dealing with elderly parents

Glad to be home

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First, the cuteness!

The cats are quite enjoying the box I found to better stabilize the platform I rigged up for them as a way to store the wire mesh door we made to keep cats out of the old basement in the summer. The one that reminds me of Nosencrantz so much especially likes to just be a loaf in it! I’m constantly seeing cats milling around under there, though, and they do like that rigid insulation!

Also… I’m not 100% sure I recognize the cat on the left. It’s getting so hard to tell some of them apart!

I counted “only” 34 outside cats this morning.

As for the inside cats, Tiny, aka: The Beast, is now big enough that it’s safe to let her out of isolation. With the loss of Snorri, we no longer have to keep the door to my bedroom/office closed, even overnight. Tiny has been thrilled with her new freedom to explore the rest of the house.

The rest of the cats are thrilled to be able to go into my room again. As I write this, there are currently 8 of them asleep on my bed, with all but one of them in a single, huge pile of fur!

Gotta get more adoptions done!!!

Anyhow…

The plan for today was to help my mother with errands so, while doing my rounds, I took the time to open the doors to where her car is parked and give it a quick check.

I almost immediately noticed the back tire on the driver’s side looked awfully low. The tire that had gone flat before was the front driver’s side tire, so this was not expected at all.

The car barely fits in this addition to the garage, so I backed it out, then checked the tire pressure.

It was only 10psi!!

So I pumped it up, but saw no sign of a leak anywhere. I checked the front driver’s side tire, and it was really low, too, though not enough to be noticeably flat.

Of course, I checked the other two, and they were slightly on the slow side, too.

The bizarre thing is, when I took the car in to get that tire checked, the employee that worked on it thought it was the passenger side tire that was leaking and was done checking it when I returned to the garage. I told him it was the driver’s side tire, so he took that one off. He could not find a leak in either of them. All the tires, however, were topped up with air, just in case. I was there to see it done.

So why would all four tires be low, with one practically flat? We even used the car a few days ago, when we had to pick the truck up from getting its new battery.

I’m so glad I took the time to check on her car, so far in advance of needing it! With all the driving around I did with my mother, the tires have held their psi. No evidence of leaks, anywhere.

Very strange.

If it weren’t for the fact that we have snow on the ground that would have given evidence, I would be concerned that a certain “someone” made their way into the garage and let the air out. As it is, the only foot prints in the snow have been our own.

Another reason I am glad I checked the tires.

Road conditions sucked.

But only the gravel roads, and only those sections shaded by trees. They were sheer ice! Even though I was driving slowly and cautiously, ever now and then, the car would suddenly start fishtailing. Not much, thankfully, and not for long, but enough to be a concern. The last thing I’d want is to hit either ditch on the sides of these roads. They are very deep and very steep! The chances of being able to drive out, even with 4 wheel drive, are very low.

We got a light and fluffy snowfall overnight, which didn’t help matters.

Even on the highway, for the first while, I was not confident driving at the speed limit for quite some time.

Oh, how I wished to be driving the truck, instead!!!

Thankfully, today turned out to be warmer than forecast – again – and the paved roads melted clear by the time I was heading home.

Except the gravel roads, where were even slipperier!

As I was reaching the intersection by our place, though, I saw the grader coming through. Our section of the road had just been done. He had to move aside for me to be able to turn in, so at least the last 200 ft or so was good!

This should have been done long ago. People are really upset with our current municipal counsel. For some reason, they didn’t go with the usual company for road maintenance – a local company that has all the equipment and storage facilities on hand, and had done an excellent job of keeping our roads cleared and safe as quickly as possible, every year we’ve been here. Instead, they’ve decided to lease a grader, rent someone’s space to store it, for a ludicrous monthly fee – and a 125 hour limit. Oh, and they’d have to hire a driver each time, too. They only got the grader today, which means for the past while, roads like ours have been just left as they were. It got so bad in areas that the school division would not allow buses to drive on them, for safety reasons.

Which means parents on these dangerous roads had to drive their kids, however many miles, to meet the bus at the highway, instead.

Hopefully, it will no longer be an issue for the rest of the winter.

Anyhow.

Since I was there with the car, my mother wanted to do as many errands as she could, so we stopped at quite a few places. For all that my mother is 92, uses a walker, frequently complains about how bad her knees are (but won’t wear her brace), and is clearly struggling at times, once she gets going, she is really hard to keep up with! At the grocery store, we’ve switched from her using the shopping cart as a walker, to her using her walker and me pushing the cart, so that she has the option of sitting down if she needs to. Once she gets going, though, she just races off! Unfortunately, she’s one of those people who doesn’t really watch out for others or, if she does see them, all but barrels right through them. Yikes!!

We got it all done, though, and she was quite glad to get home and finally rest!

For me, it was just a stop at the gas station, then home, and I was sure glad to be home, too!

I thought I could look forward to taking it easy for the next while, but…

There was an answering machine message when I got home. A reminded for my eye appointment on Monday. I was very glad to get it! I have my phone set to send me a reminder 1 day in advance, so I wouldn’t have forgotten or missed the appointment. However, my eyes will be dilated for a field of vision test, which means I have to get my daughter to drive me home.

Other than parking in the garage, she has yet to drive the truck.

So tomorrow, we’ll be heading out for her to do some practise driving. Pretty much everything is in different places from any other vehicle we’ve driven. It’s also just a few inches wider and longer than the van – just enough to really affect getting in and out of parking spaces, or taking turns. It won’t take long for her to get used to it, but better to do that in advance, then when I need her to drive me home because I’ll essentially be blinded.

I just checked my calendar and see I have a reminder to get my bloodwork done on the same day my husband’s CPP Disability comes in, before Christmas instead of after. That, at least, is not an appointment. I just need to show up at the clinic and ask for the requisition for that should be on file, then step across the hall to the lab to do the tests. Since I will likely be doing our first January stock up shopping that day, and don’t usually have breakfast until I’ve reached the city, I can swing by on the way and get the bloodwork done while still technically fasting.

Then there’s the extra city trip that my daughters will need next week.

Good grief. I try to keep the winter months as close to home as possible, but this year it looks like our December is going to be filled with outings!

I just want to stay home and hybernate!

The Re-Farmer

What a lovely day!

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It is just gorgeous out there!

We were supposed to reach a high of 4C/39F today. We’re at 7C/45F right now! It turns out we hit 7C/45F yesterday, too. The snow is melting away, and it feels like spring!

Before I go on, though, we must first have the cuteness.

Snorri is just enveloped by David! The Beast (aka: Tiny) is bigger than Snorri! He’s all fur, so he looks bigger than he really is. I have to be so careful at night. He has a thing for curling up behind my neck, or on my legs. He’s so light, sometimes I can’t feel him there at all, and I have to check if he’s on or behind me before I try to roll over.

He does have a thing for necks! If he can get at one, he’ll climb right up any convenient human and settle into a neck, purring.

Snorri’s eyes are still really leaky, but he’s most definitely getting better. I hope he’ll start getting some meat on those bones soon! He certainly has a good appetite.

When feeding the outside cats this morning, I did repeated head counts. I kept getting 37, though I did get 38 once. I think I double counted someone. All the usuals that sometimes show up later were there – Rolando Moon, Brussel and Sprout, Broccoli, the orange and white, both Adam and Driver, Judgement – plus the ones that are almost always here; the printer babies – all the white and greys – the orange tabby, Hypotenose, Syndod, this year’s lone calico and tortie kittens, etc. Then there are the black cats and the grey tabbies. We have so many gorgeous cats this year!

One of the places I put a bit of kibble is in the space the smaller cats use to get under the cat house. While trying to count, I spotted a little white face, eating at the opening. I could only see a bit more than the nose and mouth, so I couldn’t say for sure if it was one of our usuals. There is one white and grey among this year’s kittens that I thought it might have been, but when I went to count the cats in the sun room, he was there. I can’t think of any other small, white faced cat that it might have been. I also spotted a couple of tabbies that I wasn’t sure of. It’s entirely possible they’re from this year’s kittens that are just bigger, and we were bound to have kittens from litters the shier mamas kept further away, finally starting to show up on their own. These ones are adult sized cats, though.

Well, no matter. They are welcome to food, water and shelter! Even Sad Face has become a permanent fixture. The next time there’s a cheap spay and neuter day, I hope we can snag him!

How bizarre that the visiting tom we kept having to chase away because he was so aggressive to the other cats, is now more approachable than all the female yard cats. !!

With so many cats to feed, it’s no surprise that we were running low on kibble, so today I made a trip to Walmart. When I got there, I found that Black Friday sales have already started. Another bizarre notion. This is a US thing, since we have our Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October. Meanwhile, Black Friday doesn’t even happen in the US until the end of this week, but Canada has Black Friday, too, and the sales have started already.

