Critters

Plenty done today!

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It was a productive day today – and in a good way, if rather expensive. How expensive, we don’t quite know yet!

First up, when doing my morning rounds, I was able to water the trees as well. It’s been a few days, and wow, a lot can happen in a few days, when it comes to growing things!

While all the transplants seems to be doing all right, the Opal Plum had one heckuva growth spurt with that one branch!

The real surprise while I was watering was spotting this.

This is the Royalty raspberry! One has still survived! We got a bundle of three, and they actually fruited in their first year, even though they were first year canes. The next year, only one survived the winter, and really didn’t grow much at all. So it was no surprised when there was no sign of any at all, this spring. Until this morning!

Needless to say, it has been added to my group of trees and bushes that get watered. I’ve included a single silver buffalo berry as well, as it’s the only one that seems to not be doing well. The watering doesn’t seemed to have helped. Makes me wonder if there’s something under it that’s causing a problem. A large rock, perhaps, or meandering poplar roots.

Now that I know what silver buffalo berry bushes look like, I think we actually have some growing wild, just a short distance away! The sign cam is right near the corner of the fence line, and I can see some bushes in the ditch that look like our own silver buffalo berry bushes. If we can confirm that at some point, we might transplant a few to fill in the gaps for the ones we planted that didn’t make it.

After watering all the garden beds, I still had time to water in the outer yard, where the Korean Pine and walnuts are.

We now officially have three walnut saplings.

Two of them are from seed, one is the year old sapling we got at the same time. Yay!!!

After finishing my rounds and chores, I grabbed a late breakfast, then headed to town early for my first appointment with the truck. The autobody place is not far from a lumber yard and hardware store that I keep forgetting exists, as we don’t usually go to this area of town. I dropped the truck off almost an hour early and had a chance to talk to the lady that’s been in charge of dealing with the insurance company and trying to get our truck done. I told her where I was going after leaving the truck with them, and that I had an appointment for the front tires to be replaced a half hour after my appointment with them was scheduled. She told me that was plenty of time.

We get fliers for this hardware store that I check out, so I did know that they did doors and windows. What I wasn’t completely sure of was if they did pre-hung doors and, more importantly, if they did installations.

I was very happy to find out that they did! My searched for companies that could do it came up with rather useless results, and I was starting to get concerned. The one company I knew of that my brother had hired to install new windows here, the summer before we moved in, disappeared during the illegal lockdowns, as so many other small, independent businesses did.

The guy I spoke to filled out a form and gave me the business card for their installer. In a day or two, we will get a call to book a time for him to come here to take measurements and see what we’ve got now. We’ll then be able to talk about what pre-hung doors we want (or can afford), and things like making sure the arm bar get reinstalled.

That was done so quickly, I decided to look around the store a bit. In the gardening section, of course.

While there, I remembered that we are wanting to add more clothes lines (our posts can support three lines), and went looking for that section. They had the exact same kits that I’d seen at another store, but at a better price.

I decided to get one.

My daughter has been diligent about following her doctor’s instructions to help fight the skin infections she’s getting, and that includes washing her clothing and bedding more often, in hot water, then hanging them on the line so the sun can further disinfect them. We’ve got a long clothes line, but when things like bedding are included, it runs out of space, fast!

Eventually, we’ll have three lines set up again, but just having the second one will be a huge help.

That done, I headed back to the autobody shop. It was still early for my appointment, but I saw the truck was no longer where I’d parked it. They took it in early!

As I waited, I had a chance to chat with both ladies behind the counter. When I told them how things went at the hardware store, they both started telling me how they’ve had them do work for them, too, and how great they are! One of them said she lives in an old farmhouse that she and her family basically rebuilt the old farmhouse they bought (admitting, they probably should have just torn it down and built a new house!), and they did much of the work for them; doors, windows, flooring… She was really happy with them. So that was certainly encouraging!

A little while later, the woman working my file came around to tell me that their guy says there is no need for them to paint more than the top rail part of the box frame, after it’s straightened out, not the entire side of the box, which would include an old dent and the rust around the wheel well. That will save us $140, as the insurance company does not cover rust damage, so we would be charged for that portion of the paint job.

We talked about the tail light as well, and she made the call to find out how much a new one would cost, right then and there.

$350.

!!!!!

Good grief!

What she did do was give me the part number, then did a quick search for it on Amazon.

$135.

What a difference!

If we can get it delivered.

I explained the issues we’ve been having, and how Amazon has simply cancelled orders that would be mailed, due to the threat of a strike. If there is an alternative delivery method available, either to our physical address (which doesn’t exist on any maps) or to the store our post office is in, we could still order it, though.

She has been trying so hard to bring the costs down for us! Talk about awesome.

Towards the end, when I got the keys and was ready to head out, she told me the parts would be ordered right away, and when they came in, we would get a call.

Then she mentioned they would need the truck for a couple of days.

…

I told her, we’ve only got one vehicle. I’d have to make arrangements of some kind. She said that, when we get the call later one, we can talk about that.

??

As far as I know, they don’t offer the loan of a service car, as some places in the city can do.

If nothing else, I might be able to borrow one of my brother’s cars for a couple of days, but I’d really prefer to avoid that. They use both their cars quite a bit.

That done, it was off to the garage to drop off the truck and the keys.

A friend from high school had messaged me a couple of days ago, saying she was in town, and we had arranged to get together after I dropped the truck off. She doesn’t have her own transportation this time, so we walked around for a while, stopping at a couple of places, before sitting down in one of the smaller restaurants for a very late lunch.

I didn’t know how long the truck would take, but by the time we were done lunch, I figured it was time to start heading back. Which turned out to be just right; they finished with the truck maybe 10 or 15 minutes before I got there! My friend was able to join me for most of the way before we said our goodbyes. We’ll be able to get together again, before she heads home.

As for the truck, I was happy to hear they found no other issues while working on it. 😄

In the end, though, it cost over $660 after taxes, including a “new tire enviro tax”.

*sigh*

Tomorrow, I’m supposed to bring it back whenever I have a chance to get the tires torqued. It should be done withing 100km of driving.

That done, I drove across the street to the grocery store.

In that short drive, I could already feel the difference. I had not realized just how much I was feeling something of off about the tires! Not even anything I could specifically pinpoint, but gosh, once it was no longer there, I could sure tell!

One thing I needed to get at the grocery store was more kibble for the outside cats. With the cost of gas jumping 5 cents per liter, and only needing a couple of things, it wasn’t worth it to drive to the nearest Walmart for better prices.

Their shelves for large cat food bags were completely empty!

The only other thing I needed was eggs, so I got those, then headed to the one other grocery store available. With this one, I was able to pick up a couple of bags of their house brand in 8kg sizes, totaling about $45. They had one 7.5kg bag of name brand kibble available, and it cost $45 just on its own!

The outside cats are going to just have to put up with no-name cat food for now.

I did have to pick up a bit of gas before leaving town, feeling rather frustrated with myself for forgetting to get gas the last time I was in town, when it was still $1.299 a liter, instead of $1.349 a liter!

I’ve been getting weather alerts for incoming rain or thunderstorms all day, so after everything was put away and the outside cats were fed, I did my evening rounds to check on things.

I spotted this guy, that I haven’t seen in a while.

I tried zooming in to get a picture of his face. It looks like he’s sporting a rather large new scar on his head!

