Just mashed together in that corner! Adorable. Later on, the entire bench was covered, and there was even one on the camp chair next to it.
This morning, I couldn’t even get a head count, they were all running around so much. It wasn’t any warmer, yet, but they seemed to be really enjoying the bright sunshine!
While doing my rounds, I made sure to check on the van.
*sigh*
What I found yesterday that looked like was the likely damage is now completely hidden. I’ve contacted our mechanic to let him know I won’t be home on Monday, when he was hoping to call me if he’s been successful in finding us a replacement vehicle, and also let him know we’ll be bringing the van back to get the flat fixed sometime next week.
I don’t even want to think about it right now.
Tomorrow, I’ll be prepping for staying overnight with my mother, including bringing my own food. Probably drink, too. I’m hoping she’ll accept my Lenten fast as the reason for that, but it’s not her idea of fasting, so I’ll probably be given a hard time about it. I also just don’t want to be eating her grocery supplies!
So today, I’m going to basically take a break and enjoy a quiet day. It’s going to be a while before I get another one!
Oh, my goodness, what a day! Costco was so very busy.
I got just about everything on my list (I could not find dryer sheets anywhere!), plus a few additions I’d forgotten to include on my list.
This is what $692.38, after taxes, looks like.
What’s funny is what happened after I took this picture and started the van – which did NOT want to start when I left for the city, so I wanted to make sure it was running. While taking the picture, I saw a notification for a message from my SIL, who has been out of province for some time. I was going to load up the van, then read and answer the message after I was done.
As I was opening up the back and getting my bags handy, I heard my name.
It was my SIL!
I had no idea she was back! She had messaged me earlier to say she was also going to the Costco – which means we were shopping at the same time and missed each other – then again to let me know she was leaving. Pure chance that she drove past where I was parked! So she pulled into the parking spot nose to nose with my van, helped me load the groceries, then we sat and chatted for a good while.
It was so fantastic to see her! She’d actually been back for a little while, but she and my brother have been terribly sick with colds for the past week, which is why I hadn’t been hearing much from either of them.
I love her so much, and I’m so happy she’s back!
Anyhow.
Today’s Costco haul, as usual, included wet and dry cat food. I’ve got a bead on a farm supply store that I’m told I should be able to get large bags of kibble at a really good price, but I’m going to have to make a special trip to check it out. It’s just not working out to find the place while also doing other errands. Until then, I got four 9kg bags of the Kirkland kibble. They did have the brand name 11kg bags but, at $28.99 each, the Kirkland was a better price per kg. I also got their big case of canned cat food (42 cans, I think?) for $38.99
Also among the non-food items was the Kirkland toilet paper – their double roll TP is noticeably bigger than other brands – for $22.99.
One of the “treat” items I got was something new for us to try; a 24 pack of Bubly sparkling water in three flavours. I wanted something not-Coke Zero for a change. They are zero sugar, so I can drink them during my Lenten fast from sugar and high sugar/starchy foods. We haven’t found a sparkling water we actually like yet, but we’ll see how these are.
I did get two flats of eggs for $17.95 (yes, I’m still going to be buying flats of eggs from our egg lady! – we eat a LOT of eggs). While I was walking through Costco with them on my flat cart, a Native guy walking past me saw them and stopped to ask where he could find them. I told him, and he said that the same pack of 60 eggs costs $30 where he lives!! Prices at the northern reserves have always been insane, but yikes!
One of the things I got for the girls was a case of Kraft Dinner; Costco has larger cases than at the grocery store, while their $14.99 price would be a sale price for the usual 12 packs I find!
I got two packs of flour tortilla wraps at $9.99 each, as well as a two loaf package of rye bread at $5.99 – I’d be lucky to get one loaf at that price, locally.
I didn’t get much meat; we still have quite a bit in the freezer, plus I’ll soon be ordering a freezer BBQ pack of beef that includes two types of sausages, from where we get our annual quarter beef. I got a small pork blade at $19.83, some pickerel filets for the girls at $23.69 (only 3 filets, and they were the cheapest fish I could find!), a couple of hot rotisserie chickens at $7.99 each, a 3 pack of bacon for $21.99 and 6 pack of canned chicken for $18.49.
In dairy, I got 5 pounds of butter at $5.49 each AND!!!! they had ghee in stock! I got the big bucket for $39.99. They didn’t have the giant blocks of cheese, so I got smaller blocks of marble cheese, which was on sale for $11.99, and mozza at $14.99. There’s also a larger tub of sour cream at $5.49 and a 4 pk of Kirkland cream cheese at $9.49, plus a 2 pk of goat cheese at $10.69
I also got a 2kg size jar of peanut butter at $8.80, and two big jars of Hellman’s mayonnaise, which was on sale for $8.49 each. There’s avocado oil at $17.49 – a much better price, and a much bigger bottle, then anywhere else! – a 2 pk of butter chicken sauce at $9.99, a 2 pk of lemon juice at $4.99, and a jar of Saskatoon jam for my husband, at $7.39.
