our beef is in – and that they were willing to delay our order, when the final weight turned out to be so much more than expected!
Here is a rolly polly Rolando Moon to delight you…
… while I wait in a parking lot, for our quarter beef pick up.
It still makes me giggle, every time, that we do this like some sort of illicit drug deal.
Though the way things are going with the powers that be, I might not be far off the mark. So many groups are now calling to end the eating of meat, especially beef, I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to make it illegal.
Hopefully, sanity will prevail.
Until then, let’s appreciate a fuzzy orange belly and all those toe beans!
The Re-Farmer 