dealing with elderly parents

Thief! And what a loooong day

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This morning, while standing and talking to my husband, I suddenly saw a deer walking past his window! So I quietly went into the sun room, and was able to get some photos of our thieving piebald deer!

Also, that’s Sad Face on top of the cat house, having breakfast. 😁

As for the deer, she was actually able to get her head under the water bowl shelter, to reach one of the three kibble trays under there.

Yup. She was eating cat kibble!

I have been seeing hoof prints in the snow around this group of shelters, but this is the first time we’ve seen the deer in there, this winter.

I got a few more shots, including some when she was slightly spooked and had moved away, so I could see that her tail is still matted with… something. The phone camera just can’t pick up enough detail, but I’m going to go with it being lots and lots of burrs.

Today, I was due to visit with my mother, run some errands for her, then pick up a couple more flats of farm fresh eggs from our homesteading friend we were able to get so much cardboard from last year. I got to my mother’s town a bit too early for the first errand I was going to do for her at the pharmacy. It’s a holiday weekend here in Canada (in most provinces, Monday is Family Day, but also Islander Day, Heritage Day and Louis Riel Day), so some places weren’t open at all, and the pharmacy didn’t open until noon. So I did a couple of my own errands first, got the pharmacy run done, then picked up Chinese food for lunch. By the time I was at my mother’s place, she wasn’t home from church yet. I have a key to her place, though, so I was able sneak a couple of 2 pound bags of ground beef from our quarte beef order into her freezer, get the kettle going, set up lunch and heard her at the door just in time to pour the tea! She was pleasantly surprised. Which was nice because, some days, surprises make her very angry. The Chinese food place is really generous in their quantities, so by the time we were done eating, there was enough left over for her to have at least two more meals!

While we were talking, she let me know that the smoke/heat detector on her ceiling had finally been fixed. It had been beeping for a month or more, and she didn’t want to call anyone about it, because they have to call the city. She feels she should just tell people in the building about it, and it’ll magically get taken care of. She has the number to call for maintenance issues, and then there is a process they have to follow to get someone out to take care of it but, for some reason, that makes her very angry. Still, she must have finally called, because someone came out and replaced the detector completely.

Then, she told me, he “fixed” the other thing that was beeping.

That would be the CO monitor my brother set up for her, years ago.

!!!!

She’s never mentioned to us that it was beeping, too!

The guy took the batteries out (they would have been the original batteries) and told her she didn’t need it, because the detector in her ceiling does the same thing.

Well, maybe the new one that got installed does, I don’t know, but he should not have handled something that didn’t belong to the building (though I can understand why he did), and he should not have told her she didn’t need it.

I tried to explain to her what it was, because now she was thinking that what’s in her ceiling isn’t a smoke/heat detector, but she doesn’t understand what a CO monitor is, either. Or maybe she thought the CO monitor was a smoke detector. I didn’t quite get the straight of it. I tried to explain to her what CO poisoning is, and that if she ever hears that thing go off, she needed to get out right away. I also said that, even if this new detector was a CO monitor, it’s good to have a back up. If one goes off, but the other doesn’t, then maybe it’s a dead battery, but if they both go off, it’s really important for her to get out of her apartment right away. Well, that got her angry, and she started going on about how no one had these for so many years and it was never a problem. I told her that people died from CO poisoning, and that’s why these monitors are now being made.

She didn’t believe me.

She also had a clock that needed a new battery, but she had only one AA battery, so I changed the battery on her clock and offered to buy her more batteries when I went to the grocery store for her. She told me not to. She didn’t need them, and she didn’t want new batteries for the CO monitor, because the guy told her she didn’t need it. She was even angry that my brother had bought it in the first place, and told me she’d paid him X amount for it – which means she now thinks that my brother somehow cheated her by buying this and expecting her to pay for it (which I know full well is not how things would have happened).

I’m sure the guy meant well when he “helped” her, but this is an example of why there’s usually a restriction on contractors/maintenance staff when it comes to doing anything beyond what they are there to do.

