I couldn’t see any fresh growth on the sea buckthorn, mulberry or Liberty apple tree, but they all seem to have survived the winter. There’s still too much snow covering the ground to know if the snow crocuses or grape hyacinth are starting to come up. The saffron crocuses seem to be okay – something was digging around them and in the mulch around the Liberty apply tree, and some of the saffron crocuses got buried. Whatever did the digging – likely a skunk – clearly wasn’t after the bulbs, but probably found some insects or grubs to snack on. I haven’t seen any sign of tulips, yet. This section is now free of snow, so we should be seeing them pop through the mulch soon enough.
There were plenty of hungry kitties when I did the morning feeding, and some of them were still hanging around, looking for pets, as I was heading back to the house.
She really likes to lick my hands. The poor thing’s fur is so badly matted, and there are even burrs now stuck in her tail. At least she is socialized enough that, once things are warm enough, we should be able to use the new clippers to cut them off. Some of the other puffy cats, like Patience, are friendly, but getting any burrs or mats cut out might be too much for them.
Oh, dear. It just occurred to me.
I didn’t see Adam this morning. At all.
Which means she probably found some hiding place in the outer yard to have her litter. It would have been good if she’d used the sun room, but she doesn’t really go in there often at all. Even the cat house would have been good but, while there are cat beds at the windows in there, we had to take out the remains of boxes that had been in there, so there are no longer any more enclosed “nests” in that mamas have used in the past. Any time a cat has had a litter in there, though, they tended to disappear within days. I think it’s just too busy and active with other cats and they are quick to move their babies elsewhere.
If all goes well, I might be meeting up with the Cat Lady tomorrow. She has a whole bunch of wet cat food donations for us, and she said something about having more cat beds as well. We shall see. Tomorrow is looking to be a really nice day, too. Today’s high is supposed to be 8C/46F, but we’re supposed to reach highs of 16C/61F over the next two days! Even the overnight lows are supposed to stay above freezing for those two nights. We might be able to start removing the mulch from some of the winter sown beds, so the soil beneath can thaw out faster. If the long range forecast is to be trusted, we might even be able to sow cold tolerant things early. I’ll have to go through my bin of seeds for direct sowing and go through the most cold tolerant varieties to decide while ones can be planted first. At the very least, the peas will be able to go in, and we have two varieties of sugar snaps, and one variety of shelling peas we can plant as soon as the soil is workable. Those would be going into the main garden beds, though, and those are still covered in snow.
I noticed as she went past me to return to her babies that there was a wad of fur hanging off her hip. It looks like a mat was coming off. After giving her some wet cat food, I tried petting her babies. They were okay with it, though Mama snarled. I then tried to touch her hip to feel what was going on. I couldn’t feel anything that could have been an injury, but she did NOT like being touched and all out attacked my hand. It makes me think that her undercoat is getting pretty matted, and she might be in pain from it. Unfortunately, she’s still too feral for us to be able to check her out or help her with it. I’d hoped, with her in the cat cave with her babies, and getting special food and treats, she would start to become more socialized but, in the last few days, she seems to be getting more snarly and agitated, not less.
Well, we do the best we can for her. It’s not like we have any other options right now!
This morning, I stayed in my pjs, popped on some rubber boots and did my short rounds. Which is just as well. It was snaining – snow-raining – at the time. You could even hear a continuous almost crackling noise as frozen rain hit. In fact, you can hear it in the video I took this morning.
It was -1C/30F, with a wind chill of -4C/25F at the time. The thermometer in the portable greenhouse was reading 1C/34F. Not a lot of difference.
The holes in the roof probably didn’t help.
Yup, I found a couple of tears in the plastic this morning. Best guess is, a cat tried to jump onto it from the kibble house roof.
Thankfully, there was no other damage. For now, I used clear duct tape to close them up from the inside. Once everything is warm and dry again, I’ll at more to the outside.
I had a lot of hungry cats this morning, including Brussel, but she was nursing her babies and wouldn’t leave the cat cave. She waited for me to deliver her wet cat food breakfast, instead. I’m glad of that, as it is more assurance that she and her kittens won’t simply disappear one morning, to some hidden location.
Last of all, I gave her a squeeze treat. It was harder than usual, as there were other cats around, and they can smell it. They want some, too, but we don’t have enough for all the cats. They’re just for the mama.
Once again, as I moved the tube away so I could squeeze the rest out, she got angry at me. She did wait, though, as I squeezed the last of it onto my finger and put my hand in. There was no hesitation as she licked the last of it off – but when I pulled my hand away, she attacked it, trying to pull it back!
Sorry, Mama. You ate it all up!
Once I was back inside, I headed to bed pretty much right away. This time, the cats let me sleep – as did the pain killers. Somewhat. I got at least a couple of hours of sleep out of it.
