dealing with elderly parents

Today’s progress

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Since one of my tasks for the day was to help my mother with errands, I didn’t have anything in particular that I had on my list to do at home. That was more of a “squeeze in what you can, when you can” thing.

The day, of course, started with feeding the outside cats and doing my morning rounds. One thing I noticed, when checking the critter cam in the sun room during the night, was that there were fewer cats piled on top of each other on the platform, or on the makeshift cat bed under the heat lamp. I hope that means cats have discovered that the upper level of the isolation shelter is nice and warm!

By the time I come out with their food, though, they’re all crowded in the sun room, or just outside! This morning, I counted 33. Maybe. I might have counted a couple, twice. Which seems odd to me. We had as many as 50, not that long ago – a sudden jump from a high of 40, so 10 cats just sort of showed up. Now, we’re down by more than that. I’m even noticing the difference in the kibble. For a while, I’d go around the various areas I put kibble out, with some further from the house for the shiest of the ferals, and find all the kibble in and near the sun room absolutely gone by the time I got back. There were even times when I could see they were still hungry and added more. Now, not only do they not finish off the kibble immediately, but when I come out later, there is still some left!

Which is great for the kibble supply lasting longer, but it also tells me that these “extra” cats are simply gone, rather than possibly showing up later on.

I’m not sure what to make of that.

When arranging to go to my mother’s today, she reminded me that she was getting her Meals on Wheels this morning, and suggested I bring some take out for myself. She even offered to pay me for it! It took a while, but I eventually found out why. The last time, I made a point of eating my lunch before coming over, and just had a cup of tea while she had her lunch. Turns out, she didn’t want me to be sitting there watching, while she ate, and not eating as well! 😄

So I headed out early enough to stop at the Chinese restaurant next to her place and got myself some kung pao chicken. It was a “chef’s suggestion” that I decided to try.

I won’t be having it again.

Don’t get me wrong; it was quite delicious!

Unfortunately, though, when it said it was “mild”… well, I can’t tolerate even “mild” spiciness. It was just past the edge of “too much”. I ate it anyway, because it was so good, but it’s now on the list of things I know I won’t be ordering in the future.

Alas.

When my mother’s Meals in Wheels was delivered, we chatted a bit with the social worker that is the volunteer delivery person. As we were talking, my mother noticed the beautiful Remembrance Day pin she was wearing, and asked where she got it from. The social worker responded by taking it off and giving it to her! My mother tried to refuse, but she wouldn’t hear of it. We did find out she got it from the local pharmacy. My mother was still trying to say she wanted to pay for it, so I told her that I would be going to the pharmacy anyhow, with her list, so I could make a donation.

We had already gone over her list before lunch, so as soon as we were done, I headed out. First stop was the pharmacy. When I got to the cash desk, I found the manager was manning the tills. This new manager is really nice. During the illegal lock downs and mandates, this manager was the reason that particular pharmacy was on the black list for abusive behaviour towards people with medical exemptions.

I remembered to ask about the pin, telling him about the social worker giving my mother hers. He told me these pins – there turned out to be three designs – sold out very quickly. These are from the Legion, and he told the person that provided them that next year, they should make more of them! He had one buy 14 of them! When he asked her, are you sure? she told him she had many family members she would be gifting them to. That was awesome.

I asked how much they were, and he said he was telling them for $6 – and all the proceeds went to the Legion. So I made that my donation (not out of my mother’s envelope of funds for her purchases, of course).

The next stop was the grocery store. Thanks to her Meals on Wheels, she doesn’t need a lot, plus there were some good sales on. The pharmacy had some really good sales, too, so the total was a lot less than she was expecting, this time, even when I got her a couple of extras things that I knew she would enjoy.

After the shopping was brought in and put away, my mother asked me to do some light housework for her, as well, so I stayed a bit longer. I could see that she was really struggling to move around, today, though there were times when I wondered how much of it she was doing to herself. She has an unfortunate habit of latching on to things that somehow “make her feel better” that are… questionable, shall we say. One of those things is burping. On the one hand, she’ll tell me that she’s burping a lot, making it sound like she’s having digestion problems – then tells me that burping helps with her breathing. So as she’s moving around the apartment and getting out of breath, she start actually forcing herself to burp.

The problem is, as a couple of different doctors have tried to explain to her, is more one of conditioning. She’s out of breath because she’s out of shape.

Which no one is expecting her to do anything about. She’s 93 years old with busted up knees. While she does take part in the group exercises the social workers run in her building a couple of times a week, that’s not going to make a difference. She also says she “does exercises” every morning, but these are some strange exercises done in bed she was taught to do when she was a child in school – in Poland, before WWII. I’ve asked her to describe them to me, and I honestly am not quite sure what they are meant to improve. Not that it matters. She really doesn’t understand how absolutely amazing she’s doing, overall. Instead, she complains about her breathing and chest pains (her lungs are in great shape. So is her heart). As near as anyone can figure out, she’s dealing with 93 years of childhood subsistence living, surviving a war, starting over in a new country, having 5 kids and decades of living here on the farm, two sticks ahead of the stone ages, catching up to her.

She really is doing amazing!

Anyhow…

By the time I was done at my mother’s and heading home, it was mid afternoon. Once home, I popped back out to give the outside cats a light feeding, then checked things around the yard. Three of the boys have now lost their collars, and I was hoping to find them somewhere. One of them lost his three or four times, but each time, I found it in one of the cat beds on their platform in the sunroom and got it back on him, but this time, he managed to loose it somewhere I can’t find.

Ah, well. I’ll try and pick up more of them, when the store restocks. I specifically want the breakaway collars that have reflective stitches on them, and I’m only finding them in one place. At least it’s a dollar store, so they are quite affordable!

As I was coming back in again, I found this adorable sight.

The white and grey adult cat is Stinky, and he’s one that lost his collar almost immediately. He is a very friendly boy, which is why we were able to get him in and fixed, along with three other friendly males, not long ago.

The ball of fluff cuddling him is one of the more feral kittens. I had to zoom in to get this shot because, as soon as I came closer, it took off! The kitten making strange has me thinking it’s probably female. They are almost always the hardest ones to socialize!

Later on, I made sure to come back out to get as much done outside as I could, before the light faded and the temperature dropped too much. I finally got around to taking the netting and supports off the bed that had the sugar snap peas and Uzbek Golden carrots.

The netting was the worst. Absolutely everything wants to get caught in it – including cats!

As I was going back and forth to where I’m setting all the netting and supports before sorting through and packing them up for the winter, I spotted this grand old lady.

Rolando Moon was enjoying a sun spot on the roof! The cats like to visit the upstairs windows, and watch my daughters while they are on their computers. 😁

By the time I got everything but the T posts untied, untangled, cleared up and put away, it was getting dark fast, so I will continue tomorrow.

The forecast for tomorrow is now down to 11C/52F, and it’s supposed to be the last double digit (Celsius) day of the month. After that, we don’t have may more days left where the highs are expected to be above freezing. So tomorrow, I want to make one last push to get certain jobs done. Others will just have to wait until spring.

I’ve been hearing that “they” are now predicting a mild winter. It seems we won’t be getting a strong La Nińa year, after all. I certainly hope that turns out to be true. I’ve gotten to a point in my life where I now dread winter. Even though the cold doesn’t bother me like it used to, it’s what the cold does that concerns me. With winter, we always need to consider that there may be days, or weeks, where we won’t be able to get out anywhere due to weather, or that the power might fail, or… well… you know how it can be. Things happen, and we need to be prepared for them, just in case! We may not be totally isolated, but there have been times since we’ve moved out here where we may as well have been!

Everything is a trade off. For us, though, it’s still better than living in the city! 😄😄

The Re-Farmer

A sudden outing, and wow. Just… wow

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With today being an inside day, I did finally start working on editing the garden tour video I have planned.

Then I got a message from my SIL.

My brother was soon to be on his way to our mother’s, to put her AC away for the winter – something he hasn’t had the time to do for weeks. Did I want to be there?

Of course!

Being able to see my brother is always a joy.

However, my presence would also help prevent some of the nasties my mother likes to throw at him when no one else is around.

By the time I headed out, the predicted rain had hit us, and it was pouring! The driveway was already full of water. It was also full dark by then, so the drive to my mother’s town was NOT done at highway speeds!

I left our place not that long after he left his, and he still got there before I did! I didn’t realize that until he phoned me, asking if I could pick up some milk for our mother. The grocery store was closed by then, because it’s Sunday, so I made a dash to a gas station to get some milk for her. By the time I got inside, he was almost finished, so there wasn’t much left for me to help with.

Then we sat for a visit and a chat.

A somewhat serious chat.

It turned out our vandal showed up to visit my mother recently. My mother didn’t remember the exact day, but it was a day when her Meals on Wheels arrived, so we know it was at least on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday.

She was all impressed that he’d brought some chicken drumsticks for lunch, though he ate them himself because she had her meal delivered while he was there.

Her big surprise was when the social worker that volunteers to deliver this not only knew our vandal, but greeted him with a big hug.

There were a few other things she crowed over with his visit, which really bothered my brother and I. It doesn’t seem to matter how badly our vandal acts; all he has to do is bring some chicken or go to a town meeting she approved of, and she can’t say enough good about him.

The conversation did remind my brother that he had another “carrier message” voicemail notification from his phone. He’d deliberately not listened to it because the only calls like that have been from our vandal, even though his number is blocked, and my brother just didn’t need that stress in the middle of everything they’ve been doing with the move.

So he brought up the message, and all three of us listened to it.

Yes, it was from our vandal.

Wow.

It was absolutely vile.

Some of the things he was saying about me and my daughters were just disgusting, mostly centered on our weight, the fact that we don’t “work” (meaning, not having outside jobs he considers real jobs), and involved a lot of swearing.

There were a number of other things that showed he was just making things up in his own head, some of which left us scratching ours, trying to figure out how he came to those conclusions.

He somehow found out about my saying something on Facebook – my personal page – about our hot water tank and went on a bizarre tangent about that. Apparently, if we had outside jobs, the tank would… not break? Magically fix itself? I have no idea.

