While I am using my phone to make this post, because I can’t do anything with photos on my desktop, this might be the last post where this is an issue.
My new computer is ready to be picked up at the post office.
Unfortunately, I can’t get there before it closes over the lunch period. It reopens at 2, so I’ll head our then. After that, we’ll see how long it takes to set it up and see how it works. It will take a long time to set up or transfer my data over, but I should at least be able to go online and write posts.
I really hope this turns out to be a good machine.
In other things, cat related.
I’ve been chatting with the Cat Lady. They now have several cats from us, living with them permanently. They have pretty much all had weird health issues. Thankfully, Cabbages is now hale and hearty. Leo – a kitten we never named and never expected to survive – had lung issues but is now officially declared healed.
Then there is Muffin, a muted calico that was supposed to be adopted out, but bonded instantly with her husband. For some reason, she hates the Cat Lady, but gets along with everyone else. She also goes to job sites and coffee runs with her husband!
Well, one day, while the family was out of country, her mother, who was taking care of the cats while they were gone, found her with a bloody mouth. After an emergency weekend trip to the dentist, she had some teeth removed.
Since then, they got a diagnosis of stomatitis. She’s going to need all her teeth removed. !!!
Telling my daughters about this, they told me of a cat they follow online (Yes, a cat; not the owner!) that had all her teeth removed a couple of years ago. Apparently, cats can handle being gummies just fine. So hopefully, things will work out for Muffin.
I shared this with the Cat Lady, along with mentioning how we feel so bad that she has all these cats from us that turned out to have major health problems. She told me it was okay. Other cats they’ve found themselves with have been much more difficult. And she wasn’t talking about the one that was do physically abused, he can no longer eat without help, and had to have a leg and tail amputated.
Which is rather alarming!
Then she got back to me later, after talking to someone with 41 cats, wants to adopt some out and get some of them fixed.
Just some?
The Cat Lady says she is getting so tired of dealing with the public, she just wants to focus on us and our cats.
What does that say about the other situations she deals with, when ours is the least problematic??
Speaking of which…
We have a problem with Driver.
A couple of days ago, he seemed to be limping on a back leg. I wanted to keep an eye on him, but yesterday, I never saw him walking. While feeding them, he was in the cat bed under the platform in the sun room, and didn’t get up. When I came back after finishing my rounds, he was gone. Checking through the bathroom window during the night, though, I spotted him on the top shelf by the window. I figured if he could get up there, he was doing alright, or at least improving.
This morning, however, he was walking around on 3 legs, holding a front paw off the ground.
About the only positive thing I can say is that the leg isn’t dangling. With Ginger and with Toni, when I saw how their legs were dangling and flopping around, I knew right away, amputation would be the most likely recommended course of action. With Driver, however, he’s holding the leg up, but there is nothing swinging around or flopping. As I had not noticed him favoring his front leg before, this may even be a new injury he somehow got last night.
The last I saw him, he was disappearing under the storage house. I wasn’t even allowed to get close to him, never mind pet him, which is now unusual for him.
The problem is, we can’t even take him to a vet. With the spay day coming up this weekend, plus expenses like the new computer, expecting new glasses for my husband, etc, we just don’t have any more budget left for vet bills. I’ve told the Cat Lady about it, but not with any expectation that they should take in the expenses.
We have had cats show up favoring paws or legs before, that healed on their own. We will watch closely. Hopefully, it’s not anything serious, but at the moment, I can’t get close enough to check.
After getting my routine stuff done this morning, I got sucked into the vortex of cats on my bed. I didn’t need to go under the covers. They plastered themselves on and around me, and kept me warm!
I fell asleep, but not for any excessive length of time, yet after I got up, it seemed like time just skipped an hour here, another hour there. Very odd.
I’m still fighting with my computer. It takes at least two tries to get it to boot up. I can’t do anything productive on it, but I can go online and browse or watch some videos. I can even play my Alien Crossfire, a game old enough that it doesn’t tax my system. At least until the mouse suddenly isn’t recognized anymore.
Hoping the new machine arrives early!
My husband asked me to go into town for something, so I took advantage of the trip to refill out big water jugs. It was still daylight when i went into the grocery store. It was full dark when I came out!
And raining.
It’s been a while since I drove in the dark, and I didn’t get very far, before I pulled into a gas station to clean my headlights!