Meanwhile, my daughters got the drain from the washing machine set up out the storm door and started laundry day. Later on, I will be opening up the drain pipe in the basement and working to clear it out some more. We’ve done the hot water/detergent flush from the kitchen sink a few times, but I can still hear from the laundry drain, what sounds like water backing up the pipe a bit. Not a problem at all for the kitchen sink, but a potential problem for wash cycle draining, as it drains so much faster than the kitchen sink, and is at least 6 feet closer to that first bottleneck. As good as that drain auger tip is for clearing the pipe, what we really need is a heavy duty bottle brush type pipe cleaner that can really scrape off the inside of the pipe. I’ve been looking and the closest I can find is up to 30 feet long (you can add sections to it) and can be attached to a drill, but it’s designed to clean dryer vents, so the brush is a LOT larger than the inner diameter of the pipe I am trying to clean out. The bristles may be flexible enough to bend and fit, though. I’ve found another version that includes a narrower bottle brush end for the lint trap that looks like it would fit much better, but the rod is only a maximum of 2′ long, and costs almost a much as the 30′ version.
*sigh*
I hate having to shop for this stuff online. I’ve never even seen anything like these at the hardware stores. Perhaps, however, I was just not in the right sections. Something to keep an eye out for.
Meanwhile, we’ll try to clear the pipe out as best we can, with the tools we’ve got.
It’ll be so nice to not have to run a house out the storm door window to do laundry again.
No one was available to go my mother’s med assist this morning.
Hmmm…
I was already planning to go to town today, but not for a few more hours. Instead, I arranged with the girls to take are of feeding and watering the cats outside, while I quickly took my meds, got dressed, grabbed our empty water jugs (the main reason I was going to town today) and headed out to my mothers. Since I had three water jugs to take along, my older daughter came down to help me with the doors before feeding the outside cats. She wasn’t impressed that I got another call to cover a no-show (nothing was said about why, this time, and I didn’t ask). She asked if the med assists were being done by volunteers, or if my mother was paying for the service. I told her, it’s covered by our health care system, so they are being paid. My mother has a list of names for all the home care aids she can expect to see. there are ten names on that list. It does seem odd that, with so many aids just for the scheduled route my mother is on (there would be many others), there isn’t someone who can cover when one can’t do the scheduled rounds.
Ah, well. It is what it is. At least the weather is better!
I did remember to phone my mother, first, to let her know I was on the way!
When I got there, my mother was not at all impressed. She’s angry that I have to drive aaaaall that way (it’s about 20-25 minutes of driving time, so not that bad) to do her meds. At least she didn’t start yelling about how we need to get rid of the lock box because she can do her meds herself.
She did, however, get upset over how I was taking the meds out of the bubble pack, and where the lock box was sitting, and where I put the note pad…
She began telling me how the home care aids would pop the pills out of the bubble packs “in the air” (meaning, not over the table, but right into their hands), and pills would go flying all over. Which may have happened a couple of times but, as far as I know, this was before she went to the hospital. It’s why I brought over the tiny dish so the meds could be put into it and double checked.
There was a different reason I was having issues with the bubble pack, though. I was opening the last bubble in this particular pack – and discovered it had been taped shut. I mentioned the tape and my mother said one of the aids did it because she had opened up the wrong day’s bubble.
I got the pills into the little bowl, then checked on the printout inside the cover of the bubble pack to count how many there supposed to be for her morning medications.
One was missing.
A few days ago, while digging for the lab work requisition form, I found a loose pill on the bottom of the lock box.
Now we know where it came from.
When the next aid came to do the med assist saw the pill and my note, she got a tiny envelope for it, labelled it and put it back in the lock box, so I was able to open that up and include it with the rest of the pills Mom was to take this morning.
I then made out a detailed note about when my mother got her medications, what I found and what I did, including putting a new bubble pack into the lock box.
My mother also has an inhaler to take morning and night and I asked her about it, but she said she hasn’t really been taking it. It was a test to see if it would help any with her breathing issues, and it made no difference that she could tell. So we skipped that.
Since I was there anyhow, I did some other stuff for her. The aids are supposed to have extra time booked to help my mother with things like a meal assist (she usually has food ready before they arrive). Some they ask if she needs anything done. Some of them never do. For her morning visit, this includes emptying the bucket in her commode, but they’re also supposed to be available to help her get dressed if she needs it.
I stayed with her to visit for a bit longer, basically waiting until the pharmacy in town opened at 9am, so I could phone them. When my mother started to complain again about my coming out – she is convinced the aids are cancelling simply because they don’t want to do their jobs – I told her that my being able to come out, and having a reliable vehicle to do it, is a blessing. That seemed to take her aback a bit, and I think she liked the idea of thinking of it that way.
After saying my goodbyes to my mother, I spent some time in the truck to update my family and my siblings before calling the pharmacy. With the meds my husband takes, I wasn’t sure they’d even be ready so quickly; he’d called in his refills just yesterday. As we were talking, she asked my time frame, so I told her where I was (which gave her an idea of how long it would take) and why. We deal with this particular pharmacist often enough that she remembers our names and most of my husband’s medications. When I mentioned that there was no one to do my mother’s med assist this morning, she completely understood. They had been in the same situation with her own mother – they even had a lock box. She said they often had home care cancelling visits for them, too. Being in another town, they had their own home care office and staff, but the issue was exactly the same. Last minute cancellations that the family had to cover, frequently. It seems to be a pretty universal problem, and not just in our province.