He is pretty feral, and won’t let me even walk in his general direction without running away. I still haven’t completely figured out if he is one of ours, returned after months away, or a stranger that discovered we are a source of food and relative safety.

There is still no sign of Caramel’s two little ones, though this morning, I think I caught her trying to lure Havarti away. I so wish she would bring her littles back! They need access to solid food, and she’s been hanging out here most of the time, instead of tending to them, or hunting for them.

No sign of Zipper, either.

😢

I checked on all the garden beds, of course, which had me walking past a large currant bush my sister had given to my mother. My mother planted it near the main garden area, right under a chokecherry tree, so it’s completely shaded out almost all day. I almost never find berries on it, though, and it was years before I found one and could confirm it was a black currant bush.

This spring, it bloomed prolifically, so I was hopeful for a grand harvest.

Nope.

Not going to happen.

I think I finally found out why it hasn’t been producing.

The leaves have yellow spot all over them, I just realized, now that I can see them in the photo, that these are egg clusters!!!

As you can see, the forming berries are being killed off. I had thought the spots might have been some sort of fungus that’s also killing the berries, but if the spots are actually eggs, and there are so, so many of them, perhaps it’s whatever is laying the eggs that’s doing it. I haven’t seen anything on the leaves that was laying eggs. Certainly not in such numbers. There’s hundreds of leaves, covered in these spots.

The second picture shows more what the berries should be looking like, at this stage, though it’s got an odd bump on it.

Gotta do some research on this!

My weather apps keep saying we’re supposed to be getting rain or storms, but as I finished my evening rounds, I just got hit by a couple of raindrops, and that’s it.

We could really, really use some rain. It just keeps missing us!

Tomorrow is supposed to be hotter, but the hottest part of the day is not supposed to hit until 4pm. Hopefully, that will give me a chance to finally get back to working on that trellis bed in the morning. I plan to take the truck in to get the new tires torqued in the afternoon.

Must. Get. Sleep!!!!

Well, we’ll see how that goes, when the time comes!

Altogether, though, it has turned out to be a very good and productive day.

It will be a while, though, before we find out how much getting the front door replaced, and the truck done, will end up costing us.

It’s going to be expensive. That’s all I know for sure!

The Re-Farmer

Reclaiming space

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When it came time to start working on our first permanent trellis bed, I had hoped to be able to get in with the weed trimmer, first. It just up and died on me while I was using it a few days ago. I hoped it just needed to cool down or something, so I tested it.

Nothing. Not a click or a whirr or a home. Nothing.

*sigh*

So I went and got the push mower my brother has loaned us.

Where the trellis beds are going to be built is over an area we actually made garden beds, a few years ago. Sections were covered in cardboard, potatoes and melons planted, then heavily mulched with straw.

We had spring flooding that year and very little survived.

After that, we just lost control of the space and it became completely overgrown.

To reclaim the space, we will be building pairs of raised beds joined by trellis tunnels. One beds it built and being used right now, but we need to finish adding three vertical supports before we can have something our Red Noodle Beans can climb.

Before working on that, though, I wanted to clear the overgrown space beside it. One part of it had been measured and marked off for the next bed. I had cut poplars to use for the vertical supports, and those had been stacked nearby – and were completely hidden by the tall grass.

So my first job was to find and pull out all the logs, and set them aside in an area that was already mowed.

Which you can see in the first photo of the slideshow below.

After making sure there were not chunks of wood, rocks, markers, etc. hidden in the grass, I went over it with the push mower, set at its highest level.

Then I went over it again, set a mid height.

Then I went over about 2/3rd of it again, this time with the mower as low as it could go, and only in one direction. At this point, I was hitting the old straw mulch in places, and I wanted the clippings to be easy to rake up, later. They will make a good mulch, after sitting in the sun for a day or two.

In the second photo, you can see the entire cleared area.

It was getting insanely hot, and I knew I wasn’t up to working on the trellis in the heat, so I decided to get the next raised bed space prepped.

I have a couple of small logs that are exactly 4′ long. These beds are going to be 4′ wide, with 4′ wide paths in between, and I’ve found these logs make it easy to mark the spaces. Which is what I’ve done in the next photo. I’ve butted the logs up against the frame, not the vertical supports at the corners. That marked off the width of the path. Then I got out one of my rolls of plastic to set over where the new bed is going to be, to start solarizing.

Well. Sort of.

To have the plastic really cook the weeds and grass and seeds in the soil, the plastic needs to be taught against the soil surface. Since I couldn’t use the weed trimmer to get the space cleared right to the soil surface, the plastic will be sitting on top of the cut stems. It’ll still get cooked in places, but will also act like a greenhouse.

Which is fine. I can work with that.

I also hosed the area down, first. The moisture will get really hot under there and help cook the weeds and seeds, too.

The plastic is wider than 4′, so there is some overlap into the paths, which is also good. The big sheet is actually folded in half and I considered opening it up and covering a larger space, but it’s starting to get old and tattery, so I just re-folded it more neatly, then set it out. It’s not long enough to cover the full 18′ the bed will be, so the last section is covered with a clear dollar store shower curtain.

Then is was time to weigh it down.

I shifted the 4′ logs over so that they are now marking the next 4′ that will the the width of the next raised bed. Then I used some of the logs I’d pulled out of the tall grass to weigh down the edges. There were a couple of small gaps, so I used bricks to weight those down.

I had been using some old conduit pipe I’d found in the barn to mark off where the beds would be. I ended up adding those, plus another short little log, on top of the plastic, to try and get it closer to the soil surface. Then the whole thing got sprayed with water to try and weigh it down even more.

By the time all that was done, so was I. At least for working in direct sunlight.

I did have the lawn mower handy, though.

I hiked the deck up again, then started working on the maple grove. We haven’t been able to mow in there all year, except for the beginnings of a path I’d started before running out of gas, and not being able to get back to.

When I was done, I ended up taking a little video of how much I’d managed to do.

I sound out of breath because I literally just finished mowing. The grass was about 2-3 feet high in there, and still is in places I couldn’t get into with the mower.

When we first moved here, this area was not only overgrown, but filled with trees that had been cut down but never cut up and removed, lots of fallen branches, and it was basically impassible. When I was a kid, I used to keep this area mowed regularly, as was as inside the spruce grow.

It’ll be a few years before we get to that level again!

It does feel good to have finally gotten at least this much mowed.

Then I came in for hydration, rest and supper!

It’s still light out and starting to cool down… oh… never mind. I just checked the temperature, and it’s gone back up again! We are getting thunderstorm warnings which don’t actually affect our area, but the winds are certainly picking up.

I might just have to call it a day. Tomorrow, I’ve got to take the truck into town for the autobody shop to go over, then to get new tires. A old friend from high school is in town and contacted me, so we’ll be meeting up somewhere while the tires are being done. That’s all in the afternoon, though. If I can manage a solid night’s sleep, I should be able to get work done on the trellis bed in the morning.

We’ll see what the morning brings!

I may not have gotten the trellis sports up, but I am glad to have started reclaiming more of those old garden beds, though.

I’d call that a win.

Oh, and I have a bit of cuteness to share. I spotted some eyes watching me from the creeping bellflower leaves…

This seems to be one of the more feral cats we can’t get close to, but I’m not sure. It does like to hang around to watch what’s going on, though. 😊

The Re-Farmer

Cats, kittens, garden stuff, truck stuff, a tiny harvest and more!