I was able to juggle the budget a bit and take advantage of some of the sales. Along with the cat food I was there to get, I was able to get things like a case of 24 cans of tomato soup at 77¢ each – easily the best deal among the things I got, since those cans now cost closer to $2 each. One of the things on my list, however, was not on sale. Butter. Even their house brand butter is almost $7 a pound! It would be cheaper to buy whipping cream and make it.

I didn’t buy whipping cream, and got only 1 pound of butter. We’ll just have to use the ghee more often, until our next big city shopping trip. The next time we’re at Costco, I’ll have to stock up on more butter than usual. Another of their big buckets of ghee wouldn’t go amiss, either!

Once I got home and we unloaded the truck, I had to feed the outside cats early. I was just going back to park it in the garage when I saw a couple of cats under it; one jumping up into the undercarriage somewhere, and another jumping up onto a front tire!

Yes, I make it a practise to bang on the truck before starting it.

The sound of kibble was enough to get them away from the truck, though.

In other things…

I called my mother last night, and it was like talking to a completely different person. She went from yelling and raging at me the day before, to cheerful and pleasant. I asked how she was doing, and she went into her usual complaints about her breathing; this time, she tried to blame it on the macaroni she ate. *sigh* After she went on for a while, I more specifically asked about her mood. She was all ready to act like it never happened, and she was never angry or said all those horrible things to me. We talked about it for a bit, and I tried to stress with her that if our vandal starts calling her about me, it’s because he’s trying to cause problems between us. She did try to defend him again, saying he was just telling her what’s going on, and I had to tell her, he has NO idea what’s going on. She quickly changed the subject. She didn’t quite apologize, but she did seem to try and make amends, in her own way.

I told her about our plans to get the hand pump on the original well serviced, so that we can then change the well pump and have back up water if something goes wrong. It took some time to explain to her why the well pump in the house needed to be changed at all. It has been changed in the past, but that was more than 20 years ago. The foot valve in the well, however, is original and some 45 or so years old – I think it was dug in 1974, but it might have been the year before. She couldn’t remember the exact year.

So she’s happy with the plans. Her only thing was to tell me to talk to my brother about it first, and I told her, I talk to him about everything. No living person knows this place better than he does. He was old enough to actually do a lot of this stuff alongside my dad. My other brothers were still too young for much of it, and some of it was done before I was even born. My sister is older, but she wouldn’t have been allowed to be part of this stuff, even if she were interested, because she is female. My mother then started going on about how great my brother is, and what a good job he’s doing with the farm.

Just the day before, she’d yelled and hung up on him when he called her out for how she allowed our vandal to manipulate her and treat me like crap.

She was like a totally different person.

Meanwhile…

In checking the trail cam files, I could see our vandal trying to figure out what was going on. The day the guys where here to pick up the vehicles, I saw him pull into our driveway while the gate was open – but not far enough to be trespassing! – to turn around, then slowly back down the road, so he could better see through the trees to where we were. I even remember seeing a vehicle backing up on the road, while the guys were jacking the truck out of the dirt and putting tires on it. On the trail cam files, I saw our vandal go by again, later on. Then, after the guys were gone and the gate closed, I saw a different vehicle pull into our driveway and turn around. From another camera, I could see that the driver of this vehicle was a mutual friend he’d clearly gotten to check things out.

On today’s file check, I saw our vandal in the morning, slowly driving past our driveway, then slow down even more as he drove past the bushes, trying to see through them to the other scrap vehicles.

Needless to say, we are no longer fake locking the gate.

It amazes me how furious and possessive he is about the junk. Yeah, some of it was his, but he abandoned it years ago, and neither vehicle that was taken had ever been his to begin with. The ones he’d left are in such bad shape, they aren’t even good for parts. Just the scrap dealer. Which is why he dumped them here, instead of keeping them on his own property. He was using this place as a garbage dump.

So we’re going to have to keep an extra eye on things for the next while.

Something else we might be able to keep an extra eye on is the sun room critters. My SIL gave us a camera. It was a Superstore freebie for purchases over X amount of dollars, and they had no use for it. It’s one of those little security cameras you can link to your phone to keep an eye on things through a live feed. It is not an outdoor camera, but if we can set it up in the sun room, we should be able to confirm what critters (most likely racoons) are knocking things over in there during the night. If it could handle outdoor conditions, I’d want to set it up facing the cat, kibble and water shelters, so we can see what, besides cats, is eating all the kibble, and sometimes knocking the heated water bowl right out of the shelter! Having a critter cam in the sun room, however, would be a good thing! It mostly comes down to how the device is powered. If it’s USB, we’ve got nothing to plug it into in there. We just haven’t had a chance to even take it out of the box, yet!

Who knows. I might be posting critter cam pictures on here, soon!

The Re-Farmer

Need to decompress for a while!

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First, the cuteness!

The cats just love this upper level set up! Here we have Hypotenose, Syndod and the unnamed tortie. When I fed them this morning, I think I counted 35. Or it could have been 32. I never got the same number twice, and it’s way too easy to double count!

The day started out well. It was lovely out, and I think we exceeded our predicted high of 3C/37F.

Today was the day the guy, and his son, who wanted to buy some scrap cars from us was to come over and pick them up. They arrived with a couple of trailers and four trucks altogether, as his son’s friends came along again, as did the guy’s neighbour, to help out.

It’s a good thing they had three big strapping young men along! What a job it was!

Their first goal was to get the pick up truck. They had to cut trees away first, then jack it up out of the ground it had sunk into, replace the two front tires, and put tires on the back, which had no tires at all. They were then able to use one of the trucks to pull it out of where it was parked, so they could load it onto a trailer.

That’s when things got considerably more difficult!

All four tires were seized up.

They dragged it far enough out, though, then brought the longer trailer around. Unfortunately, the ramps on the trailer turned out to be too narrow.

As all this was starting, we could hear cows. We’d had to go through the “gate” by the barn (it’s just an open part of the fence with a chain and the electric fence across it; I eventually found the barbed wire gate, mostly fallen apart and buried in tall grass). This meant taking down the electric fence, which ends at this gate, so that was easy enough to do. When the renter’s cows are here, that fence is live, of course, so when I heard cows that sounded awfully close, I went to the gravel pit, where there is water, in case a neighbour’s cows got in or something.

I found 3 cows.

But I heard more.

So I kept walking and could soon see the rest of the herd.

The renter’s cows are still here! I haven’t seen them – or even their tracks – in a while! He leaves feed for them out by the gate he brings them in by, so I guess they had no reason to go any further than the water in the gravel pit.

As I walked back, I took a closer look at where the renter sets up the battery and solar panel for the electric fence. I’d looked on the way out, but didn’t see anything.

It turned out the solar panel had been flipped upside down, on top of the battery, and was covered in snow. I’d say, high winds caught it. I’ve no idea how long it’s been out of order, since I didn’t even know the cows were still here!

Well, I guess it worked out, since we had to go through there, anyhow.

Yes, I have since let them know. At least I hope so. I sent direct message, but I might have to find their phone number and call them, if those haven’t been seen.

Anyhow.

On finding the truck could not be loaded onto that trailer, they took it across to the car graveyard. That car was also deeply sunk into the ground, but it did have all four tires and – amazingly – they were able to pump them up and they held air! Long enough to move it, at least.

The guys were so excited by this little car. I think it’s going to end up restored and driven again, rather than just used for parts! Its interior was largely gutted, but it still had its engine.

Mostly.

So that got loaded up rather quickly.

Next, they went to look at a third vehicle over by the storage shed. After cutting their way through the forest of burrs, they were able to open the doors and look inside.

Unfortunately, it turns out things are badly rotted out in there. After talking about it, it was decided they would not take that one. It was good only for scrap.

The other two next to it caught their attention, but they instead went looking at the tractor. The son still wants to buy that, but that won’t happen until spring. He did pay half as a down payment, though.

Then it was back to the truck. It took both the winch on the trailer, plus another truck with a tow strap, to drag that thing up the ramps and onto the trailer. The truck is so long, it barely fit! But, they got it.

So that was done, and the guy was saying he might be interested in some of the other vehicles, too. We shall see.

Now, with all this noise and commotion, I knew our vandal would be wondering what’s going on, since he tried to sue me for this stuff, among other things. The only reason I could even consider selling anything is because the judge threw it out. I know that wouldn’t change his mind that he is somehow entitled to all this junk, even though he had plenty of time to remove things if he wanted them, while the place was empty for two years. He certainly removed all sorts of stuff that wasn’t junk, long ago, so it’s not like he wasn’t able to. I wasn’t sure if he would suddenly show up and start screaming or something, but I didn’t see him. He’d still have heard things from our place and gone looking, though, so I knew I’d have something to deal with something, eventually.

Once everything was squared up and I was settled back inside, I started messaging my brother to let him know, and ask him how he wanted me to get the money to him. The vehicles are paid for, but the guy is going to look up the VINs and make up proper bills of sales for them, which my brother will have to sign, since he’s the owner. The truck actually had its old registration papers in the glove compartment!