After it became clear she was going to completely reject anything I told her, I said I would talk to my brother and maybe she’ll believe him if she won’t believe me. Then I went to the grocery store and, before going inside, sent him a message about it. He ended up phoning me while I was still in the grocery store, so I called him back once I was back in the car (also: my phone rings so rarely, when I heard it, I thought it was someone else’s phone near me! 😄) and explained it some more. He was equally frustrated, and said he would call Mom. I started heading back then decided to turn around and buy the batteries for her, anyhow.

By the time I got to her place, she had started to watch TV and didn’t say a thing about the call from my brother, until I pulled out the batteries and started putting them in. She was clearly unhappy that I had told him about it. Unfortunately, once the batteries were in, the monitor gave a loud, piercing noise, which was just to show that it was now working. My mother got angry again, saying that she didn’t need it and I shouldn’t put batteries in. The noise stopped, though, so I just put it back down on her shelf and left it.

The rest of the visit was more peaceful, and she was actually on much better behaviour than usual. I was just waiting to hear from my friend about the eggs, which was going to be a while. I even suggested my mother go ahead and take a nap, as I know she usually does in the afternoons, but we ended up talking some more. My friend was in the city for longer than she expected. By the time I got a message that they were on their way home, I think my mother was so tired, she was ready to kick me out! 😄 I had ordered extra eggs as a surprise for her, and had been telling my mother about the different coloured eggs, so before I left, I said I might swing by on the way home to show her the colourful eggs. When I did swing by with the eggs, I brought in the dozen I got for her and said they were for her. She started to tell me no, she didn’t need them, she has lots, but I said that these are farm fresh eggs and I’m sure she’ll love them.

So she took them without any other fight, which tells me that she was very happy with the surprise, even if she wouldn’t say so! 😄

Before I left, she told me she had something she wanted to ask me about, and headed for her bedroom. I took advantage of the moment and quickly grabbed the CO monitor and put it back on the wall where it belonged. I was afraid she might throw it away if I didn’t, and if she didn’t see me put it up, chances are she’d forget about it completely, whereas if she saw me put it up, she was more likely to take it off and throw it away.

Here’s hoping my reasoning is correct!

She then began opening up a suitcase she’d taken down from the top of her closet. There was stuff in it that she said she’d put there to protect it from when her apartment was being sprayed for bed bugs (her building is now officially declared bed bug free). She pulled a few things out, then showed me some fabric with what looked like pre-printed cushion designs, and asked me if she’d given me fabric like it (I think she meant fabric for the backs of the cushions?). I told her no – but it did give me the opportunity to ask me about a strange bundle of lacy ovals of fabric she did give me. She vaguely told me it was given to her from my nephew’s wedding. I think she was telling me they were place mats, though they don’t look like any place mats I’ve ever seen! I also couldn’t get the straight of why she gave them to me. Ah, well.

Once I told her she had not given me any other fabric, she seemed strangely satisfied, then declared that now she knows…

It was stolen by the beg bug exterminator.

She’s also convinced he stole a jar of coins.

This is something she’s done before. She was once so convinced someone had gone into her apartment while she was in the lobby and stole some cash, she was talking to everyone in the building about it – loud enough for the person she suspected to hear – and even taped a note to her door about how it was a sin to steal XXX amount of money.

Then she found the cash hidden in a different spot. After weeks of not-so-subtly accusing this person of stealing it.

She is now convinced that the exterminator went into a suitcase at the top of her closet, carefully moved some stuff off the top, stole some fabric, and put everything else back again.

Plus a jar of change, but on another occasion.

The sad thing is that this accusation merely reflects something she would do; go into other people’s stuff. It’s like when she’s been here, goes to the washroom, and we can hear her rifling through the cupboards. We can’t let her go into any rooms unsupervised, because she’ll start digging into closets and dresser drawers. In the past, she’s actually hidden things and thrown away things of ours, because she didn’t approve of them. Of course, she feels perfectly entitled to do this, because we’re family, but it also means she assumes everyone does the same thing.