He has obviously noticed that there are a lot of commotion and things showing up here at the farm. He made a comment about it, lamenting that he can’t come over to see, because he would instantly end up in prison.

That’s not how things work, but if it keeps him away, I’m good with him believing that.

He has no idea what’s going on, and it seems to be driving him bonkers.

As horrible as the things he was saying was, my mother needed to hear it. The version of him that shows up at her place lately is not the real him. These phone messages are the real him. He is absolutely obsessed with his hatred of me and my daughters (he seems to forget my husband exists). He used to direct this hate at my brother, and still tries to say that our late father wanted this property to be bequeathed to our vandal, not my brother. Meanwhile, we have a telephone message my father left on my brother’s answering machine, shortly before he died, saying he wanted it to go to my brother.

Thankfully, ownership has already been transferred to my brother, so it is safe. There is nothing about it in my mother’s will for our vandal to try and contest.

This was quite a wake up for my mother, to hear all this. This message would have been left shortly before or after he had visited my mother in person. She should not be allowing him in. Perhaps after hearing this, she may stop. Unlikely, but it’s one more reason it would be better for my mother to be in a long term care facility, as she wants. Our vandal doesn’t have to know where she is, and if he does find out, he can be on file as not allowed to see her.

It also got us to talking about what he seems to be trying to do. He somehow seems to think my mother can still give him the farm, as if she could somehow take ownership back from my brother. Our vandal has his own acreage, and oodles of equipment and out building and vehicles… he is quite well set up. He doesn’t need this place, nor anything on it.

It’s not about him wanting it for himself so much as to make sure I don’t have it – even though it’s my brother that owns it. He is a shining example of what it means to “covet” something. To covet is not just to want something that someone else has, but to take what someone else has from them.

So… Marxism on an individual scale. 😄

Even my mother was able to understand this.

All in all, it did put a downer on the visit but, considering how my mother responded to our vandal showing up at her place, it was really important that she hear it, and that we could talk about it with her.

We couldn’t stay too much longer, though. My brother no longer takes vacation days on Mondays, now that the move is done and the new owners have taken possession of the property they sold, so he had to get back home. Their new place is slightly closer, but it’s still at least an hour’s drive for him. Plus, there was a break in the rain that wasn’t going to last long, so I wanted to get home before it hit again, too.

I will be back to help my mother with her grocery shopping and errands soon, but she needs this far less often, now that she’s got the Meals on Wheels deliveries.

The weather predictions for the next while look pretty mild, so hopefully I’ll get more done outside. Tomorrow, however, I’m hoping to get the truck loaded up with the bags of aluminum again, and this time actually make it to the scrap yard! The rain is supposed to continue until about 10am tomorrow, but I’ve got a tarp over the sorted bags, so that should make loading the truck less unpleasant!

We shall see what the day brings.

Meanwhile, time to get back to editing some video…

The Re-Farmer

Finally home

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Today it was arranged for me to go back to my mother’s place to help her with basic home stuff. These are the things my mother needs help with, but that Home Care out here doesn’t provide. Light housekeeping. Laundry. That sort of thing.

Of course, I stared my day with my morning rounds. This morning, I used some stock from the crockpot in the liquid I used to soak kibble for the outside cats.

Oh, my goodness, did they ever love it!

The kibble I picked up recently was the Walmart economy brand – we needed quantity over quality, this time. It didn’t absorb as much liquid as some other brands we’ve tried. That made carrying the bowl I use, without sloshing everywhere, rather more challenging! Of course, the first trays I add food to are in the sun room, and it’s easier to just put the bowl down in the middle of the floor and start scooping.

Thankfully, the scoop I have is larger and fairly deep, so scooping so much liquid works fine.

Of course, as soon as the bowl was on the floor, it was inundated by cats, already starting to eat, which made for another challenge to scooping it out!

This time, though, the cats were for more interested in the excess liquid. Hoo boy, where they ever excited with this treat!

This is definitely something we want to do more often. Especially in the winter, when not only having warm food first thing in the morning will be a help, so will the extra fat and nutrients in the liquid.

After the morning errands and breakfast were done, my first stop was the post office. Our powered anode rod has been in for a while, but we haven’t been able to pick it up until today. I was also able to mail my mother’s payment for her ambulance bill; she doesn’t trust her local post office, nor does she trust their outside mail box. She says some of her mail to Poland never arrived, and she’s convinced the staff at the local post office kept it back, because one of them mistook a letter she was sending as being to Ukraine, rather than Poland. As for the outside mail box, it got stolen and broken into, some time before we moved out here, so more than 7 years ago.

🫤

Anyhow. It’s sent, and hopefully, it’s made out to the right name, because there was nothing on the bill to specify who to make a check out to, since hardly anyone uses checks anymore.

With all that, plus a quick stop for some gas, I got to my mother’s at about 11, which is the time I normally get there when I’m planning to run errands for her. I did pick up a treat to go with our tea, though.

I was there for just a few minutes when my cell phone started ringing. That happens so rarely, I’m always surprised by it. 😄 It turned out to be our mechanic. When I called about having our truck towed to them, I spoke to one of his employees, as he wasn’t there, nor was he there when the truck was dropped off. He just found a note with the keys and my phone number on it, so he wanted to know why it was towed in!

I explained to him what happened and what we did, just to get the truck home. After hearing that, his initial thought was that some gunk got into the switch – that’s now three different people who have suggested this being the most likely reason the alert kept going, and the pressure gauge kept dropping, even after we’d added as much oil as we did. I told him we were already planning to book an oil change (after we had to cancel it when I booked it about a month and a half ago), with a diagnostic to figure out why the check engine like was on. My OBD II scanner gives several possible reasons, not nothing definitive. Once he had that information, he could take a look at it and know what he was looking for!

I haven’t heard from him since then, so that tells me he wasn’t able to do that today. This is something he would do in between other customer bookings, when he has a bay open, so that could take a while.

Of course, my mother was hearing bits and pieces of the call, so she was wondering about how that was going, so I explained it a bit before we got to work.

One of the first things she asked me to do was to check the schedule in the laundry room. It turns out her apartment was blocked off for 1-3pm. There two other apartments blocked off for the morning, but no one was doing laundry at the time. Lunch hour wasn’t blocked off for anyone on any day. We figured it would be fine to start early – but maybe not too early.

After getting her laundry out and sorting it the way she wanted, we settled in for some tea and conversation until her Meals on Wheels was delivered. The volunteer delivering it was one of the social workers that comes regularly for planned activities. When she got there, she told my mother that someone from Home Care had come out yesterday, but she wasn’t home. We asked what time, and she said at about 1pm.

My mother’s appointment in the city was at 1pm!

Normally if there is something going on, Home Care calls me, first, as I am the primary contact person. If they did, I could have told them my mother wasn’t going to be home at that time, but no one called either of us. All the social worker knew was that it was something about meals, and not about my mother’s medical assist visits.

They really should have called first. The social worker figures they’ll try and stop by again, later, but when she first brought it up, it sounded like she thought my mother had an appointment with them, then skipped out on it. We figure it has something to do with the bulk meal preparation we were originally going to get for my mother, until she decided to go with Meals on Wheels instead. I think the Meals on Wheels is the better choice for her. I don’t think she could tolerate someone preparing and packing up meals in her apartment for 2 hours for very long, even if it was every two weeks. Plus, she is so happy with the Meals on Wheels food she is getting!

After she had her lunch, we made up a grocery shopping list for her, then I started her laundry. Her building has two washers and two driers, so I got both washers going, then headed out to do her grocery shopping. With having prepared meals delivered three days a week, it reduces her grocery list a fair bit, so I was done, back and put everything away before the washing machines were done!

After her first loads went into the drier and her last load was started, I took advantage of her watching daily mass on TV and did some sweeping and dishwashing and whatever else I could see that needed doing, then sat and finished watching mass with her.

I did have a bit of a mystery that got solved while I was sweeping up.

Shortly after I got there, and I got the call from the garage while she was getting dressed for the day, I saw her taking a bucket of urine from her room to the bathroom. I figured she was finally using the commode in her room, but couldn’t see it. While sweeping in her bedroom, I saw that it was gone, and there was a table where it used to be.

It turned out to be in the living room, covered with a cloth and being used as a table.

I don’t understand why she refuses to use the commode. Her bucket fits perfectly into the pan it comes with, so she doesn’t have to struggle to remove a pan that would need to be carried with two hands. Instead, she’s squatting over a bucket? With her wrecked knees? I just don’t get it!

Well, we can’t force her to use the thing, I guess.

While sweeping, I also found one of the traps left by the exterminator and checked it out. There were plenty of insects stuck in it – it’s that time of year, when more of them come into the warmth – but no sign of bed bugs that I could tell. I was looking closely while going through her laundry and while sweeping, too. Nothing. The exterminators still need to come one more time, and she should have gotten the notification letter telling her when they’ll be coming by now, but she hasn’t mentioned anything to any of us.

We’ll have to be on top of this, so we don’t have a repeat of her almost getting herself evicted for refusing to let them in.

Anyhow…

My mother had told me she would fold her laundry herself, but I did that for her. I was going to need the basket for her last load, anyhow. She also had some things that were too heavy for her that I moved, and others that needed to be tucked up higher than she could reach for winter storage.

All in all, I was there for about five hours. My mother was really tired by then, too. She’s still having trouble sleeping at night, but with all this going on, she wasn’t able to nap during the day, either. She was still going to get two medical assists for her medications, with one of them typically about an hour after the time I left, so not much point in trying to nap then!

After leaving my mother’s, I made a quick stop at the grocery store for a few groceries to tide us over until CPP Disability comes in next week.

Once at home and heading to the house, an absolute army of cats came out to see me, clearly looking for supper! I left my daughter to put away the groceries and mail, then headed out to give the cats their evening feeding.

They were very happy kitties!

Especially this one.

This one is black with a white blaze on his chest – no other white that I can see – and I call him Midnight. He is friendly enough that, once we are able to get more of the females spayed, we will be able to easily catch to get neutered.