While I was messaging my brother, which would take a while, since I knew he and his wife were on the road at the time, my phone rang.

It was my mother.

I knew it was going to happen, but I wasn’t expecting it that quickly!

I barely said hello, when my mother was yelling, what’s going on? What’s going on?

Yup. Our vandal had phoned her already. I don’t know what he actually told her – he would have been making things up, anyhow, since he wouldn’t know anything – but boy, did he have her wired up! It took some doing to calm her down but, as short as I can make it, my mother seems to have thought that this was some instant thing. As if some guys showed up, out of the blue, with trailers today, and I just let them haul stuff out. When I told her this was over a week in the making, she was incensed that I hadn’t told her earlier. I said, there was nothing to tell until it was done, and I was planning to phone her after I finished talking to my brother. Well, she just kept on yelling, going on about how we’re only after her money, she paid for the roof, and she is never going to pay for anything anymore… ???

As near as I can figure, going back to when she called a scrap guy to come out and look at the stuff, our first summer here, she is thinking that the money from selling the scrap would have paid for the roof, but she paid for the roof, so… we’re after her money? The thing is, when I told her the roof was leaking, she kept arguing with me, saying that they already replaced the roof (25 years ago), so it was fine. Perfect. Just like she thought everything here was perfect, as she tried to talk us into moving out here. It took years just to convince her it really did need replacing.

I eventually calmed her down and told her I needed to finish talking to my brother, and then I would call her back.

So I finished messaging him, telling as much as I could, but I knew they were probably driving and wouldn’t be able to see it right away. I even sent some pictures. I also told them about the call from my mother and the terrible things she was saying. Then I called my mother back.

*sigh*

It took some doing, but I was able to get it through that I had already talked to my brother about all this, because I can’t do anything here without him. We don’t own anything here, other than things we bought or brought ourselves. I would never do anything like that without talking to him about it first, anyhow. She made a big deal about how I wouldn’t know the value of things (because I’m female), and I had to explain to her that, by selling individual vehicles for parts, we’d get more money than selling them to a scrap dealer. I also reminded her that she’s been after us for years to get rid of all those vehicles. So that’s what I’m starting to do.

She went into some real mental gymnastics in both calls, constantly going back to how we’re just after her money (clearly, our vandal said that to her), how she was entitled to know what’s going on (she no longer owns own the property so no, she isn’t; we keep her in the loop out of respect), and demanding that the money goes towards fixing the place, because she paid for the roof, and she gives us more money than other parents do, and… on and on it went. She even tried to guilt me about how letting us live here was a kindness. I had to remind her that she begged us to move out here for years before we finally agreed, so our being here was helping both ways. She did, at least, agree to that!

I then told her I needed to let the renter know their electric fence isn’t working and got off the phone. Once I was done messaging them, I updated my brother.

His wife answered, telling me he was furious at her behaviour and was going to call her.

I ended up getting a call. He’d tried calling her several times and her line was busy, so he wanted to check if I was talking to her. I think she was probably talking to our sister.

Some time later, I got a call from my brother again. They’d actually pulled over on the side of the road to try calling our mother again. He got through to her and tried telling her she’d done the wrong thing by yelling at me and letting our vandal manipulate her, that she needed to apologize to me, call me and make it right. She, however, just kept yelling at him, then when he said she needed to make it right, she hung up on him.

Our vandal really made a mess of things with her, and she’s doing exactly what he wanted her to go; he’s trying to turn her against me and my brother (maybe my sister as well, but she’s not involved with the farm), and she’s letting him.

What chokes me is how she goes on about how badly we’re treating her, or how we’re just after her money, but is completely oblivious to her own part in all this. Like our vandal, she takes no responsibility for her behaviour, and if people actually stand up to her and call her out on her behaviour, they’re the ones that are treating her badly, and she’s the victim. She has also tried to control me, and our finances (including my husband in this) for as long as I can remember. The one person who actually does want all her money is our vandal.

You’d think my mother was rich or something, with all this going on. She’s got next to nothing, and the only reason she has what she has is because my brother has been taking care of things for her. She also goes on about how she just wants us all to get along, but plays us against each other, every chance she gets.

Which reminds me. I need to email my sister and tell her what’s happened, thanks to our vandal.

*sigh*

I guess I should get that over with now.

The Re-Farmer

Can you find it?

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I knew it had to be there!

I took the truck in to get things checked out; along with the “service tire monitoring system” warning on the computer display, I started to get a “left rr tire low, add air” warning. Plus, the check engine light was still on. The battery needed to be looked at, too.

I dropped the truck off, then headed to the grocery store to pick up a few things and wait until I got a text to come back for the truck. This was just a look-see appointment, not an appointment to get any work done.

When I got back, he explained about the sensor issues. And it is sensors that are the problem, not actual mechanical problems. The tire module probably has a low battery, so that will need to be replaced. The part is a somewhat over $60, from what he could remember. As for the battery, he checked, and no, HE did not replace it. The previous owner had replaced it. He looked it up and it’s a 2019 battery, so past warranty. He recently changed suppliers, so he couldn’t give me an idea of the cost.

Overall, though, we should have no problem waiting until December to get this done, if we have to. The priority would be getting a new battery. The sensors are just turning on lights.

That was when I commented about the computer display, and how the manual said there was a control panel for it in a location that is not included in this model, and there’s no button.

Yes, there is!

Of course, I had to get him to show me exactly where it is, because we’ve looked and looked. There HAD to be something, but we just couldn’t find it.

He showed it to me, and I STILL had to stick my head right in to see it.

I took this picture of the dash after I parked at home. Can you see it?

If you spotted it in that V between the top gauge on the right, and the speedometer, you’ve got good eyes! We LOOKED in that area! We looked all over the console. We missed it completley.

He got a laugh about that.

Once I had the truck back and the groceries loaded, I parked long enough to message my family, then cycled through the computer display. I’ll have to spend some time going through the different displays to see what some of them are for, and how to use the trip function, but the main thing is, I was no longer seeing that “service tire monitoring system” thing anymore. I was finally seeing the odometer reading!

Also, the temperature in Celcius.

It took me a moment to figure out why there was a W above the temperature when I realised I was driving West. It has a compass display, too! Woo Hoo!!!

Yeah, it doesn’t take much for me to get all excited. 😄

He asked me to text him tomorrow and remind him to look up the prices of things and send me an estimate. He’s been very busy lately, mostly with tires! Even as I dropped the truck off, he was taking delivery of a cargo van load. People are getting their winter tires, so it’s a good busy!

I will probably not be home for much of tomorrow, though. Thankfully, it was warm enough today, and the ice is all melted off the roads. I will be calling my mother later to confirm, and am expecting to help her with some errands tomorrow. Of course, tomorrow is also supposed to be our last “warm” day. I’ll have to get the girls to take care of the winter mulching for me. I’d rather be working outside and taking advantage of the last warm day. My mother seems to have developed a strange gift for disrupting our ability to get things done that are weather dependant!! It’s not like she pays attention to the weather forecasts and plans this, either. Ah, well. It is what it is!

First, though, I need to have myself a late supper. I was in town for far longer than I expected, and didn’t think I’d need to get food while I was out!

The Re-Farmer.

Not worth it!

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

I don’t mean this, though. THIS is totally worth it.

Tiny: The Beast

Totally.

What was NOT worth it, was a trip to the city.

We didn’t drive anywhere yesterday, but I was keeping on top of updates on road conditions, in a Facebook group dedicated to highway conditions in our area. It was warmer than today is expected to get, but we had “snow squall” warnings over the region, and winds were quite high at times. Lots of people were describing icy road conditions and advising people to stay home, if they could.

Today is working out to be a much more pleasant day. No wind to speak of, lots of sun, but our high is supposed to be only -3C/27F The question is, did the sand trucks get out?

The answer turned out to be, no.

I waited until late morning to head out, as even when it’s just below freezing, the paved roads tend to warm up more and melt.

Not today!

Where our gravel road reaches the highway, there is an exit lane on the other side into our little hamlet. Right away, I could see hints of what was to come, as the entire junction was sheer ice. There was a large truck pulling a trailer that I waited for, then I pulled onto the highway behind it.

The load on this trailer was an unusual shape. You know those trucks that are designed to haul windows? There’s a triangle shaped frame in the middle, and windows are loaded on either side, resting at an angle leaning towards the center? It was something like that, except much, much larger.

Along the highway, we were hitting alternate patches of sheer ice, and clear road. The curves were the worst, of course. As the truck was pulling out of a set of curves, there was a pair of vehicles on the side of the road ahead. There was no oncoming traffic, so the truck moved over the center line well ahead of these vehicles, to give them space, and I did the same. These were not vehicles in any sort of break down, but rather pulled over to do work of some kind. Once I cleared them and moved back into my lane, I barely started to accelerate again, and I could feel my back end start to fish tail! It was a quick recovery, but a bit of a surprise, since I didn’t think I was even on ice at the time.