*sigh*

After that, she got me to put the suitcase back in her closet, because she can get it down on her own, but can’t get it back up!

There was other weird stuff to deal with during the visit, too. Needless to say, by the time I finally was heading home, I was feeling incredibly drained.

And this was a good visit!

She’s got her medical appointment in a week. I’m going to be driving her in, driving her home, then staying with her for the required 24 hours to monitor her after the scope procedure.

Today had been the longest time I’ve spent with my mother in years. It’s going to be a real challenge to be spending the night with her! Especially since Lent is starting in a few days. I’ve decided to give up sugar – including simple carbs – for Lent this year. I’m going to have to make sure to bring my own food, and be prepared for many lectures about it.

*sigh*

Ah, well. It’ll be what it will be. I’ve been through worse.

The Re-Farmer

Backordered seeds in, fuzzy butt, and trying to keep up

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You’d think a city shopping trip would be more tiring than running errands with my mother, but nooooo…

We are having another beautiful sunny day, though the wind has certainly picked up. I counted 23 yard cats while doing their kibble and warm water this morning.

I was just coming back to the house would I saw these two, finishing off the kibble on the cat house roof. I tried to get a good picture of Brussel, but she moved around and sat with her back to me.

I swear, that fuzzy butt of hers is bigger than the little guy beside her!

She won’t let me anywhere near her – I had to zoom in quite a bit to get this shot – but she’s less shy than her sister, Sprout, who runs off as soon as she sees me and doesn’t come back to eat until I’m back inside.

Sadness.

When planning today’s outing with my mother, I brought up getting Chinese food for lunch again. She said no, made a big deal of the cost, and that she could make lunch for us, etc. Well, I didn’t listen to her. I left early enough to pick up some parcels at the post office before they closed for 2 hours over the lunch period, so when I got to her town, I picked up lunch anyhow and showed up early. She laughed and nattered a bit about my not listening to her, so I told her that I wanted a treat. Only later, while we were eating, did she say that I must have heard her thoughts. She had been poking around her fridge for something to make for lunch, didn’t find anything she wanted, and wasn’t up to cooking, anyhow. She’d been regretting telling me not to bring food! The next thing she knew, there I was with lunch for both of us! So that worked out.

After lunch and a bit of a visit, we headed out to do her errands, getting groceries last of all. I stayed long enough to put everything away, then started getting ready to head home. My mother was all ready to make tea, but I told her I had to go. As usual, she started going on about how, if we visit her, we should plan on staying for a long time. I told her I do – that’s why I come over so early! So we can get a visit in, first. I must say, I was pretty tired by then, anyhow. My mother is 91 yrs old, has a bum knee and uses a walker, but that hardly slows her down at all! It takes quite a bit to keep up with her, that’s for sure. She didn’t push for me to stay, though. I know she was tired, too, and would probably go for a nap as soon as I was gone!

Once at home, I found one of our backordered seeds from Veseys was in the mail.

I’m looking forward to these. I keep hearing about how great Delicata squash is, but it’s not a good storage variety. This new Honeyboat variety is described as good for storage, so I figured it was worth trying. At 100 days to maturity, it’s going to be one of the earlier ones to start indoors.

This leaves one more packet of seeds on back order to come in from Veseys.

While at the grocery store with my mother, I noticed they had a couple of seed displays up. I was so tempted to get more, but we already have so much, and in varieties better suited to our needs.

Still…

… you can’t really have too many seeds, can you?

I resisted.

For now!

The Re-Farmer

Long day, and still chill!

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Well, I’m happy to say that my mother’s car ran well today, though it certainly did not enjoy starting! I made sure to give it time to warm up in the garage, before taking it out into that wind.

My first stop was to the post office, where I had several packages to pick up. One of them was these:

The heated gloves my husband got for me!

They were listed as XL, but they fit quite snugly when I tried them on. They were too stiff to wear while driving, though, so I went back to my mittens!