That reminds me. I want to find more breakaway collars to put on the cats that get fixed, so we can spot the ones that are done right away. I did pick up a collar recently to try out, not realizing until I went to remove the packaging that it was not actually a breakaway collar. With outside cats, I won’t use any other type, as the risk of them getting caught on something and choking is too high. So far, I’ve only found them at a local dollar store. Hopefully they will have more, the next time I get there. I got four of them, but only Syndol still has his. I think I put the other ones on too loosely. Since then, Gouda was neutered, but he and Rolando Moon are the only orange cats we have right now, so there’s no mistaking them for other cats.

So that was how things went today. Hopefully, over the next few days, I can stay home for a change and finally get work done outside! At this point, the very least I want to get done (besides finally harvesting the potatoes and sunchokes) is plant a bed of garlic. Anything I mange to get finished beyond then, as far as the winter sowing I’m hoping to do, is gravy.

I just need to have a few days at home, with no running around, to do it!

Wish me luck!

The Re-Farmer

“You’re mother is dying.”

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No.

No, she isn’t.

But that’s what she told me when I got a call from her this morning.

This is starting to become a common refrain, unfortunately.

My schedule for today included heading to my mother’s nice and early, so I could drive her to the city. She had an afternoon appointment for another eye injection *shudder* to try and stop the bleeding of her wet macular degeneration and maybe – just maybe – improve her vision in that eye.

I tried to get more information about what was going on, but just got repeats of her usual. Her breathing. She only got 2 hours of sleep, and it’s because of her pills (it’s not because of her pills). Her chest pains (acid reflux). Pain in general. Even her incontinence. She’s convinced she is dying.

On the one hand, I get it. I totally get it! She feels like crap, and the idea of driving 1 1/2 hours to an appointment that would take at least an hour, then another 1 1/2 hours drive back, would seem overwhelming.

She’s 93 years old with busted up knees.

Yeah, I get it.

On the other hand, she has no understanding of just how good she is doing. I mean, she’s really amazing. At this age, her sister was already in the nursing home, being shuttled around in a wheelchair, and falling deep into dementia for several years. There are people far younger than her that are doing far worse.

Plus, canceling and appointment like this at the last minute is a big deal. There is only one place that does these treatments, and if she wants to retain any vision in that eye (she did say she was noticing an improvement), she needs these treatments.

Her response was, what does it matter, if she’s going to die, anyway?

She tried to guilt me, saying that I didn’t believe her. I told her, it’s not that I don’t believe her, in how she feels. I’m trying to understand why she thinks she’s dying. Because, really, there is nothing new in her complaints. That’s what I keep trying to get to. What is happening that’s different, that’s convincing her she’s about to die any at any minute.

In the end, she said she wasn’t going to say anymore and was going to say good bye, then she hung up.

At which point, I messaged my brother and his wife to let them know the situation. They are so busy right now, it’s the last thing they need to deal with, but they needed to know.

In the end, I decided that I would go to my mother’s place, anyways, and talk to her in person. If she still refused to go, I would phone the clinic and cancel the appointment from her place.

I meant to leave early, but so many cats were following me to the car, I had to ask one of my daughters to very noisily feed them.

Yes, they’d already been fed.

Including sweet Gouda. What a lovely kitty he is!

It was Syndol that would not stop following me to the car. I kept moving him away, and he kept coming back. I finally had to carry him all the way to the house, where he finally noticed the kibble and went to eat.

So much for leaving early, but I was at least on the road at the time I was intending to be.

While I was driving, my phone started ringing. I couldn’t answer, of course, but I’d told my brother that I would be on the road, and I figured it might be home.

It was.

When he couldn’t reach my by phone, he sent a quick message. He’d phoned her, they had a good talk, and she will go. He called her in between meetings at work, so he had to be brief. By the time I parked and could check messages, my SIL added that my brother had finally told our mother that they were selling their place, just so I would be aware.

So when I got to my mother’s apartment, she was up and ready and waiting.

She then launched into giving me all sorts of instructions on what to do and where to find things when she died. I honestly think she expected to die during the drive in.

She did mention my brother’s call, but as she was giving me instructions, including about her finances, she brought up my brother, and how he has the farm, but he wants her money, too. I sold her, the only person that wants her money is our vandal, and reminded her of the legal steps my brother had taken to protect her from our vandal. She just scoffed, then said that my sister was the only one who didn’t care about my mother’s money.

Which is weird, but she does like to try and play us against each other.

I’d worked out a time when we had to be on the road by, to get to her appointment, and we ended up leaving almost 20 minutes earlier.

She did walk very slowly to the car, lots of panting and pausing. It was a struggle for her to get into the car, and then she sat there, panting.

She really did play it up.

Her struggle to get into the car was very genuine, though. If we were using the truck, I probably would have had to practically pick her up to help her in!

She made a comment about her breathing as I was getting in, but then pretty much stopped the act at that point.

As we were driving, she started telling me things like, she’d talked to some of her neighbours in her building, and one of them had the same thing she did (at least that’s how my mother understood it), she didn’t go anything, and it went away. Then my mother told me about a Jehovah’s Witness that used to come visit (how many decades ago was this???) who talked about losing vision until she prayed and God healed her, and her vision had been fine ever since. She also told me about how, years ago (how many years?) she remember she had black spots floating around in her vision. She never went to the doctor, never did anything different, and they went away.

All I could say, really, was that these are all different things. That’s great for them, but that has nothing to do with you’re specific situation.

Also, for someone who was complaining about getting only a couple of hours sleep, she was very talkative and alert. I suggested she could try napping during the drive, but she wanted to enjoy the scenery…

Anyhow.

She told me she’d gone to bed at around 11, woke at 2am and couldn’t get back to sleep, no matter what, and it was because of her pills. I told her, we know it’s not the pills. It could be anything. Even just busy brain or stress. Oh, but you don’t know what I’ve lived through…

???

Eventually, she brought up about my brother selling their property, and that they were selling it privately, not through an agency.

I’m not sure what reaction she expected from that.

I reminded her, I had told her, my brother is preparing for retirement.

She did bring up about him not selling the farm – the property we are on – and I told her, he can’t sell it. That was part of my father’s will.

She dropped that, too.

Overall, though, the conversation during the drive actually went pretty well. She kept commenting on the traffic. She still seems to think traffic should be like when she and my father lived in the city until the mid 60’s.

I’m glad we left as early as we did, though. It’s construction season.

If we’d left when I originally planned, we should have arrived about half an hour early. Leaving when we did, we should have arrived as much as 45 minutes early.

We got there 10 minutes before her appointment.

They took her in almost immediatley.

The next while spent getting her eye dilated while the tech tried to get images and video of it.

Normally, during these tests, they ask you to focus on a green X, or a picture of a house, or some such thing, in the middle of the device over the eye they are looking at.

With macular degeneration, that’s not possible. She can’t see the middle of anything.

So the tech instead set up a tiny green light on an adjustable arm in front of her left eye, and asked my mother to try and focus on that.

My mother kept getting distracted.

What do you mean a green light? It’s white?

There’s a dark spot in the middle.

The light isn’t on…

After a number of attempts to get video, I finally started to explain, they just needed her to look at that spot. It didn’t matter what the colour was, or anything else. It’s the location she needs to focus on.

I think she finally understood that, but by then, the tech was done!

She was then sent to a waiting room before the next stage, but the doctor requested one more image. He needed a specific location photographed, so he could compare with an image taken last time.

That, at least, was quick!

We do have good news.

The bleeding in her eye seems to have stopped. There is still a bit of blood in there, but mostly there is scar tissue right in the middle of her vision.

Then he asked her if she wanted to continue treatment!

She deferred making a decisions (which is her usual way), wanting him to make the decision for her. Which he couldn’t do, of course. He did say he would recommend still getting the treatments since, if they are stopped now, the bleeding might resume. I finally said we should at least do a treatment today, and we decide about further treatment later.

Meanwhile, my mother launched into how she’d had these black spots floating in her eyes, (I told her, this is not the same thing, and the doctor repeated that) and they went away on their own, etc. The doctor told her, this is not going to go away on its own.

She dropped the subject.

So they went ahead with the treatment, with a light freezing of the eye, adding antiobiotic drops, and finally the main freezing. That one needed 7 minutes, and my mother was asked to hold a tissue over her eye and just relax for a while.

As we were waiting for the freezing, the doctor and the tech – plus a third person that was in training – started looking at other files. They spoke quietly, but I could hear bits and pieces, and could see some of the images they were looking at.

All I can say is…

My mother is doing really great! She is there at a time when she can actually get treated, and the damage is relatively mild. At one point, I could hear them lamenting that there was absolutely nothing they could do to help one particular patient. She had simply waited too long to get checked. As quiet as they spoke, I could still hear the pain in their voices.

The doctor had a timer going, so they were soon back working on my mother. She got her injection, and was reminded that she will have redness, which is normal, but if there’s any pain, she is to come back right away.

As for the next treatments, he told her she no longer needs to come back in 4 weeks, but maybe 4 or 5 weeks. I checked my calendar and saw that my husband is rebooked for his CT Scan in 5 weeks, so it would have to be 4 weeks for my mother.

The doctor was very understanding about the long drive in, and that the next treatment would be winter driving. There is simply no other clinic like this that’s closer. One is planned for the town we are closest to, but that’s all it is at this point – plans.

Once he was done, that was it. We just needed to book the next appointment, then go.

By that point, we were both hungry – my mother hadn’t even eaten breakfast! – but neither of us were up to trying to find a place to eat in the city. We talked about where to go in her town and she wasn’t enthusiastic about her choices. Then I suggested we stop at the gas station where I could pick up her favourite fried chicken and wedges.

She was quite excited over that idea!

So we had a good drive home – traffic was a lot lighter, and we were no longer in any construction zones.

I picked up the food and got her home. She was pretty famished by then! I got enough that she could have another meal out of it later.