The highways are fine to drive on, but the gravel roads are a mess. The shaded parts are still covered in ice and snow, so they are slippery, but that’s about it. The sections of bare gravel are horrible. The freeze/thaw cycle is tearing them apart, and it’s like driving on a washboard. The parts that are not as filled with potholes are no better. I could feel my back end trying to fishtail in the mud, more than on the wet ice!
We have one more day where the highs are expected to be above freezing, then we are supposed to get hit with another Colorado Low. The rain we’re getting now is expected to turn to sleet and snow for a couple of days. Saturday, which is when I’m taking the cats in to the spay clinic, is supposed to be clear again. Here’s hoping!
I’ll still take this over the -20C to -30C of past winters, any day!
Now to wrap my brain around the fact that it’s 7:30pm right now, instead of the 5:30pm it feels like, for some reason.
When it comes to deciding what seeds to start indoors, and when, your frost dates are more important than your zone. Gardening in Canada talks about what to start now, whatever zone you are in.
We’ve got our onions,shallots, eggplants and hot peppers started (even though the hot peppers are supposed to be a short season variety). Next up, I have herbs to start.
We don’t have luffa seeds to try this year; I will buy more to try again next year. I’m debating whether I want to try any gourds this year. I’m not sure how many beds we will have access to this year. I think I should skip them this year and focus more of the edibles than things I am growing for crafting purposes.
What about you? If you have a garden, what are you trying – or skipping – this year?
My daughters requested a trip to the city for some of their own shopping. My younger daughter found a yarn shop in the city and ordered yarn for a sweater she wants to knit for herself. The yarn was ready for pick up today, so today it was! From there, they had a shopping list for the international grocery store.
There was one surreal thing that happened during the drive in I still shake my head over.
Part of the route to the city is a divided highway, with a shallow ditch in between. The highway is two lanes in each direction, and the ditch in between is roughly as wide as another two lanes. Every few miles, there are cross roads and the occasional access lane for vehicles to turn around.
We were coming up to one of these cross roads when I saw what I at first thought was a large black dog running on the cross road towards our side of the highway. Then it rolled across both lanes and I realized it was a tire! Thankfully, there were no cars in that section of the highway at the time, and the tire rolled harmlessly into the ditch on the far side.
According to my daughter, who could look more closely as we passed it, it was smoking!
Of course, we were looking for where the tire came from. We could see a semi pulled over onto the shoulder in the opposite side of the highway. As we drove by, we could see it was resting on the rim on the front driver’s side tire!
Thankfully, the driver never lost control of his vehicle, and there were no other vehicles near it when it’s tire somehow blew itself off the rim and launched itself across a total of 4 lanes and a ditch!
That could have been so much worse!
It still feels so weird, remembering seeing a tire crossing the highway on its own!
Once in the city, my daughter and I hit a drive through for breakfast, then ate in the parking lot. Neither of us wanted to people while we were eating. 😆
Then, it was off to the downtown area and the yarn shop.
Finding the yarn shop was not too difficult.
Getting to it and parking was another story!
This area of the city is old residential, with many very narrow streets, all of which were in terrible condition. They were all 2 way streets, but most had parking on one side, leaving barely more than a car’s width to drive through.
Then we found ourselves coming up to repair crews, with three huge trucks, and no way to turn around or go around. Thankfully, one of the trucks was able to move, we squeezed through and made what should have been our last turn.
I ended up having to drive past the yarn shop, taking the next turn and drop my daughter off in the street! I was then able to drive around the block and come back to the store from the other direction and even *gasp* find a parking spot.
It was worth it, though. We haven’t been to a proper yarn shop since we moved to the farm. I haven’t even been to a Michael’s in years.
It was absolute heaven! So many gorgeous yarns! It took some major self control not to throw the budget out the window and go nuts. Not so much with the yarns that cost over $40 a hank, but there were those clearance bins…
*melt*
I know we could buy all sorts of yarn online, but nothing can beat being in the store and able to handle the yarns and see those glorious shades in person!
My daughter got her yarn and some knitting needles in the sizes she needed, and we finally tore ourselves away.
From there, we went to the international grocery store. My daughter had her and her sister’s list, but when we walked in, I saw they were having a case lot sale.
I got my own cart!
This is what I ended up getting.
The dim sum tray was a treat for supper. Delicious!
Some of the items, such as the Kraft Dinner, were both part of the case lot sale and featured items on their app that I could load onto my loyalty card.