I don’t usually get much, if any, fresh produce at Costco, but this time I did get a container of mini portabella mushrooms for $4.99 – they where the same price as the buttons, when usually the buttons are at least a dollar cheaper for the same size container – and a bag of avocados at $7.99
I braved the pharmacy section this time and finally restocked myself on B12 ($21.99), Vitamin D3 (on sale for $8.99) and Zinc ($12.99).
Among the more “treat” things was a big bag of Kirkland chocolate chips at $16.99 – those have certainly gone up in price, but the bag usually lasts us several months – and 1 container of popcorn in the big plastic jugs that we always keep because they are so very useful. Those are now $10.89. There’s also a container of iced tea mix at $9.99. Usually that’s for my husband and I but, since I’m off sugar for 40 days, it’s just for my husband. The girls don’t care for it. For the girls I got a giant bag of Munchies Mix at $9.49 (it will easily last them the month) and for my husband and I, a couple of containers of pork rinds at $10.89. For me, they will be a sort of bread/cracker substitute during my fast. These are also containers that we keep, as they are a great size to turn into cloche covers over larger transplants, like squash, in the garden.
And there we have it. Almost $700 at Costco.
After I’ve spent the necessary 24 hours monitoring my mother after her scope is done, we’ll have to make probably two more trips to the city. We’ll need a Walmart trip, for sure, and the girls want to hit the International grocery store with their own shopping list. We will also need to finally do that Home Depot trip to get what we need to build the cat barrier to the living room, which we won’t be able to do with my mother’s car. We will need the van. Since I came home to a tire going flat, it will have to wait until we get that fixed or, pleasepleaseplease, our mechanic finds us an affordable replacement vehicle that the financing company will accept!
I think the most difficult part of all this fussing with the van and trying to get a replacement so much earlier than we’d thought we would, is being up in the air all the time, never quite sure what we can do next.
Ah, well. It’ll work out in the end.
I’m just glad we got this trip in, and I won’t have to do another one for a while, yet!
I made it to the city for a Costco trip, which will be covered in another post, but I before I left, I wanted to confirm things with the replacement vehicle financing.
Yesterday, I’d messaged our mechanic, asking if he’d heard back after I’d sent in our 90 day income confirmation information. He told me that yes, it had been approved. They just needed something from him, which he’d sent in, and he was waiting for final word.
Approved???
Yay?
That was in the morning, and there was still no word by the time he closed. Since I was planning a trip to the city for a Costco stock up trip today, I messaged him this morning telling him this and asking if I should hold off on it. He said he would contact them and find out for me.
After about an hour or two, I got a phone call.
There was good news, and bad news.
The good news was, we were approved for financing.
The bad news was, not for that vehicle.
???
Apparently, it was hard to get financing for us (not surprised there, considering we’ve had no debt payments to improve our credit rating), but that did eventually come through. However, they would only finance us for a vehicle that was 2014 and older, with a maximum of 180,000 km on it.
The Caravan we were applying for was a 2016 (not the 2015 I thought he’d told me at first), and has 181,000 km.
They wouldn’t budge on that 1000 km.
But, we do have financing approved!
Now, he knows how badly we need to replace our van, and he was determined to find something for us that met our needs and was affordable to our budget. He asked me a number of questions about what we were looking for, and it basically comes down to accessibility for my husband. A vehicle like the Caravan and our current Uplander has been ideal. Yes, we’d be willing to go with an SUV type vehicle, as long as we can fit the walker (yes, it folds, but it’s a bariatric walker, so it’s larger than typical), and with his injury and pain levels, we need something my husband can climb up into, rather than scrunch down into.
There’s a major car auction this weekend. He’s going to try and find something for us! He said he will try to get back to me on Monday about how that went, though I forgot completely that I won’t be home on Monday. I’ll be driving my mother to her scope at the day surgery, then spending the night at her place to keep an eye on her.
With that settled as much as can be right now, I headed into the city with the van, did my Costco shopping, ran into my SIL as I was loading the van!, then headed home.
My younger daughter was waiting for me at the garage with the wagon when I pulled in, and was kind enough to plug the van in for me before I forgot again.
Which is when she heard the hissing.
From the driver’s side tire.
