With all the running around I did, I was happy to get the Costco shopping over and done with!
We’ll still need to make another trip, though.
When I got to the city, I noticed gas prices were 132.9 cents per litter, so I figured Costco would be the usual 5-10 cents lower. They turned out to be 119.9 cents per litter! It’s been ages since I’ve seen a price like that.
As you can imagine, the lineups were insane. They went by fast, though.
Once tanked up, it was time to get all this.
Not my biggest shop, by any means, but it still totalled $719.81
I got the pet supplies on a separate bill. Eight bags of Kirkland 9kg dry kibble ($215.92), 1 case wet cat food ($24.99) and one case of puppy pads ($38.99). After taxes, it totalled $313.49
While we no longer have the problem of Toni peeing on my bed, or kittens not using the litter boxes, we still use the puppy pads. There are spots where other cats have been making a mess, regularly, so we use them to help with clean up. For example, I keep one under the litter box under my desk, with another in front, were my feet and chair got. I would leave the room and come back to find a pee spot next to the litter box. Always in the same spot. Only this morning did I catch Leyendecker doing it! Which is frustrating, because he will go from litter box to litter box and use them. I was afraid he might be getting blocked again, but given the size of the puddle on the puppy pad, I know think he’s marking territory!
The puppy pads may be an expense, but they do save out carpets and make cleaning the lino easier.
So that’s the cats stuff.
Then there was the shopping for us.
I won’t list the prices this time because it’s such a pain to tap out on the phone, but this is what I got today.
Two 1L of whipping cream, a pack of 60 eggs, hazelnuts, walnuts, stewing beef, 2 packages of wraps, three 2pks of rye bread, 1 brick Old Cheddar, 1 brick mozzarella, a wheel of brie, 5 pounds of butter, 6 pk of canned chicken, peanut butter, truffle parmasan seasoning mix, mayonnaise, a case of mixed fruit packs (with cherry!), kitchen garbage bags, and toilet paper. Oh, and a 20kg bag of sugar!
We are doing a finger food Christmas dinner, so for that, I found mini quiches – we like those a lot, so I got 2 boxes – bacon wrapped scallops, fried pickle chips (!!), and garlic stuffed olives. I also got raw frozen shrimp, but that will likely be for our New Years fondue.
All of this, after taxes, totaled $406.32
Meat is getting insanely expensive. Especially beef. Thankfully, we still have meat in the freezer, and we are getting our quarter beef next month.
We still have other things we need to get for both Christmas and New Years, but that will be for other stores. I’m sure I have the gel fuel for our oil fondue burner, but I can’t remember where it was hidden, so I will get more. I also need to get peanut oil or some other high smoke point cooking oil. The final things for the dinners will be picked up fresh, closer to when we need them.
I rather look forward to a Christmas dinner that will involve so little cooking, and so few dirty dishes! 😆😄
On the way to the city, I took a side trip to the clinic to get some scheduled bloodwork done. It was awesome to go to the reception desk and find the plastic wall gone. I just had to comment on it, saying, I can hear!! One of the receptionists, who knows me by now, was absolutely giddy about it!
She found my requisition on file and printed it out for me, and didn’t have to push it through a slot. 😁 The staff is so happy.
Then I walked across to the lab and their reception. Where I had to pass things around a barrier, and stick my ear around it to hear and confirm I was fasting. One guy was wearing a mask, still.
I got sent straight to a room, though, and he very quickly took some blood, and I was on my way!
I’d made plans to meet my SIL to break my fast, so I messaged her to let her know I was done already. I even got to the restaurant before her, for a change! We had a fantastic time together. Gosh, I love her so much! My brother found himself an amazing woman to marry! I managed to treat her for the meal for a change, too. 😊
She had some things for me to take home with me, so we transferred those to the truck, which she finally got to see for the first time. She understood why I parked so much further out, rather than the closer spot she ended up parking in. The truck would barely have fit! 😄
My next stop was to try and find a recovery USB for my computer. There was a Best Buy not far off, so I went there, first. They hadn’t even heard of one before. She thought I meant a basic thumb drive. The saleswoman tried to look it up, but only found it on Amazon. They don’t carry them at all.
I’d noticed a Visions Electronics while driving over, so I tried them next. The guy I approached wasn’t sure what I meant at first, either, but understood when I explained what it was for. After confirming with other staff, he said they did not carry them, but told me about a computer place, just up the block. So I went there.
The first guy I spoke too immediately sent me to one of their tech guys. He asked various questions, and I showed him the pictures I’d taken. Including this one.