It wasn’t much further when I saw the trailer ahead of me start fishtailing! I could see no reason for it, as the driver was clearly doing his best to drive to the conditions. My guess is, the load got hit with a gust of wind. Thankfully, I was making sure to keep quite a distance between us, because if I’d had to brake to avoid the truck, I would have gone skating, fancy new tires or not!

Thankfully, the big truck didn’t have to deal with that for much longer, and turned onto a gravel road soon after. By then, I’d already decided; it wasn’t worth driving all the way to the city. There is nothing essential we need to get there, and what we do need can wait a few days. I only continued far enough to reach an intersection, pulled over to message my family, then used the intersection to do a U turn and go back.

The north bound lane was even icier than the south bound lane. When I saw 4 deer running across the road, I was quite happy to have been driving slow and not at all needing to brake or avoid them.

I did decide to stop at the post office before going home, though. The exit and the section of road going through town was easily the iciest I saw the entire time. Since I was in the store to get to the post office, anyhow, I picked up one of their awesome hams as a treat for today.

As I was driving back to the junction, I found myself getting passed on the right, but a little utility vehicle! It was driving on the shoulder, which was clear gravel, unlike the paved road I was driving on, so that thing could easily go much faster, safely, than me! I was happy to be back on the gravel road, which was more snow than ice!

I’m glad we were able to do such a big trip last week!

On the way home from the post office, the computer display on the truck suddenly started telling me my left rear tire was low on air.

It isn’t.

I’ve got an appointment at the garage for tomorrow afternoon to get these codes and the tire monitoring system checked, out. With the tires, it’s the sensors/monitors that are the issue, not the tires themselves. The other codes could be a number of things, but since he’d serviced the truck from end to end himself, he knows it’s mechanically fine. The only thing he’s now second guessing himself over is whether he’d put in a new battery or not. He told me he did but, with it draining like it is, suddenly he’s not so sure! When he asked me if I noticed the brand on the battery, I told him I couldn’t see. I could barely see to attach the cables when I hooked up the charger. I’m too short! He got a laugh out of that, at least. 😁

Seriously, though. We’re going to need to get a step stool of some kind that we can keep in the truck at all times. I’ll need one just to check the oil!

So that means I won’t be going into the city tomorrow, either.

We’re supposed to reach highs above freezing, starting tomorrow and over the next few days – depending on what app we look at! That will clear the roads, at least. The way things are going, I won’t be able to get to the city until the end of the week. I got a call from my mother last night. It was a very strange call, where she complained about how terrible she was feeling, and how she’d called my brother (the on that lives more than an hour’s drive away) and he’s not calling back, etc. I called her out when she started saying terrible things about my brother for not being instantly at her beck and call, reminding her that I’m the one that’s the closest, so she should be calling me, first. Or, calling for an ambulance, if she was really feeling that bad. Oh, no… she doesn’t want to do that…

Then she started asking me what, of her things, I wanted, because she didn’t want her fighting over her stuff when she was gone. I told her, don’t worry about it. We won’t be fighting over her stuff. She was, however, making it like she was expecting to die because she had a headache and was feeling weak. ???

By the end of the call, when I finally got out of where her what she wanted, it came down to wanting someone to come visit. I told her I was going to the city today, and taking the truck to the garage tomorrow, so I could come over on Thursday – and she should be ready for a grocery shopping trip by then, too. She started saying she doesn’t need one, because she has milk now… *sigh* She has always had difficulty with planning ahead. I can’t even say if it’s gotten worse as she’s gotten older! So I’ll have to call her tomorrow and solidify my coming over.

She was sounding much better by the end of the call, too. After I got off the phone, I messaged my brother to let him know my mother was wanting him to call – and forewarning him that she was dragging up how he used to come out every week – and bring chicken! (the same chicken she now tells me not to bring her) – after work. I’ve reminded her, time and again, that he did that before we moved out here, so he had no choice. He made that trip every Friday for years, until we moved in and he no longer had to keep checking on the place.

I got a call from my brother later on. He’d gotten through to her and, after cutting off her immediate attempts to try and guilt trip him and make him feel bad, they actually had a very good conversation, and she was sounding quite well during their talk. So that worked out in the end.

Talking with my family about this, it’s really hard to not feel bitter about this whole thing with my mother. She’s expecting us to “be there” for her when she “needs us the most” – and by “we”, she really means my oldest brother. The thing is, she was pretty much never there for us. My family and I were out of province for most of the time, so we weren’t as affected by it. They would come out with their children to visit, and she’d leave, saying she would rather be “with her religious community”. She sure as heck wasn’t there when my brother needed her, and when my father needed her the most, she moved out and left him in the tender “mercies” of our vandal. So for her to now expect us to drop everything, ignore our own responsibilities, family and friends, and cater to her because she’s got a headache… Yeah. It gets hard, sometimes.

But I digress…

As I’m writing this, I’m also messaging with the Cat Lady. She’s dealing with their move, while also trying to work out getting those 6 spots for us for the cheap spay and neuter day. It looked like it would be only females, but the clinic recently posted an update, and they will do males – and will do trapped ferals where someone may not even know if they are male or female! We won’t be able to have kittens sharing a carrier, though, so she’s going to try to find a couple she can lend us (we have 4). The problem is, with the move, they are using their carriers to move their own cats. Most will be going into a kennel (the owner is a friend who is planning to shut down their kennel to appointments, to house most of their cats for a week), but some will be going to the new house earlier, while other will be staying in their old house until pretty much the last minute, depending on their various catonalities and medical needs.

However it works out, we’ll be getting 6 cats done on November 11, with the rescue paying for 4 of them, and us paying for 2 of them. I really want to get all the bigger kittens done. The females are getting old enough they could potentially go into their first heat, and the last thing we need is for that to happen with their intact brothers around! After that, we’ll still have the three littles, but they’re still way too small.

We’ll figure it out!

The Re-Farmer

Montana Morado corn, and energy vampires

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First, the pleasant stuff.

Yesterday, I got out the Montana Morado corn cobs that had been set aside to continue drying in a cardboard box before trying to remove the kernels. Unfortunately, a few small cobs were still to unripe and started to get fuzzy instead, but we still got this out of it.

It came out to almost exactly a cup of kernels.

I’m waffling between keeping some as seed for next year, or just processing the whole thing. We don’t have a corn mill, but we want to make flour out of it to try. We might have a coffee grinder strong enough, but I think my daughters want to try using our larger mortar and pestle. Which is still pretty small, but we’d be doing it in batches, anyhow.

The other thing that happened yesterday was related to the truck financing.

Yes. We have the truck.

Yes. We have signed the financing documents with the lender, and the finance company representative that’s been helping us all this time.

Yes. The lender had actually said it was done, after we’d sent in a cell phone bill in my husband’s name as yet another proof of ID.

Then yesterday, they told her the cell phone bill wasn’t good enough. They wanted more.

By this point, the entire office was in an uproar about it, I was told. She’d gone to her managers about it, and they were getting involved with the lender to get this mess fixed up. It’s gotten so bad, she was starting to think someone else at the lender’s office had a problem with her, and was messing with the file because of it. We’re not the only file of hers that’s had issues, but none to the point we’re at now. Not only was the entire office getting involved to help out, she herself had stopped working on all other files but ours. The problem is, we already gave them pretty much everything we had. I did eventually sent in an image of my husband’s CPP Disability T4, which only has information they already have on it. They kept wanting something with my husband’s name and address that was sent within the last 30 days (the updated proof of income not being good enough, since they sent it to use digitally, apparently), but most of what we have is all done online, and/or is in my name.

Eventually, a manager had an idea, and suggested we contact the electric company and have my husband’s name added, then have them generate a bill with both our names and our mailing address to send in. This manager had to do that, themselves. They are in a different province, however, and in our province the electric company is run by the government.

I tried it anyhow. I logged in, but the name is one thing that cannot be changed by the client. I found a phone number, though, and after going through the automated system, eventually got to where it would sent me to a customer service rep. All lines were busy, of course, but I had the option to get a representative to call me back, rather than sitting on hold, so I chose that.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait too long. After explaining the situation, the rep was able to do it in her software, but when I logged out and logged back in (refreshing the page didn’t work), on my end of it, our names were all mixed up. She tried again, and basically removed my last name entirely, and that finally worked out by showing “[my name] & [my husband’s entire name as it shows on his birth certificate]”.

She could not, however, generate a statement for me. The change would not show up until the next billing cycle, which I wouldn’t get until the middle of next month.

The personal information page, however, had our names and mailing address on the same screen, so I hoped that would be good enough. I did a print screen and save as PDF, and sent that in.

I have not heard anything since, which tells me it may finally have been accepted!

We are all just blown away over how this has been made to be more difficult that it should be. They had more than enough to establish my husband’s identity. It just sounds like someone had a bee in their bonnet and wouldn’t let go.