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Good grief. How is it not even 6:30pm as I start this? It feels like it should be much, much later!

It’s been a long day. 😄

Once again, I was awakened way too early by cat shenanigans. I finally gave up and got up at around 5:30 to top up their kibble and give the hoard access to my room before heading outside to feed the yard cats and do my morning rounds.

Checking on the garden as part of my rounds at this time of year is a bit like Christmas. There seems to be something new, every time! I just came back from doing the evening watering, and there was more new stuff to see, in just the space of about 9 hours!

One of the things we have blooming right now are the ornamental poppies.

Very few of them, this year, but they sure are show stoppers! Those are irises in the background, that have been growing there since before I was born.

I also got a tiny little harvest.

Just a few scapes and ripe wild/alpine/whatever-they-are strawberries.

When approaching the low raised bed with most of the tomatoes, interplanted with yellow bush beans, I startled away a bird that had been digging in the dirt. As if cats digging wasn’t bad enough, the birds are, too!

When checking on the damage, I spotted our first yellow bush bean sprouting! I was really happy with this, as these seeds are several years old, and I wasn’t sure any would germinate.

When I was back at the bed to water it this evening, I found almost all the other beans I’d planted in the bed had sprouted while I was gone! I only planted a single bean in each spot, no extras, and at the moment, it looks like just one hasn’t germinated yet.

I didn’t see more corn sprouting in the other bed in the morning, but this evening, I spotted the tips of perhaps a dozen, breaking through. Still no beans in the alternating rows sprouting there, yet.

This morning, I had the usual cats following me around, but I was also joined by an Eyelet!

Who really looks ticked off at getting his picture taken. 😄

The cats really love that grass mulch. It does protect the soil from them a bit, but they do dig it up to use the gardens beds as a litter box, if I’m not there to chase them off. Those collars around the transplants are probably the only things saving them from being flattened by cats rolling in the beds!

In the second image of the above slide show, you can see the cuddle puddle I discovered, just before coming inside.

Adorable, but a concern.

Caramel is in there, cuddling with the kittens. Only the orange tabby, Havarti, is hers. Her other two are still missing. While my first thought was that she took them to the property across the road, I am no longer sure. Every time I got outside, she’s here. Which means if she did take them across the road, they are there alone, not being nursed by her or any of the creche mothers, and not getting any of the cat soup I’ve been giving out specifically for the kittens. I now wonder if they are even still alive. I don’t get it!! Zipper is also still missing.

Later on, as I was preparing to leave for town, I just had to get this picture of Leyendecker.

Chonky boy! Gosh, he’s so big. I don’t just mean he’s a fat cat. He’s just a giant, overall.

He’s also one of the bullies.

I picked up that calming liquid to try, but the instructions aren’t particularly clear. It basically says to add it to their food, no mixing required, and that cats love eating it. Add how? Just… pour it on?

It also sort of assumes feeding one cat directly and individually.

Which is our problem.

How do we dose just the most stressed out and/or aggressive cats?

After talking about it with my daughter, we decided to just add it to their cat soup. It’ll be a very low dose, but basically all the cats would get at least some. Except Potato Beetle. He still won’t eat wet cat food. He’s a chill dude, though, and not one we’d be dosing, anyhow. I honestly can’t remember even seeing him try the cat soup. I use 6 cans of cat food for one batch of cat soup, so this evening, I decided to add one tsp per can (the recommended dose is 1.5 tsp for under 10 pounds, 2 tsp for 10 pounds or over, per day).

We’ll see how it works out.

Meanwhile…

I headed out early because I wanted to remove the remains of the truck box cover, first. We kept wanting to do it, but once the truck is in the garage, there really isn’t a lot of space to move around in. Then we’d forget again.

So today, I got the truck out of the garage, grabbed a tool kit and got to work. It ended up taking way less time than I thought it would. There were just two of one type of clamp on one side, then one each of a different type on both sides. I was fully expecting the nuts to be seized or something, but nope. They came off easily, as did the remaining piece of the box cover.

Once it was done, I just went ahead into town right away, anyhow. I did remember to stop at the post office along the way; I kept forgetting to do it all last week.

Our mail box was completely stuffed.

With fliers.

With the threat of a strike hanging over us, no one is using the mail for anything but junk mail right now. Not even for packages. The threat of a strike alone must be costing Canada Post millions of dollars – and they have already been running in the red for years. People living in cities and larger communities have plenty of alternatives to choose from. People like us, however, are stuck with pretty much only Canada Post. There are a couple of delivery companies that will actually find us and deliver directly to our place (which is impressive, since our physical address doesn’t exist on any maps), or will deliver to the store the post office is in, but they are rarely an option when we place orders online. Right now, a lot of places won’t even take orders. It’s not just Amazon cancelling orders that can only be sent by Canada Post. I’ve noticed some tree nurseries and seed companies have notices on their websites, saying they’ve stopped taking orders completely until the threat of a strike are over. Some say they have found alternative methods and are taking orders again, but for those that don’t have the option, they could well lose their businesses entirely because of Canada Post. Of course, these are almost always the small, independent and family run companies that are most affected, but public sector unions don’t give a rip. It’s insane how bad they’ve become.

So, junk mail is all we’re getting.

While heading into town, I kept a close eye on that oil pressure gauge. At first, it seemed to be back to normal; that half liter of oil we’d put in last night seemed to have made a difference.

And then it didn’t. The pressure kept slowly dropping until it was just barely in the range it’s supposed to be in.

When I got to the garage, the owner was there, so I had a chance to talk to him about the booked oil change, and what was going on. I was honest about the fact that I really couldn’t tell if it was low on oil or not, because I simply can’t see the line, but it did seem to me that it was low. They had done so much work on it when we had the issues before, it really didn’t make any sense for anything to be leaking now, so he was definitely going to check on it for me.

I then asked if they could check the tires, too. We have the one front tire with the slow leak in the valve step that needs to be replaced first, but there are three altogether that need to be done, because the sensor batteries are dead. As for the one that was already done, I told him that it always seems to look low to me. I’d check the pressure and it would be fine, but it still looked low. So he said he would get that checked, too.

I reminded him about the broken handle inside the driver’s side door, and it can only be opened from the outside. We talked a bit about the possibility of getting a new one from a scrap yard or something. He does make use of those for parts and says they usually don’t sell just a handle like that, but the entire door. So it is unlikely to actually save us anything. He did say he would keep it in mind, though.

Not that we’ll be able to get it done, anytime soon.

That done, I turned over the keys and started walking. I was 2 hours early for my appointment, so I had plenty of time to run any errands and have lunch.

I had lunch first, since I hadn’t had breakfast yet. I walked across town towards the marina and decided to stop at a fish and chips place. I don’t normally like fish anything, but they have the best fish and chips anywhere, and it’s been a very long time since I’ve been there!

I forgot how massive their portions are. A really great deal for the dollar – a rare thing, these days!

I think next time, I should see if I can get just the fish and skip the fries completely. 😄

This place happens to be next to a Thai store that we rarely get a chance to visit, so after lunch, I went to check it out. My younger daughter, who’s birthday is this month, has a couple of pairs of very unique, very comfortable, pants from this place that she loves. I was thinking of possibly finding her more – after going through some of the other Thai stuff they had. There were some really nice things, but not anything I thought would be good as birthday gifts.