This is what I got after trying the F1 option on the previous screen. I later tried the F8 option that was next, which took me yo a more extensive menu. I wasn’t going to start fussing with it at the time, though, and went to bed, instead.
Turns out that was probably a good idea.
After asking me more questions, and what options there might be, he said it sounded like a hardware problem – then asked if there was data I wanted to save on there.
Yes. Lots!
He asked if I considered bringing it in. I told him, we weren’t at that point, yet, and I was there to determine exactly that!
He talked about different things we could try, but recommended bringing it in, since every time we tried something, if the hard drive were the issue, we’d be risking damage to it. Which is something I was already aware of and concerned about.
So that is what we will do. It’s just a matter of when. There’s no way of knowing how much it would cost until they look at it, but given how much a new tower would cost, it would be the cheaper option.
Unless it can’t be fixed at all. Something else I need to be prepared for.
This place happens to be across the street from the Costco we go to, which is handy. It’s also next to some other shops I’ve been interested in checking out. Convenient!
Until we can get that done, though, I’m stuck using my phone as my computer, and I don’t like it! 😄 I’m so spoiled by my big monitor, ergonomic keyboard and elbow room! That, and there are so many things I just can’t do on my phone.
I decided to try starting my desktop again, after wibbling the wires in back to make sure everything was all the way in. It’s been a while since the kittens have gone back there, but you never know what’s been knocked loose.
Much to my shock, I got this, right away.
Well, that’s something, at least!
My husband is the tech guy, so I went to get him before I tried anything. Unfortunately, it shut itself off, just as he walked into the room.
I restarted it, but it just went to the black screen with the HP logo, and started spinning.
When it became clear that was as far as it would get, I did a hard shut down. After waiting a few minutes, then wobbling the connections snug in the back again, I turned it on.
I got the blue screen message again.
This time, I hit enter.
It’s still spinning.
It’s been about 10-15 minutes, now. Time to shut it off and try again.
Next time, I’ll try the F1 key. If that doesn’t work, I’ll make my way down the list.
Not having my desktop is getting frustrating in unusual ways.
But first, the cuteness!
In the parcel we received yesterday (thank you!!), a blanket was used as packing material, with instructions that it be used for the outside cats.
They love it!
Especially Sad Face, who now seems to prefer it over the self warming mat.
My usual task of switching out the trail cam memory cards, after feeding the outside cats, is pointless right now. I don’t have a computer to upload the files to.
The solar camera, however, is supposed to be wifi accessible. My husband looked up which app it needed, which I downloaded and started to set up. Then, I continued the set up at the camera.
Once the camera wifi was turned on and readied in the settings, I tried to link it to my phone.
As far as the app is concerned, the camera doesn’t exist.
Same with my wifi settings.
It’s much warmer today, with almost no wind, but it was still below freezing, so I wasn’t going to hang around. I might have to bring the camera indoors to figure it out.
The other frustration is a blogging one. Normally, in the days leading up to Christmas, I do things like embed daily Christmas carol videos. Then, in the days before New Years, I do some “10 most popular posts of the year, type stuff.
Things I am not going to do on my phone.
When writing these posts, I work in several tabs at the same time, with related posts I intend to link to, open in still more tabs. I also spend quite a bit of time, finding and selecting videos to embed.
Can’t do that on a phone. At least, not the way I prefer to do it.
I also have issues with tapping a screen. I end up with many more typos, autocorrect messes the strangest things up, and it’s just a lot more painful on the hands – though not as painful as using the little Bluetooth keyboard. Overall, it’s just not conductive to writing like I usually do.
Tomorrow, I go into the city. My husband suggested I stop somewhere to pick up a rescue USB. So I will try that before I start calling computer repair places.
Speaking of tomorrow.
My mother called. She’s not doing well. The exterminator is coming tomorrow, you see, and the letter she got has so much she needs to do…
She would have gotten that letter maybe a week ago. She never told me about it. I knew she got it because she told my brother, and he updated me, but we didn’t get a date from her.
I reminded her of how little she had to do, the last times the guy came to spray for bed bugs. He’s used to having to go into homes with people who have mobility issues.
Then I asked if my sister had her day off tomorrow, and could help her, because I’m going to be in the city, with a stop at the clinic along the way to do some regular bloodwork. She said yes about the day off, so I suggested she call my sister.
The thing is, the exterminator can come in anytime between 9am and 4pm. Because he’s doing other provincially run buildings in the area, too, there is no way to know when he will make it to her town. He has shown up right at 9am, and at just before 4pm. My mother should be staying out of her apartment for 12 hours, instead of the 6 hours recommended for people who don’t have respiratory issues. Which means one of us needs to get to my mom’s for 9am, then stay there until the guy arrives, then find somewhere for her to hang out for hours. She’d rented a motel room before, but she doesn’t want to do that anymore. I can’t blame her for that! Still, I’m not able to do it this time, so hopefully, my sister will be able to step up. Otherwise, my mother will basically be hanging out in the common room.