These have some interesting features. Obviously, they have batteries. The USB charging cable can charge both at the same time, so I’ve got that happening right now.

The third finger on each hand has a finger loop on it. You can just see one on the right glove. I have no idea what that’s for. The finger tips are touch screen compatible. They have wrist loops to keep them from getting lost, as well as being water resistant and having adjustable cuffs.

It wasn’t until I got home that I discovered that one of the other parcels was also something my husband had ordered for me. A new pair of the “Military Tactical work boots” to replace the ones he got me last year. I love the side zipper feature on these, and wore them almost constantly, until the leather finally split and cracked on the side of one boot. This time, as soon as he unboxed them, my husband treated them with some leather conditioner – something we actually found while cleaning up the basement. A full gallon jug of it, barely used! He plans to treat the leather regularly with it, so hopefully this pair will last longer.

One other thing that came in the mail was particularly important: my husband’s disabled parking permit! He doesn’t get out much, but when he does, it will make things much easier for him to be park closer.

After picking everything up at the post office, it was off to my mother’s town. The roads were not too bad, though I was driving against blowing snow. Stopping for gas in the wind wasn’t too bad, either. Then it was off to get my mother’s prescriptions, hit the bank, then stop at the Chinese food place to pick up lunch. I even managed to get to my mother’s a bit earlier than I was shooting for!

We had a decent amount of time to visit and have lunch (breakfast, for me!), then head out early for her appointment. I’m glad we did leave early; it was blowing snow the whole way, with very little shelter along the route. Even as small as the profile of my mother’s car is, I could feel us being buffeted, and the engine working to maintain speed against the wind. The place was easy to find, and had plenty of parking, so we didn’t even lose time with that, and got there about half an hour early.

The specialist my mother was seeing shares a building with another clinic and a pharmacy. As we came in, there were signs all over, saying that even though there are no longer any restrictions, they still required masks. Which is bizarre, since yet another study was just released showing that wearing masks or not makes no difference in preventing the spread of respiratory viruses, even when comparing surgical masks with N95 masks, at all (there’s now close to 80 such studies, just in the last few years, with exactly the same end results). You’d think the medical community would be on top of this sort of thing. We passed several of these signs just going through the two sets of doors; I’m not sure my mother even saw them. There were even stand alone signs scattered around main lobby area. As we entered, a woman wearing a mask started coming over, asking which doctor we were there to see. I gave the name and she directed us to the doors behind us. Doors that didn’t have a single sign on them. We walked in, and there wasn’t a mask in sight. Not the receptionist, not the other patients, and not the doctor. It was like a sanctuary of sanity in a sea of junk science!

Getting there early meant we got brought into the examination room early, but the doctor took longer with another patient, so he actually saw us late. Which was fine, except my mother got it in her head that the car would freeze and not start because we were waiting soooo long. I reminded her that I spent more time with her in her apartment before we headed out, and the car started just fine. Plus, the day was still getting warmer! She wasn’t satisfied until the doctor finally came in and she brought it up with him – and he promised to give us a boost if the car didn’t start! 😄

The visit started out a bit confusing, because we were thinking we were there about her breathing issues, but this was a referral about her acid reflux. When she gets really bad heart burn while lying down, she also has trouble breathing, and thinks she’s having a heart attack. Her heart checked out extremely healthy – fantastic for someone in her 90’s – but she still can’t accept that there’s nothing wrong with her heart. The doctor tried questioning her, but eventually started explaining things more to me, while simplifying things for my mother, as he figured out that I would be working to explain things to her later on. He asked her all kinds of questions, but it’s really hard to get clear answers from her, because she keeps wanting to talk about other things.

One of the things that came out is that my mother has been taking all her pills – she thinks she’s taking a lot, but really, it’s not that many – with food. She’s on a medication for acid reflux, that is in her bubble packs as a morning pill. It is NOT supposed to be taken with food, which I never saw indicated anywhere. She should also be taking it in the evening. She takes her evening pills at 5pm, but doesn’t go to bed until 11, so we talked about changing the timing.

