challenges

Outside Kitties and… oh, no.

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Today warmed up considerably, so I took the time to tromp around outside and check things out – posts about that, to follow.

In the process, I got to visit some of the friendlier outside cats…

Farm Cat

Beep Beep says hello.

Farm cat

The Butterscotch isn’t sure if she’s coming or going, but is very interested, either way!

 

and…touch the Butterscotch.

Farm Cat

“I will consider allowing you to touch my teeth. And my nostrils. But not to pet me.”

Butterscotch has been one of the more stand-offish of the outside cats, and usually stays just out of reach when I come by.  Friendly, but at a distance.

The cats seems to be really enjoying the warmer temperatures today.  Even the Mothman came sauntered through the deer feed.  We haven’t seen her in ages!

It was warm enough to stuff to even start melting!

Snowmelt

Drip. Drip. Drip.

There really should be a rain barrel under that downspout, but it’s on its side next to the house, frozen to the ground.

Unfortunately, we found a more problematic drip.

Dripping ceiling

Drip! Drip! Drip!

This is our bathroom ceiling.  The “tiles” are paneling, and the drips are at a seam between panels.

We couldn’t find where it was coming from, and it doesn’t seem to be dripping anywhere else.

As much as I loath to dump this on him, I contacted my older brother about this.  If this is from roof damage caused by the elements, it might be something that goes through the property insurance for a fix.

Not long ago, I was talking on the phone with my mom, and at one point, I brought up the sheer amount of work this place needs done.  My mother is blissfully unaware of how bad it was allowed to get.  At one point, she mentioned that she and my dad had paid for repairs to the roof.

My father passed away more than 1 1/2 years ago, and this place was empty for 2 years before we moved in.  I have no idea how long ago this work she was talking about happened but her concept of time is getting increasingly wonky.  She also seems to believe that once something like that has been done, it is fixed forever.  Hence her comments to us, when she was trying to talk us into moving out here, about how everything in the house was just “perfect.”  Everything was “perfect.”  We could just move in and not have to do anything.

In reality, there has been very little real maintenance done on anything for a very long time.  Not that there was much of an alternative.  My father was 92 when he went to the nursing home, and had been slowly failing for years.  My mother has been living in senior’s facility for even longer.  My siblings all have their own homes to take care of and lives to lead, so they couldn’t just drop everything to come here all the time.  It’s not that they didn’t do anything – they did tons.  They just couldn’t keep up with all of it, without actually living here.  Which is kind of why we’re living here now; our circumstances made us the only ones who really could do that.

But wow, is there going to be a lot for us to work on.

Years.  It’s going to take years.

It will be worth it in the end, but every now and then, it just kind of hits me, how much worse it was allowed to get than I expected.  And we’re still learning about what has been done.  It’s all been sort of piecemeal.

Meanwhile, it seems we have a leaking roof now.

The Re-Farmer

One Step Closer

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In my search for the contact number to Vital Statistics, I found something better.

It turns out you can fill out a Marriage Certificate Application Form online.  It then needs to be printed out and signed, but one of the options to send it in is to scan the signed document and email it.

Which I just finished doing.

It costs $80 for one copy.  It also takes 6-8 weeks for it to be processed.  Unless you pay an extra $40 for rush service within Canada, at which point it will be processed in 5-8 business days.

I had to suck it up and check off the rush service box.  This whole debacle is already taking too long!

The site also had a link to a sample image of a marriage certificate.

Apparently, I’ve never had one.  It’s the same design as a birth certificate, but a different colour.

In filling out the form, though, it had the option of a large, framing size certificate, or a certified copy of marriage registration.  So I think what I have that I can’t find is a framing size.

I included copies of my and my husband’s birth certificates, just in case.

I hope it is acceptable.

I foresee problems for my husband, too.

He took a photo of his birth certificate with his phone, used his phone’s editing software to clean it up, emailed the clear image to me, which I have printed off to send with our health care number application form.

The problem?

His name doesn’t match his ID, either.

You see, my husband is from the East Coast.  As is common among French Canadians, he has 4 names – a first name, two middle names and a surname, but uses his second name.  It’s the only name that was ever used for him. I knew him for years before I found out I didn’t know what his first name was.  In fact, no one in his family uses their first name.  I don’t know the first names of my in-laws.  I’m not sure my husband even remembers them anymore! :-D

It became a bit of an issue when he was in the military, because they kept wanting to use the first name on his birth certificate on various documentation, but he never used it, and they are required to use the name the person goes by, which meant they couldn’t use his first name, but had to use his second name, but they couldn’t use his second name because it was not the first name on is birth certificate…

It was a very circular problem.

In the end, they reversed his first two names on the paperwork.

So all my husband’s ID uses his second name and surname, his birth certificate has his full name, but his military record has his full name with the first two names reversed.