She wondered where the bed bugs came from. I told her, since she doesn’t get out much, it’s likely from within the building. She told me her apartment is going to be the only one sprayed. I told her, my thought is that others have them, but they just aren’t reporting it.
Which means the common room is most likely where they are being spread.
Another frustration! If that’s true, then her apartment being sprayed won’t do much, since she will just get infested again. Ideally, the entire building would be done, including the common areas. It’s not a big place, so it is pretty feasible.
Standard practice is, he will leave traps to check, and spray again in a month. I think my mother would rather live with the bed bugs. It was already a fight for my brother to keep her from canceling tomorrow’s appointment.
I got the computer going, did a test blog post, uploaded and went through the trail cam files, then started some browsing.
Things seemed okay, in general. Images were slow to load. Video would not load.
I decided to head out to get more cat food, but decided to empty the recycling bin, first. It was emptied last night, so it should have only had the deleted trail cam files in it.
It froze. Not Responding. Do you wish to end task?
Yes.
Not Responding.
End Task.
Not Responding.
Cancel.
Not Responding.
Basically, my screen was frozen, while the computer tried to do whatever with the recycling bin.
I left it and headed out, asking my husband to check on it.
The local general store only had tiny bags of cat food, so I had to head to town. I did check the mail and there was a parcel waiting for me, but the post office was closed for lunch. I headed to town, got what I needed, then picked up the parcel on the way home.
Altogether, I was gone for about a hour. Maybe a bit more.
In that time, my computer was still frozen, so my husband did a hard shut down, then tried again.
It was still trying to boot up when I got back. It had been spinning for about half an hour, by then.
I did another hard shut down and tried again.
It’s still spinning.
It looks like my desktop is toast.
Crud.
Unlike my husband, I’m willing to take it in to get checked and possibly repaired, but we won’t have the funds in the budget for at least a month or two.
I might be stuck using my phone as a computer until then.
Too funny. I did a search in the WP’s Pexels Free Photos for “old computer”. I got lots of images of old people using laptops! 🤣
We opened up my computer and cleaned out the dust – there wasn’t all that much, really – and checked the fans, since it seemed to me that that was where the noise might have been coming from. They were fine.
Since I had to do a hard shut down, it took forever to reboot, but now that it has, everything is working as it was before. Slowly.
I need to clear more stuff out of my machine.
Still no idea why the computer wouldn’t shut down properly. Best guess is that it didn’t like the clean up and maintenance I did last night, and hiccupped.
On the plus side, half of the table I’m using as a desk is now much cleaner and organized!
Also, most of the “dust” was cat fur. Go figure.
It’s still -12C/10F out there, with a wind chill of -21C/-6F. I will have to go into town and pick up more cat food. We have enough for today, but not for tomorrow – and I’m going into the city the day after tomorrow for the big shop. Maybe I’ll just go to the local general store/post office, instead, and see what they have in stock. It’ll be more expensive, but worth not having to drive to town for it.
Then I need to dig around in my computer some more, and see what I can clear out. I’m sure there’s software I don’t use anymore that I can uninstall, too.
Our winter has been so very mild so far (yes, I know: on the calendar, it’s not officially winter, yet), so it was a surprise to see this, this morning.
-18C, with a wind chill of -22C!!! That is far colder than the forecast for overnight temperatures, last night!
We are expected to warm up to about -7C today. By the weekend, we are even supposed to go above 0C again! Talk about temperature whiplash!
The outside cats seemed all right, thankfully. I think I counted 33. Twenty of them were in the sun room! The smallest kittens were all accounted for.
For the past while, I’ve been getting away with doing my rounds with just a light jacket. A zippered hoodie, really. Today, it was a morning to break out the down filled parka!
Normally, when writing about temperatures, I include the Fahrenheit as well, but it’s not this time. I’m on my phone instead of my desktop. Usually, I have a temperature converter up in another tab on my browser. Can’t really do that on a phone.
I had just settled at my computer to start writing this post, when I started hearing an unfortunate repetitive noise coming out of the tower. So I shut it down.
It didn’t shut down.
I tried again.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
So I did a hard shut down.
Once I’m done this, I want to open up the case and see what I can see.
Crud.