As for my husband’s refills, they wouldn’t be able to have them ready today, so that’s still scheduled for delivery in a couple of days. Which is fine. I still needed to make the drive to town. I just wasn’t going to go to the pharmacy as well.
Once in town, I got the water jugs refilled. I have a “frequent buyer” list where, after getting 10 refills, I get one free, so one of my refills was free today.
While there, I picked up a couple of things for home, as well as things for our Easter basket. I think we have everything we want to put in it, this year, except for a small ham, which we might simply skip this year.
That done, it was just a quick stop for fuel before heading home. After unloading the truck to my daughter in the house, I left her to put things away while I parked the truck and closed up the gate. I had noticed the plastic on the cover over the raised bed in the old kitchen garden had some gabs fluttering in the wind, so I got the clear duct tape to secure it more.
Before finishing up and heading inside, I spotted Brussel with her babies and decided to give her a squeeze treat. She was really nervous today, though.
I found myself wondering if other cats had been bothering her and her babies – or maybe a skunk or a raccoon! In the two videos above, you can see how agitated she was.
Once I started giving her the squeeze treat, she was right in there – still agitated and somewhat aggressive, but very quick to start eating the treat! When I had to move my hand out so I could use my other hand to squeeze out what was left in the tube, she actually snarled at me and attacked my hand, trying to pull it back! I ended up squeezing the remaining paste onto my fingers (it didn’t start out on purpose!) and let her lick the treat off. She was okay with that, even as she continued to snarl at me.
It should be interesting to see if she has calmed down any, when I do the evening feeding.
I’m glad I was able to go into town for errands today, though. As I write this, we’ve reached our expected high of 6C/43F We’re actually supposed to stay above freezing overnight, but in the wee hours, we’re supposed to start getting a combination of rain and snow, which is supposed to continue through tomorrow. Tomorrow’s high is supposed to be only 2C/36F, but if the long range forecast is at all accurate, that’s going to be the coldest high we have from now on. We’re even expected to reach 15C/59F in a few days! Things are supposed to cool down again, and we’re even supposed to get more mixed rain and snow later in the month, but daytime highs are no longer expected to dip below freezing.
Not including wind chill. That’s a whole other animal!
I will continue to monitor the temperatures inside the greenhouse. While it gets colder overnight, it still maintains at least some warmth. I might decide to try starting seeds inside there, rather than in the basement, when it’s time to start the next batch.
As it is now, I am expecting to start potting up the pre-germinated tomato seeds tomorrow. I could do some tonight, but I want to be able to do all of them at once. Maybe not all 4 varieties, but at least all the seeds in a couple of varieties, just because of space issues.
With how chilly it is in the basement, they should handle the cooler night time temperatures in the greenhouse fairly well! My younger daughter has made a point of working on things while in the basement, so that the heater can be left running. She’d been down there for a couple of hours when I joined her for a bit, and the thermometer was still at 12C/54F. Meanwhile, the thermometer in the greenhouse was reading 19C/66F!
With the combination of rain and snow we’re getting tomorrow, I’m not going to uncover the raised bed but, by the day after, it should be thawed enough that we can take the mulch off the winter sown seeds.
I’m really looking forward to seeing what manages to germinate.
Today, my husband and I went on a very romantic anniversary trip to the lab for bloodwork, followed by a breakfast date. 😂
It was supposed to be a lunch date, but we were done too quickly, and the place we went to only had a breakfast menu. Ah, well. It was accessible, in budget, and my husband got to enjoy a rare time out of the house.
We were done early enough to stop at the post office before it closed for several hours over lunch. I knew the bulbs for my aquarium/grow light fixture would be in, but it turned out we had another package in early.
Part of it was more reflective cat collars (I’ve already removed all the bells) with breakaway collars for the fixed outside cats. We still have lots, but some of the cats have been losing theirs. While we’ve sometimes been able to find them again, undamaged, we’ve had to replace others completely. I want to have plenty available to use as we get more of the cats spayed and neutered.
I’ve had this brand of cat trimmer recommended to me, as something that is very quiet, so the noise doesn’t scare the cats. It was also highly rated on Amazon. Plus, it’s cordless. When it came on sale, I was finally able to pick it up.
The cat graphics on the packaging are rather terrifying, though. Yikes!
If you scroll through the images, you’ll see the contents. It’s got quite a range of clipper guards.
For our uses, though, we will probably have no guard at all, or the shortest one. This is to get rid of mats in the fur of some of our long haired cats. David, for example, will NOT let us brush him. We have mat cutting combs and have managed to pin him down at times to get some of the mats out, but with some of them, there’s just no way to hold him down in a position to reach and comb out the mats without hurting him. If we’re just trimming the fur right off, though, we’ll be able to get them.
So David in particular is slated for a hair cut!