While trying to find a rack with the type of pants my daughter had found, I was approached by the lone saleswoman holding out a dress for me to possibly try.

I was rather amused by the small size of it, but told her I was looking for something for my daughter.

She came back with something even smaller, so I told her my daughter was an adult. She didn’t speak much English, but we managed to communicate.

In the end, she helped me find a sundress that’s actually pants, that looked like it would actually fit my well endowed daughter. So that turned out all right!

After that, I started making my way back towards the garage, stopping at a couple other places along the way. There wasn’t much that I needed, so I wasn’t stuck carrying much during the walk back.

By the time I reached the garage, it was shortly past my actual appointment time. I half expected the truck to be in a bay still, but I found it parked in a different spot outside, so I knew it was done.

The owner was in the office when I got there, but he wasn’t the one who worked on the truck, so he went and got the guy who did. Which turned out to be the same guy who had worked on it last time.

I am so glad I asked them to check the tires.

One of the things this guy had found before was that our tires were starting to wear on the insides, showing that we needed a wheel alignment. That was done along with most of the other stuff at the same time.

In the months since the alignment was done, the worn spots had gotten worse, and were now completely bald on the inside. Something I wouldn’t have been able to see. It was, however, very likely contributing to why both front tires would sometimes be low, even though one of them had had its leaking valve replaced already.

We talked about it for a while, and could confirm it was just additional wear and tear; I’d already had the wheel bearing replaced on the driver’s side, then they did the alignment. They would have spotted any other possible contributing problems at the time.

While, technically, I could still drive on them, this is not something I was going to mess around on, so I asked how much it would cost to replace them.

It’s going to cost over $600, after taxes, for new tires, installation, balancing and labour.

*sigh*

I am thankful that we now have credit cards that we can do stuff like this, but … yikes!

I asked how long it would take for the tires to come in, since they have to order them first, and was told if they ordered them today, they’d be in tomorrow. The day after tomorrow, I’m taking the truck in to the autobody place for them to go over and determine what parts they need for our insurance claim repairs, so I booked the new tires to be installed after that.

Then we talked about the oil change.

It turned out that the oil level really was low. As in, almost half what it should have been. !!! He told me that it was wet all over underneath, so they couldn’t pin point exactly where it was coming from. The leak was so slow, there was no dripping under the truck for me to see. So what they’ve done for now is cleaned it all up so that, when I come back for an oil change again, they would be better able to see where it’s coming from.

If there’s still a leak.

They recommended an oil treatment concentrate to use before then. Every now and then, over the next while (which might be weeks, or months), I’m to check the oil when the engine is cold. Once the level reaches between the “fill” and “full” lines, I’m to add this stuff, instead of more oil. This should improve all the seals and stop any leaks. They both said it works really, really well, and should solve the problem.

That done, I paid the bill, which turned out to be lower than I expected. Especially with the additional product. When I commented on that, the mechanic I was talking to said it looked like the owner, who have left for the day, had given me a deal!

He is so awesome.

While all this was going on, we chatted about other things with the truck. I mentioned the issues we were having with the insurance company and how, because of the things they won’t cover, it’s still going to cost us a lot – and they won’t cover the tail light at all. We’d talked about the broken tail light earlier, when describing the damage to the truck box frame. I told him the insurance guy says it’s from an impact, not from the cover being blown off. Yet when I described what I saw in my mirror when it went flying, the mechanic immediately said that it would have been broken when the box frame was twisted. I agree, but there is impact damage under the tail light. I didn’t hit anything, and that damage wasn’t there when I bought the truck, so all I can think is that maybe someone hit the truck while it was parked in a parking lot, and I just didn’t notice until I checked for damage after the cover was blown off – and I have no way to prove that the tail light cover wasn’t broken before the box cover was blown off.

When he found out they wouldn’t cover the cost of the tail light, the mechanic suddenly got excited and asked which tail light it was. He quickly became disappointed when I told him it was the passenger side. It turned out he had a spare tail light for the same truck as mine, but it was for the driver’s side. He would have let me have it for free, if it had been the right size!

Have I mentioned how much I love our garage? The owner is awesome, and the guys he has working with him are also just fantastic.

So we’ll see how things go with the autobody shop, and their guy has a chance to price out parts.

Once done at the garage, I made a quick stop at the grocery store before heading home. By the time I was done there, I was heavily using the shopping cart as a walker. My hips were starting to really give out. I mentioned that when I messaged my family that I was on my way home, and was pleasantly surprised to find the gate open for me already. After I was done parking in the garage, I was going to leave the couple of bags I had in front of the garage while I went back to close the gate, only to find my daughter already on her way to do it for me!

She is so sweet!

She also noticed and commented on the pretty bag I was carrying, so I asked her if she wanted her birthday present now, or later? 😄😄

She decided, now.

So, once we were inside and everything was put away, I presented her with her gift. She put it on right away, and we were very happy to find it fit just fine – unlike the previous one I picked up that was “one size fits most” that didn’t fit either of us. My daughter has some matching fabric and will be adding gussets to the side seams, but until then, she now has a floofy, flowy, gorgeously patterned pants-dress to wear on those really hot days. It also looks quite beautiful on her, but my daughter always looks beautiful, so that’s no surprise. 😊

Not much later, after taking some pain killers, I headed back outside for my evening rounds, and the evening yard cat feeding. After Caramel apparently moved two of her smaller babies away (or…?), I’m now very concerned that Poirot might do the same, but so far, nope!

She seems quite content to keep her babies close to the house. They are getting so much more active and starting to go further around the house, and using the old kitchen garden as their very own playground – even when I’m watering the beds!

Oh, I’ll have to make a point of heading out after dark and getting some pictures. When I was last at the Walmart, I took advantage of a clearance sale and got a box of 8 solar lights on stakes. Most of them are now in the wattle weave bed – literally in the weave – with a couple in the rectangular bed near the house. They look really nice and, if the price is right, I’d like to get more for other areas around the garden beds.

The cats aren’t the only ones that like the garden beds, or the mulch. Every time I water, there are frogs jumping out all over. The beds with the heavier mulches often have a dozen or more emerging and jumping away from the water!

This evening, however, I spotted a different frog. The usual ones tend to be coloured in browns and greys. Sometimes, I’ll see one that looks copper coloured. What I haven’t seen before it one that was green!

There are two images of this frog, above.

Usually, any green frogs we see are tree frogs, and I haven’t seen any of those this year, yet. The only other native frog that I know of that’s green is the leopard frog, which is now pretty rare to see. This one looks like our typical wood frog, except for the colour. What a beauty!

I am so happy to see so many frogs in the garden this year!

So that was how things went for most of the day.

I do, however, have some concerning updates about my mother.

After what happened yesterday, I updated my siblings in our group chat to let them know what went down.

I got a message from my sister late this afternoon. She had phoned our mother earlier in the day. Apparently, my mother got two med assist visits this morning for some reason.

???

She also said she would try and walk to the grocery store (it’s just a couple of blocks away) to do her own shopping, then have them deliver it. She also had stuff to get at the pharmacy, though, and that’s much further.

I responded by saying I’d gone over there on my one free day, and I’m booked up through to next week (not all of which is stuff away from home, but including time dependent stuff that must get done outside, while the weather is good). My sister said she told my mother that people would be far more willing to help her, if she treated them nicely!