After that, there were a few things she needed help with. One was a letter from the government that she didn’t understand. Another was helping her write out a check to pay for her ambulance bill, from her trip to the ER a month or two ago. It didn’t come with a return envelope, though – they expect people to pay via etransfer, credit or debit. She didn’t have a suitable envelope, so I ended up taking that home to get ready to mail, which I will do tomorrow.

As we were talking, she mentioned that she needed her laundry done. She hasn’t been up to doing it herself, and it’s been piling up. She said she hoped to “hire” my sister to do it – but my sister and her husband are coming home from out of province tomorrow, and tomorrow is my mother’s laundry day on the building’s schedule.

I also noticed, her fridge was looking empty.

But she never asked me for help. I even asked if she needed shopping, but she said the only thing she needed was milk.

Okay…

That was it!

I left soon after. I’ve got her check ready to mail and have my own parcel to pick up at the post office.

I really, really need to get more work done outside. Tomorrow was going to be my first day in quite a long time where I didn’t need to go anywhere, and could get back to it.

*sigh*

I’ve just arranged to go over to my mother’s tomorrow, to do her laundry and, if she puts a list together for me, her grocery shopping, too.

The long range forecast has changed, again. The snow I was seeing in the beginning of November seems to have gone away for the most part. We’ll even have some warmish days. If the weather holds, I should still be able to get things done.

We shall see.

Meanwhile, we’ve had no word from the garage about the truck, which means no one has had a chance to look at it yet.

I also had a chance to talk to my brother this evening, and got to hear the rest of how his call with her went. He had so little time to make the call, he basically just told her, go to the appointment, and that I was already on my way to get her. When he mentioned that yes, they are selling their property, she launched into her usual lecture about how the value of land only ever goes up, etc. He just let it slide and had to tell her, he needed to get back to work.

When I talked to him this evening, it was after he’d had a very long day at work (he starts at 5am), and was at the property, packing up shed contents. They’ll be coming out here this weekend with the stuff they are keeping, but they are also sending stuff to auction.

It’s a huge job, that’s for sure!

So we will be at least seeing my brother and their friend on the weekend, with trailer loads. I honestly don’t know where he’s going to be putting things at this point! Most of the sheds here can’t be used anymore.

I’m sure he’s got a plan, though. He always does!

So that’s been my day today.

How was yours? 😁😁

The Re-Farmer

We have cat food again!

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Would you look at these happy critters?

This was taken in the late afternoon. This morning, they did get the food I used the slow cooker to make for them overnight. They dug right in!

Unlike the inside cats. They turned their noses up and their cooked food! Even when the girls gave them some of the canned cat food we still had, putting it right on top of the food cooked for them, they ate around the cooked food, but left the canned cat food that was on top of their cooked meal.

So I gave the rest of it to the outside cats, after feeding them with kibble, and they dove right into that, too!

Our inside cats have gotten fussy!

Yes, I was able to get cat food today – and we even have a vehicle now!

More on that later.

But I am getting way ahead of myself!

Last night, I got a call from my mother. She started talking about her appointment on Thursday – tomorrow.

I had completely forgotten about it! I was supposed to drive her to the city for to get her wet macular degeneration treatment.

We no longer had transportation.

My sister is next closest, but they are out of province right now and won’t be back until Friday.

Which leaves my brother, but he would be working.

Meanwhile, my mother started to say, oh, I don’t know if I should go… with my health like it is…

Yes. She was seriously considering stopping treatment that will save the vision in her eye and possibly improve it.

She even mentioned, she noticed a slight improvement. Which is amazing, after only one treatment!

I told her, we’ll find a way to get her there. Even as we were talking, I was sending a message to my brother and SIL, but while I could see that neither of them were seeing it yet.

So I told her I would call her back as soon as I knew anything. I had no idea when that would be.

With everything going on, though, I was burning out, so I tried to go to bed early.

Of course, that didn’t work.

Which was for the better, I guess, because after a few hours, I got responses.

Long story short…

They are lending us a car!

My SIL would drive out in time to get here for when the tow truck was scheduled to arrive. I would drive her back to their place, then take the car home.

That’s a LOT of driving, but there really wasn’t any other way to do it.

Have I mentioned my brother and his wife are amazing?

After that assurance, I could finally fall asleep!

This morning, my routine of softening kibble for the outside cats with hot water got switched up to transferring their food out of the slow cooker and giving it time to cool down before heading out. It was still a bit on the hot side, but they seemed to be just fine with that!

After feeding the outside cats this morning and doing my rounds, I made sure to open the gate – we were now expecting the tow truck, the prescription delivery, and my SIL to arrive – my younger daughter and I unloaded the aluminum off the back of the truck, then covered the sorted bags with the tarp.

It’s already blowing off, even though we tied it down!

After the back was clear, I took the time to put all the straps and bungee cords – the ones we used, and the extras in the truck – into the back-of-the-seat organizers we got. That set up is going to work out quite well!

Then, while I was at it, I moved our roadside emergency kit out to put in the car later, did some general clean up and even remembered to take out the disabled parking placard and the card we need to show the attendant when we go to the dump.

Not that we’ll be making a dump run in a loaned car! Not if I can help it. But we won’t have the truck for probably a week, so I figured it would be good to have, just in case.

The truck was booked to be picked up at 11am, so my SIL was shooting to arrive at our place at about that time.

It was past 11 when I got a call from the CAA Dispatcher, asking about our location, since our physical address don’t exist on any maps.

After giving country directions for the driver’s notes, we knew it might still be a while, but the truck was ready and there was no need for any of us to be around when the tow truck arrived.

My SIL hadn’t arrived yet, either, so I sent them a quick message, then popped into the sun room to tie off the outside door and keep the wind out – when I noticed there was a car parked near the truck! My sister had already arrived!

I quickly finished, grabbed what I needed and headed out – just in time to hear my phone ding, with her response to my earlier message! 😄

We were soon on the road back to their place when I realized, I hadn’t called my mother yet. My SIL offered to stop at my mother’s so I could tell her in person, which I gratefully accepted.

When we got there, I dashed in – only to find her walker was not by her door. I still knocked, even as I was looking around to see if she was in the hall. Then I went around the building, in case she was sitting outside.

Nothing.

So we went driving to the various places she might have walked to. Even the pharmacy, which is the furthest away. No sign of her, and none of the staff that know her had seen her.

We finally went back to my mother’s place, in case she came back while we were gone.

Still not walker outside her door.

I do have a spare key, though, so I figured I could let myself in and leave a note. I get my keys out and am ready to unlock it but, out of habit, I knocked first…

… and hear my mother’s voice responding from inside!

Her door was unlocked, so I let myself in.

She was at her dining table, her finished Meals on Wheels meal in front of her…

… and her walker sitting beside her.

!!

It was such a relief to find her!

I quickly told her about getting loaned a car (and messages my SIL that my mother had been home this whole time!), and that I’d be driving her to her appointment tomorrow. I even told her, my SIL was in the car waiting for me, so I couldn’t stay long. We worked out what time I could be coming over tomorrow and what time we needed to be on the road. Then she started asking me, why was I in a hurry?

I reminded her, my SIL was waiting for me in the car.

Well, why doesn’t she come in to say hi?

Because we can’t stay long. We have to drive to their place, then I have to drive the car home…

I wasn’t going to even bother saying more than that. The reality is, after decades of verbal abuse from my mother, my SIL finally said, no more. My mother has outside said that, just because she is married to my brother, she isn’t family. My SIL has never been anything but kind to my mother – probably more than any of us, to be honest – and even now, still says many positive things about my mother, but she will no longer allow herself to be abused. If my mother says she is not part of the family, then she will stay away.

My mother has zero understanding that her behaviour hurts people so much, and drives them away from her. The kinder people are to her, the more abusive she is towards them.

Except that’s changing with me. I have been putting my food down, hard, on her behaviour without reciprocating and – amazingly – she has stopped a lot of what she had been doing since we moved out here. At her request.

Tomorrow’s timing arranged, my SIL and I were back on the road.

At this point, I may as well say it. This blog is anonymous in real life, too; my family and neighbours know nothing about it.

My brother has been moving things over to here in preparation for retirement. Part of that was looking at selling their acreage. They hadn’t put it up for sale, but serendipity stepped in, and they found a buyer. The possession date is Nov. 1, so they have to get everything they’re not selling or otherwise getting rid of, here to the farm. Meanwhile, they are moving into a townhouse near the city, and today, I got to see it for the first time!

I think they are going to be really happy there – and happy not having the property to be concerned with. Especially since they are stuck with this farm that they can’t sell. Something else my mother doesn’t understand. This property has been a burden they took from her, but in her mind, she “gave” my brother “everything”. So now they will no longer have two acreages to pay takes, insurance and upkeep for!

After a tour of their new home and a brief visit, I got to drive their car home.

I have never in my life, driven anything so luxurious! What a dream it is to drive! It’s not even a new car (just newer than our truck) or high end. It’s just a basic vehicle, but – oh, my goodness, it is gorgeous!

They are also slightly closer now, and the Walmart I was planning to go to was on my way home.

I was able to get four bags of kibble and a 32 pack of canned cat food. The Cat Lady also ordered us a donation of kibble on Amazon, which is supposed to arrive on the 29th, and we will actually be able to pick it up now.

Of course, I also got a bit of groceries for us – almost all of this, courtesy of my older daughter. She says she will help pay for repairs on the truck, too, though it will take some time to transfer from PayPal, which is how her clients pay for their commissions from her.

I hope we never again get to a point where we run out of kibble like we did today! We will especially need to stock up over the winter. With no back up vehicle anymore, if things go wrong again, or we get snowed in again, etc., we are hooped.

Which would be a good time to bring up… if anyone is in a position to help, we do have a donation button! 100% of donations go towards care of the cats, whether it’s food, spays and neuters or other vet car. Today, we spent more on food for the cats than for ourselves again, and we’ll have to watch to make sure it lasts until CPP Disability comes in – we will hopefully be picking up our repaired truck by then.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Oh! I just got a message from my daughter. She has caulked up the tub surround. Twelve hours before it can be exposed to water. Twenty-four before it can be touched.

Yeah, we still can’t use our tub and shower. Aside from assisting now and then, I have left this job entirely to my daughters!