My husband’s computer is toast. Since he tried to increase the RAM, something went wrong. Now, it won’t even boot. He thinks it’s the video card. The cheapest he can find for his machine is $700. If not the video card, it’s the motherboard. Those are cheaper. Neither is affordable. He’s been using his old work laptop. His computer is the newest one in the household, since his previous one did not survive the move. Mine is much older, and has been struggling of late. For how I use it, I knew was already needing to upgrade.
Desktop computers are really expensive these days. Even if all you need is the tower, and already have all the peripherals. Especially for a computer that can handle the graphics and video intensive uses we need. I suppose a laptop would be cheaper, but I hate laptops for general use. I’d just be hooking it up to my ergonomic keyboard and 27″ monitor, anyhow.
I’m really hoping my tower just needs to have the dust cleaned out or something simple like that, but… *sigh*
Today is the third Sunday of Advent; the day of Joy.
For me, at this point in my life, Joy is having a quiet, boring life!
We don’t have any running around and errands to do, so it’s another day of domesticity. I am considering whether or not to run an errand today or tomorrow, as it looks like we don’t have quite enough kibble to wait until I do the city shopping on the 20th; my husband’s CPP Disability comes in early in December, so we’ll be doing the bulk of our stock up shopping for January before Christmas.
We are at -4C/25F right now and might warm up another degree. We’re getting light snow every now and then; just enough that it looks like fog in the distance when I check the live feed on the garage cam.
I’m happy for the milder temperatures, for the outside cats.
The older and larger ones are fine. It’s the youngest ones that would probably not have survived this long, if we had more typically average temperatures for this time of year.
I counted 35 this morning, I think. It could have been 34. As I was finishing my rounds, I spotted Sad Face by the old dog houses near the outhouse. This is the closest thing to evidence I’ve seen that those old dog houses are actually being used for shelter.
With the inside cats, we’re having a “fun” time. Though we had spent well over $600 on medication for ear mites to treat all 16 cats we had in the house at the time (not counting the kittens, yet), it seems it didn’t take. We had two types of medication. One type was drops squirted into the ear, but they didn’t have enough doses for that many cats on hand, so the last few doses were the (more expensive) type that is applied to the skin between the shoulder blades.
We’re pretty sure those were the ones that didn’t take.
So now they all have ear mites again, including the kittens. Plus a couple of the cats just have a really hard time cleaning their own ears. Poor Ginger. He’s got it the worst. Particularly in the ear he can’t clean at all, on the side he’s missing a leg. Somehow, Toni is managing it with just one front leg – for now. Then there’s our old grandma that moved out with us. She’s getting on in years, and we can see she’s starting to show her age. So she’s not doing as well with cleaning her own ears, either.
We certainly can’t afford to buy medications for all of them again. The clinic wouldn’t even be able to sell them to us without seeing at least one cat first, because it’s been more than 3 months since we’ve brought a cat in to that clinic. The kittens that got fixed recently would have been treated for ear mites while they were getting spayed/neutered if the vet saw any, but those would come back rather quickly if all the other cats have them.
I’ve been told that an alternative is to treat their ears with mineral oil, every day for 10 days, and that should kill off the ear mites.
Which means doing all the cats, every day, for 10 days.
I just had to make a list to count and, unless I forgot someone, we’ve got 21 cats in the house right now, including 8 kittens. This, after losing three kittens, Marlee escaping and disappearing, and adopting Nosencrantz out after her escape and unwillingness to come back indoors.
We’ve decided to give it a try. If nothing else, it’ll help clean their ears.
So my younger daughter and I have taken on the task. She holds the cats down while I use mineral oil and some paper towel to clean out their ears. It’s only been a few days, so far, and I can already tell the difference. Some cats actually looked really clean and clear from the start. Others… it’s rather horrible!
Some of the cats are good about it. We have a couple that fight us off quite a bit. Then there are the ones that complain loudly, because their ears are so bad, it’s uncomfortable. Ginger has started to connect the unpleasantness of being manhandled with some relief, afterwards, so he’s already becoming more co-operative.
All of the cats look hilariously bedraggled, with their oily ears and heads.
The mineral oil we have is pharmacy grade (we’re going to need to pick up more, before we’re done!), so it’s safe for them to groom it off. It’s sold as a laxative, though, so… we may have some explosive results after a while!
Between the cost of food, the lysine, vet treatment, etc., is getting ridiculous. Yes, we do have a rescue that’s helping us, but it’s basically just one person running the show. There is the huge rescue in our province that the Cat Lady left that will work with rural communities like ours, but there’s a reason she left them. It seems the bigger the organization gets, the less they become about the animals, and more about the money and the politics. 😥 That and it turns out, when the Cat Lady was still with them (and paying out of pocket for things they were supposed to cover), they had issues with us, and claimed we were just “breeding cats” – as in, on purpose, instead of doing the best we could to prevent just that. Heck, population control is one of the biggest reason we’ve got so many cats indoors! And why we sought help to adopt cats out, get them fixed, etc. Nothing like connecting with a rescue, only for them to get upset with us for having cats that need to be rescued… When they tried to adopt out a pair of kittens from us to someone in BC that turned out to be a hoarder, she left them, started her own rescue, and found local homes for them, instead.