Oh, and I looked it up on the Vital Statistics website.  This is what is says about surnames “after marriage or entry into a common-law relationship”.

As a married person or a person living in a common-law relationship, you have a number of options for choosing your name.

  • You may retain your present surname;
  • You may assume your spouse’s surname or common-law partner’s surname;
  • You may combine your present surname with your spouse’s or common-law partner’s surname, with or without a hyphen (it does not matter which surname you use first); or
  • You may assume your spouse’s or common-law partner’s surname and retain your present surname as a given, middle name.
  • All options apply equally to men and women.
  • If you were born in [province], your birth certificate does not change to your married name or common-law partner’s name.

If you are living common-law, it will be necessary to file a declaration with Vital Statistics in order to change your surname.  You will be charged a fee to obtain a certificate of Election of Surname that will provide proof of your new name.

Now, I can see the need for proof of marriage for someone who has just gotten married and wants to change their ID to reflect their chosen new surname.  But once that’s been done, that should be it.  It’s done.  They should not have to prove it all over again, decades later, when absolutely everything that person has is in their legal, married name!

And it’s costing me $120 to get that proof, so I can get a $20 driver’s license.

What a pain!

The Re-Farmer

 

 

Are You Kidding Me?

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Finally sitting down to my first cup of tea today.

That’s right.  It’s been one of those days where I haven’t even had tea until evening.  ;-)

Green tea with chamomile and honey.

I’m definitely going to need me some chamomile!!

Okay.  This morning, I headed out to the post office, remembering that they close at noon on Wednesdays.  The postmaster was there, so I started off letting her know I had an odd question to ask her.

Did she know me?

She kind of hesitated, with a “not really… I mean, I remember you, but I remember your daughters, more.”

Which was fine.  She could confirm my identity.  She remembered me well enough to remember what house we lived in before leaving the province, how many kids I had, and so on.

I was rather impressed, really.  I barely remember any adults from when I was the age she was at when we left the province!

Anyhow.  I explained why I asked and what I was hoping she could do.  She didn’t have to know me well.  She just had to know me.  After looking over the form, she confirmed that she could sign it for me.  I filled out my part (it specifically states that it has to be filled out in front of the person confirming my identity), then she did the rest, while I regaled her with the problems I’ve been having with updating my ID.  I thanked her profusely.  I could finally go and do my driver’s license!  The first step in a series of steps.

I went home first, to take care of some things, like calling my auto insurance company that I got a letter from, saying my file was “incomplete.”  Talking to the guy on the phone, he explained that my coverage was coming up for renewal and, with my new address, they wanted to confirm it should be renewed.  I explained the situation to him.

Apparently, quite a few people are having the same problem.

As it stands now, my auto-renewal kicks in after March 30.  It would be really good if I can get this straightened out before then.  Not because I’ll lose my insurance, but that if I have to cancel soon after, I will be charged a cancellation fee.  If I cancel before March 30, there will be no fee.

Nice of them to consider that.

Meanwhile, he attached notes to my file about my transfer being delayed and why.

That done, I headed into the next town with all my paperwork to get started on updating my driver’s license.

There was a different woman at the counter this time, so I explained from the start why I was there, and what I had to confirm my identity.

Well, it turns out it didn’t matter.

They still need my marriage certificate.

She even phoned the main office to confirm.  She even gave them my name and information, and they found me in their system from when I last had a license in this province, back in 2004.

Yes, they have me on record with my hyphenated name.

However, because it’s been so long, they have to start over (if I’d moved back within 2 years, it wouldn’t have been an issue).

A marriage certificate is the ONLY document they will accept to do that.

Ugh.

After getting home, I started going through a bin I hadn’t finished unpacking yet that had papers in it, hoping that it might be in there, but nope.  Nothing.

There’s really no point in trying to find it.  I’ll have to phone Vital Statistics and get a new copy.

Who knows how long that will take?

I had even asked her if I should drop half my name and go back to using just my birth name but, as I expected, it would still be the same problem, since my current ID is all in my married name.

I just can’t get over what a pain this is.

At least it’ll be easier for my husband and daughters!

The Re-Farmer

Un. Be. Lievable. Part Two

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Drove out to get the mail today.

First, the good news.

Our daughters now both have their new medical care cards.  Yay!

The bad news.

My husband and I got our forms and photo copy of our birth certificates back.

Two problems.  They want a more legible copy of my husband’s birth certificate.  His had gone through a wash in a back pocket many decades ago, so it’s in rough shape, but still readable in its plastic holder.  Apparently, the photo copy wasn’t good enough.  I was able to read it, but whatever.

I’m thinking I’ll take a very well lit photograph of it, use software to bring out the text even more, then print that out and see if it will be good enough.

Then there was me.

Guess what they want from me?

Yup.

My marriage certificate.

Keep in mind that until 2004, I had a medical card in this province, using my married name.  I still have the darn thing.  But if I want my card to have my married name on it, they want a copy of my marriage certificate.