After questioning her more, he decided it was appropriate to get a scope done on her, to check if there is any damage from the reflux. Then he talked to her about dietary changes. I recognized what he was talking about and reminded my mother that I’d given her a printout of what foods were good and which weren’t, and she said she never looks at it. *sigh* High acid foods are things she should be avoiding, like citrus fruits, onions and garlic, and tomatoes.

My mother loves her onions and tomatoes.

My sister recently gave her onions and a jar of tomatoes from her garden.

I’ve sent the food list to my sister, and we’ve talked about this before, but my sister just seems to forget completely!

A few more things were discussed, and then we headed out, stopping to get some information about the scope from the receptionist.

My mother was already trying to back out of it, asking if she really needed to get it done.

*sigh*

When she has these “attacks”, she gets really scared and things she is literally dying. But she hasn’t had one in a while, so now she doesn’t want to actually do anything about it.

The appointment was set for the end of this month and, after checking with my mother, my number got put down as the person to call with more information and instructions, closer to the date, which I will then pass on and explain to her. We also got a printout for her about the procedure and what she needs to do in advance. That was something for us to go over when I got her home.

I had offered to help my mother with shopping if she felt up to it, but she wanted to do that in her own town. All she needed was milk, anyhow. I did realize, with the longish drive ahead, it would be a good idea to find a public washroom before we got on the highway. There was a Walmart handy, so I ended up going in, while she stayed warm in the car, so I picked up milk for her, anyhow! I’m glad it worked out that way because, by the time we got her home, I don’t think either of us was up to a grocery trip!

I then spent perhaps an hour going through things with her. While driving home and talking about her medication change, she suddenly told me she was already taking that one pill (she didn’t understand what it was for, even though it has been explained to her by me, my brother and her doctor) in the evening. That was something the specialist should have been told! She was still taking it with food, though, and too early, so we worked out that she would be taking that one pill shortly before bed. I had quite a time convincing her that it was ONLY the one pill that needed to be changed, and that she didn’t need to change anything else. She kept thinking she shouldn’t take any of them with food now, but I know for sure that at least one of them is supposed to be taken with food. Then we went over the printout. I marked out on her calendar, when she needs to stop taking things like blood thinners (and confirming which of her pills is a blood thinner – when the doctor had asked about them, she couldn’t remember exactly why she was on them, other than “they are to prevent stroke”, and she’s been on them longer than we’ve been back, so I don’t know, either), vitamins, aspirin, etc, when to start fasting, and when not to take any of her meds at all. Then more notes were written down inside the cover of her bubble packs, complete with little drawings of the pill shapes.

While going through the printout, I got to the part where it said they would have her lying down on her left side.

But she can’t lie on her left side, she tells me. If she does, she gets the pain and problems with breathing.

????

Yes, she’s mentioned that she slept on her side (which is recommended for reflux) to the doctor, but didn’t specify why she slept only on her right side.

Turns out that she gets these attacks every time she tries sleeping on her left side. They happen when she’s on her right side, only sometimes, and that’s when she wants to go to a doctor about it.

That was something the specialist should have been told, but she seemed surprised that this wasn’t automatically understood when she had said she slept on her side!

*sigh*

It took some doing, but we got through it. Before I left, she paid me back for the lunch and gas, so before heading home, I stopped at the bank again to do a deposit, then went back to the gas station to fill the tank again. Driving against the wind really did a number on the mileage!

I am so glad I had the wind at my back for the drive home.

Where my mother is, it is sheltered, but the gas station is not. WOW did the wind increase since morning! It’s still blowing now. Even though the temperature is a relatively warm -18C/about 0F, the wind chill was about -33C/-27F. I think the wind chill was even colder while I was filling the tank again! It was absolutely brutal! I picked up a couple other little things then headed back to the car, pausing to check for messages from the family before I left. Which is the only reason I saw the notification from my bank about the purchase I’d just made.

The number was very off.

They forgot to charge me for the gas!