Then I got a call from my mother.

Now, when I last spoke with her on Tuesday, I made sure she knew that I would not be available on Wednesday or Thursday, because we were getting the truck on Wednesday, and my husband had a medical appointment on Thursday. My sister was planning to visit her on Wednesday, so she would be able to help my mother with groceries, etc.

Well, she helped with the groceries, at least.

When my mother called, she told me she had run out of her prescriptions, which come in bubble packs. She had planned to take her walker and go to the pharmacy, but it’s been raining and unpleasant. She said she also had a letter from the doctor to give to the pharmacist, and what was I doing tomorrow?

So we arranged for me to come over today so we could have lunch together, and then I could help her with the pharmacy.

I headed out earlier to pick up some gas, first, and would normally have picked up some fried chicken for lunch from there as well, but it was too early in the day for that. They wouldn’t have any for quite some time. Instead, I went to the Chinese restaurant by her place and got take out. Yes, even though she told me she didn’t want to eat from there anymore, because she’s decided they use cats for meat. Well, she did enjoy her meal – then told me not to get food for her from there anymore, because she things they are using cat meat. She claims she saw on the news that a restaurant in the city was caught doing this, and now assumes all Chinese restaurants do this, but 1) the first time she told me about the cat thing, she told me it was one of her neighbours that told her they were doing this and 2) when asked, she couldn’t tell me anything about this story she heard, other than it was in the city. No idea where in the city, or even how long ago she heard this.

The thing is, this is a small town, and there are only so many options. The gas station has fried chicken she loves, but she’s decided she’s not supposed to eat it because it’s bad for her (even though she only eats it rarely). There is a restaurant she goes to pretty regularly that specializes in fried chicken, among a wider menu, but she complains because their food is always cold and not as good, so that’s out, too. There’s another restaurant, but it doesn’t do take out, and finally, there’s the Chinese food place. Which has excellent food at prices even she used to make a big deal out of, because they give so much food for the money. That’s it. Those are the only options for take out. The remaining alternative is for her to make lunch and 1) I wouldn’t want to make her do that work and 2) … let’s just say, my mother’s food combinations don’t always work out. My brother always bring food when he visits, because he has gotten physically ill from food she’d slapped together to make a meal. This isn’t even a “make do with what you have” thing. My mother could be a great cook with some thing. With others… frankly, I’d rather eat cat.

Anyhow. I brought lunch, she ate and enjoyed it, but chastised me for it. Knowing she will complain about anything I bring (when my sister brings her food from the Chinese restaurant, my mother speaks glowingly about it), I’ll just bring whatever I want that is available.

For the rest… Well, I’ll make it as short as I can. Overall, it was a good visit, but there were a number of concerns that came up.

First; my mother is really struggling, physically. Her knees are hurting her a lot, but she still refuses to take the T3s, because they are “narcotics”. Even though she took a pain killer before she left, it was clearly not enough.

Second; my mother’s cognition is failing. The “letter” for the pharmacist turned out to be the new prescription from the doctor for her bladder concerns. A prescription my mother declared she would not fill, when we got into the car after her appointment. She doesn’t trust the doctor because she’s female and not white. When the pharmacist brought out her bubble packs, my mother was shocked, because she though she wouldn’t be getting them, because of this “letter”. When she found out it was to have a new prescription on top of the unchanged regular prescriptions (for all that she complains she’s taking soooo many pills, she really isn’t), she was upset. She completely forgot that she had a new prescription and what it was for, but filled in the blanks by deciding it was a letter – a letter she thought the pharmacist somehow already knew about, even though she had the only copy – that said what she wanted it to say.

Third; she’s having trouble keeping her medications straight. We went over them after I got her home, and she had a couple of them mixed up. Which wouldn’t matter too much, if she were simply taking them when she was supposed to, but she keeps trying to drop this one or that one. She had tried to tell me on the phone that she was feeling better without them, but today, she was telling me how bad she was feeling without them. It also turned out she had changed when she was taking one of them that was supposed to be taken before bed, which basically negated the whole point of that particular medication helping her while she’s lying down. She was taking it with her evening pills, but she takes those so early in the evening, it wouldn’t be useful by the time she got to bed.

Oh, when I had the chance, I asked her why she didn’t get her refills while my sister was there to help. She said she still had a day left, so she didn’t bother. We’ve all been trying to tell her, she needs to get her refills before she runs out, but she seems downright offended by that idea. As if there were some sort of law against it.

In the end, was I was looking up her medications to tell her what each specific pill was for, she got me to write it out. which leads me to one last concern. Her anger issues. It’s not even a new thing. It’s just more hair trigger. As I was writing things out, she was at first happy to see how I was printing it out so clearly and easy for her to read – but then got angry that it too me two lines to write out the description and information, then what the pill was for. Then she wanted little drawings of the pills and was furious because I didn’t make the doodle where she though it should be, etc.

I was able to de-intensify things well enough but, my goodness, that gets exhausting.

Still, it got done. She has her medications, including the new one. I told her (as did the pharmacist), to try it for the 30 days. He only gave her half the prescription, since it’s basically a test. If, after 30 days, she finds it helps, she can let the pharmacy know and they’ll add the next 30 days into her bubble packs. If they don’t help, she can just stop using them. I added that it could take about a week to for them to start working, so to go keep taking them for the 30 days.

I won’t even get into the other stuff that came up. The medications thing was enough to suck the energy out of me on its own, but of course, it wans’t the only thing.

I had left early enough that I could have done some work outside (something else she gave me a hard time about), but by the time I got home, I just didn’t have the spoons anymore. After updating the family – and writing an email to my siblings about the medication things and the concerns I was seeing – I’d pretty much reached my limits.

The problem is, next week, the cold weather is supposed to finally hit us. Which means things need to be prioritized differently. Getting that second trellis bed started has just dropped down the list over things like mulching the garlic more, as well as covering the orange carrots we plan to store in ground for the winter, etc. We’ve been leaving that last bed of onions as long as possible, but we’re going to have to take the whole thing in and process them for freezing right away.

As glad as I am to have the truck and to be able to bring my husband to a medical appointment in it, it looks like those two days were the last really pleasant ones we’re going to have for the year. Since then, it’s been overcast and rainy. Tomorrow is supposed to be a bit better, and then that’s it.

Ah, well. There’s only so much we can do. The world won’t end if it doesn’t all get done.

Right now, I need to decompress and get some solid sleep!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden, pre-frost harvest, and good grief, what a day!!!

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So this day turned out completely different than planned!

The morning was pretty routine. While doing my usual morning rounds, I did a harvest. We are dropping close to freezing tonight – every time I check the forecast, it keeps changing, but not enough to make a difference. Even if we don’t get frost tonight, the few things that are not cold hardy out there are unlikely to continue to ripen, with a few possible exceptions.

One thing I was hoping to do was get one of our few friendly female cats, probably Beep Boop, into the carrier. If I’d managed that, I would have taken her straight to our egg lady for adoption. Of course, this would be the morning when she didn’t show up! In fact, “only” 17 cats showed up this morning, which is a little unusual these days. Caramel showed up and was being friendly, but when I tried to pick her up to put her into the carrier, she would have none of that!

So I let her be and did the rest of my rounds and the harvesting.

I harvested all the remaining melons. Most of them are probably not ripe, but we won’t know for sure until we cut them open. There’s also the last couple of patty pans that were large enough to be worth harvesting.

We had only three of the purple Dragonfly peppers, and I grabbed them all. All the other peppers in the grow bags, I left. The Sweet Chocolates in the old kitchen garden had a fair number of ripe peppers, but I also harvested most of the green ones, too. There are still a few on the plants that I didn’t bother with.

I didn’t harvest the eggplant, and I hoped to be able to put up the one hot pepper in the wattle weave bed, as it seems to have the most mature peppers on it.

I also picked through the last of the ripening tomatoes and brought them in, along with the yellow onions that were curing beside them.

Once inside, I had breakfast, then started on some dishes. With the hot water tank dead, we’ve been heating up kettles of water to use for everything. I was starting to heat more water for another batch of dishes when my mother called.

I’d mentioned to her that I was taking her car in to the garage, so her first question was, how was the car? Turns out, she thought it was still at the garage. Why, I’m not sure, since we only have her car now, so I’d have no way to get home if I left it at the garage!

Once she knew it was running find, she asked what my plans for the day were…

*sigh*

Yup. Even though I ask her repeatedly if she’d need a shopping trip, every time we talk, she always tells me no, she’s fine, she doesn’t need anything – even when I try to preplan a shopping date. She refuses to, because she still has food, so she doesn’t need to. And she doesn’t want to shop before she runs out of things, because then it’ll all go bad unless she eats it all right away…

*sigh*

Honestly, I think she just likes the idea that she’s messing with my day when she does this. It’s a control thing. Of course, part of the reason we’re living here is so that I’m available to help her with this stuff, and she’s not making my brother book time off work to come over (with my sister, she goes out of her way to only call on the days she knows my sister isn’t working).