So not only can I not get my driver’s license transferred because my birth certificate doesn’t match my hyphenated married name, I can’t get my medical card, either.

And the 3 month limit is up.  They’re still billing our previous province, but how much longer can they do that?

And how much longer can we drive our van with out of province plates?

I was thinking I need to call my insurance company again and let them know what’s going on.  Turns out, I got mail from them, too, with a letter saying my file is incomplete.

No kidding.

So that’s on the to-do list for tomorrow.

I can’t believe that after using my married name for almost 30 years, this is now suddenly a problem.

I’m starting to wonder if I should just stop using my hyphenated name and go back to using my birth name.  But then, that name won’t match my current driver’s license or vehicle registration.  Even our content insurance, which I was able to update to our new location, has my hyphenated married name on it.

Un. Be. Lievable.

How is anyone supposed to be able to wade through all this in only 3 months?

The Re-Farmer

Playing with Macro

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This morning I realized I’d forgotten to put the battery for my daughter’s Nikon D80 to charge last night.  Since our other D80 is broken, however, we have a spare, so I went digging through the camera bag to find it.

You’d think it would have been an easy find, but it took a while. :-D

In the process, I was noticing some of our other lenses, including one of my old favourites, a Tamron macro lens.  It’s been a long time since I’ve used it.  My younger daughter’s orchids happen to both be blooming right now, so I figured I’d give it a shot! (pun fully intended)

I moved the plants to a well lit location in the kitchen, which meant no tripod space.  I promptly was reminded of just how vital a tripod is for me these days.  My hands shake so much!  Normally, it’s not an issue, but as soon as I start using them in certain ways that involve even minor strain to my hands, I just can’t keep them still.  It’s why I don’t draw anymore, because I can’t hold pencil to paper to do the detailed work I used to.

Of the various shots I took, here are two of them.  These images are resized to 30% only; I have done no adjusting for lighting or anything like that.  To they’re pretty much raw from the camera.

pink orchid

This tiny orchid was harder to shoot than the bigger one.  I’m happy with how this photo turned out, and one or two others, but none of the photos are anywhere near as crisp as the lens is capably of, simply because of the shake.

Love that depth of field, though!

The pink orchid has only two open flowers right now, with many buds, so I look forward to trying again as more of them open.

white orchid

This larger orchid is in full bloom; I think there’s 10 flowers in it, alternated on the stem.

Again, I got several good photos, but the the focal points are still not as crisp as I know the equipment can do.

Which is not always a bad thing.  There was one photo where nothing was in focus – but the soft focus that resulted was so attractive, I ended up setting it as my background image.

I know I can make up for some of it with my Paint Shop Pro, but I wanted to post these without any adjustments, just as an example.

We used to do so much photography, back when we were all able bodied and youthful! :-D  We used to go hiking for hours in the ravine near where we lived and take hundreds of photos.  It was a rare day that went by that didn’t involve at least a few photos.  My husband was especially keen on photography, and quite good at it.

I think, now that we have moved out here, I will be able to take it up again.  I even have a monopod I can take with me, to help with the shake.  Hopefully, we’ll be able to get some more pain control for my husband and he’ll be able to get back into it more, too.

The Re-Farmer

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Hello, all, and Happy Valentine’s Day!  I hope those of you who take part in it had a wonderful day. :-)

This year, today also happens to be the first day of Lent, which we each observe in different ways.  My “fast” will be the same as the last couple of years; I am giving up Facebook for Lent.  I spend way too much time on there!  I’ve already caught myself almost going onto it when I sat at the computer (I removed the shortcut on my phone), just out of habit.  I only went on this morning to post my usual note letting people know that if they wanted to reach me, they’d have to use something other than Facebook for the next while.  And wish people Happy Valentine’s day at the same time.

We’ve never been big on Valentine’s Day.  I suppose I could always be cheesy and say that we don’t need to, because every day is Valentine’s day, but the truth is, we’re just not particularly romantic.  :-D  Very early in our relationship, I told my (future) husband that, while I enjoy things like flowers, I’m more of a kitchen appliance kind of woman. :-D  Since then, it’s expended to things like yarn and tools.  Nothing like a sweet, sweet skein of gorgeous yarn, or a set of calipers, to make my heart go pitter patter!  Still, we basically just wish each other Happy Valentine’s day, then get on with our day.  After almost 30 years of marriage, we’re pretty laid back about such things. :-D

Unfortunately, yesterday was hard on my husband, so he had to deal with the fallout from that, today. :-(

My morning still started out with some aggressive cuddles, though.

20180214.cat.face

“You weren’t planning to get up, where you?”

Our mama cat was all over me this morning, draping herself over whatever limb she could get at, and trapping me!

Her boy does the same to my daughters.