Kohl, the lovely little long haired calico outside, has developed some serious mats. Her back feels some solid. When we brought Decimus in, she was badly matted, too, and we don’t want Kohl to get as bad as Decimus did! We had to snip so very carefully to get a huge mat off, and it wasn’t even the only one.
Other cats have smaller mats that we can tell, but they’re not as socialized as Kohl is. I’m hoping that, with some of the, at least, we’ll be able to quickly trim off mats as we are able. They might wind up looking very blotchy, but that’s better than having mats in their fur, pulling at their skin.
There’s no chance of doing this until things get – and stay – warmer, though! Especially overnight, when it comes to the outside cats.
For now, though, we’ve got the clipper on its charger, so it’ll be ready for when we finally get to try it out on David. Hopefully, it will work out!
What I was really wanting to do what get the heater going in the basement for a while, and heaters aren’t supposed to be left unattended. I’m not one to just hand around watching videos on my phone, my hands are too messed up to do my usual things, like crochet, and my eyes are too messed up to read, so…
Tomatoes it is!
Towards the end of the video, I included pictures I took of the thermometer in the portable greenhouse today. I was really impressed!
While I was starting my morning rounds, it was about -6C/21F shortly after 8:30am outside. At that time of day, it is just starting to get out of the morning shade. The thermometer inside was about -2C/28F or so.
When I checked again before going inside, shortly before 9am, the outside temperature was much the same, but the thermometer had already warmed up 4 degrees to 2C/39F.
I came out in in the afternoon and, at roughly 1:15pm, it was about 27C/81F in there. By about 4:10pm, it had warmed up to about 38C/100F in there! At least, that’s what the thermometer read. It didn’t feel anywhere near that hot to me.
This would be a good place for a high/low thermometer!
On a completely different topic, I have potential good news.
I was able to get some photos and short video of Brussel and her babies that I sent to the cat lady, joking that if she sent them to her circle, maybe someone might be interested in adopting a kitten in 6 or 7 weeks.
Much to my shock, she responded almost right away, saying someone was interested in the little calico!
I won’t be holding my breath on that, considering how many times people have backed out at the last minute, but gosh, it would be awesome if the babies could be adopted out right away! There is some progress in socializing Brussel, too – I was actually able to sneak a pet as she was walking past me and she actually stopped and let me pet her more!
In other cat news, there’s potential good news about Button. The Cat Lady and her family have adopted him permanently and, while he started growing again and is at normal size now, after being treated for worms three times (!!!), he also became both blind and deaf. His eyes were permanently dilated. Well, they’ve taken him to a cat eye specialist, and they think it might be a hereditary type of glaucoma. He’s now getting treatment for it. She sent me a photo, and his pupils are almost normal again – you can see his electric blue irises again. It would be nice if he could regain at least some of his vision!
My main goal was to get the raised bed cover in the old kitchen garden covered with plastic to create a cat proof space and greenhouse conditions over the rectangular bed. Not only we were able to get that done, but my daughter and I got the portable greenhouse I got on clearance a while back, set up too.
Of course, things didn’t go as expected, but nothing too extremely off.
With the raised bed cover, I had to bring over a couple of cinder blocks to support the small log I was using to weigh down the plastic at one end. That required chopping the end of the sump pump hose free of the ice, so it could be moved and not be under a cinder block. I’m actually glad that it needed to be done. So far, there hasn’t been enough seepage for the sump pump to be triggered, but the water level in the reservoir is slowly increasing. With the end of the hose completely encased in ice, if it did get triggered, it would not have been able to drain. The end of the hose is still filled with ice but, now that the black plastic hose it out and exposed to the sunlight, that will melt away rather quickly.
For now, the sides of the cover are weighted down with various things but eventually, I’d like to try something different to secure the plastic over the cover. I’ll have to think on that, first, and see what materials we have that I can use.
Then there was the little portable greenhouse.
The spot I wanted to set it up, as it was the most sheltered from the wind, while still getting lots of sun, had a pile of snow from clearing a path in the way. The eavestrough extension hose was also partially buried under there, which means the snow that melted off our entry roof drained under the pile of snow.
Once the snow was cleared off, my daughter and I took turns with an ax, chopping the ice away and shoveling it clear.
In the end, though, we couldn’t use the spot. Once the frame was assembled, we tried to find a good space to set it, but everything was just too uneven. The most level ground we could find was behind the kibble house, and even there, we had to set some scrap pieces of rigid insulation under one side to level it out.
Once we worked that out, we put the cover on. It gets tied to the frame on the inside, which my daughter did while I was on the outside, holding the cover in place. For the bottom ties, we had to tilt the entire thing so my daughter could reach the corners.
As careful as we were, we did end up with a couple of tears in the cover. One, I was able to use clear duct tape to secure together again. The other was right along a zipper in the doorway, so the tape isn’t going to work there. Ah, well. I don’t expect this to last more than a couple of years. The cover, I mean. I expect the frame to last longer.