But I digress, once again…

After doing the shopping, I headed to the town nearest us to get gas. My SIL had stared off with a full tank, but with all the driving, it was down to half already. When I got to the station, I asked the attendant to put in $30, hoping that would make a dent in it, and went inside.

After I was done and heading home, I realized that $30 had filled the tank!

I’m so used to the truck. At current prices – $1.299 right now – that would have been barely a quarter tank. I forget how much bigger the truck’s tank is than a car’s!

It felt really good to be driving with a full tank!

Once at home, I drove up to the house to unload, then made sure to feed the outside cats so I could safely move the car.

Oh, the happy, happy kitties! They were quite hungry!

After parking the car in the garage, I just had to giggle over how much room there is! With the truck, I have to squeeze as close as I can to the counter at the far wall, just to be able to close the door.

That done, I headed inside and started getting ready to feed the inside cats. That included taking their trays of the food they got this morning that they wouldn’t eat – it even still had remains of canned cat food on it! – and giving it to the outside cats.

The outside cats had already polished off all the food I’d given them earlier, and eagerly dove into the food the inside cats turned their nosed up at!

The inside cats, meanwhile, were happy to get their kibble.

The snobs. 😄

So things are looking up again, thanks to my awesome, awesome brother and his wife. With them being in the middle of moving, being down a vehicle will be an inconvenience for them, so I appreciate this beyond words. They are just the best!!

Tomorrow is going to be another long day of driving – and another day of not being able to get anything done in the garden. The goal had been to have several beds cleaned up and prepared for winter sowing by now. We’ve got just one warm day between now and November – and the long range forecast now shows snow within the first 10 days of the month! Granted, when these seeds are planted, we do NOT want them to germinate, but we don’t want them to freeze, either.

Well, what happens, happens. We’ll work with what we get.

What else can we do?

The Re-Farmer

A pretty good day

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I didn’t get as much done today as I’d hoped, but I got the important stuff done, and that’s what matters.

As usual, my day started with feeding the outside cats before doing my morning rounds. Since I was going to be helping my mother with errands today, my rounds included making sure things were set up in the truck for the day. By the time I was done my rounds, the cats had polished off all the warm, softened kibble they now get in the mornings, and were starting to settle into their cuddle puddles!

Like this one, near the heat lamp. Not directly under it – I expect to see more of that when things get really cold! – but close.

There is one adult cat in this pile.

That old feed bag, which is stuffed with packing material, had been on the nearby shelf for them to use as a bed while looking out the window, but it kept getting knocked down, so we’ve just left it. They quite like it there. Underneath is mostly bare concrete.

Since my mother was getting her Meals on Wheels delivery today, I didn’t have to leave as early as I usually do, and had my own lunch early.

I still got there early enough for us to have a bit of a visit before her Meals on Wheels was delivered. As we were talking, she showed me this.

If you click through to the next image, you’ll see the other side.

My mother had been going through her things, trying to figure out what to get rid of and what to keep, when she found it.

She told me that when she was in the hospital, in labour with me, there was a nun who visited and prayed with her. After I was born and my mother was ready to go home, she held me while my mother got into the car, then put me in her arms.

No car seats, or even seat belts, back then! 😄

This nun had also given my mother this… Hmmm… I don’t know what it’s called. Not a medallion, of course, but a laminated paper version of a medallion.

Now, she wanted me to have it!

I gratefully accepted it. What a connection to my own birth! I now have it in my wallet, under one of the plastic windows, so I can see it. I’m amazed she managed to hang on to something so small, all these decades!

Soon after, my mother’s Meals on Wheels arrived. She is so very happy with these meals. Today, it was salmon with mushroom rice, cooked broccoli with other vegetables I couldn’t make out, and cream of potato soup. There was a packet of tartar sauce for the salmon and soy sauce for the rice. For desert, there was a cube of bright green Jello, with what I think was pineapple in it. She quite enthusiastically enjoyed her meal!

After she was done and we were having tea together, I asked about her shopping list and got a bit of a surprise.

She didn’t need a grocery shopping trip anymore.

Yesterday was a nice day, and she decided to go ahead an walk to the grocery store. It’s just a couple of blocks, but she insists on taking the “short cut” through the empty lot – almost a field – between her building and the street the grocery store is on. I just shake my head that she insists on doing this, because it’s “shorter”. For starters, it’s not level and doesn’t get mowed regularly, so it would be rough to go over with her walker. She would also have to go around some fences and a building to get to it. In reality, the “shorter” path probably isn’t saving her anything. My concern is that it increases her chances of falling, but she insists that her “helper” (her walker) will prevent that.

Plus, it’s trespassing, but I don’t think anyone cares. As I understand it, the owner lives in the city and doesn’t even come out to mow it. The town does it every now and then, then bills the owner for it.

When she got to the grocery store, who should she run into?

Our vandal and his wife.

*sigh*

At least his wife was with him!

Long story short, they offered to bring her stuff home for her – it was too late in the day for the grocery store to do a delivery – so she was able to do a larger shopping trip. I don’t know which of their many vehicles they had, but when the time came, they didn’t have room for her walker, so our vandal drove her home with the groceries while his wife walked the walker over.

One thing my mother noted: his wife has never, ever, said anything negative about me or my brother. I told my mom, I don’t think his wife has any idea what our vandal is still doing. He certainly wouldn’t have left a voice mail message like the one he recently left on my brother’s phone, if his wife were around to hear him say those horrible things.

So my mother got her grocery shopping done, and didn’t need me to do it today. I only wish she understand that, while his wife may be genuine, our vandal doesn’t do stuff like this out of the kindness of his heart. It seems, no matter how bad he gets, my mother will always make excuses for him. But my brother, who has never been anything but kind and helpful to her, has pulled her butt out of the fire many times out of the years, and takes such good care of, she treats like crap.

How does that make sense?

Anyhow.

She did still need to go to the bank, plus she needed to get her prescriptions and a couple of things at the pharmacy. While she setting up to leave, I went out to get her walker ready; she keeps it parked outside her door, under a tiny corner shelf that all the apartments have. Like most people living there, she has a little display set up on it. Usually, religious in nature.

That’s when I saw something unfortunate.

Part of her display was a small card with a picture of a famous painting of Jesus on it.

It was torn in half.

My first thought was, our vandal did it as he left. One of the things he constantly has said to her, since my late brother died and more so after my father died, is that she will never go to heaven to be with her husband and her son, because she didn’t leave this property to him, like they would have wanted (which they most certainly did NOT want). Knowing she is deeply religious, he would often invoke God in some way in the many abusive messages he left on her answering machine until my brother finally got his number blocked.

When I brought it in to show my mother, though, she told me it was done by one of her neighbours. ??

My mother is not happy with some of the “homeless people” and “aboriginals” that have recently moved into her building. Apparently, one of them has behavioral issues, and tearing up my mother’s picture of Jesus would be something she would do.

My mother didn’t actually see it done, though, so who knows. My mother used to have a card with her name above the peep hole on her door that disappeared, and she thinks the same person did it. Unfortunately, my mother has a bad habit of accusing people of things, with no actual evidence for it, so there’s no way to know what actually happened.

She then asked me to put the pieces back outside her door, so others could see the sort of things this person (or whoever it was) will do.

*sigh*

Anyhow.

We were soon on our way out and on our way. My mother really struggled to get up in the truck but, my goodness, she manages! When we got this truck, I thought for sure she would never be able to get into it, yet there she is!

Even so, she was only up to going into the bank. Once at the pharmacy, she stayed in the truck while I went in to get her prescription and other items. Once I knew, more or less, how much it would be, I went to the truck for her loyalty card and cash, then went back in to pay for her items.

The staff at the pharmacy are quite familiar with my shopping for my mother by now. 😄

That done, I took my mother home. She told me she would have wanted to go somewhere else, like to a restaurant, just for a change of scenery, but didn’t want to be getting in and out of the truck any more than she had to.

She was pretty tired by then, anyhow, so I didn’t stay too much longer.

I remembered to grab the extra plumbing parts and pieces my daughter didn’t need to use when working on the bathroom taps, so after a quick stop at the feed store to get a 40 pound bag of kibble, I headed to the two store we got the parts from to return them. The one in the town nearest us is also near our usual grocery store, so I made a quick stop there. From there, it was a quick stop at the post office, then finally, home.

Where I found this to greet me as I headed to the house.

They were more than eager for their evening feeding, and prowling like ravenous lions! 😄

I took care of that as soon as I could. 😊

One of the things in the mail was something from the hospital my husband is supposed to get a sleep test done in. He is looking to switch from a CPAP to a BiPAP. His CPAP is due to be replaced. It is 90% covered by insurance, but that is done by paying for it first, then submitting the receipt. For the price of a CPAP, we could have hired a plumber to fix the taps and replace the hot water tank with a new one, and still had money left over. Plus, he’s having a hard time getting replacement hoses. Our province covers the cost of a BiPAP, though. To get one, he has to be reassessed, and that’s why he’s been referred to this hospital.

What he got in the mail was their questionnaire about his health history. Which was fine until he got to the end when, as he put it, he almost cried.

They wanted a list of his medications, and doses.

He cheated.

He cut off the list that’s on his bubble packs to put in with the form, and wrote “see attached”. Then he just had to add the “take as needed” medications, and his injections, to the list.

Tomorrow is Saturday and our post office is closed, but I’ll still make sure to get it in the mail box right away.

The next thing he’ll get is a telephone appointment. We’ll see if they need him to actually come in to do a sleep test or not. When he was first diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea, we were living in this province, and there was an actual sleep research lab at the same hospital that now has the provinces cardiac clinic. I don’t think there is a sleep research lab anymore, and it looks like they no longer have people actually spending the night in the lab, hooked up to various monitors, while two technicians observed all night. When my mother was tested for sleep apnea, my SIL picked up the test machine in the city and I met her part way to get it. When my mother was ready to go to bed, I brought it over and helped her put on the hoses and heart monitors. I then came back in the morning to get the machine and delivered it to a Medigas office in the city for data analysis.