So I was soon on the road to her place, earlier than usual, as she also needed help with some household chores that are getting too hard for her to manage on her own.

I don’t know that my mother was all that happy with me today, to be honest. I helped her with her household stuff, then we sat for a bit to chat. She started going into her usual manipulative rants, and I was having none of it. At one point, she started off on how everything is so expensive, and it’s because all the stores are cheating people. I tried to explain inflation to her, but nope. It’s because all the stores are cheating people. She knows this because, years ago, someone at the grocery store helped her with her shopping, and when she checked her receipt at home, she found she had been charged for a watermelon she didn’t buy. This happened probably 10 years ago and frankly, I don’t think it happened the way she claims. The grocery store by her place prints receipts that include featured specials. One time that she went through her receipt while I was there, she thought she was charged for a pie she didn’t get, but when I looked at the receipt, I found she was looking at the featured sale on pie and thought it was part of her purchases. Or, the maybe guy made a mistake about the watermelon, and punched in the wrong code. She got mad at me for not agreeing with her, then tried to blame me for her being cheated “last week”. I’d helped her with shopping and she wanted to get a case of mushroom soup. They’d been on sale the week before, but they’d run out. There were no cases, but I found a staff member and asked. She found one for my mother in their stock room. The cheat? My mother looked at the receipt and the price was not the sale price she wanted it to be – a sale that was over already. I’d even told her it was over, but in her memory, she now thinks I told her the price was the sale price from the previous week. I never told her a price, because I never saw a price for cases, only singles. This also happened more like 2 or 3 weeks ago, not last week, as she claimed, because my brother had visited and helped her with shopping last week, not me.

Then, after going on about how this guy had cheated her over a watermelon she never bought, she turned around and tried to make excuses for our vandal, of all people. She still tells me how we all need to get along and forgive each other, yet still allows him to talk to her in spite of all he’s done, and his open expression of hatred for me in particular, not to mention blatant lies to her about me. Somehow, my siblings and I are at fault that we all don’t get along like we used to.

Things even went sideways when I made the mistake of telling her about the truck we have been trying to get financing for. This was her cue to say that my FIL, who lives on a pension in an assisted living building, should be “helping us”. She’s got it in her head that he’s got a “good pension” (whatever she things that is; I don’t care to find out), and if she can help us out, he can, too. He does help us in other ways, but when I said that, she demanded to know in what ways. I told her it was none of her business, just like his finances are none of her business. Oh, and she even tried to use the fact that she paid for the new roof as ammunition against me! We’ll be getting that one rubbed into us for the rest of her life, I’m sure. She never does anything good, without finding some way to use it as a weapon. She and our vandal are very much alike in that regard.

Things went down hill from there, and instead of rising to her bait on so many things, I pointed out that she was being psychologically abusive, and I wasn’t going to accept that. She then tried to gaslight me, and I called her on that, too. Finally, she just stopped talking and sat with her eyes closed for a few minutes, apparently praying. Then she started doing a few other things in preparation for running errands, and wouldn’t answer me when I offered to help or asked her questions.

Then we just went and did the errands, and everything settled down. We even went out for lunch part way through. I made sure to pay, because she never tips.

By the time we were done, my mother was quite tired. I did stay for a little bit of a visit after everything was put away. Since I’d gone to her place to much earlier than usual, though, I decided to do our last stock up shopping trip. I needed to go to Canadian Tire and Walmart, and her place was already half way there.

Before heading out, though, I messaged my family about the change in plans. That’s when my husband updated me on the plumber situation.

He’d called our usual guy again, and it went straight to voice mail. So, he called another company we’ve dealt with and left a message there. That company called back.

I think we know why we haven’t been hearing from the first place.

This is the time of year when everyone is getting their cottages ready for winter. Which includes draining the plumbing, so nothing freezes and bursts pipes over the winter. This second plumber is fully booked draining cottages for the next two weeks. Given how many cottages there are around the lake, every available plumber would be booked solid right now.

We are going to be without hot water for a while! Over Thanksgiving, at the very least.

I have not told my brother we don’t have hot water at the moment. I didn’t want him to worry as they go to visit their son and grandsons for Thanksgiving. If we don’t hear anything after Thanksgiving, though, I’m going to have to ask him if he can come out and install the new tank. The frustrating thing is, it’s really not a difficult thing to do. We just don’t have what we need to do it. Particularly with the electrical part of it.

Ah, well.

On that note, I headed out and did the final shopping I needed to do, and even picked up a couple of treats for Thanksgiving dinner. The only other stop was to get gas on the way home. It doesn’t look like getting the air filter and new sparkplugs done are helping with the poor mileage my mother’s car has been getting, though it does seem to be running noticeably better! Also, that tire with the slow leak they couldn’t find is still holding air, so that’s good. Mind you, it took about 3 weeks before it leaked enough to be noticeable, last time, so it’s really too soon to say, and I need to keep an eye on it.

When I got home and drove up to the house to unload, the yard was just filled with cats! All the ones that didn’t show up for breakfast were very hungry.

Beep Boop was among them.

So after everything was unloaded and the girls were putting them away, I fed the outside cats, which lured at least three of them out from under the car! The carrier was in the sun room, and Beep Boop was among the cats eating kibble in there, so I put some in the carrier, then picked her up and dropped her in through the top (I love that this carrier opens up at the top!). She immediately started eating again, so I closed it up, then messaged the egg lady to see if she was home.

She was, and eager to welcome a new cat!

So, off I went again! Beep Boop was not happy once she realized she couldn’t get out of the carrier, but she did eventually settle in for the ride.

She now has one of the chicken coops, all to herself! It’s roasty toasty in there. Food and water were already waiting for her – and she’ll have all the mice she can catch! Just getting into the coop, which has a small vestibule with some feed storage in it, we saw several mice running around. Beep Boop (who will surely be renamed!) will get to stay here for a while, and arrangements will be made to get her spayed right away. My friend’s mouse problem is so bad, she thinks she might need three more cats! So we will work on trying to get some of the other females, as she doesn’t think her one male would be happy with more males around.

By the time I got back from delivering the cat, it was getting dark. I was just able to get the eggplant and the nearest peppers covered for the night. I had a couple more covers, so I went ahead and covered the peppers in the grow bags, too. As I write this, the forecast says we will stay above freezing, but the “RealFeel” will be below freezing.

We shall see what we get for real!

Oh, and while all this was happening, I started getting messages from the cat lady. One of the last kittens will be going to her new home tomorrow. There were 17 people interested in that one tiny kitten – but none interested in the other that’s not so tiny. That one doesn’t want to leave them, anyhow, it seems. There’s also someone interested in Ghosty, but that person wants a male, and Ghosty is female. I’ll find out tomorrow, if it’s still a go. I passed on a picture of Tiny, Pom Pom and Soot Sprite to pass on – make sure to mention Soot Sprite is not up for adoption, and she’ll put the word out for them, since the tiny ones seem to have more interest.

So not only are we looking at having as many as 3 more female yard cats adopted out soon, we might have some kittens adopted out, too!

She’s also going to let me know when one of the clinics has their neuter discount day, to start getting some of the outside males done.

And now it’s almost 10pm, and I need to see about some supper! I just realized, I haven’t eaten since having lunch with my mother at noon. Nothing involving the oven, though. My daughters prepped the ripe Sweet Chocolate peppers while I was gone and now have them dehydrating in the oven.

Hopefully, tomorrow I’ll get to do the work outside I’d intended to do today!

The Re-Farmer

Good time to take a break. Too bad it didn’t happen!

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Well, three hours outside yesterday, stripping bark and moving logs around, left me in quite a bit of pain today. I decided I needed a day of recovery before continuing. I know by now that if I push it too far, I’ll be out of commission for days. So it was going to be a day of painkillers, and non-labour intensive activity.

Which turned out for the best, as we ended up being 26C/79F with a humidex of 30C/86F.

While feeding the cats this morning, and refilling the smaller bins for the inside cats, I could see we were going to run out, or almost out, before I would be able to do our first big shop at the end of the month. There were a few other things we needed to pick up that made it worth a trip to the nearer, smaller city. I really should have done a dump run, but was in too much pain for that. I left late enough that I could pick up some fried chicken and wedges for “breakfast” at the gas station along the way. I did have an energy drink, too, but still felt ready for a nap by the time I was heading home!

While I was out, my husband kept the phone handy, in case the lady from the financing company called. She didn’t, but my mother did, saying she needed to go to a dentist. I’ve been trying to get her to go to a dentist for months. This past winter (making it at least 6 months!), one of her teeth broke. It wasn’t hurting her, but her dentures were no longer sitting right, making it hard for her to chew.