Once the cover was tied down and the frame back in position, we used the ties and tent pegs that came with the package to secure it to the ground. The metal tent pegs were pretty wimpy, but three of them did the job. At the fourth corner, the frozen ground was simply too solid. After digging around in my garden supplies in the sun room, I found a single tent peg that was a lot strong, and was able to hammer that into the ground. Still not all the way, but enough to secure the line to the greenhouse.
This may have been the most level location, but it is very much in the way. Especially those tie downs! I knew the black cord would be a problem, and could just see myself tripping over them because they are both dark and very thin. So I got some bright orange paracord and wrapped that around the lines for visibility.
In the end, I decided to take some video of both projects and put it together, rather than post a whole bunch of photos on Instagram to embed here. So, here is a short little video of the set up we got done today.
I’m glad we were able to get both done today, before the temperatures drop over the next couple of days. It will make quite a difference for the winter sown bed. As for the portable greenhouse, I will be monitoring the temperature inside, but it will be a while before we have anything to put in there.
I want to get other seeds started over the next week or so. The replacement bulbs I ordered should be arriving on Monday, so I’ll have enough light for more seed starts, plus what we’ve already got going.
While I’m happy we got these done today, I’m afraid I may have over done it. I’ve been stiffening up and starting to hurt after just a few minutes of sitting down, and my left thigh is still feeling a mess from the cramping. Enough to make me very nervous about going to bed.
Well, while I was working on the video, it ended up being my right thigh that started to give me trouble, starting to cramp up on me! I was able to move around and stretch it out, so I’m hoping I’ve managed to avoid another bout, but now both my legs are feeling unstable. I’ve been working on staying hydrated, etc., but it just doesn’t seem to be making a difference. Even when I tried to nap this morning, I was in so much pain I finally broke down and took more painkillers – one of the ones from my previous prescription. As much as I was still hurting after taking those, it turns out it still worked better than the new ones. I think I’ll see about getting a phone appointment with my doctor to talk about that.
Tomorrow is Sunday, so that will be my day of rest. Hopefully, that will give me some recovery time. It also happens to be our anniversary – my husband and I will be celebrating 37 years of marriage. We’ll be doing a lunch date on Monday, though. We will both be going to the lab in the morning for fasting blood work, so we’ll be having a lunch date afterwards. With his mobility issues and pain levels, we certainly aren’t going to make multiple trips. Not even for an anniversary! Just going out once is going to be difficult for him.
*sigh*
It’s past 10pm now. I suppose I should try going to bed.
Before heading inside, I saw Brussel was well settled around her babies. I reached in to try and pet her. She didn’t like it, hissed at me, but did not actually try to bite me or anything like that. I got to sneak pet her babies, too.
There were no other cats in the sun room, so I went and got a squeeze treat. This is my first attempt to use one with her. She started growling as I reached in with it and immediately got distracted by the deliciousness in front of her face. She continued to growl at me, then entire time she scarfed it down!
I think that’s good progress on socializing Brussel!
With the temperatures swinging from a few degrees above freezing, to a few degrees below, things have been melting at a slower pace. As a result, the moat around the garage is nowhere near as large as it has been in the last couple of years. The “pond” behind the garage/in front of the outhouse that started to form is pretty much gone, and the paths are clear. There’s the low spot at the driveway into the yard, but it’s fairly easy to skirt around.
They seems to be “hunting” something through the ice at times. Probably water moving under their weight, or the ice making crackling noises. It’s barely thick enough hold the weight of the cats.
We’re supposed to have a high above freezing today, but below freezing over the next couple of days. After that, we’re supposed to warm right up and, if the long range forecast is to be believed, have highs well above freezing, from now on.
We’re still below freezing as I write this, so I’m going to wait a bit before I see what I can do with the raised bed cover in the old kitchen garden. The surface it definitely too frozen to remove any mulch, so I want to get that plastic over the frame. That should help thaw things out, even as the temperatures dip a bit, as we’re still supposed to get quite a bit of sunlight. It should get nice and toasty under the plastic.
I will have to watch myself, though. I didn’t think I’d over done it over the past couple of days, but my joints have been stiffening up and hurting a LOT. I honestly can’t tell if the new pain killers are helping or not. Worse, when I tried rolling over in bed last night, I got hit with a nasty Charlie horse in my left thigh. I haven’t had one of those in quite a while! While not the worst I’ve had (that was, hands down, the time I had it in both legs at the same time), I was unable to get to my phone to message my daughter for help. I did manage to take some acetaminophen (same family as the prescription painkillers). Ibuprofen would have been better, but they are NSAIDs, and contraindicated.
My daughters were both up, though, and heard me while I was trying to deal with the pain. My older daughter came down to see if I was okay, then stayed to try and help as much as she could. There really wasn’t much she could do until it finally started to go away. She then helped me stand up and walk to the bathroom, hung around to help me walk back again, and get back into bed. I needed her help to lift the affected leg up so I could lie down. After she was sure I was okay, she went back upstairs, and her sister came and stayed with me for a while longer.