Which is more or less what I expect will happen with my husband, this time around.

Hopefully, this will all get processed fairly quickly. I think a BiPAP would be better for my husband. They weren’t available when my husband was first diagnosed.

So I didn’t end up getting anything done outside, like I’d hoped, but that’s okay. The important things got done, so that makes it a good day!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 garden: Thanksgiving dinner harvest, plus, this is what $230 looks like

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Tomorrow is Canadian Thanksgiving, but our turkey needs to be cooked, so we will be having our dinner today.

But first, I had to make a trip to the nearer city for a few things. Only about half of today’s shopping came out of our regular budget, though, as my daughter sent me funds for the other half.

Not pictured was my first stop at Canadian Tire. There, I was able to sanitize two of our 18.9L/5 gallon water jugs and refill them – the price at Canadian Tire is much lower than locally, so if I’m making the trip anyhow, it’s worth getting our refills done at the same time.

The main thing we needed to get at Canadian Tire was some mold and mildew resistant primer. We will use that on the exposed bathroom walls, before putting on the tub surround.

I was also able to get a few other things as well. One was a tube of transparent Kwik Seal, which is both an adhesive and a caulk that is waterproof. We’ll be using it on the overlap of the catio and isolation shelter roof panels. I also picked up some 6×3/4 inch wood screws, as we ran out, and a latch that I think should work on the ramp-door on the isolation shelter.

Before doing to the till, I checked out the display of vehicle organizers and accessories for the truck. What I found, though, was an emergency hand crank flashlight and FM radio that was on sale, so I grabbed that for our emergency kit. I think it has a port for charging a cell phone, too, but the packaging didn’t have a detailed list on it. We’ll need to test it out, later, anyhow, and will be able to see, then. Eventually, I want to get a version that can also be charged with a solar panel. I’ve got a couple on my wish list that have different charging ports, different lighting options, etc. that I want for the house.

The Canadian Tire purchase totaled $81.91 after taxes, with the most expensive item being the quart of primer.

After that, it was across the street to the Walmart. This is what $232.58 looks like.

The kibble is for the inside cats, with an extra for the outside cats – I put our last 40 pound bag into the bin today, and that will last about a week. The shelf is the other thing I needed to make the trip for. With the wardrobe out of my husband’s room, he still needs a shelf. I’d have preferred to get a better shelf, but when it came to the smaller higher quality shelves, I was looking at twice the price for half the shelf! So this will do for now.

There are also some supplements; some Vitamin D and some Magnesium. On my daughter’s list was the coffee, creamer and energy drinks, plus some sort of heat and eat. Until we can get the hot water tank fixed, we’re trying to avoid dirtying dishes as much as possible!

Then, because it’s cheap turkey season, I got a frozen turkey; the medium turkeys are $22. I also got a couple of packages of bacon, one of which is for the turkey.

Oh! I almost forgot. I also got a collar with breakaway buckle for the cats. Syndol still has his collar, but I want to get collars on the other cats that got neutered, so it’s easy to tell them apart. Unfortunately, the first collars I got for them have disappeared. They were likely on too loose. I’ll start with getting one on Stinky, since he is one of the crowd of white cats with grey that can be so hard to tell apart at times.

Once I was home and everything was put away, I headed outside to do a bit of harvesting for our Thanksgiving dinner.

I started off with getting some German Butterball potatoes, and the last Uzbek Golden carrots (not counting the ones that went to seed).

I also harvested a few sunchokes, and the last Purple Caribe potatoes. There were two plants I’d left to grow longer, and between the two of them, I found a whole 6 potatoes, and one of them was really small.

If you click through to the next picture, you’ll see the squash I selected for Thanksgiving. Being part of the Wild Bunch Mix, I don’t know what kind it is. We only had the one survive to be harvested. It looks like it could be an immature Long Island Cheese.

We shall see how it tastes!

Since we’re trying to use as few dishes, pots and pans as possible, I was shooting to make our Thanksgiving dinner a one roaster meal.

I almost made it.

I started by oiling the bottom of our big roaster, then lined the bottom with slices of onions and shallots. Then all the carrots, potatoes and most of the sunchokes were laid out over the onions as flat and even as I could make them.

I say “most of the sunchokes” because, as I was cleaning and preparing them, I found several of the largest ones had some sort of worm in them!

Ugh.

The turkey itself was kept plain. After getting a thorough washing and the wings tucked under, it went on top of the vegetables. Then I took a package of bacon and wove the strips over the top of the turkey.

With all that in the roaster, there really wasn’t room for the squash. My husband doesn’t like winter squash, anyhow. So that got cut into chunks and peeled, and put into its own smaller roasting pan.

The good thing about winter squash getting harvested too early, because of frost, is that the shell is soft enough to use a vegetable peeler on!

I kept the squash simple, too. The chunks got pieces of butter spread out over them, then they all got sprinkled with brown sugar.

The turkey went into the over at 450° for 15 minutes, uncovered. Then the heat was reduced to 350°, and the roaster covered with foil (the turkey is too high to use the lid). The squash was put into the oven at this time, too.

As I was writing this, the oven timer went off. The squash is now ready and out of the oven, but it will be a while before the turkey and vegetables are ready.

Along with all this, I also picked up a pumpkin pie at the local grocery store/post office. We’ll just need to whip some cream to go with it.

When the time comes, we’ll be eating off of paper plates, so there’s less to wash.

It’s not going to be fancy, but it doesn’t need to be. We have much to be thankful for!

Speaking of which…

I got a voice mail on my phone from home care, letting me know that no one was available to do my mother’s evening medication assist. So I called my mother to let her know – not something I was looking forward to, after her mind games, yesterday. I made the call just before I started on cleaning the vegetables, so I told her I was going to be quick, because I needed to go to the kitchen, and passed on the message.

Before she let me go, though, she said she had something she needed to tell me. She said she didn’t want me to worry. She would pay for the septic repairs.

She then said she forgot that she had promised to pay it, earlier.

I did tell her, I never asked her to pay for it. She offered, and I was very grateful, because we would have have been able to cover it ourselves. She kind of waffled a bit, and just repeated that she would take care of it, and stopped just short of actually apologizing for her behaviour. Which is fine by me. I don’t expect her to.

Then she mentioned that she spoke to my brother last night. I asked how that was and again, she waffled. She finally just said, it was a short call, and that they talked about him coming out to put away her air conditioner, and that it would be good to do it before winter arrives.

I reminded her that my brother had been saying he needs to come out and take care of that for her; he just has no idea when he’ll be able to. I also reassured her that, even if we got snow (it’s not unusual to get a blizzard in October where we are), he did such a good job sealing the window around the AC vent, it wouldn’t matter. No weather is getting in through there! She agreed that he did an excellent job.

Ah, my timer is going off again. Time to check on the turkey!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

The Re-Farmer

From good to not so good!

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Yesterday was such a good day! I’m just so happy to have finally got the cat isolation shelter to the point that we can use it (though it still doesn’t have a latch on the ramp-door).

I didn’t over exert myself.

Honest. I didn’t.

Working on the shelter was mostly a lot of back and forth to get things cut and nailed or screwed into place. I wasn’t doing anything heavy or strenuous.

Yet, apparently, I overdid it.

I was in bed, just finishing my devotions, when I tried to roll over.

Thankfully, I still had my phone in my hand when the leg cramps hit. I was just able to get so I could sit on the side of the bed, but couldn’t go more than that. I was able tap “help” to my older daughter, and that was it.

She didn’t need more information to know what was going on. Which is good, yet not good, since it shows now often I’ve been getting these, lately.

I’ve had some bad Charlie horses before but, this time, it hit me in both thighs, on all sides and severe enough for pain to shoot down into my calves and up into my hips.

I couldn’t bend, I couldn’t straighten, I could barely use my arms to shift. Even taking the ibuprofen and magnesium my daughter brought me was difficult.

She stayed with me until the painkillers kicked in. Even that was weird. First my right leg, then my left, just suddenly relaxed, with a jolt. Even so, my daughter had to lift me legs for me so I could get back into bed, because the muscles were quivering so much.

As I slowly recovered, and I was able to talk, my daughter mentioned looking up the cause of these. She thought at first it might be lack of hydration, but she knows I stay on top of that. Her next thought was perhaps a lack of salt.

My initial reaction was no, but then I realized that yesterday, I’d eaten almost no salt all day.

It’s the only thing either of us could think of that might apply.

She ended up bringing me a few rock crystals of Himalayan pink salt for me to chew on.

I did eventually fall asleep, but it was many hours before my thigh muscles felt anywhere close to normal. It’s almost 8pm as I write this, and they still feel trembly at times.

My older daughter took care of doing the softened kibble feeding of the outside cats this morning for me, so I could try to sleep in – or at least stay in bed longer.

In the end, if was cats going bonkers, chasing the lady beetles that have gotten inside, that had me giving up on trying to get more sleep.

With the various plumbing issues we have right now, we’ve all been slowly chipping away at dishes and cooking as little as possible. The kettle has been kept going pretty much all the time. Between washing ourselves, using boiled water to soak the outside cats’ kibble, and just general clean up, we’ve taken to simply filling it and setting it to boil so there’s at least warm water available for the next person who needs it.

I did eventually make it outside. It started to rain, so I moved the shallots that were hanging on the high raised bed frame to cure, into the garage. Another couple of days, and they will be braided and brought into the root cellar.

I also got a heat lamp set up in the sun room, as the nights are going to be going below freezing soon. I was going to put the second one in the isolation shelter, ready to be plugged in as needed, but I will have to find a way to secure it better. I want it to be hanging from the centre of the roof, but I will need a little step ladder to reach. 😄 So that will wait for now. I did make sure both sliding panels were closed, though, to keep the weather out of the upper level. There is just the ramp door to get in and out.

The cats quite like going in there!

It had been my plan to clean up and put things away in the garage, now that the isolation shelter no longer needs to be in there, so we can finally park the truck in the garage again.

That didn’t happen!

Maybe tomorrow.