It’s hard to tell in the photo, but this tire is half flat. When I got out of the van and she told me about the noise, I took a look and actually found a split or crack of some kind, near the bottom of the tire.
I made it home just in time!
Or maybe I drove over something sharp when I drove into the garage?
Well, whatever it is, we’re going to wait before getting it fixed. We’ll just have to use my mother’s car for the next while. What bothers me about the timing of this is that, while I’m at my mother’s, it means there will be no vehicle available here at the farm. It would be just for emergency use, really, but that’s kinda the whole point.
*sigh*
The important thing is, this happened *after* the Costco trip, so we’re pretty well stocked up again. Our next trips shouldn’t have that much weight or bulk in them, so we can get away with using my mother’s car. That won’t be until after I’ve spend the night with my mother. Who knows. Our mechanic might actually find us a replacement vehicle this weekend! I’d still want to get it fixed, but I don’t even want to think about it until after all this other stuff is done.
Checking the trail cam files this morning, I discovered our piebald deer isn’t the only one that got attacked by burrs!
These had gone by just before I got to the camera, and I never saw them!
That one deer not only has a tail full of burrs, but more stuck on its face.
I also saw our piebald caught on the gate cam, but only going in, so I couldn’t see if her tail was still full of burrs.
In other things, I’m still hoping to get a call of approval about financing the vehicle, so when the phone started ringing this morning, I was quick to answer.
I should have known better, considering how early in the morning the first call came in.
It was one those recorded “I’m Dave from Amazon…” scam messages. It’s bad enough that they call so early in the frikkin’ morning, but we got the same call again! It was the exact same recording, but call display showed it was from a different number.
*sigh*
Meanwhile, I’m happy to say that we now have two more drum gourds germinating, both in the same pot. They’re not quite free of the soil, yet, so I haven’t tried to take picture, yet. The first two are looking nice and strong. We also had a new little pepper sprouting in the pot with the first one that sprouted. There’s still one cell with no sprouts at all, and still no sign of the zucca melon. They can take quite a long time to germinate, but with how cold the house is, even on the heat mate and under the lights, I think it’s still a bit chillier than they prefer. We shall see.
I’m not going to spend the rest of the day with the phone chained to my hip… 😂
So… this is what we have to entertain us when we’re using the bathroom.
The nice thing is that, while we are at -22C/-8F outside, the thermometer in the sun room was reading 0C/32F at the time I took this photo.
In other things, we got an email from the financing company about the Caravan. For proof of income, I’d sent a copy of the annual letter my husband gets from Sun Life, confirming our payments for the year, but for CPP Disability, all I had to sent them was a pdf of our automatic payments into our joint bank account. As of yesterday, the lady with the financing company thought everything looked fine.
Well, almost.
The pdf I sent was for only 60 days. The lender requested one for 3 months.
So I sent them in a 90 day statement. I even thought of doing that from the start, but they were asking for pay stubs as proof of income, so I was just hoping a bank statement would be good enough. Ah, well.
Considering the time right now, I figure if we’re going to hear anything either way, it’ll be tomorrow at the earliest.
Once again, I’m really REALLY hoping this pans out. I had to make a quick run into town today and, once again, the van did NOT want to start. For all its problems, though, I’m more comfortable driving the van in this cold, then my mother’s car.
We’re looking at going into the city for our first big stock up shopping trip for March, on Friday – the day after tomorrow. Which would be a van trip, due to the sheer volume and weight of such a trip being too much for my mother’s little car. It would be so awesome to be able to make the trip in the replacement vehicle, and not worry about whether or not our van will start!
We’re still under an extreme cold weather advisory right now. Today is supposed to be the coldest day of our current cold snap, and then things are supposed to start warming up again.
I’m pretty sure I’ve said that a few times this winter, though… 😕
I took this screen cap a little while ago, with us at -27C/-17F and a wind chill of -35C/-31F, and it’s already warmed up a degree since. What I find interesting is that the hourly forecast says we’re supposed to be -31C/-24F right now. Now, that’s the kind if “wrong forecast” I prefer. Unfortunately, I forgot to pick something up while I was in town yesterday, so I likely will have to go out today.
Of course, if we get a call saying we can pick up our new Caravan because the financing is approved, that would be bonus!
We shall see!
Today is also Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. For the past few years, I have chosen to “fast” by giving up social media. Which has gotten to be too easy. So I decided to give up something that I’ve been considering for a while, but is going to be hard, and it’s actually going to be a dietary fast this time.
I’m going to be giving up sugar and starchy foods.