I honestly don’t know why she likes me so much.  Even when she isn’t cuddling hard, she still tries to be near me all the time.

Not that I mind, except that we haven’t been able to trim her claws for quite a long time.

It was a warm day today – about -7C when I went to feed the outside cats.  Which made it a relatively rare day when all 7 of them were out at the same time.

20180214.7.cats

My daughters were kind enough to lay out a new piece of cardboard for me yesterday, while we were gone for so long.  The first time I laid the cardboard out, the cats weren’t sure about going on it for a while, but this time, I think they were quite happy to have something a bit warmer on their toes!

It was warm enough that I stayed out after putting the deer feed and bird seed out and dug out the ice chipper.  The packed snow was starting to encroach in spots.  One of the areas I cleared was a side section of the concrete steps.  Strangely, the cats loved it.  After I moved on to the sidewalk, I looked back to see Rolando Moon rolling ecstatically on the freshly cleared concrete.  Then Beep Beep and Nasty Crime Boy took turns, all in that same section of step!  I have no idea what was attracting them to that one spot.

20180214.rolando.moon

“You may touch the royal paw.”

Rolando even let me pet her a bit.

A bit.

Meanwhile, my husband was able to call in some prescription refills today.  Being warmer today than it will be for a while, I was going to take advantage of it and install those new headlight bulbs before my daughter and I headed into town.

Now, I’ve changed automotive light bulbs before, but not on this vehicle.  We’ve had it for less than a year.  Our previous van was pretty straightforward.  You could just look at it and figure out how to open things up.

Not so much, this one.  After looking around and not seeing how to open up the casing, we decided to do it later.

I did get out the new gas cap and put it on, leaving the tethered old gas cap in place while I turned on the engine to see if the “check gas cap” alert still came on.

It did.

*sigh*

So it’s likely a faulty sensor.

I put the old gas cap back for now, since I want to make sure I can remove the tether without having to cut it.  I’m sure I can, but just haven’t had the time to fiddle with it.

While we drove to town, my daughter dug out the instruction manual and found the section for replacing the bulbs.  Turns out there was a pin somewhere in there that needs to be pulled out, first.  I never noticed a pin anywhere when I was looking.

She also looked up the “check gas cap” alert.  It says that when it comes on, it means that gas cap is off, so go put it back on.  (*duh!)

The gas cap is on just fine, so that’s not the problem, but it confirmed what I already thought.  I was just hoping for a bit more information for, say, why the alert would continue after ensuring the cap was on.

Once we were back from town, I started working on the headlights while my daughter took our stuff in, then shoveled her way back.  It had started to snow by then, so she shoveled the path to the burn barrel, too.  It was finally a warm, wind free enough day for a burn to be done.  It’s been quite a while since we’ve been able to do one!

While she got her workout in outside, I was able to hang up a light and see what I was doing under the hood, thanks to the 200ft of extension cords from the house to the garage.  (That was so sweet of my brother to buy those for us!)  I found the pin, which was nowhere near where I expected to be, and managed to get it out.  Then I had to loosen a bolt.

To do that, I needed a wrench.

I found a couple of very old tools hanging about, but it turns out there are pretty much no tools left in the garage at all.  There’s lot of other weird stuff, but no tools.

I’m told there used to be lots of tools, not only in the garage, but in the basement of the house, too.

Not sure what happened to them all.

Thankfully, we have our own tool kits.

After much fin-angling, I finally got the casing off and the burnt out bulb out.  That thing did NOT want to come out!  But I got it done.  The second one went much smoother!  Only partly because I knew what I was doing this time. :-D

So we now have new, brighter headlight bulbs.

I’m kinda looking forward to our next night drive after dark, now. :-)

One more thing to tick off the “to do” list.

Later on, after I got supper in the oven and the girls were outside doing the burn, I heard a loud bang.  It seemed like something hit the house!  I even felt the floor shake.  I popped my head outside to look and asked the girls about it, but they heard and saw nothing.

I still don’t know what caused the noise.  Perhaps something in the basement fell?  I don’t know.

Looking out the dining room window, though, I saw this…

20180214.grouse

A grouse, under the bushes.

Looking at the tracks, I kinda wondered if maybe the grouse flew into the house, fell into the snow, then tucked itself under the bush to recover.

Or it’s just sitting there, taking shelter from the snow.

I’m pretty sure a grouse isn’t big enough to have made that noise, though.  I’m still wondering what it could have been.

Also, my phone camera takes terrible zoomed in shots.  At least I had one decent shot I could drop down.

Interestingly, for all the animals I saw today, including the usual birds and squirrels at the feeding station, I haven’t see a single deer.  It’s possible I just missed them, but my husband said he hadn’t seen any, either.

I won’t be surprised to find the now-buried-in-snow feed is all dug up and eaten by morning, though.