This is Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, and we do have a turkey thawing out. It’ll be ready to be cooked tomorrow, so that’s when we’ll do what we can for a thanksgiving dinner, even if we don’t end up eating it until much later.

My daughters emptied out the wardrobe of my husband’s things – mostly his old office clothes, which he has little occasion to wear these days. They all went into the laundry, and my daughters got the wardrobe upstairs.

Which means my husband now has access to the closet in his room.

We can also bring back his tiny medication fridge, and the table it sits on, back into his room, though that will be done tomorrow.

He’s going to need some sort of small shelf, though.

While I was outside, my mother called. After a bit of telephone tag, we finally connected.

I’m glad to say that she has been really happy with her Meals on Wheels deliveries. She is really enjoying the food, and not having to cook it herself! This is going to work out much better for her than the bulk meal prep that home care offers.

“One of the ladies” told her that the hospital in town has a new doctor, and she told me we should make an appointment with her.

My mother is STILL talking about changing doctors, while she’s in the middle of being assessed for placement in a nursing home or supportive living. If I thought it would actually help any, sure – if nothing else, it would mean her current doctor won’t have a racist AF patient. The problem is, my mother is never happy with any doctor she has. This is a female doctor, and my mother doesn’t think women can be good doctors, just nurses, so we already know she won’t be happy with any female doctor. Even with male doctors, if they don’t tell her what she wants to hear, she’ll find something about them that disqualifies them in her mind. And if there isn’t something there, she’ll invent something. Even doctors she starts out liking, she’ll turn on them in a heartbeat.

She has a very long history of doing this sort of thing.

Eventually, I was able to update my mother on the septic repairs. When I first told her about discovering there was a leak at the expeller, she offered to pay for repairs. I ran the estimates by her and that we were going with the company that was closer.

Today, I told her how this company had stopped returning my calls, so I contacted the other company and ended up talking to the owner.

As I was trying to tell her this, she kept interrupting. I should just get my brother to do fix it, she tells me.

I had to explain, an excavator is needed. It has to be dug up.

We should just have it moved.

???

Moved? That would be an even bigger job to do!

She is not at all understanding our system here. My dad took care of all this stuff, and it’s as if she’s never seen the expeller before, even though she remembers the other things in the area, like the water fountain for the cows that was set up, along with a tap in the barn and another water fountain on the other side of the barn, all piped at the same time.

Then she started telling me my brother should be doing this, not me, because this is a man’s thing to do (talking to companies to arrange repairs, etc.), and my brother is somehow dumping this on me. I told her, this is my “job”. It’s part of the deal I had with her, and that I now have with my brother.

As all this was going on, she also started saying how, oh, someone told her that the farm is not hers anymore, it’s not her responsibility…

Yup.

She started backing out of her offer to pay for the repairs.

After she made a few passive aggressive threats about that, I finally told her, stop playing games with me. Are you going to pay for it, or not? Because if you’re not, I have to call the company to cancel the job.

Thankfully, there is now at least some water running through the expeller, so it would probably last us through the winter, but still… that would not be good.

Well, my mother, being my mother, bounced from saying, yes, she would pay for it (making it sound like I asked her to, rather than being something she offered to do) and why should she pay for it? At one point, she asked me, if I were in her place, would I do it? I said yes, if I could, I would.

I don’t think she expected that.

Anyhow.

This is another old thing with her. She will offer something, then when the time comes, start to back off, and use the offer to manipulate people. I have no patience for what is basically psychological abuse. Especially at a time like this, when we have so many things breaking down at once. I did manage to mention the hot water tank issues, but she just blew right past that. I doubt she even heard me. She even tried to drag my brother into the whole thing, and why doesn’t he call her?

I finally just said, it’s because you do stuff like this, and I just can’t handle this right now.

I then said we would talk later, said goodbye and hung up.

After that, I sent a message to my brother, updating him about the call, telling him it looks like my mother is backing away from her offer of paying for the repairs, so I’ll probably have to call and cancel the job.

While I was writing that message, my older daughter walked in and asked me if I knew what was going on with the bathroom fan.

Yup.

Guess what else is no longer working!

We had that fan’s motor replaced just a few years ago. The previous motor was the original, installed in the mid 70’s.

On top of all this, there were just lots of other little things going wrong, all day.

I did get one good phone call, though.

My brother called.

My mother had called him not long after talking to me.

She never mentioned her call with me at all, but she did bring up that she’d “heard” he was here at the farm yesterday. Yes. Yes, he was, he told her. He’d dropped some stuff off, then checked on the hot water tank and the bathroom for us.

He had to distract her from jumping to all sorts of conclusions about that.

She brought up wanting him to come to put away her air conditioner for the winter, which he’d already said he was planning to do. He won’t be able do it until after Nov. 1, though. When he goes there, he has to plan to be there for several hours, and it’s really hard for him to carve out that much time in his schedule.

As they were talking, the topic of the roof came up and he was saying how great it was that it was done, and that it has a 25 yr warranty, and they’ll both be gone before when.

What do you mean, she wanted to know. Is he sick?

…

No… 25 years is a long time. The average life span for a male is 80 years, and lots can happen in 25 years.

That led to them talking about the message our vandal somehow managed to leave on my brother’s cell phone, and the terrible things he was saying about my brother and I. My brother even managed to even address how our vandal does and says all these terrible things, and she treats him so well, but my brother and I love her so much, and take care of her, but she treats us to cruelly. He even brought up how we are dealing with so many problems right now, and her response is to mess with us. Why is that?

She started to go into her usual justifications, on how she loves everyone equally, but he cut that off, because no. She doesn’t.

He’s not sure if he managed to get through to her, how illogical her behaviour in that respect it. Particularly when it came to her saying she would pay for the repairs, then backing off. My mother, however, is acting as though I’d asked her to pay for it, which I would never do. “Donations gratefully accepted”, as my late brother used to say, but help from my mother tends to come with a high price tag, and if there were any way we could get the repairs done without her help, we’d do it.

In the end, though, my brother assured me that my mother will keep her word about paying for the repairs. The amount isn’t all that much – for her, at least – and she’s thrown twice as much at our vandal, just because, before. More than once.

Mostly, though, he wanted to make sure I didn’t cancel the repair job!

I told him I wouldn’t.

So that, at least was a positive end to the day.

Well. Not that the day is over yet, but close enough!

Tonight, I think I’ll make sure to take some ibuprofen instead of my usual acetaminophen, and maybe make sure I’ve eaten enough salt with my meals, before going to bed!

I think an early bed time is a very good idea, today.

Tomorrow will be a better day.

The Re-Farmer

Morning babies

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I had an unusually hard time getting out to do my morning rounds, today! 😁

As is now the routine, I started off by setting the outside cats’ kibble to soak in hot water before heading out. The cats were very hungry and eager for food!

There was even a skunk already there, coming in to eat along with the cats! I was going to chase it away, but I noticed it has some sort of injury around one eye and…

What can I say. I’m a suck for the skunks, as well as the cats!

At least the soaked kibble won’t cause problems for the skunk. They shouldn’t eat kibble, because of how their jaws are hinged. It can cause problems. Soft kibble, however, won’t do that.

It was very hungry.

Of course, I was keeping an eye out for the kitten that seems to be having issues. When I started putting food out, I saw it laying on the cat bed on the bottom of the shelf in front of the window.

It wasn’t moving, as I put the food out.

I was honestly prepared to have to dig a hole this morning, but when I came back with the empty food bowl, I saw the kitten. It was in the middle of a food tray, food right in front of it. Other cats were head butting it to get at the food, but it wasn’t eating.

So I picked it up and moved it to another tray, to see if it would start eating there.

It didn’t.

We’d tried to give it wet cat food last night. It wouldn’t eat that, either. The bowl was covered and still in the old kitchen, so I took it in to see if it would eat the wet cat food.

It didn’t.

I even tried to scoop it up with my fingers and put it right to its mouth.

It still wouldn’t eat.

It did, however, like and bite at my fingers. Eventually.

What it really wanted was snuggles.

Oh, my goodness, did it ever want snuggles!

I ended up sitting in my late father’s walker for a while, just holding it.

It still needed to eat something, though, so I ended up taking it, and the bowl of food, into the bathroom. I added warm water to the food, then used a larger syringe we now have to try and feed the kitten.

It did actually eat eagerly for a while, actively licking at the syringe.

But only a short while. I did force feed it a bit more, but it was far more interested in checking out the bathroom, and its own reflection in the mirror.

I do still get the impression there is something going on with its vision, yet it can clearly see at least somewhat.

It also seems wobbly on its legs.

I gave its eyes a wash, and cleared its crusty nose. There are definite lung issues going on, but that seems like the standard herpes related issues all the yard cats have.

Finally, I took it back to the sun room and managed to escape before it started finding my feet and laying its head on my boots again!

I had some followers as I did my morning rounds, though, including Eye Baby!

It was really hard to get a picture of him. He wouldn’t stop moving!

That eye looks so, so much better. I don’t know that it will ever improve beyond how it is now, but he seems to be completely adjusted to his condition. It certainly doesn’t slow him down in any way!

As I finished my rounds and started heading back in, through the sun room, I found this pile of cuties, watching me!

That’s one adult cat and four kittens, all mashed into that tiny cat bed! There is a larger cat bed right next to them, with a single kitten sleeping in it, but nope. They all needed to crowd together in the little one. 😄

I also spotted the little sick tabby.

His legs may be wobbly at times, but he still managed to get into the cat cage and settle onto one of the beds in there.

We will keep monitoring him and keep feeding him with the syringe. That will give him both food and hydration. Hopefully, he will start eating and drinking again on his own soon.

Or she. I haven’t tried to look, yet. 😄

In other things…

While I was working on this, I got a call from the supportive living coordinator about my mother. I updated them on some of the more recent changes, such as her macular degeneration, and starting Meals on Wheels. My mother is on that line, where she doesn’t quite fit for the services available in one level of care, but needs more care that would be a good fit for the other. The long term care coordinator also has my mother’s file, and the two of them will connect to talk about my mother, including the updated information I was able to give them just now, see where my mother needs to be, and how best to get her there!