Traditionally, meat is given up but, again, that’s too easy. To be honest, giving up sugar isn’t that hard, either; we don’t eat a lot of sweets, so it’s basically no more sugar in my tea, and no more home-made hot chocolate. But starches? Bread, potatoes, pasta… that’s going to be more of a challenge. I’ve been slowly already cutting back on them, and what struck me is how much these get used as “filler”. These are things that bulk up a meal, extend meat, or hold other foods. I have an egg salad sandwich instead of plain egg salad, because the bread allows me to eat the egg salad with my hands. I mix bread crumbs into ground beef to make a meat loaf mostly because it bulks things up, stretching the amount of meat used. Things like that. It’s also such a habit to include starches. It’s just been ingrained that a “proper” meal has a protein, vegetable and starch, and what meal is complete without bread of some kind? I think the habit part is going to be the most difficult to catch myself on.
So that is going to be my Lenten fast this year. No sugars or starches for 40 days.
Well… I haven’t had breakfast yet. Time to go make myself a food.
Y’know, if the weather forecasts are going to be wrong and constantly changing, it’d be really nice if things would go in the other direction.
Instead, we’re getting this for tonight.
Wind chills of -40 to -45C (-40 to 49F) to overnight???
Granted, this is a province wide warning that applies only to the south, and we’re central. Looking at the local forecasts, I’m seeing predictions of a continual drop until it reaches -29C/-20F by 8am tomorrow morning, with wind chills of -39C/-38F.
It’s not much better than the weather warning, but I’ll take what I can get!
I’m glad my daughter reminded me to plug the van in. I just wish we were able to get that ceramic terrarium heat bulb set up in the sun room, but the fixture we were using with the old bulb isn’t working anymore. We don’t have any other fixture we can safely set up in there.
The high of the day is supposed to be -26C/-15F starting around 2pm. From then on, even the overnight lows are expected to be a bit warmer than that. By Sunday, we’re supposed to reach -4C/25F, and Monday, when I’m supposed to be driving my mother to her medical appointment, it’s supposed to be -7C/19F.
Well, the cold snap we were predicted to get has been dipping to temperatures colder than predicted! This morning, when I did my morning rounds, we were at about -28C/-18F, with a wind chill of -32C/-26F We were mostly sheltered from the wind, though, and it was bright and sunny, so at least in our little microclimate, it felt a bit warmer. Still, the yard cats were thoroughly mashed together on the swing bench in the sun room for the night, keeping each other warm!
This picture was not from this morning, though. This is from when I got back from town this afternoon.
This is the little one the girls have named Colin (Mochrie), because of his “hairline”. There’s another little white and grey one that is not friendly, but loves to jump up on the shelf under the bathroom window and peek in. My daughter says he looks just like Tissue, but haunted, so they’ve named him Dryer Sheet.
So… among the calicos we had Cabbages, and now have Broccoli, mother of Brussel and Sprout, and we have grey and whites with the tom, Shop Towel (aka: Sad Face), father of Tissue and now Dryer Sheet (along with 8 other white and greys, including Colin).
Coming up with names for the cats has been a lot of fun! 😁
Anyhow…
Before I headed out this morning, knowing I’d be away in the afternoon, I contacted the hospital about my mother’s appointment. We have a date, but not a time. I ended up emailing them, but they did call back fairly quickly. Once I got those details straightened out, I phoned my mother and let her know. She was not happy to hear she had to be there for 9:15 in the morning, and was wondering why it was so early. *sigh* When we spoke yesterday evening about it, she was going on about how it’s winter, and it’s so cold and it’s so far away… We’re actually supposed to be back up to just below freezing by then, and it’s not that far away at all. She’s just gotten used to not getting up until 10am, and is really not looking forward to the procedure!
But, that’s all been worked out.
Then I got a message from the garage, about our financing application. The financing company wanted proof of income, including my husband’s most recent pay stubs, and confirmation of disability income from both Sun Life and CPP Disability.
My husband hasn’t have pay stubs in almost 10 years. He did get his annual letter from Sun Life, confirming his payments for the year, last month, so I was able to take a photo of that and email it in. As for the CPP Disability payments, we have no letter for that, so I sent in a copy of our automatic payments and deposits from our bank. If that wasn’t enough, I’m not sure what else I could have sent them. He did get his T4A from CPP Disability (still waiting for the one from Sun Life before we can do our taxes), so maybe I could have sent them that.
I got to the garage quite early, so I dropped off the key, talked to them for a bit, letting them know about the problem with the van not wanting to start, and that I’d sent in the required information for the financing application. Then I was going to go to the restaurant next door for lunch. It turned out they had been open during the holiday yesterday, so they were closed today – normally, they’re open 7 days a week. The next closest restaurant was quite a few blocks away (one thing about this being a tourist town: there are lots of restaurants, but they’re almost all closer to the beach). It was a nippy walk, that’s for sure!