It was good to get a break from the cold, today.  We had a high of -2C by this evening.  By midnight, we’re supposed to his -21C, with a windchill of -32C.

Tomorrow, by 8am, it is supposed to be -25C, with a windchill of -39C.

Talk about a severe drop!

Tomorrow’s high of the day is supposed to be -19C, with a windchill of -28C.  We need to go into town again for doctor’s appointments in that. :-(  That’s the coldest it’s supposed to be over the next few days, at least, but we won’t see temperatures in the single digits again for another week.

I think we’re going to be staying home as much as possible for the next while!

The Re-Farmer

 

 

 

Watching Over Us

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Today was a day when we could really tell that Someone is watching over us!

This morning, my husband had an appointment to get a CT scan.  For this, we had to go to a small city that is an hour’s drive away.  The hospital is at the edge of town, though, so we didn’t have any extra driving beyond that.

He had to be there for 11:30, but with the winds the way they were, we decided to head out early, just in case.  Our route took us though another town where we stopped to fill the gas tank, then we continued on.

Through this.

20180213blowing.snow

When we tell people we live in the middle of nowhere, sometimes they think we are exaggerating.

The actual temperature today was quite mild – we warmed up to about -9C at home, and even warmer (-6C) in the city we went to.  The wind chills made it feel in the -26C range, making it potentially dangerous to be out in it for two long.

There isn’t a lot of snow, yet at times the road was almost completely obliterated, except for what I could see right in front of me.  I could always tell I was in the correct lane, for example.  The wind made it more of a challenge to stay on the road than the visibility did.

But the drive went well and even with our stop for gas, we got there early.  My husband got registered into their system and sent to the appropriate area of the hospital to wait for his test.

Unfortunately, an emergency came up and all the scheduled appointments got delayed.  He got in about 45 minutes late.  I could see he was really struggling, and by the time he was called in, his shirt was wet and his face beaded with sweat from the pain. pain.scale

I saw an “improved pain scale” being shared on Facebook lately.  I liked it, but decided to make up one of my own.  It’s annoying to be asked to rate your pain on a scale of 1-10, when pain is so relative and subjective – something his previous doctor admitted was a problem.  Most pain scales I see are just smiley to sad faces, which doesn’t work.

So I came up with this version.

I’d say my husband lives in the 8-9 zone.  Seven, on a good day.  When my husband was asked to rate himself on the pain scale, my husband answered relative to how much pain he was in before, and put himself at a 5.

With the delay, I knew we would need to get some food before we headed home.  Seeing his obvious (to me, anyhow) discomfort, I did a quick search for a rare treat while he was being scanned; McDonald’s.  Yes.  It’s a treat.  It falls under the “comfort food” area.  Thankfully, there was one nearby.

When he was done, that’s where we headed.  It turned out to be inside a Walmart.  We would have preferred a drive through, but oh, well.

I tried to find a disabled parking spot for us.  This place has probably 18 of them, and they were all full!  As I was driving around to find I spot that was at least close, I ended up having a vehicle riding my bumper, enough to interfere with my ability to try and turn into any spots I found.

So I figured I’d just get away from the tailgater and go around.

Just as I accelerated, it started.

A sort of smacking/clapping noise from the engine.  Something was loose in there!

We quickly parked, shut off the engine and popped the hood, but I couldn’t see anything unusual.  Leaving it, we went inside to eat.  Once back in the van, I started it and…

… the noise was still there.

Leaving it running, I popped the hood again.  This time, I could see something at the belt smacking a hose.  Shutting off the engine, I could see a strip with a frayed end.

20180213frayed.belt

I took a picture of it, then we went back into the Walmart and their garage.  Showing the picture to the guy behind the counter, he said it looked like the fan belt, and that they couldn’t do that kind of work.  There was, however, a Canadian Tire across the road, and they could do it.

Just in case, I phoned up my cousin for his advice.

One option we had was to simply cut the loose piece, then drive home and hope the rest of the belt didn’t snap along the way.

Not an option we preferred!

The other option was to drive it across the street and, hopefully, get it fixed right away.

We took option number two.

He also mentioned that he had looked at the belt when he worked on our van, and it had looked fine. :-(

At this point, we had two things going for us.  One was that it happened while we were still in town.  If we had started to drive home, rather than stopping to eat, it would have happened while we were on the highway.  Instead, it happened right near a garage.

The other thing we had going for us was funds.  We had nothing in the budget for this, but the money we got from the moving company to pay for replacing our electric pole was there.  We could use that, and replace what we used at the end of the month.  If we hadn’t got that money when we did, we would have been hooped.  Big time.

So, off to Canadian Tire we went!

Once inside, I showed the picture to the guy and talked about getting it fixed.  Unfortunately, he only had two mechanics in that day; lots of people have been calling in sick lately.  However, he had a customer to call with info about a part.  Depending on what the customer decided, they might be able to fit us in, instead of working on that person’s car.