Just looking at the time, I’m realizing it’s been about 7 hours since the Charlie horse hit me, and the affected muscles are still feeing weak and trembly, and like they are on the edge of cramping again.
I have been trying to think what changed recently that it would hit me again after all this time. I am thinking dehydration might have contributed to it, having been out and about for the past couple of days, but even that doesn’t seem likely. Very frustrating!
With how little sleep I ended up getting last night, because of it, I plan to try and get a nap in before heading outside again. I’m actually nervous about lying down and getting hit with it again!
While doing my morning rounds, I found that Brussel had left her babies and gone outside. This gave me a chance to take a peak at them before she returned, and I gave her her wet cat food treat.
The babies are a lot more mobile now, and their eyes are now open!
You can see the calico’s eyes in the first image, and the black and white kitten can be seen blinking in the video at the end.
I went to my mother’s today and was gone long enough that it was time to feed them again when I got home. I started that before even going inside, and asked my daughter to bring a jug of warm water for them. I was coming back into the sun room when she warned me about the stinky kitty!
This is the little one I’m not sure what to make of. He seems… lost, somehow. He’s quite a bit smaller than the couple of others that I’ve been seeing. He and the cats don’t seem to mind each other. I’ve sort of given up trying to chase him out, since he just goes under that shelf instead of out the door. The others will leave the sun room when I go to chase them out, sometimes even just by telling them to leave through the intercom on the critter cam, but not this little guy.
That crunching noise they make when they eat the kibble is very distinctive!
Anyhow…
Today has turned out to be a lovely day. Which was appreciated since my mother had to actually go with me for some of her errands. I’d made a point of eating breakfast before I left, since I wasn’t planning to eat at her place with my current Lent restrictions. I have given up sugar, but my mother gives up meat on Fridays. She did ask me to pick up some wedges for her, forgetting that she got her Meals on Wheels today. They tend to have fish on Fridays in general; today, it was a tuna sandwich for the main protein portion. She had enjoyed most of her wedges before it got delivered, so she just ate the soup and saved the rest for later.
This time, I remembered to take her blood pressure, though I had to ask her where she’d put the machine. It should be left on the table, tucked away behind her telephone’s base, next to the lock box, but she decides it takes up too much space, and hides it. This time, it was in the linen closet.
As she was eating her wedges, I went into the lock box to get her lab requisition paperwork for this month. The printouts had ended up on the bottom of her lock box and I had to really did to get them out.
Which is why I found the pill.
One of her medications – a pill she takes once in the morning, and again, just before bed – was loose on the bottom of the box. I checked her bubble packs in there to see which medication it was. There is no way to know how long it’s been in there. Even before we got the lock box, the home care aids are supposed to empty the bubble pack capsule for the time of day into a tiny bowl with a lid I’d given my mother, specifically for this. When she first started getting med assists, there were a couple of times when a pill was almost lost, just on her table, and another was found on the floor when she was sleeping. That’s why I brought the tiny bowl. It’s a sauce bowl made to look like a miniature tagine, so it has a conical lid. I ended up putting the found pill into the bowl, along with a note for the next home care aid. The pill would need to be thrown out, but they need to know that this happened, even if we have no idea when. Their job is to make sure my mother takes her meds properly. For them to start losing pills and not even notice is a problem!
My mother had other things she needed help with today, and I was able to get some things done before we left for our first stop, the lab at the nearby hospital (that doesn’t really have any doctors!). I had my own requisition forms from my doctor, which I’d left in the truck, yesterday. Which was an oops. It turns out my blook work required fasting. I was able to get my EKG done, though.
From there, we went to her bank for some cash, then to the pharmacy to get her bubble packs. They were going to be delivered later in the day, but she wasn’t sure if there would be money owing on it or not. It turned out there was; the fiscal year for her pharmacare deductible has flipped. She had stayed in the truck, so when I came back to tell her house much it would be, she was surprised and said she’d never paid that much before. Which just means she doesn’t remember, since it would have been a year since she’s had to pay. I explained it a bit, as she thought that getting charged for her meds was some random thing. She would not have understood what a deductible is, but she did understand that she’d have charges every April.
Not that she’ll remember, next April! Hopefully, by then, she’ll be in the supportive living situation she wants to be in.
After that, my mother was ready to go home. Once I got her inside and settled in, I got a couple of loads of laundry started for her, then headed to the grocery store with her shopping list. It turned out to be timed perfectly. By the time I got back, her wash was ready to be loaded into the driers.
I had to make a few substitutions on her shopping list this time, and I always go through everything with her while I put things away. I even made sure to open the milk carton for her. Her local grocery store only carries the 2L cardboard cartons now, instead of the plastic jugs. They can be difficult to open at the best of times. The last time I opened one for her, I had to use a knife to separate the carboard! This time, it opened properly, but my mother still would have had a hard time with it.
While waiting for her laundry, I had time to do some more housekeeping stuff for her.
Which is when we talked about a gift bag that was set aside when I first arrived.
From our vandal.