With the Cat Lady in the middle of moving right now, plus it being a time of year with so many holidays, we can’t expect to accomplish much right now.
So what options do we have? I’m not prepared to call the municipality had have them send someone out with a gun.
One option has come to mind.
We could become a rescue, ourselves.
I’m not entirely sure how it works, but if we could start a non-profit rescue, we would have access to resources we don’t have, on our own, including funding and tax benefits, and maybe being able to support fosters, etc. that would help us find forever homes for the cats. Not all of them, of course, since we do need yard cats out here in the boonies, but they need to all be fixed!
Oh, my husband just came by and reminded me of another cat I forgot to count.
We have 22 cats inside.
Once things have settled down for the Cat Lady, I will talk to her about it and see if that is a reasonable option. Perhaps we could even become a branch of her own rescue or something like that.
Well, time to get my butt off the computer. It’s almost time to oil up some ears!
Today, we placed our second seed order for next year’s garden. This time, from Heritage Harvest Seed. (All images belong to Heritage Harvest) They specialize in rare and endangered seeds and, more importantly for us, grow their own seeds and are in a zone 3 location that’s even further North than we are, so we can be quite confident that anything we get from them can grow in our short season.
Unless something else causes problems!
Which is why we are re-ordering two items that failed last year.
We grew these a couple of years ago and they were among the few things in that terrible growing year that did rather well, though they never had a chance to reach their full potential. Last year, we tried growing them in the block planters by the chain line fence, and the transplants just didn’t grow. Next year, we will have to be more selective on where we transplant them. We also had issues with starting them indoors that we did not have the year before, so we need to take that into consideration as well.
We tried these last year and, while the seeds germinated very well and we had plenty to transplant around our Roma VF tomatoes, they just… disappeared. The tomatoes also got blight, so I believe it was a soil problem in that bed. I really like the shape of these onions, and that they are supposed to be a good storage onion, so I want to try them again. As with the eggplant, we will need to give more consideration as to where to transplant them.
We are still looking for a preferred paste tomato. I keep reading how the San Marzano is supposed to be the best for sauces and canning. Honestly, all the excessive praise I have been seeing about them is one of the biggest reasons I hesitated to get them. However, I am willing to give them a try, and see if they live up to the hype.
When it comes to summer squash, we seem to have the best results with patty pans (aka: scallop squash). This is “An ancient summer squash that was a traditional food crop of the northeastern tribes for centuries.” I’ve actually been eyeballing this variety for a few years, and have decided to pick up some seeds for this coming year.
Not a large order at all, but we don’t need a lot of seeds this time around.
Must… resist… getting… more! 😂
There is one more Canadian company we will be ordering seeds from – and seed potatoes. I was just talking with one of my daughters, and there were several winter squash varieties in their catalog that caught her attention.
I have my suspicions as to why so few of the different winter squash, pumpkin and melon seeds we started indoors for 2023 germinated. I hope to be able to fix that this time around. Which means that for 2024, we’ll be once again shooting for a few plants of many varieties (I’ll be skipping the pumpkins this time, though) to see what works and which ones we like the best.
The main thing, though, was to get the last of our onion seeds ordered, since they need to be started indoors so much earlier than anything else! That goal is now accomplished.
We are having a quiet day of domesticity today, so not a lot to write about.
I like boring days. Very restful!
I did have to share this photo, though!
How many can you find?
I counted 13, but there is a single ear that I can’t quite link to a body, so there might actually be 14 in there.
Little Patience is barely visible! Just a tiny face.
There is one cat “missing” from the pile. Hypotenose went into old kitchen while I was doing the kibble and warm water, and disappeared under the couch. Rather than try to dig him out, I finished my rounds, thinking he’d be at the door, wanting out, by the time I was done.
I couldn’t see him when I got back, nor could I hear anything. I checked again some time later, and still nothing. I started to think maybe he’d gone out while I was going in and I just didn’t see him, but then I checked another time and found some stuff knocked over.
Currently, there is a little pile of kibble in the middle of the floor that will hopefully lure him out, but so far, he seems to have found a place to hide and nap or something.
There is a reason we use the old kitchen as a buffer zone between indoors and out! 😄
The Re-Farmer 