What I like about their receipt is that they list the regular price, then the amount discounted is right under the item. Not all places do that.
So while the total was $140.18 before taxes, that was after $55.77 was taken off for the sales.
I actually didn’t realize until I was looking at the receipt at home, that my 2L of milk was only 99 cents! I had not seen any signs for the milk being on sale. I even grabbed from the back of the display, for one with a later “best before” date.
While I use the app on my phone to scan my loyalty card, my physical card being worn out years ago, my daughter has a spare physical card. I had enough points that she could get some of her stuff for free.
So that was a fortunate unplanned shopping trip. Normally, we miss these big sales, simply because we make as few trips into the city as we can get away with!
When we do go in, though, we try to make as much use of the trip as possible, so we made one more stop at Walmart to get more wet cat food. We are trying to increase how much wet cat food vs dry kibble we give the inside cats. Leyendecker should really be getting wet cat good only, since he has blocked twice now. The wet cat food is more expensive, but not as expensive as vet bills!
Speaking of cats…
I counted 31 this morning, but I did not see Sad Face.
You’d think they would stay out of the moat, but nope. They will cross through the water, rather than go around through the snow! They also seem to prefer drinking from puddles of melted snow over the water bowls. The water bowls have been very full still, when I come out in the mornings.
We are supposed to get colder, soon. The driveway is going to be insane, once all this water freezes!
Ah, well. At least we aren’t snowed in, like the East coast is right now. My friend in Halifax posted photos. They’ve managed to dig a path to the road, and have hopefully dug out their van by now. Her husband was in one of the pictures, standing in the narrow path to the road, with walls of snow reaching well above his head!
This morning, I headed out to drive my mother to her doctor’s appointment. It really sucks to not be able to use her car right now, because it’s a real struggle for her to get into the truck, even with the foot stool. She finds it easier to get out, and refuses the foot stool completely, preferring to use her walker for support.
I’m certainly glad my shoulder is all healed up, because I had to help boost her up into the truck! Something I could not have managed, just a few days ago.
Once in the truck, though, she was happy as a clam! She commented on how nice it looks inside, and how smooth the ride is, compared to her car. I think she finds the seat more comfortable too.
At the doctor, she got the referral she was there for. The doctor was supposed to give her a physical exam, but my mother couldn’t even get up the step to go onto the examination table, so that was skipped. My mother will get either a call or letter about an appointment in the city to see a specialist, and the wait should not be long.
After that, she was up to stopping for lunch before heading home. I didn’t stay long after dropping her off; mass on TV was about to start, and she watches every day. Plus, I wanted to stop at the grocery to pick up an ingredient we were missing for my daughter, who wants to use the last of our winter squash to make a pie, and my husband sent me a message saying we had parcels to pick up at the post office.
Along with the parcels, my seed order from T&T Seeds was in.
It took several tries to get a photo without a cat photo bombing me!! 😄
The potatoes will be shipped in the spring, but they included a pamphlet on how to handle their various types of perishables with the seeds.
Based on what the package says, with our June 2 average last frost date, the tomatoes can be started indoors in the first half of April, and the winter squash can be started indoors at the beginning of May. Both say 80 days, though, and our growing season from last frost in the spring, to first frost in September, is 100 days. Technically, we could direct sow both of them! I don’t think I’d want to take that chance, though.
I must say, it’s very hard not to buy more seeds right now! The McKenzie Seed displays are out, and they are everywhere. Even some gas stations have them! As soon as I walk in somewhere – like the grocery store, today – and see the displays, I just zoom right in and start looking. We have so many different seeds, and for many we also have several varieties, so there’s really not been anything in the displays that I would get, that we don’t already have. About the only thing I really find myself looking for is sugar snap peas. We have lots of seeds for shelling peas. The first year we grew peas, we grew both types, but that was the drought/heat wave year, and the snap peas barely survived.
With everything melting outside right now, and the rest of the winter expected to be mild in our area, who knows. We might be able to get things started earlier than usual! At the very least, we should be able to get to work on the building more trellis tunnel beds and reworking others. early. There are seeds that can be planted as soon as the ground can be worked, even if there are frosts later on, so I’d quite like to have some of those started, nice and early! Things like the peas, which I want to plant in the bed the popcorn was planted in, last year, to get some nitrogen back into that soil, spinach and onions.
I so looking forward to getting outside and back to work again!
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.
The Re-Farmer 