(I’m hoping my sister or my brother can do the shopping for her, but my mother doesn’t like their shopping. I know her list so well, I can pick out exactly what she likes, even when I get things not on her list. They don’t know as well and pick the “wrong” things – which might only be a brand from their local store they shopped at for her, rather than the one next to her place.)

Not long after I got home, I got a call from the home care coordinator.

It was about the double visit this morning.

When the home care aid got to my mother’s, she insisted that someone had already been there and given her her medications. The aid went into the lock box to check. This morning’s medications were still there, and no one had signed the form. Yet my mother insisted, someone had already come and done her meds. The home care workers have the lock box code on their instructions file for my mother. She’s not the only one with a lock box, and there are quite a few different people doing her med assists, so it’s not like any of them are going to be remembering everyone’s lock box combinations, nor is it possible anyone NOT a home care aid would be going into there. Not even my sister has the code for it (my brother is the one who programmed it so, of course, he knows what it is).

I read to her the message I got from my sister, about my mother saying that two people had come to do her morning meds today.

There is no record of any home care aid going to my mother’s place before the one that made the report on my mother saying that someone did.

I told the coordinator that I’d been there yesterday morning, but left very soon after, because of my mother’s behaviour (she understood!), but I was there long enough for my mother to mention no one had shown up on Saturday morning. I hadn’t gone back into the lock box to check if the Saturday morning meds where still there; it never even occurred to me. The coordinator looked at the record for Saturday, and there was nothing about her morning med assist being missed.

She was going to instruct the supper time med assist person to check the bubble pack to see if Saturday morning’s pills were still there.

This morning’s home care aid, the coordinator and I all agreed that it was very unlike my mother to be mixed up about someone coming and giving her her pills, when no one had actually come. Now we have the possibility that she can’t remember someone coming on Saturday morning. This is very concerning! My mother was very prone to messing with her meds, forgetting what they were for, thinking they had been “changed”, etc. But she had never actually forgotten to take them, or thought she’d taken them when she hadn’t.

It’s going to be looked into, and I will be contacted about it later.

It does not seem like my mother would invent (whether she knows it or not) that someone came when they didn’t. Could someone else have come to her place that she mistook for a health care aid? If so, they couldn’t have given her her meds, since they’re locked away.

This is just so bizarre.

Another reminder that my mother really shouldn’t be living on her own. She wants so much to be in a nursing home (a very specific one), and it still seems like she somehow doesn’t “qualify” yet, according to our system.

Whatever they find in their investigation, maybe this will be the final hurdle that will get her into, at the very least, some sort of assisted or supportive living situation.

Assuming there are any spaces available.

*sigh*

There isn’t much we can do until then, which is the most frustrating part. It’s not like any of us can have her move in with us. Either we’ve got our own family health issues to deal with, or lack of accessibility in our homes, or both – it just couldn’t work. She would hate it, anyhow. She knows she needs to have a higher level of care, especially at night, than any of us can give, but she would also go bonkers without the social activities she has access to in her building, now.

Well, it is what it is. We can only deal wit the hand we’ve been dealt, no matter how messed up it is.

My mother certainly isn’t helping herself out, with her behaviour, though!

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Looks like it’s going to happen!

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I heard back today from the large animal rescue not for from us. I had approached them about Poirot and her babies. They are interested in taking them in, and will be contacting me later in the week!

Oh, how I hope this works out!

Inspector Japp will have to find new things to teeth on.

That’s one of the tie downs for the portable greenhouse. The paracord was added for visibility. We often see various cats playing with them. 😁

Now, if we could find a home for this beauty, too.

Eyelet’s eyes are actually bluer in the photo than in real life. They are so pale, they are almost white.

Most of the kittens around the house can be handled now. Zipper went from being very skittish to appreciating being held while we wash his eyes with warm water. Only Havarti is getting harder, rather than easier, to approach. Gotta find a way to lure him in!

It’s going to be a challenge to get Poirot, though. She is great about jumping into the cat cage in the morning, and waiting for me to bring her a squeeze treat, but aside from then, she runs away when we come close. At least we know she’ll go for the squeeze treat, though, so maybe we can use one of those to get her into a carrier with her babies. The rescue that will hopefully be taking them is aware of her socialization status. She and her babies will be used as a way to raise awareness for the problem of ferals and rural colonies like ours, and hopefully result in increased donations, adoptions and resources.

We shall see how it works out in the next while!

The Re-Farmer

Goodbye, sweet Kale

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When I didn’t see Kale this morning, I feared the worst. She was looking really sick, yesterday. So was Zipper, and and I was on the lookout for him, too, while doing the morning feeding. I did eventually spot him inside the cat house, in the kittens favourite cat bed for cuddling. His eyes were stuck shut and he wasn’t coming out to eat. He did actually look a bit better, though, which gave me some hope.

All day today, I was on the lookout for Kale, including looking through the cat house windows, every chance I got. I only saw other kittens. It wasn’t until I was doing the evening cat feeding and all the kittens were out and about that I finally spotted her.

She was on the bottom of the cat bed. I hadn’t seen her before because the other kittens were blocking my view. It was quite obvious she was no longer with us.

After the cat feeding was done, my daughter helped me wash some eyes. Zipper still looks a hot mess, but does seem to be improving. Li’l Rig is one that looks all right until we start washing his eyes and goo starts coming out. We washed Wormy’s eyes, too, though she is almost completely recovered, as have the other kittens that went through their sick phase. That includes Kale’s brother, Sir Robin.

The eye washing done, my daughter helped me lift the roof of the cat house so I could retrieve little Kale. I had a hard time figuring out where to bury her. We buried so many kittens last year, all the spots I could think of already had kittens buried in them. Then I remembered that we still have walnut seeds that need to be planted. We keep forgetting about them.

Sweet little Kale is now laid to rest and, hopefully, will have a tree growing in her memory.

I know we have too many yard cats, and it’s so hard to get them spayed and neutered – a socialized kitten would have been easy to get done! It’s still really sad when we lose any. It’s one thing for them to just disappear, as the adults do, pretty regularly. We never know what has happened to them. It’s entirely possible, if unlikely, that someone found them and took them and kept them. This is the second kitten we’ve lost this year, and the other one looked like a still birth, so even that was very different. It was so special to have a feral cat like Brussel trust us enough to have her kittens in the sun room, where we could keep watch over them and socialize them right from the start. There was even someone interested in adopting Kale, though I think that was another person that backed out, since I’ve heard nothing since.

*sigh*

Rest well, little one.

The Re-Farmer

Getting stuff done, a small miracle, and an attempted kitnapping

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It’s mid afternoon as I start to write this, and time to take a break from the heat.

Depending on which weather app I look at, our expected high today is supposed to be 22C/72F or 24C/75F. As I write this, one app tells me we are at 23C/73F, while another tells me we are at 21F/70F, with the humidex putting us at 25C/77F.

All our outdoor thermometers are in full sun, so they’d be reading high, but given how I felt while outside, I’d say at least the humidex making it feel like 25C/77F is accurate!

My morning rounds finished off with watering all the garden beds, trees and bushes. For the vegetable beds, I set up the fertilizer sprayer, because of this.