It turns out he had come over this morning, not long before I got there. She had told him I was coming and he apparently completely lost it and started saying some really horrible things about me. My mother didn’t want to repeat what he said, but confirmed that it was “the usual”. She said she told him that his hate is why he’s so sick now. He won’t let her talk, though. If she tries to stand her ground and respond to what he says, he just leaves.
The bag turned out to have a small head of cabbage, a couple of onions, and a jar of soup wrapped in paper towel to insulate it.
My mother has told him repeatedly, not to bring her soup. She says the terrible things he says and does makes it taste bad.
There was also an envelope, with written instructions that what was inside was only for her to read.
Which, of course, is the last thing she should actually do.
I ended up opening the envelop for her, then handed it to her to do as she wanted. There were some copies of a photo of our vandal in there, clearly taken while he was at the hospital, though not in a hospital bed. Then she started trying to read the letter, out loud.
After a while of her struggling to read it, I offered to read it to her.
Once I saw it, I could see why she was struggling! It wasn’t just because English is not her first language, or her eye sight. It wasn’t even because his writing was messy; in fact, it was somewhat more legible than usual. Just looking at the shakiness of the writing, he clearly is having a hard time controlling the mobility of his hands. No, it was the content and some of the very strange spellings of things. He had some terrible things to say about me, of course. According to him, I’m to blame for his cancer – and his doctor and counsellor agree, 100%. He also claimed I told my mother the soup from him is poison. ???!!!??? Plus a few other things that had us wondering where his mind is at, because they were complete inventions.
We talked about him for a while. Thankfully, my mother was able to handle the contents of the letter better than in the past, and she didn’t try to defend or make excuses for him.
Then I put everything back in the envelope, set it aside, and we moved on to other things.
All in all, even with the issue of our vandal, it turned out to be a really good visit. My mother was in good spirits, even if she was clearly really struggling to move around her apartment. The visit went well, the laundry and housework got done, and my mother is now well stocked with groceries and her medications.
Just before I left, my mother checked the time and realized that I was there for five hours! We got lots taken care of in that time.
It actually felt like I wasn’t gone that long, because it was still so bright out by the time I headed home. I am just loving these longer days!
It’s going to be extra nice once the snow is gone, and we can start getting work done in the garden!
I wasn’t able to push the cat cave back into the cube, and it didn’t take long for Brussel to knock it over onto its side. When it was being used by the inside cats, they were constantly knocking it over, too.
Gosh, Brussel is a beauty!
My daughter and I had our appointments with the doctor today. When we got back, it was well past when the outside cats would normally have gotten their second feeding of the day, so they were all over the place – including Brussel. Once the kibble was out, I took advantage of the opportunity to fix the cat cave. I was able to taker her babies out and set them on one of the cat beds on the platform above.
Also, they didn’t hiss or spit at me, or act afraid, while I handled them this time. We need to be really careful about handling them, as it risks Brussel moving them somewhere else if she doesn’t like it, but they do need to get used to human contact if we want any hope of socializing them.
I was able to get the cat cave pushed into the cube in the cage, then used a broom handle to push it in even further, and settle it onto the blanket on the bottom of that cube. Hopefully, it won’t get pulled out of the cube again, and the walls of the cut will keep it from tipping over.
Once that was done, I went to park the truck in the garage and, by the time I got back, Brussel was in the cave with her babies, and I was able to give her her wet cat food treat. If nothing else, the extra food we give her might be enough to keep her from moving her babies. I’ve found the mamas tend to move their litters several times before they get too big – sometimes to the empty farm buildings across the road from us, and we really don’t want her dragging her babies through the garden, across a rather busy gravel road, ditches on either side, and around a pond on the other property, before crossing the farm yard to reach one of the buildings they can get into!
We do what we can to keep them close, but with the ferals, there’s just no real way to do anything about it. Even Butterscotch, before we finally got her spayed and indoors, would move her kittens across the road, and she was a socialized cat!
We shall see how it works out.
In other things…
My daughter and I had our appointments one after the other – having the same doctor is very convenient! – in the afternoon, but we left a fair bit earlier. We stopped at the feed store in my mother’s town to pick up a couple of 40 pound bags of kibble (we’ll need at least 2 more, but I’m hoping to get them at the feed store to the north of us) for the outside cats. Another quick stop for drinks and some beef jerky for the road, and we continued on to the town the clinic is in. We got there in good time and hung out in the truck for a while, chatting, before going in. My daughter had her appointment first, and I was waiting in the examination room next to where she was by the time she was done and making a follow up appointment for next month. I could even hear her at the desk and made a point of checking my calendar to let her know what dates/times worked for me. My own appointment was for a physical, so I was booked for a longer time.
Last month, I had brought my medical files from the other clinic over, and was able to keep the hard copies after they were scanned. I finally remembered to go through them last night, and I certainly had some things to discuss with the doctor! I was quite perplexed by some of what I read in there.
For a number of appointments, there was a list of “no this” and “no that” for various symptoms. There was one in there that should not have been; every one of the lists included “no joint pain.”