When I got home, I actually tried lying down for a bit on the couch – the cat free zone – an nap a bit. It didn’t work, but then I remembered that my mother had called. So I called her back and she told me she had a tooth ache, but couldn’t find the number for the dental clinic in the phone book. I have no idea how old this phone book must be! So I looked it up for her and passed it on, and we talked about when would work for an appointment. I have a telephone medical appointment tomorrow, but my sister doesn’t work on Wednesdays, so she could possibly drive my mother. Anything other than tomorrow, I could drive her. I told her to call me back as soon as she had an appointment and we could figure things out from there.

She called me back soon after, saying they could take her in today, for 4:00! She wasn’t sure if I was available, though, so she said she would call them back after finding out if I could drive her. Looking at the time, I saw it was 3:50. !!! Then she told me they said they could take her at 4:30. I told her I could leave immediately.

Then she started getting talkative. I told her we were wasting time! I needed to get going!

It worked out. She called them back and I got her there in time. They were ready and waiting for her, and the receptionist even came to hold the door open for her when she saw us!

This was a first time visit for my mother, so I helped fill out the paperwork for her. My mother had the list of her medications from her bubble packs, which was handy. They just took a photo copy for her file. I went over everything again with my mother to make sure I didn’t miss anything before she signed it.

In the end, she ended up having a tooth pulled. Not one her dentures are attached to. She won’t even need new dentures; they can add a tooth to her current ones. When the receptionist heard us talking about it, she went ahead and printed out an estimate of how much it would cost to do the denture.

While there, my mother asked about the other tooth that was crumbling. That one did turn out to be a tooth holding her denture in place, and they said they could take the remaining roots out another time. After everything was healed up, they’d be able to take impressions and have a new tooth put into both dentures. That was good to know.

It took some doing to get my mother’s tooth out. Now I know were I got my bone structure from! I’ve always had problems with dentists because my bones are so strong. Even at 92, my mother’s jaw did not want to let that tooth go! Of course, the dentist was trying to be as careful and gentle as possible. Once it was out, she showed it to my mother – who said she wanted to keep it!

Yeah, I’ve done that, too! 😄

Unfortunately, my mother also started to complain about how it took so much longer than when she’d had teeth pulled before (we’re talking well over 10 years ago!), and there wasn’t any of the cracking sounds the dentist made sure to warn her she might hear.

There were signs of infection, so my mother got a prescription for antibiotics, on top of an anti inflammatory pain killer. Unfortunately, the pharmacy was about to close. There was no way we’d get there in time. So I started talking to my mother about coming back tomorrow. That’s when the receptionist offered to drop it off tomorrow morning, and I could come in later to pick it up once they had a chance to fill it. That was so awesome of her!

Then my mother got the bill.

She was expecting it to cost a lot less. More like what she remembered paying so long ago. She hasn’t been to a dentist since before she moved away from the farm, so probably about 15 years or so. I helped her write a check and made sure to have all the paperwork in order, including the receipt for her taxes and the instruction sheet with extra gauze. She was already trying to get rid of the gauze she had.

She wasn’t happy about having prescriptions, either.

They were all really fantastic and bent over backwards for her, though. I was very impressed.

As she needed to eat soft foods only for a couple of days, she asked me to stop at the grocery store and pick up a couple of things for her that she could eat, and then it was home. I stayed with her until it was time for her to change the gauze. The instructions including taking a pain killer before the freezing wore off, and she had her evening prescriptions to take, so it made sense to just do it all at once.

I have a strong suspicion my mother did not take all of her evening pills. She took them out of the bubble packs and first tried hiding some pills under her placemat, with others on top. The top ones turned out to be her morning pills, which she says she likes to keep “handy” and had me get a pill box from her room to put them in.

The pill box already had a bunch of pilled in the other half.

When I asked what she was hiding under the place mat, she pulled them out, then covered them with paper to protect them from the light. ??? I stepped away a moment to put back her Tylenol while she was taking her pills, and when I came back, I saw as she hurried to put the paper back, like she was hiding them again, or maybe just some of them.

I also am thinking she might refuse to take the new prescriptions, too. I hope I’m wrong.

Even as we were leaving the dental clinic, she was telling me she wasn’t going to come back because it wasn’t hurting. She meant getting that top tooth taken care of. I expect she will not bother getting a new tooth put into the bottom denture as well. They want her back in two weeks to take an impression for the bottom denture, but when I told her the price (which she can afford just fine), she wasn’t happy. She really seems to believe prices should be what she remembers them to be, no matter how much time has passed!

We shall see how things go.

Meanwhile, I made sure she got the fresh gauze in, though she had already lost the first one and hadn’t felt it. Nor did she notice it was gone while taking her pills!

I told her how much longer she needed to keep the fresh gauze, but I suspect she took it out shortly after I left.

Well, I’ll follow up with her tomorrow and see if I need to pick up her prescriptions for her. Sometimes, she gets them delivered, instead.

I am getting a big concerned about my mother and her medications. There’s not much we can do about it, though.

After I left her place, I had to get myself some food before heading home. I hadn’t eaten since I’d left in the morning. I was starting to get the shakes before we even got to the dental clinic! I also had to tank up again. It really feels like the mileage on my mother’s car is getting worse. I really ought to start recording the gas and mileage and calculate it out. I got spoiled by our van. It didn’t have much of a dashboard computer, but it did keep track of fuel consumption! My mother’s care is a couple of years newer, but has nothing like that.

I really hope we get the financing straightened out and a new vehicle soon. It won’t be a new one, that’s for sure, but it should at least be newer than what we had!

The Re-Farmer

Exhausted

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I am so totally drained.

Today, I was taking my mother to a medical appointment – and appointment that had been moved up 2 hours. I’d say that was why I was up and doing my morning rounds early, but in reality, I was just up and couldn’t get back to sleep. I can’t even blame the kittens on that one, because I woke them up trying to roll over. I had a least 3 of them on and against me, keeping warm. I have the window open just a bit for air circulation, but when we’re hitting 7C/45F (at least when I checked), it does get a bit chilly! I was also checking on my computer during the night, having left it on to upload the garden tour video I posted this morning.

I made sure to have a solid breakfast, though, which turned out to be a good thing, even though it was a couple of hours earlier than I usually have breakfast.

I got to my mother with adequate time for a short visit, then we headed out about an hour before her appointment. With the time it took to get her and her walker set up in the car, then the drive in, we got there about 10 minutes early for her appointment.

We ended up waiting about an hour before she was finally called in – and there were others who were already there waiting for the same doctor before us! They, too, had been called to have their appointments rescheduled, and were told to come in the same time my mother had been told, which was not the time I was told when I phoned to confirm!

So… yeah… Not a good start.

This doctor is new to us, with our previous doctor having moved to another clinic. My husband and I are seeing her on an interim basis for prescription refills, but my husband already got a letter from her stating she would not be accepting him as a patient. Which was a surprise, since we even talked about it during our appointments, saying we knew she was not accepting new patients. So it was a surprise for me when I brought my mom in, and she told my mother almost right away that she was accepting my mother as a patient!

So this was a follow up appointment to talk about some test results. My mother is still refusing to take the T3s because they are a “narcotic”, and when I mentioned that word being used was one reason my mother wouldn’t take it, and my mother mentioned reading about all the bad things that would happen if she took them (meaning the possible side effects listed), and so on. The doctor seemed quite amused that my mother wouldn’t take them because they are a “narcotic”, but didn’t try to reassure her or explain anything.

Which was basically how the entire appointment went.

Now, my mother is already not happy with this doctor. She’s female, she’s black and she has a strong accent. Unfortunately, she also speaks quickly, and tends to bowl over us when we tried to explain things. Even I was having a hard time understanding her. She seems nice enough; I’m sure I’d enjoy her company in a social setting, but as a doctor? Nope. I’m not happy with her, either.

In the end, my mother was given a new, short term prescription to try for a complaint she brought up, with instructions that included to go ahead and stop taking them if they made her feel too drowsy, or if they didn’t do the job, then given a requisition for a urine sample to get a culture done, which had not been part of her previous lab work.

Then the doctor abruptly left.

Okay, they were far behind, but usually there’s at least some sort of comment to let you know the appointment was over, even if it’s just a goodbye or some sort. It felt almost as if she were leaving in mid conversation.

No matter.

The lab is across the waiting room, so we went straight there. The lab’s waiting room was crowded, but there was a chair available for my mother while I handed over the requisition and got her medical card for them to confirm. The couple sitting next to her were sweet and got up so I could sit beside my mother.

My mother commented on how many people there were. She was clearly not happy and started talking about just going home. I totally understood the feeling but I told her, you only need to give a urine sample. All these other people are probably waiting to get blood work or X-rays or something. Yours is just in and out. It shouldn’t take long.

I then started talking to her about the new prescription and explaining what the doctor had said.

“You mean I have to buy more pills?”

Uhm… yes.

“I’m not buying them!”