These are the Arikara squash, but all the winter squash and melons in the main garden area are also getting yellow and droopy like this. So are all the tomatoes. They’re still blooming and stuff, but looking very sickly. These seems like more than transplant shock.

The peppers, eggplant and herbs show no sign of this.

I looked up possible reasons for why this could be happening, and there are many possibilities. Most could not apply for various reasons. One very possible cause is lack of nitrogen; for all our amending, our soil is still nutrient deficient, being low on nitrogen in particular, though it is starting to improve.

The fertilizer I got was and 18-18-21; a tomato, fruit and vegetable ratio. With the hose attachment applicator, I went through most of the container by the time all the beds were done. It’s recommended to apply every 7-14 days. I’ll need to get another container before then, because there isn’t enough to do a complete watering with what’s left in the cannister right now!

When I got to watering the walnuts and Korean pine, I had a couple of surprises.

The first photo is the year old sapling, and it’s doing very well. The second photo, though, is what I found after removing the mulch that somehow ended up on top of the plastic collar, completely covering where the seed was planted.

Something was digging in there!

My first thought was that a squirrel or something stole the walnut seed. Still, I started digging, just to confirm it was gone.

I found it.

Whatever was digging had stopped a couple of inches above the walnut seed! So I just replaced the dug out soil and gave it a thorough watering.

I was encouraged to find that the soil was still moist at the level of the seed. Just barely, but at least it wasn’t dried out!

Then I found what looks like our first sprouted sapling. At least I hope that’s what it is. Until the leave unfurl, it’s hard to tell. While I tried to remove any roots I found while digging the hole for it, it’s still possible something else is sending up shoots.

Speaking of sending up shoots, I saw our first zucchini sprouts today!

Just in 2 out of 3 spots planted, so far. No sign of the white scallop squash, but I remember those took a lot longer to germinate compared to other summer squash we planted last year. We are seeing a remarkable number of frogs this year – more than we’ve ever seen since moving out here – which gives me hope that the squash sprouts will survive. I haven’t seen a single slug this year, yet, and I’d say we have all those frogs to thank for that!

My daughter, meanwhile, headed out this morning to start mowing the lawn with the riding mower, after I came inside for lunch.

Some time later, I heard a knocking at my window.

My daughter needed help. She had tried to mow closer to the crab apple trees. She got caught on a branch that flung off her hat…

… and her glasses!

Crabapple branches are horrible for that sort of thing. It’s like they reach out and grab at you, like something out of a cartoon scare scene!

She had been looking for them but, without her glasses, she couldn’t see very well. So I went out to help her look, but had no better success. Her biggest fear was that she’d run over them with the mower, so of course that was the first place she looked, but when it came to the grass, who knows how far a springy branch could and flung them!

After a while I suggested she go inside to get her prescription sunglasses while I kept searching. Then she would at least be able to see while looking!

While she was gone, I remembered her worry about having run over them, so I decided to look at the mower, too. She had stopped it well away from where the tree branch had caught her.

When I found them, I just had to take a picture, or no one would believe me.

There they were, sitting like someone had very carefully folded them closed and put them in the safest spot possible. They couldn’t even be accidentally stepped on in that spot. While needing a lens cleaning, they were completely undamaged.

An absolute miracle! I brought them to the house just as she reached the door to go back out with her prescription sunglasses. She was so incredibly relieved!

Then she was happily back to mowing.

When I headed back to work in the garden, I didn’t get much done. It was getting way too hot by then, and I was in the full sun. I went through the soil in the kiddie pool we tried using to grow zucca melon before, only to have them eaten by slugs. The soil was full of crab grass but, being contained as they were, it was easy to clear them away. I then used about half of it to top up the row of asparagus, against the log border. I wasn’t able to dig down to the proper depth when they were planted, as it gets too rocky, so I was glad to have the soil available to top them up.

If there is anything alive to help out. I strongly suspect that it took too long for use to plant the asparagus and strawberries. I don’t expect to see the asparagus quickly, but the strawberries should have appeared by now. I’ll keep watering the new bed, just in case, but it might be a total loss.

One thing I’ll have to do later today, and hopefully snag a daughter to assist, is set netting around the trellis bed. This is where the red noodle beans and Hopi Black Dye sunflowers were planted, along with the free pumpkin seeds and the baby onion sprouts I found while cleaning up the bed Aside from overwintered onions and the collars where the pumpkins are planted, this bed is pretty open.

The cats have been digging in it.

So far, they don’t seem to have actually dug up any seeds, but they did dig up at least one or two tiny onions. I’ve set the rest of my tall metal plant stakes, plus some bamboo stakes, around the bed to hold the netting. I’ll wrap the entire bed in netting, like I did with the corn and beans bed. That should be enough to keep them out.

In the process I found my first red noodle bean sprout! There was just a bit of stem visible, elbowing its way through the soil surface, so I didn’t bother taking a picture, but I’m very happy to see it! There should be others, soon!

I’ve set things up so that, after the netting is in place, it won’t block access to where the remaining three vertical support posts for the permanent trellis need to be installed. Keeping the cats out of the bed is the priority right now!

That will wait until things start to cool down a bit, though. I just don’t have any tolerance for heat anymore!

On a completely different note, I have some cuteness to share with you.

We still don’t have a name for this mama. For a mostly feral cat, she is thankfully quite comfortable hanging around the house. Very unlike the other more feral mamas! She takes very good care of her kittens – and any others that happen to be around!

There is a gorgeous long haired tabby that I decided to start calling Rabi, because I thought it might be Kohl’s brother, but I think I’m wrong. While we can’t see to know for sure, I think he might be a she.

This is what I caught her doing, today.

That’s her, trying to kitnap Havarti!

I saw her trying to carry off Hastings, yesterday.

She’s acting like a mother cat trying to carry her own kittens away, but these aren’t her kittens, and they don’t want to be carried off by her!

It has me wondering if perhaps she lost her own litter, and some maternal instinct has her wanting to carry off other kittens to mother. I’ve noticed she (I’m going to just assume “she” at this point) has been following me around the yard, but never quite allowing me to get close or reach out to her. I can’t say she ever looked pregnant – another reason we thought she might have been male. I don’t quite know what to make of it!

We’ll have to keep an eye on her. Hopefully, we can get her friendly enough to get her into a cat carrier end get her spayed!

The Re-Farmer

Getting stuff done, and birthday take out

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The cats had me up ridiculously early this morning. I ended up just doing the outside cat feeding and going back to bed, instead of doing my full morning rounds. Thankfully, I did actually get some real sleep the second time around, even if it meant having Butterscotch basically lying on my head. She seems to associate my being in bed as “it’s safe now”, and she’ll come out of hiding from under the armchair and start demanding attention before curling up and sleeping right against my head and neck.

My daughter’s appointment at the hospital wasn’t until 4:40, and we were planning to be on the road by 3:30, so I did have some time in the afternoon to get the weed trimmer out and start clearing around the house. We were way behind on that in some areas, particularly around the portable greenhouse. I had just a bit left to do around the north side when the weed trimmer simply stopped. Usually, when that happens, it means the plug in the handle had come loose, but that was fine. I checked all down the extension cords (I need three 300′ cords to be able to reach everything), but everything was fine. So I messaged my daughters asking if one of them could check the breakers, but none were tripped.

We might be down a weed trimmer.