In the end, the decision was made for the customer.  The part needed couldn’t be delivered until tomorrow morning.

Which meant they could work on our van, instead!

That was the third thing going for us.

Once in, the first thing they needed to do was a diagnostic (about $70), to make sure the belt was the only thing that needed replacing.  Depending on what caused it to break, the serpentine belt might also be at risk.

It turned out to only be the belt.

It took maybe half an hour (labour rate posted: $112 an hour) to get fixed!  Altogether, it cost quite a bit less than we were afraid it would.

The guy talked to us afterward, saying that there was a leak in there; either oil or power steering fluid.  I told him it was the power steering, but that several people have looked at it already, and couldn’t find where it was leaking.  He told us we would have to find it, because it was getting right on the belt, which corrodes it.  It’ll happen again.  Which we knew.  I’ve got to get the van saftied, anyhow, so I’m hoping the leak will finally be found.  He said that one way it could be found is if someone puts a dye into the fluid.  They would then be able to spot the leak using a blacklight.

Interesting.

Since we were there anyhow, and the fix cost less than we thought it might, we took advantage of the situation.  I needed a new headline bulb, so we got a pair of bulbs, slightly brighter than what we already had.  I didn’t want to go to the brightest, as I have no desire to blind oncoming traffic while driving at night.  I’ve had that happen to me too often, and I would never want to inflict that on anyone else.

We also picked up a new gas cap.  Just a couple of days ago, my onboard computer started showing “check gas cap” warning.  That was another thing on my list of items to replace.  I’m guessing the seal on the cap finally degraded too much.  The cold certainly isn’t helping.  If changing it doesn’t fix the problem, it’ll be another thing on the list of stuff to get it to pass safety inspection.

I just have to figure out how to remove the old gas cap, which has a tether.  The new one doesn’t.

Changing the bulbs will wait a day or two, when it warms up a bit more.

That done, we drove the hour home.

All together, we ended up being gone 6 hours, when we expected to be gone maybe 3 hours.

I made sure to drive right up to the house to drop off my husband, and he went straight to lying down. :-(

What a day.

Then, this evening, I heard a knock at the door.

Which was very disorienting.  We never get casual knocks at the door out here!

It was the electrician.  He had intended to come out this weekend to check how frozen the ground is, but never made it.  He made it today, stopping on his way home from the city.  He’d tested his drill out, and the ground is just too solid.

We’ll have to wait until things start to thaw out, then contact him again to get it done.

Which is actually kind of good, since we would not have been able to replace what we used of the funds for another two weeks.

Yet another thing that worked out in our favour.

Yes, Someone is indeed watching out for us!

The Re-Farmer

 

Un. Be. Lievable.

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Wow.

Just.

Wow.

Today, I finally was able to go into town to begin transferring my driver’s license, and our van, to our new province.

I’ve done this before.  Several times.  I even went back to the same company I’d dealt with before, when we were last living in the area.

Thirteen + years, and the place looks exactly the same! :-D

The van will have to wait.  I was kinda expecting that, since one of the requirements to transfer the registration is a provincial license, so I have to do that, first.  I also confirmed that it is now required to have the vehicle safetied, first.  We’ve had a lot of work done on the van before coming out here, but I know there are still little things that would prevent it from passing safety, but I don’t know what this province requires anymore.  So I will have to talk nice to my cousin again. :-/

I needed several pieces of ID for the driver’s license.

Birth certificate?  Check.

Medical card? Not in yet.  So I would need mail, such as a bank statement or utility bill, with our new address on it.

Utility bill with our address on it.  Half check.  Our electric bill has our box number on it, but not our “street” number (the driveway marker number).  Our service address, which is basically the coordinates for the location of the main quarter section of the farm, was not enough.

Bank letter.  Just across the street is the bank I’ve had an account at for several decades.  After we moved, I didn’t bother closing the account, because they said it could only be done in person.  Kinda hard to do when living in another province, and when we did come to visit, it just wasn’t a priority.  However, as modern technology and online banking improved, it became irrelevant.  So I walked across the street and asked for something I could give the public insurance company to open an account for me.  It’s good I did, because changing my info online apparently didn’t take.  They still had our out of province address in there.  So that got updated (the electric bill came in handy again, confirming our postal address) and a letter was printed off, signed and stamped for me.

Back across the street I went, and we continued.

Bank letter identifying my physical address. Check.

Then a glitch happened.

By the time we were done, I had three people trying to help me out, giving me different options and providing me with a form I might need.

The problem?

My married name does not match the name on my birth certificate.

Seriously.

A birth certificate is supposed to have my BIRTH information on it.  That’s whole point of it.  It’s as if they now expect women who change their name after marriage to apply for a new birth certificate with the name change.  Which is ridiculous.

They agreed.

At one point, I turned to my younger daughter who had come with me and told her, “don’t change your name!”