????
I’ve been dealing with joint pain and osteoarthritis for 30 years – and the OA was never even mentioned in there! After one appointment I remember, it mentioned that I brought up about going on disability, but that it was not recommended. It did NOT mention why I thought I should go on disability – which was my joint pain! More specifically, I had so much pain in my hands at the time that I couldn’t even grip the door knob to my bedroom to open it. We actually switch to a lever style handle to accommodate me. That was on top of everything else, like needing to use hand rails and arm bars, just to take two steps, and using my husband’s bath chair to take a shower. I mentioned a few other things that should have been in there, but wasn’t, like my chronic cough, and the mystery pain in my side that, while getting better, has never really gone away.
While talking about the arthritis pain, I remembered to ask if the painkillers she prescribed to me were something you could get used to. She had doubled my dose (basically, so I could take the full dose twice a day, instead of once a day), but it was no longer really working. Especially at night. Lately, my hips have really been bothering my, making it much harder to sleep due to pain and constantly have to roll over. She double checked. The general answer was yes; our bodies can technically get used to any pain killer, but also yes for this specific painkiller.
I was already at the max dosage.
So that was going to need to be changed.
She asked me how I felt about getting hip replacements. I told her, I’ve never been referred to anyone about that, but I’m still pretty mobile, even with the pain, so it’s not really something I think I’m ready for.
Then she asked me about going on disability. As in, was this something I’d be interested in starting the process for.
That rather surprised me, and I asked if she thought I qualified and she said yes; with my OA, I most definitely did.
I found out later that she suggested it with my daughter, too.
So I’ll need to go online to find the paperwork to fill out – I did that years ago, but there would be changes in the forms since then. I also need to find out why my printer started to print things squeezed onto the page in landscape orientation, as if for a 2 page spread. I’ve gone through all the settings and can’t figure out how to fix it. Technically, we can still fill them out that way; it’s just that the print is really tiny!
Once we have the forms printed out, there’s parts we need to fill out, then parts for the doctor to fill out. We went through this with my husband, of course, so we already know they will probably be rejected automatically, and we’ll need to apply again, which will get accepted. I think that’s how they weed people out, since many won’t try again. Or they die, first.
While I was getting my physical exam, she was palpating the area in my side with the mystery pain. Which got rather painful!
It’s also no longer a mystery.
She explained that, since it was determined not to be related to any organs, it had to be the muscle (when I first noticed the pain, years ago, I at first thought I’d pulled a muscle). Not the obliques, though. I just had to look it up; the Latissimus Dorsi. They attach at the floater ribs and around to the spine. Which would be why I feel pain at the bottom of my ribs, and why I have a tendency to hunch to one side.
I told her, this is the first time any one has mentioned this to me in all these years. She told me, she wishes someone had, years ago! This pain goes back to somewhere around 2011-2012.
What I forgot to do was ask what I can do about it!
That’s okay. I’ll have a chance to ask her, next month.
It’s been ages since I’ve had my blood work done, so she wrote me up for that, along with an EKG. I got my regular prescription renewed, and the new painkillers to try. Since my daughter will be back next month, she said to double book with her again, and we’ll follow up on the test results, and on how the new painkillers are.
That done, I was going to do my blook work at the lab right there, but they had closed for the day by then. I’ll be going to my mother’s tomorrow, though, and will be taking her for her monthly blood work, so I can do mine – and the EKG – at the same time. My daughter had already called the pharmacy about her medications, including a new one, so I called ahead about mine. I told them where we were, so they knew they had more than half an hour before we’d get there, to have the medications ready for us.
So we made the drive in to pick those up, then run a couple of errands, since we were in town anyhow, before heading home.
I really hope those new pain killers work better. The last while has been particularly bad for hip pain.
I must say, I’m really happy with this doctor. More importantly, so is my daughter! It’s been so hard to get her to see a doctor – and to find a doctor that takes what she is there for, seriously. The last time she’d tried to see a doctor, it was for major upper back pain, and the doctor instead kept asking her about things like her periods – she quite obviously has PCOS, so that is legitimate, but it wasn’t why she was there! Now that we’ve found this doctor, she’s actually starting to be able to bring up various things she’s been ignoring for years, so it looks like we’ll be doing monthly appointment for quite a while. Which just happens to get me to finally see a doctor more often. I’m terrible for just not bothering. Especially after all those years of trying to find out why I have a chronic cough, or that pain in my side, and having test after test come back normal. After a while, the doctors start to look at you like you’re making things up, or that it’s all in your head.
So that is now done for this month.
Tomorrow, I’m off to my mothers to do her shopping for her, and get her to the lab for her blood work. She has an appointment already booked with her doctor in a couple of weeks, so we’ll be able to go over the results for that.
At some point, I have to get my husband to a lab for his blood work. He got a requisition in the mail, weeks ago, but between his pain levels, and both of us simply forgetting, it hasn’t been done yet!
He’s one that has pretty much given up when it comes to any sort of treatment or health care, even with his new doctor.
The Re-Farmer 