I’m hoping it was just over worked and will start again when I test it tomorrow. By the time we confirmed it was not the breakers, I had to put everything away, so I could clean up and change before we had to leave.

I did remember to prepare the cat soup variation for the kittens, and had it all ready for my older daughter to take care of while we were gone. The kibble mixed in with the canned cat food and warm water would have had plenty of time to get nice and soft by then.

One of the things I started before the weed trimming was replace the hose end with the pin prick hole in it with one of the new couplings I picked up. It was definitely the quickest and easiest fix I’ve ever had! No screw clamps on these things. It took me a while to understand how the rest worked, though. It just didn’t make sense to me, but the shut off valve is basically just pulling the female coupling part right off. That can be screwed into the end of another hose, or into a nozzle, then popped back in place for the water to start flowing. Which works well enough, except that I was attaching this to a soaker hose. Then, after about an hour, to a different soaker hose in another bed. The hoses are different brands and their mail couplings are designed slightly differently. One is a lot deeper than the other, and both were difficult to screw onto the new coupling’s end properly. It’s really designed to work with the same brand’s matching male couplings, not regular hose ends. I haven’t tried it with a sprayer nozzle, yet. One of the sprinkler hose connections leaked a fair bit, but I just move it so it would lean into the mulch near one of the plant collars in the bed that was being waters.

It might actually be worth replacing the other hose ends with this new type I got. A lot of the ones with screw clamps on them either still leak, or they are hard to attach and detach, because the screw clamps are in the way.

Anyhow. Just the two beds got watered, so I’m going to have to make sure to do a full watering of everything else, tomorrow morning. We’re expected to reach a high of 23C/73F tomorrow, then a high of 26C/79F the day after, so everything is going to need it!

My daughter had a questionnaire they’d sent to her all filled out to bring along for her appointment. It was close enough to her appointment time that I dropped her off at the doors before finding a parking spot. When I caught up with her, there was absolutely no one else in the waiting room, so she got called in right on time.

The first person (a nurse?) took her sheet with the questions, but the only reason they went through them at all was because my daughter hadn’t quite understood some of their questions, and hadn’t answered them. After a little while, she was taken to see the surgeon that will be operating on her wrist.

Most of what they asked was, in a nutshell, are you really sure you want to do this? Is it really so bad you’re willing to go under anesthetic and have someone digging around in your wrist? The surgeon was, at first, careful with how he phrased things but, after hearing how my daughter answered, realized he could go right into gruesome detail without any issue. So my daughter got a very intense description of what the surgery will entail, and was she really sure it was bad enough to go through this?

It makes me wonder just what sort of things they had to deal with in the past, to make them have to asked some of these questions!

My daughter, meanwhile, was more than happy to accept the surgery. Her ganglion happens to be on the small side right now, but when it gets bad, it gets really bad. The pain gets extreme and renders her arm pretty much useless.

She left with a printout with pre-op instructions. We have a date for the surgery, but she’ll get a call in about a week for the exact time she needs to come in. It’s just day surgery, so I’ll be driving her in, then hanging around to take her home.

We’re pretty impressed that she’s getting her surgery so relatively quickly. The referral was sent in April. To get such a quick surgery date for what is classified as elective surgery so quickly is very rare. She’s still waiting on other referrals her doctor had sent out for her.

Once she was done, I asked if there was anything we needed to do, while we were in town. After messaging with her sister for a bit, it was decided that we would go to a Pizza Hut – her choice for her special birthday take out (it’s not her birthday yet, but we split things like this up throughout the birth month, instead) – courtesy of her sister. We ended up getting four large stuffed crust pizzas, plus two 22 count boneless wings with different sauces.

That cost my daughter over $200 – and that was before the tip was added!

It’ll feed us for several days, though!

The ride home sure smelled good, though – and we were both quite hungry by then!

I may not have done my full morning rounds, but I did do my evening rounds. I’m concerned about a lot of my transplants. All of the transplants in the main garden area, and even in the east garden beds, are looking strangely yellow and floppy. The eggplant, peppers and herbs transplanted into the old kitchen garden seem fine, but all the other transplants are looking like they are dying. This doesn’t look like transplant shock, either. I don’t know what to make of it, but at this point, I’m not sure any of the melons or winter squash will survive! I’ve tried looking up the possible causes, and the only thing that seems likely is lack of nitrogen.

I did get some water soluble fertilizer while in town recently, so I think I’ll be making use of that when I do the watering tomorrow!

Other things are looking just fine. Like the raspberries that have spread into the old compost pile.

Turn your volume up for these videos.

You can’t see very many, but the raspberry bushes were absolutely buzzing with mostly bumblebees. There is one huge bumble in the second video. You can even hear the much deeper tone of that one’s buzzing!

These raspberries have had zero tending to, other than my pulling some of the weeds around the edges. No watering or anything. They’re doing fantastic, though!

On a completely note, here is some adorableness for you.

I’m actually not 100% sure which cats these are, but I think it’s Mitsy and Toni all snuggled together. The cats just love this box! It’s a compromise with the cats, to allow them on the dining table; we used to allow only Ginger and Toni up there, as a safe space to get away from the other cats. When we started to find them snuggling with other cats, it just didn’t make sent to chase the 4 legged cats away from the 3 legged ones! Now, we’ll go past the box and sometimes find three large cats mashed into the box, literally hugging each other to fit. They keep moving when we stop to try and get a picture, though.

Tomorrow, if all goes well, we’ll be able to make a dump run, and my daughter plans to break out the riding mower. I do hope I can get that weed trimmer going again, as there are still areas that need to be done. Particularly around garden beds I need to work on. If not, I might be able to borrow my brother’s gas powered weed trimmer. I’m hoping they’ll be able to come out this weekend. The last couple of times they came out, I missed them entirely, and I’d love to do some catching up with them, too.

We shall see!

For now, I’m happy with what I managed to get done outside today, in the short time I had available for it, and that we got my daughter’s surgery consultation appointment done. It seems strange to be excited about getting surgery, but that ganglion has been causing her so much pain, it’s going to make a huge difference for her, once it’s gone!

I’m so glad we found this doctor and my daughter is finally getting this stuff done!

The Re-Farmer

The good the bad and the ugly!

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Or should I say sickly?

I was able to get a bunch of photos of the kittens this evening. As we have discovered is typical, the older kittens start to get eye infections once they start eating mostly solid food and aren’t nursing as often. It’s a strain of herpes that we’ve since learned is particularly difficult in our area.

So… just fair warning that some of the kittens in the slideshow below look a hot mess, after getting their eyes washed.

I started with Poirot’s cuties first, though.

A rare image of some of Inspector Japp’s white belly and chest spots!

It looks like Captain Hastings (next photo) is related to Ghosty. She has those shadows of colour on her head. When Ghosty was that size, she had those hints of pattern in her fur, but was otherwise almost completely a cream colour. Those shadows kept getting darker as she got older, and now they are very brown. Which is why we think she might be an albino tabby. That and her eyes that glow red when the light hits them. Hastings has a dark tail and dark ear tips, and such pale eyes!

Miss Lemon is the biggest of the three and very assertive! 😄

I’ve contacted a local large animal rescue that had reached out to me last year about possibly taking a more feral pregnant cat to socialize and integrate into plans for opening their rescue to the public for events and tours, but we didn’t have one at the time. They ended up not being able to open last year, largely due to weather. They’ll be having a grand opening later this month, though. If they could take in Poirot and her babies, that would be amazing.