To which one of the women helping enthusiastically concurred.

I didn’t even completely change my name.  I hyphenated (now people can spell my name wrong in TWO languages! :-D ).  So my birth name is still part of my married name.  But because the birth certificate doesn’t match the name I use everywhere else, they knew that if they proceeded with opening the account, they would get a letter back about it; and if it took too long to fix, the partially set up account would just get cancelled.

Now, if I also had my marriage certificate, they could have included that, but I don’t.  I mean, I have it.  I just haven’t seen it in 25 years.  It’s in one of those boxes that got dragged around, move after move.  After move.  After move.  For 14 of my 18 moves, to be exact.

So my choices are;

  1. find my marriage certificate
  2. contact vital statistics and have them send me a copy of my marriage certificate
  3. get someone to fill out a form, vouching for my identity.  It has to be someone who’s known me for at least 2 yrs, and among a long list of acceptable persons, including MLAs, MPs, judges, police officers, Chiefs, a lawyer and…

… a postmaster.

Now, the postmaster would be an easy one.  This is the town I grew up in, after all, and while the original owner of the store that was also the postmaster died some years ago, it’s still in the family, and the person who runs it now has known me for decades.

Except.

She’s not the post master.  I believe it’s her daughter who is.

Now, her daughter also knew me, but considering she wouldn’t have seen me since probably 2004, she may be too young to actually remember me.

It doesn’t have to be someone in this province, but getting someone from another province to do it would take weeks.

Which means I can’t transfer my driver’s license until all this gets straightened out.

At least it will be better for my husband and daughters; especially once our medical cards come in.  My daughters will still need to get a letter from a bank.  One will only need to update her banking information, since she’s not bothering to close her own account to open a new one, locally.  My older daughter, however, had an account with a credit union, and they don’t have a branch out here.  So she’ll have to open a new account locally.

For which she will need some kind of ID with our current address on it.

Un. Be. Lievable.

The ladies at the company were very apologetic, even though they had no control over the situation.  They certainly understood what a problem it is.

At one point, I commented that I have NEVER had this problem before.  Ever.  When did this start? I asked.  Basically since 9/11, I was told.

*sigh*

We were living in this province when 9/11 happened.  We’ve moved 3 times in between then and our current move, including our initial move out of this province.   It still has never been an issue until now.

Meanwhile, we’re supposed to have all this done within 3 months of moving.

That’s not going to happen.

The Re-Farmer

Slowww….

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A slow day for me today.  So… first, the fun stuff!

I wasn’t around to see if any deer came today, though from the looks of the feeding station, they were certainly here.

So instead, I have a cat picture for you!

20180208DaBoy

DaBoy sure loves the top of the piano!  His mom doesn’t go up there.  She’s not as good of a jumper, and there’s nothing close that she can use to take it in stages.  He was just so adorable, with his face hanging over the edge, I had to get a picture!

Yesterday, I spent a long time stirring a pot to make this…

20180208fudge

It is a delicious failure.  I’d doubled the recipe for a type of cream fudge I’d made recently, and I just didn’t cook it down long enough, I think, even though I’d cooked it for at least 45 minutes, stirring constantly.  It’s an attempt to recreate a type of Polish cream fudge that is so addictive.  It has a unique texture that is hard to match, and this doesn’t match it at all.  Leaving it overnight to cool and set didn’t change the texture as much as I’d expected. It still tastes great, though!

Once I’ve got it worked out, I will share the recipe.

Oh, dear!  One of my daughters just came by to share with me something that had happened upstairs.  They were talking and when she laughed, her sister could actually see her breath!

It’s just a touch chilling up there!!!

They moved the heater into the room they were in.

That upstairs needs a lot of work.

Meanwhile…

Today, I focused on doing something I have been letting stew in my brain for a while; figuring out what to do about the Co-op withholding our shares.  That resulted in my spending what ended up being about 4 hours, working on a letter.  Doing it meant having to revisit a pretty traumatic time, and has left me feeling drained.  Then after a break to help with the bread baking, I went back to it to add in something I’d forgotten, then go over it for typos.  It was difficult, and I am recognizing the damage living there has done to me, and that even though we don’t live there anymore, it is still affecting my mental health.

Now that I’ve written it, though, I have to do something with it.

I am not looking forward to it.

Moving away from there was supposed to end this toxic garbage.  Ah, well.  I’ve never been one to avoid doing the right thing, just because it’s difficult.

The Re-Farmer

 

 

 

A Little More Progress… and not

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So today was the day our van was finally going to be fixed.

Except it didn’t.

Turns out there was a miscommunication.

When it was talked about, my cousin had mentioned picking up our van.  This was after I’d mentioned I was concerned about driving it with that grinding noise it was making. I wasn’t sure how he planned to do that, but no alternative was mentioned, so I waited on him to arrive.