I was back at the garage about an hour later, and the van was almost done. The owner was constantly on the phone, or answering text messages, or looking up parts, etc. the entire time I was waiting! After his mechanic finished with the van, he did a final scan using their shop tablet (that thing is so solid, they could probably throw it across the room, and it won’t break!), but that got delayed because they had to update the software! Of course, when the scan finally got done, there were a whole lot of codes that came up, which he cleared. The main thing is that, with the new sensor for the temperature gauge in, that’s one code that was fixed! At least I’ll know if the engine suddenly starts overheating or something.
As he was getting my invoice ready, we talked about the financing again. I really hope it comes through. As I told him, as much as I don’t like the idea of having car payments again, I much prefer that and having a vehicle that I at least know will start! It turns out one of the calls he had earlier was from the financing company. Since I was there, he’d told them that if they needed anything else, he could ask me right away. He was told everything looked good, and the application has been sent to a bank.
Now, we just wait.
At this point, either we get approved, and I’ll just need to send them a voided check, which I can do by taking a photo of one and emailing it in, or we get turned down and that’s it.
We are SO close. My biggest concern is that we do get approved, but the monthly payments are higher than we can afford. Yes, my older daughter has said she will help with the payments, but I’m calculating as if that’s not going to happen, just to be on the safe side. Her income is all commissions based, after all, so how much she makes a month is variable.
In all honestly, right now, I just want to get an answer, one way or the other. It’s this hanging in the air, waiting, that is most frustrating. Especially after what happened last time, with the other financing company. In the end, though, not getting that vehicle doesn’t bother me much. The Caravan is much more suited to our needs.
We’re one step closer. It would be awesome if we got an answer tomorrow!!
This morning I got a picture of some of our seedlings, after refilling trays to water them from below.
There are still only two little pepper seedlings. The thyme and lemongrass don’t seem to be growing much. I think this might be part of why they need to be started so early!
The two drum gourd seedlings in one pot are still the only ones to have germinated. With using these biodegradable pots, it’s been interesting to see how the pot the germinated seeds are in dries out so much faster than the other ones. Even the square cells the herbs are in show noticeable drying out in the ones with the most seedlings. For this reason, I still mist them as well as water from below.
Last year, I remember my first zucca melon seeds never germinated, and I had to try again. I’m hoping I won’t need to do that again this year. The zucca and the drums need as much growing time as we can give them.
We’re going to have to start other seeds soon. That means rotating things out of the aquarium greenhouses and, for that, we still need to make a trip to the city to pick up the materials we need to build barriers and keep the cats out of the living room. When picking up eggs yesterday, I noticed they had lumber in their truck and asked about prices. Lumber prices have gone down a LOT in the last while, which is encouraging. The prices are still high, but not astronomical anymore.
The trip to the city will have to wait until after the van’s date at the garage to get the temperature gauge sensor replaced.
Still holding out hope that we’ll qualify for financing on the Caravan, but if I’m going to be honest with myself, the odds are not in our favour. Mind you, our situation wasn’t much better when we got financing for the Grand Caravan we got, years ago. Oddly enough, my husband being on disability gives us a more reliable income now than when he was still working. Nothing like moving to a new city for a 2 year contract, only to have the contract end after 6 months, instead!
Ah, well. Whatever happens, happens. We just need to deal with what’s in front of us.
Which, at the moment, means turning the living room into a cat proof plant room. 😁
This winter, for the first time since I lived here as a child, we started hearing a very distinctive noise in the ceiling of the “new” part of the house. The skittering of tiny mouse feet on the tiles, running from one end of the addition to the other.
The cats were most definitely interested in that noise!
The only access to the space above the addition is upstairs and blocked by furniture, and the space is full of insulation anyhow, so there was no expectation that they’d be able to get at the mouse.
Well, it’s no longer a problem.
My older daughter regaled me, in a most entertaining way, of how she came to the kitchen this morning and noticed Fenrir behaving oddly. She was growling at the other cats (which is not odd, really) and moving around in an unusual manner.
She was also carrying something in her mouth, and she clearly didn’t want the other cats to have it!
Of course, my daughter checked it out, and discovered she was carrying a dead mouse.
After confirming it was, indeed, dead, she got it away and garbaged it. The last thing she wanted was for someone to end up stepping on a half eaten mouse.
With so many cats, inside and out, this is the first mouse we’ve seen/heard indoors in the 5 years we’ve been here.
The Re-Farmer 