The next image is Sir Robin the Brave. He was all curled up in the grass, napping, and did not appreciate being interrupted! His eye is actually looking much better right now. I didn’t see his sister, Kale, this evening. She was looking pretty sick. We’ve been bringing her into the house for eye washing in the mornings lately. I do hope she’s okay, and was just napping somewhere.

The next image is of Havarti and Little Rig, both of whom are looking much, much better now! I’ve been able to catch Havarti every now and then, but he really doesn’t like it and keeps his distance.

Then Grommet came by. His eyes are looking better, too, but he still got an eye wash after I got that picture. He’s slightly more socialized than his brother, Zipper. Zipper looks just terrible after his eye wash! The only reason I was able to catch him to wash his eyes is because they were both stuck completely shut! Normally, he would fight me off, but he’s so sick, he actually let me wash his eyes, while I had him on the roof of the cat house. Then he just stayed up on the roof, in the warm sunshine, making snorking noises.

The next image is Eyelet and Wormy snuggled for a nap. Wormy has one slightly sticky eye, but nothing of concern anymore. Eyelet’s eyes are… well… check out that last photo!

That blue is so pale, his eyes look almost white!

I also suspect he’s deaf.

~~~back from a quick run outside to switch soaker hoses in the garden~~~

Well, I found Kale! She’s sleeping in a kitten pile in the cat house. 😁

Adorable kittens aside…

Today, my younger daughter and I headed out for some errands. One of the things I needed was to get myself a pair of non-work shoes. Finding shoes for my messed up feet is never easy, so my daughter suggested we go into the bigger city, rather than the nearest Walmart in the smaller, nearer city. We had just started driving when my cell phone started ringing.

It was home care.

They weren’t going to have anyone for my mother’s morning med assist.

Which is supposed to happen between 7 and 9am.

It was about 9:20 or so when we got the call.

*sigh*

On the plus side, my mother’s place is along the way, so we were already part way there. I called my mom to let her know about home care, and that I was on my way. The hands free unit my brother gave me sure came in handy!

My mother wasn’t happy. When I got there, she started talking about hiring someone, though the home care office, to do med assists for her. Just one person doing her assists, all the time, and always at the same time (she says they keep coming later and later). I had to explain to her, they can’t do that – and she can’t just hire some random local person to do her med assists, either. There are laws about that.

She doesn’t accept that.

I couldn’t stay long, though, and was soon on my way. My sister was going to be showing up after lunch and taking her to the cemetery to visit our family gravesites. While it will be easier for my mother to get in and out of my sister’s car, I knew it would still take a lot out of her!

That done, my daughter and I continued on our way. Neither of us had had breakfast yet, so lunch was the first order of business.

Then my daughter, sweetheart that she is, busted her butt, trying to find me shoes. She knows me too well! I’m terrible when it comes to buying things for myself. Especially things I need. Add in how difficult it is to find shoes that fit, I would have given up after the first couple of pairs where I couldn’t even get my foot in. I used to be able to wear men’s size 9’s, triple wide. That’s the size of my work boots. That’s the size of my inside shoes I was wearing at the time, that are wearing out and falling apart. In the end, the only shoes I could get my feet into where men’s size 11’s, wide, and even then, some styles still didn’t work.

In the end, we found a pair that fit, but were absolutely tacky. The grey was okay, but the bright neon yellowish green accents were a bit much. Being the only ones I could find that fit the bill, I was willing to get them, until my daughter spotted another display shelf.

I got the same shoe, in bright red. It matches my new dress. 😄 They look like runners, but the “laces” are fake and stretchy, so they’re actually slip ons, not lace ups. I think they’ll work out just fine and, thanks to my daughter, I wasn’t going insane by the time we found them!

From there, we had our shopping lists to get. We were both pretty tired – my daughter actually fell asleep during the drive in! – so we took our time about it. Which worked out, since my husband remembered a few things he messaged us about, too.

We didn’t refill our water jugs in the city, though. We were going to do that locally, so I could get my “buy 10, get one free” freebie. During the drive from the city, though, I did end up pulling over so my daughter could take over driving while I tried closing my eyes for a bit. The energy drink I got for the ride accomplished nothing!

By the time we got to town, though, I was feeling much better, and was able to drive home after we finished in town.

I’d better get to bed early tonight and, hopefully, get some real sleep, because my daughter and I have an early start tomorrow! My brother and his wife got her a blacksmithing beginners workshop for her birthday this month, and we have to be there before 9am tomorrow. The drive will be almost an hour, as the forge is just past the smaller city. The workshop is all day, with a 1 hour break for lunch. I’ll probably pick something up in the city nearby, so we can have a picnic on the grounds (something they say is available) during break. It’s going to be a long day!

With that in mind, I’d better start winding down for the day, kick most of the cats out of my room, and try and get some sleep!

The Re-Farmer

We have cows

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Not our cows, but they’re here!

I’ve been hearing them for at least a week, probably two, but the renter’s cows didn’t come close to the barn area until yesterday evening. I got this shot, this morning.

I do love hearing the cows in the morning!

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties

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Just have to share the cuteness, first!

And the gorgeousness.

I’m not 100% sure, but I think that stunning cat in the first image might be Kohl’s brother, Rabi. He seems to want to be around me when I’m out and about in the yard, and even follows me while I’m doing my rounds at times, but will not let me come close. The problem is, once Kohl and Rabi got bigger and more mobile, we simply couldn’t get close to them. Kohl’s calico pattern made her easy to identify, but Rabi was one of several fluffy tabbies with white we had that year. I’ll have to go through my old photos from when they were little, and maybe I can tell.

The next photos are of Poirot’s kittens, and Poirot, enjoying breakfast.

It was pretty wet when I headed out – not actively raining, but still wet enough that the older kittens were all hunkered down in the warm and cozy cat beds inside the cat house. Which means it wasn’t until much later in the day that I saw Kale and Sir Robin. Oh, my goodness, they each have one really badly infected eye. We were able to get their eyes washed, but the antibiotics we had left in the fridge had gone fuzzy, so we don’t have any medication for them. Havarti, the orange tabby, has one messed up eye, too, but he seems to be getting better. Other kittens have leaky eyes, too – it seems to always happen when they get big enough to be weaned – but from what I could see today, these two have it the worst. 😢 I was thinking of contacting the Cat Lady about getting some more antibiotics through her, but she is slowly stepping away from rescue and may not even be in the country, with all the stuff going on with her kids.

I’m not sure how we’re going to manage once her rescue is done in a few months. The one other that I contacted, based on the Cat Lady’s recommendation, basically blew me off. They’re too full, anyhow. They all are. It’s no wonder the Cat Lady is burning out! I keep hearing people say to contact the humane society in the city, who are also full up, but when I looked into them before, they wouldn’t have anything to do with anyone outside the city. There’s a local branch, and they stopped doing intakes long ago, yet are still always full. It’s pretty ridiculous.

Well, we do the best we can for the kitties. What other choice is there? Besides calling the municipality to send someone out with a rifle, that is. That’s the only “help” they offer for rural colonies. We certainly aren’t the only ones will a yard full of cats! Not by a long shot.

Ah, well. It is what is it, and we play the hand we’ve been dealt.

The Re-Farmer