Meanwhile, my husband phoned in some prescription refills, plus needed more distilled water for his CPAP.  So I left the keys with him while our younger daughter and I went into the next town to get some non-Costco shopping done at the grocery store, after hitting the pharmacy.  I made sure to text my cousin to let him know about the keys.

It wasn’t until he answered that I found out he’d expected me to have dropped our van off some time ago.

*sigh*

Which means he won’t be able to work on it until Wednesday.

I’ll be bringing our van to him and leaving it there, Tuesday night. :-D

Just a couple of days longer.

Meanwhile, a bit more progress was made with the unpacking.  I should have been working on the boxes in the office, but I decided to continue in the living room, instead.  I was getting tired of looking at the aquarium, all wrapped up in the corner.  So I took off the foam sheets duct taped around the outside, then had to use a stool to be able to get all the accessories from inside the tank and store them in the cabinet under the tank.  Then I could take out the foam pieces that were protecting the inside.

That done, I tucked the lights between the tank and the wall, along with the power bar we’ll eventually be using in that corner.  Got the ironing board put away.  There was also a taped together bundle with an umbrella, 3 shinai and a jo staff.

Curious, I took the stickers to see what these were listed as, on the sheet.

20180121_174912.25%The bundle with the umbrella and shinai was labeled “Anberallas”.  Or maybe it says, “Anherallas”.

The ironing board was listed as “Airlen Board.”

It hurts just to try and type that out. LOL

Now, all I’ve got left in that little corner to get rid of is my sister’s carpet shampooer.  A visit will need to be arranged, after our van is fixed. :-)

The only other thing left in that area that I need to figure out what to do with are the baskets of light bulbs on our piano bench that weren’t supposed to be packed.  They’ll likely just have to go to the basement. :-/

The next step for the area is to get a nimble daughter to climb over the piano and install the antique mirror of my mother’s that matches the piano so well.

We were planning to put some decor items on the piano itself, but one of the cats really loves it up there.  We’ll have to be careful what goes up there!

I’m totally procrastinating over the boxes in my office.  Totally.

We’ve got some progress in another thing that we had a delay on.  We’d done the paperwork to transfer our medicare coverage away from the province we moved out of, to the one we now live in.  We’ve had coverage here before and were even able to include our old health care card numbers.

The forms all came back.

They wanted ID. The girls each got their own form, but the one for myself and my husband had a handwritten note saying that we needed to include copies of ID for all the family.

Thankfully, my younger daughter was able to find her birth certificate that had gone missing – it turned out to be still in the suitcase.

Now it’s just a matter of signing the new form attached to the old ones, and send them in with the photocopies.  At least the postage is pre-paid.

While it doesn’t matter much for our daughters, who have no medical appointments or prescriptions to deal with, it might be an issue for my husband and I.  Our old health care numbers ensure coverage for up to 3 months after moving to another province.  We have doctor’s appointments (I made a “meet and greet” appointment with the same doctor for myself) in the middle of the month.  For me, that’s just a few days after my 3 months is up, but my husband got here 3 weeks earlier, so he’s already past the 3 months.

I’m not sure how that’ll be dealt with.

For the non-Canadians reading this, Canada’s medicare system is federally funded through our tax dollars, but provincially managed.  Each province is slightly different than others.  While the basics, like regular check ups, treatment, hospital visits, most medical tests, and specialists are covered, some things covered in one province might not be covered, or only partly covered, in another.  For example, when my husband was first diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea, we were living in this province, and the CPAP machine, humidifier, hoses and masks were fully covered.  After we moved, however, there was 0 coverage.  We’ve come back just in time for this province to change from full coverage to partial coverage.

Thank God for private insurance!

Yes, we in Canada do still need private insurance.  Especially for dental, eye care and prescriptions, which isn’t covered by our medicare system.  I know of one province that also has its own “pharmacare” for prescriptions.  There is a deductible, then the province covers the rest.

In a nut shell, we have medical coverage, but it isn’t “free”; we just pay for it through our taxes, like a group insurance program.  Some provinces also charge premiums.

It also isn’t universal as, while certain essentials are covered, each province maintains its own services.

It also isn’t all government run.  While there are certainly provincial health care clinics with both medical and support staff, many of which also include labs for blood-work and equipment for Xrays, we also have private doctors with private clinics (they bill the government for covered services), and private companies that provide a mix of services that can be covered by the government, private insurance or the patient gets billed.

Which can make things pretty convoluted, when you have complex health concerns, as my husband does.  Most of his medical care is covered by our medicare system, and the rest by private insurance.  So far, the doctors have managed to keep his prescriptions among those that are covered by private insurance.  Thankfully, my husband has a very good plan, so there’s a long list of approved prescriptions.

Did I mention, Thank God for private insurance?

I think I’ll just say it again, anyways.

Thank God for private insurance!

The Re-Farmer