I explained again what it was for, and she declared that it wasn’t much of a problem and she could live with it. She said she didn’t understand what the doctor was saying (my explaining it obviously meant nothing), so she wasn’t going to fill it. Knowing my mother, however, I know she would not have been saying the same thing if the doctor had been male. That’s more of a thing for her even over skin colour. Likewise, if my brother were the one explaining it to her instead of me, she would have been more willing to listen.

By then, we were both getting really tired, too.

Then she got called in and it was just as quick as I told her it would be. As we went to the car, though, I could really see how she was slowing down.

Normally, after her appointments, we would do things like go to a grocery store, or go to a restaurant for lunch. After a bit of indecision, my mother asked what restaurants were close to one of the two grocery stores in this town. I only know of one, that we’ve been to before, for sure. It’s a franchise she normally likes, and we went there the last time she had an appointment in this town.

No, she won’t go there anymore. Why? “You saw what people were there.”

*sigh*

I reminded her that the service was excellent and the food was great. Her response?

“I’m just to tired of brown people.”

*sigh*

I pointed out that this was not a very Christian thing, and the subject was dropped.

We were going to drive past one of the grocery stores, and she wanted if there was a restaurant near there. I could not remember seeing one, but drove into the parking lot anyhow. That’s when I could see the Subway, though getting to it involved going back onto the road and taking a different driveway, because of barricades between parking lots. The spaces closest to the doors were also barricaded, so we had to part fairly far away – no disabled parking at this place, even though the doors and building were accessible!

We went in and my mother went straight to a table, expecting to be served. I explained how it works to order at a Subway. Reading a menu on the wall was more than she could handle, though, and she started asking if they had soup. I couldn’t see that on the menu, nor could I see any over the counter, but my mother started shouting from her seat to the one guy behind the counter, asking if they had soup. They didn’t, so she suggested we leave.

Which was probably for the best. Ordering at a Subway would have been beyond her, anyhow. I would have had to make decisions and order for her, even at the best of times.

From there, she just wanted to go home.

When we parked at her place and I started getting her walker out, she started asking if there was something she was supposed to give me. I knew nothing of that, so she basically threw me $20 for gas and told me I could go home! She didn’t even want me to help her with the doors!

It’s not the first time she’s been this tired after an outing, and I really couldn’t hold it against her!

I, however, was getting pretty famished and seriously considered going to a restaurant before heading home, but in the end, I was just too tired. I pulled over long enough to message the family and update them a bit, then headed home myself.

Thankfully, there was food at home that just needed heating up, so I got to eat right away. Then I updated my husband with more of how things went before finally going into my office/bedroom and indulging in some kitten therapy.

Ghosty really, really loves licking noses.

When I’m out of the room, though, I’m going to have to find a way to protect my keyboard. When I got to my computer, I found the task manager and calculator open. Neither of which have short cuts on my keyboard!

It’s past 5pm right now, and I’d love to just go for a nap right now, but that would really mess my up for the night!

A day out with my mother is tiring enough on my own, but this doctor’s visit was even more exhausting than usual.

I just need to decompress for a while. I’d love to get outside and get some work done in these awesome, cooler temperatures, but the days are getting a lot shorter now, and the jobs I need to work on require more light than I’ll have for very long. Which gets very frustrating, considering how many things have been distracting me away from them.

Ah, well. The world isn’t going to end if they get delayed a bit longer, again.

The Re-Farmer

(too tired to hunt for typos. My apologies for the ones I’m sure are all over this post!)

Another outing

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My big shopping trips to the city may be done, but that doesn’t mean I get to stay home!

I was going to start roasting tomatoes today, but got a call from my mother last night.

She said she called because we (my sister and I) hadn’t called her, and she was bored.

Gee. Thanks, Mom.

Well, it turned out to be not just that. She has a birthday coming up soon and I asked about taking her out to dinner for that, which got her to talking about needing groceries. After much waffling back and forth, it was arranged that I would come over today. We’d do lunch, then run errands.

I will say, it was a “good” outing with my mother, as far as such things go. There were a few things she tried, ranging from assuming my SIL, who is absolute gold and someone who has always been so incredibly kind and patient with my mother, was just a terrible person that would make my brother do things my mother doesn’t want him to do. Which is crazy enough in the first place (starting with the fact that my mother is still trying to control my brother, who is in his 60’s), but it also was about her trying to control us, after her death.

She’s most definitely worried about the wrong people, to begin with.

Part of the problem is that my mother thinks she understands thing she can’t even begin to grasp, they are so outside of her experience. But, because she’s turning 92 and lived through so much, that means she knows everything. Including people’s thoughts and motivations.

It was very difficult to reign in the conversation. I even tried to show photos of my brother and his wife that they sent me, but she didn’t even care to look at them. Even just ordering food was an ordeal. She was going to order nothing but a bowl of soup, because she has to “watch what she eats”. She wasn’t even going to order something to drink with it. Well, I certainly wasn’t going to eat a meal while she watched me, hungry, so I was just going to have my pop. She started telling me to order whatever I wanted, then suddenly remembered this restaurant has pizza and said that if I ordered a pizza, she’d share with me, got all excited, then told me to order a medium pizza.

I would not have ordered a pizza for myself, but if it meant she would actually eat, I went ahead and ordered one. I didn’t even try to ask her what kind she wanted.

She must’ve been famished, because she just inhaled that incredibly hot soup and was very happy to see the pizza when it arrived. Then suddenly she decided she needed coffee to go with it. She was all excited about having pizza to take home and not have to cook tomorrow, so I ended up having just a couple of pieces with her, and half the pizza was boxed up.

So… now that I’m home, I think I’ll have lunch. 😄

Oh, and as we were eating, she started commenting on how her small lunch was suddenly a big lunch, because of me. She said it like it was a joke, but she wasn’t actually joking, but trying to make it my “fault” that she *gasp* had an actual meal.

I’m not really complaining. This was supposed to be her birthday lunch, so I’m just happy that she actually ate something instead of starving herself for no reason. She doesn’t understand nutrition, either, but thinks she does, because she watched daytime talk shows in the past, and some guy somewhere said that if you eat soup, you’ll lose weight. Which is probably not what was actually said, but that’s what she remembers. She keeps cutting out the most nutritionally dense food and replacing it with empty carbs, then wonders why she’s hungry all the time.

Which reminds me. I didn’t see any meat left in her freezer, and she only bought some deli turkey that was on sale. I’ll have to grab some of the smaller packages of meat from our freezer and sneak them into hers.

Ultimately, though, I think I will just take her out to a birthday dinner, without her insisting she’s going to pay for it, and have a proper meal.

But then again, maybe not. If I do that, I’ll just get a constant barrage about what a terrible thing I’m doing, and constant complaining.

I was just thinking that she is having a harder time moving around, so maybe I could bring take out, instead, but that would just result in different insults and complaints.

*sigh*

I want to do nice things for my mother. I really do. It just gets so hard, sometimes. I’m not after any sort of grandiose thanks for it, but I’d at least like to not be treated like crap for it.

Ah, well. If she hasn’t figured it out by her 90’s, I don’t expect her to figure it out now.

In other things…

Today has been a really bad day for smoke from the fires up north. There are no fires near us at all, but we’ve got high winds blowing. Yesterday, we got such wonderful rain – real downpours! – but apparently none of it hit the areas with the fires. Most of them are just being monitored; they’re smaller and not threatening any populations, because no one lives where they are. A few others are listed as under control. That’s it. But there is one fire to the north of us, listed as under control, that is a bigger, and I guess that’s the one that we’re getting all the smoke from.

Kitty status: Pom Pom is getting more comfortable with us. I’ve been able to snag him and hold him for a while, and while he does try to run away if I get too close, once I’ve got him, he’s okay with sitting in my hands (he’s that small!) and getting pets. He hasn’t figured out the litter yet, but he did figure out the puppy pads, until just now. He actually went under my desk, while I was sitting here, writing this post, and started digging in the puppy pads. I put him in the litter box he was right next to and blocked him from coming out again, so he used it. It’s a start!

There is still no sign of Nosencrantz, Butterscotch or Marlee. Not even sightings in the distance. I’ve posted their photos on a local group online, asking people to keep an eye out for them. No responses.

I did get a message from someone interested in adopting Ghosty, asking if she were still available. I said yes, and asked if she would be an indoor cat. I was told no; they were looking for a mouser.

Ghosty is not going to be an outside cat again! I did mention we had some older outdoor kittens, but they wanted a female, and all the most socialized ones are male.

Oh, my goodness! Looking out my window, there was such a huge gust of wind blowing the big maple round!

Now that we have the small scaffolding, I wonder if we can use it to get that one huge branch down, piece by piece, before the tree finally breaks off at that weak spot on the trunk.

Well, there isn’t going to be much we can get done outside in this wind.

Mind you, after visiting with my mother, even on one of her good days, I am going to need a few hours to decompress, anyhow.

The Re-Farmer