My mother, meanwhile, just wants to be in one specific long term care home in the town nearest us. We’re trying to encourage her to take whatever they have available, because there’s just no way of knowing when a space will open. Once she’s in the system, she can be transferred later. She just needs to get in, first!

Progress is progress, though, and we’re slowing getting her there!

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: a morning harvest, plus another long day!

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I had a long day taking my mother to her specialist appointment in the city yesterday, and now another long day with her today. I did have time to do some of my morning rounds, though, and was able to gather a good sized harvest!

In the giant colander, there are a good number of Chocolate Cherry tomatoes from by the chain link fence. I also picked a few green Seychelle beans from the bed shared with the Crespo squash, and I even found a few on the one plant next to the purple Carminat pole beans. There are even some Royal Burgundy bush beans in there.

I found a melon lying on the ground in the raised bed – it harvested itself! 😄 There are a couple of yellow peppers, plus a Sweet Chocolate. Some of the peppers that are supposed to be more orange are finally starting to turn colour. There’s a single G Star pattypan squash, plus a few San Marzano tomatoes.

When it came time to go into the old kitchen garden, I knew there would be quite a bit, so I grabbed the bin. Those are all Forme de Couer and Black Cherry tomatoes in there.

Including a rude looking tomato! Click over to the next photo to see what I mean. 😄

After that, I left things to my daughters and headed out to my mother’s.

Long story short: her apartment finally got sprayed for bed bugs. There were no sign of any, so they will have to come back only one more time. Her neighbour got sprayed, too. I get the impression that apartment has been the main source of the problem in the building.

My mother then had to stay out of her apartment for 6 hours. Technically, she should stay out for 12 hours, as she has respiratory issues, but she refuses.

The neighbor says they only need to stay out for 4 hours, but I have no idea where she got that from. The notification letter they all get says the same thing. At least 6 hours.

We made sure to take along my mother’s supper time medications, as well as the information sheets the eye clinic gave her, yesterday, to go over. While we were waiting for the exterminator to arrive, I did go through some with her. I took the grid eye test, which is a flat magnetic sheet, and put it on her fridge. The grid has a black dot in the middle that is supposed to be focused on. I spent some time explaining the test to her, how to do it, and that she should be checking her left eye with it, every day. I even held it for her while she did the test, as instructed.

While explaining the grid test to her, how to take the test, what she’s looking for, I was saying, your left eye this, your left eye that, with your left eye…

Yet she still stopped at one point and said, “with my right eye, then…”

…

No. Your right eye can’t even see the dot in the grid. It’s for your left eye.

It’s going to take a while for it to stick, I think!

We had a nice chat with the manager while her apartment was being sprayed – she parker her walker across from her door and would not move until the exterminator left.

Then we had to find something to do or somewhere to go for six hours.

I was going to move the truck into the loading zone in front of the doors, to make it safer for my mother to get in, but the exterminator’s truck was in there, and he was chatting with the manager. When I got there, I did apologize for my mother’s behaviour over all this.

She is still utterly convinced the exterminator rifled through her closet to find and steal 70+ year old passports. In fact, at one point when it came up in conversation, she started saying, “maybe I should call the police?” When I said no, she said I was accusing her of lying. I told her, I didn’t think she was lying, but that she probably just put them somewhere and forgot where. When she moves, she’ll probably find them again. Her response was that I was “against” her.

*sigh*

Anyhow…

It was a good thing I caught up with them, because the manager remembered to ask if my mother’s bed had mattress covers. She doesn’t, and the exterminator said she needs two – one for the mattress, one for the box spring. Then he remembered he might have one and checked in his truck. He did have one and gave it to me for my mother’s mattress. We’ll still need one for the box spring.

Then I mentioned I needed to move my truck so my mother could get in, and we said our goodbyes.

By this time, though, my mother had come out and was sitting in her walker, watching us suspiciously. She called me over before I moved the truck and started asking me questions… why was the exterminator still there? Why was the manager sitting in his truck? etc.

Oh, gosh. I just realized what she was getting at.

She thought they were waiting for her to leave, so the manager could use his master key to get into her apartment, so they could steal things.

*sigh*

Anyhow.

We got her into the truck and then headed out for lunch. There was one place she wanted to go to, because someone new bought it and she wanted to see how it was, now that it wasn’t “browny” people that owned it (it had been owned by a Korean family). *sigh* The place was still being worked on, on the inside, but when she saw the worker’s vehicles in the parking lot, she thought it was open and wanted me to go inside and check. I had to tell her, no, you can’t just walk into a construction zone!

So we went to a chicken and pizza restaurant.

She ended up ordering a vegetable pizza this time, which I normally would not have thought much of, except that my mother is once again deciding that the reason she’s having trouble with her eyes is because of food, and so she needs to eat more vegetables and green things.

There is no known cause for macular degeneration, and there is no food she can eat or not eat that will make any difference. But she heard something somewhere – maybe last week, maybe last month, maybe 30 years ago – and just latches on to things.

We’re going to have to watch her on that, because she’s going to start causing malnutrition in herself if we don’t.

I had something else, so she had a small pizza to herself, with some left over that was packed up for later. We took our time eating, though – we did have 6 hours to kill! – then went across the street to a little department store she wanted to check out, while she was out and about. I helped her get across the street, then moved the truck to park by the store, so she wouldn’t have to cross the street again. The nice thing about that was that I was able to pull up really close to the curb – and that extra height made it downright easy for her to get into the truck when she was done!

We then both went in and did a bit of shopping.

There’s only so long we could drag that out, though.

There was nowhere else she wanted to go, and there is nowhere in this town where one can just hang out. We even tried driving around parts of town we’ve never gone into before, but there wasn’t a whole lot of that, either. 😄

We managed to use up about 2-3 hours before finally just going back to her building and sitting in the common room. No one else was around, so we brought out the information the eye clinic gave her and I went over it with her. Most of it, the doctor had already explained to her really well.

It didn’t take long to go through it all.

I was completely prepared to stay with my mother until 7pm, but she told me that I could go home. She was really tired and was going to just sit and close her eyes for a while. She had her leftovers for supper, and I’d added a bottle of orange juice I’d gotten with her meal on the way home from the city yesterday, that got forgotten in the truck, so she was prepared for taking her medication with her supper while in the common room.

So I headed home.

When I got home, my younger daughter was adding more supports to the tomatoes at the chain link fence that yesterday’s winds had managed to blow partly over. I ended up helping her with that, then she moved on to start breaking down the tree that the winds blow over and onto a crabapple tree.

I had gone to talk to her when our phones both dinged. My husband had sent a message.

My mother had called and left a message on the answering machine. Something about her keys?

I had completely forgotten.

While digging in her purse at one point, my mother gave me her keys to put in my pocket, so they wouldn’t get lost.

They were still in my pocket!!!

I had dashed into the house to get my purse when the phone range again. It was my mother, trying again – from the number on call display, a neighbour had let her use their phone. I told her, I was leaving right then and there!

When I got there, so was so apologetic about having me drive all the way back again. Meanwhile, I was apologizing for forgetting I had her keys! It was pretty funny!

Enough time had passed that she had eaten her supper and taken her medications. It was still early to get into her apartment, but by less than an hour, so we went in anyway.

I had offered to come back to help her put things back and she had said no, so this actually worked out.

I was able to put the mattress cover on her bed – and found out that they’d given her, and others, mattress covers long ago. She didn’t want me to put it on her bed, and basically scoffed at the fact that they had been given them in the first place.

*sigh*

So, somewhere in her closet, she had 2 more of these. Maybe when my sister next visits my mother, she’ll be ablet to find one and get it onto the box spring.

I made up her bed and put a few things away.

If she didn’t have to wait until the health care aid came to help with her nightly medications, she would have gone to bed right then and there!

I did make sure to set out the little miniature tagine bowl and lid I’d brought for her. She thought it was adorable! This will be a handy container for the health care aide to put her pills into, after removing them from the bubble pack, so they can both easily see that the right number are in there. Plus, my mother can more easily pick up the little bowl to take them, rather than trying to use her hands. Some of her fingers are deformed with arthritis.

The extra trip was good for another reason. I had forgotten to hit a bank machine earlier, to take cash out for the septic guy. We’re almost into October. Time to get the tank emptied for the winter.

We’ll need to contact the septic repair company again, too, and hopefully get a date on when they can come and repair the leaking pipes at the expeller!

I really hope we’re not getting ghosted by this company. We’ve had this happen before with other companies, in the first couple of years after we moved here. I have reason to believe it has something to do with our vandal defaming us, though I have no actual proof. Our vandal has a past history of trying to prevent companies from doing things here at the farm, and even on property in the heart of our little hamlet that my parents used to own. Then, when they tried to sell it, he drove off two potential buyers!

Yes, he felt he was entitled to that property, just like he feels he’s entitled to this property, too.

Of course, it could be this company is just really busy, trying to get jobs done before winter. Unfortunately, with past experience, I can’t help but wonder.

Well, if we don’t hear from them after trying to call them back several times, there is another company we can contact again. They are in a completely different town that our vandal doesn’t really go to, that I know of, so the chances of them having any contact with our vandal is very low.

The main thing is that this gets repaired before the ground freezes.

Thankfully, our system has still been working so far, even if the greywater is all just soaking into the ground, as if we had a septic field instead of an expeller. The leak must be pretty close to the surface for the ground to become saturated like that, so if it doesn’t get repaired, the whole thing will freeze, the greywater will have nowhere to go, and the ice will break the pipes even more.

*sigh*

Tomorrow, I will hopefully not have to go anywhere, except maybe the dump. I don’t know if I dare to to the nearest landfill again, with how bad it has gotten lately (I don’t want another flat tire!), but the next nearest one is also open on Saturdays. I just need to find it.

If all goes well, though, I’ll finally be able to catch up with stuff here at home!

Like prep and freeze a whole lot of bell peppers and melons, and either freeze whole tomatoes, or start another sauce in the Crockpot.

I really look forward to just staying home. 😁

I’m so tired!

The Re-Farmer