So I went back in and paid for it. 😄

I’m glad I caught it when I did, or I wouldn’t have seen it until I got home.

And I was sure glad to get home! The running around is pretty draining, but all that time trying to explain things to my mother gets pretty difficult after a while, even though she was definitely having one of her good days.

I’m glad it got done, though.

I’ll also be glad when this chill finally ends. It’s still only -18C/about 0F out there, and the wind chill is still at -33C/-27F! If the forecast is right, the winds will die down in a few hours, and then things will steadily warm up over the next while.

I’m looking forward the air no longer hurting my face!

The Re-Farmer

This and that

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You know, I’m really glad we’re having such a relatively mild winter right now. The past two years, it got so cold, we had issues with the vehicles and were basically stuck at home. This year, I’ve had to do more unexpected running around than I’ve done in months!

But first… some cuteness!

Tissue’s recovery continues, and she is absolutely thrilled to no longer be in isolation in my office. She has been almost non stop cuddling my younger daughter, or sleeping on her bed, or both at the same time! About the only thing giving her issue right now is the dead skin coming off her frost bitten paw pads, which seem to be itching her a bit. No signs of any infection or other potential issues.

My daughter has been working on an interesting project of late. When my late brother was in his teens, or even just under his teens (being the youngest, my time-scale memory is a bit off!) he had carved a wooden ship. When we moved out here, it had been sitting on top of the closet in the entry for several decades, at least. When the cats started jumping up there, we took it down to protect it from damage.

There already was some damage, though. A piece broken here, other pieces missing there.

My daughter has spent the last while cleaning up years of dust and dirt, sanding it, and starting to repair it. Among the missing items is one of the small boats on the deck. She’s been using my wood carving kit and some maple we had in the basement to carve a new one.

Not an easy job, considering how tiny it is! It’s the same length as the others, but slightly wider.

Next, she’s going to carve a couple of cannons to replace the missing ones, and figure out how to repair/replace a couple of yards and topsails. She’s doing a really great job of it! I think her uncle would have been quite pleased. 😊

In other things, I ended up going to my mother’s today. She phoned me a couple of days ago to tell me her TV stopped working, but told me not to come over to check. Yesterday, my brother had called her and tried to talk her through finding the power button the the TV, so she would at least test to see if it was the TV that was the problem, or the remote. She couldn’t find any and kept saying it was too dark to see, etc., much to my brother’s frustration.

So this morning, I called and told her I’d be coming over to check the TV. I’d already offered to help her with groceries or whatever she needed, the first time she told me not to bother coming out. Today, she started telling me that she was okay with no TV, it was giving her more time to herself, and watching too much TV wasn’t a good thing. I told her, just because you have it, you don’t have to watch it (speaking as someone who completely forgets we even have a TV! 😄). Oh, but it’s a temptation! True enough, but I told her I was coming over, anyhow.

I was going to pick up lunch before getting there, but when I called, she was having a very late breakfast, so told her I wasn’t going to bother. I then got a lecture about how it was wasting money to be buying take out, and how it’s so much better and cheaper to cook our own food. I told her, I eat my own food all the time. This is a treat. I’m allowed to have a treat!

Then as we talked about her TV again, she started saying she could just buy a new, bigger one, because my brother had suggested she would enjoy a bigger TV. Or, as she put it, he told her she should get a bigger TV, which I know full well is not how he’d said it. He just thought it would be easier for her to see what’s on the TV from her chair with a larger screen. Her TV isn’t much bigger than my desktop monitor.

I told her that buying a new TV when the problem might be as simple as needing new batteries on the remote would be an unnecessary expense. Oh, I can do what I want, she tells me. I just had to laugh and pointed out that she was just lecturing me over “wasting money” for buying food, while buying a new TV over what might be just dead batteries in the remote would be an even bigger waste of money! Let me at least come and check it, first!

So that was arranged. I came over and the first thing I did was see if I could turn it one manually. My brother had even sent me an electronic copy of the user’s manual, so I had some idea of what to look for. The manual was for several models, so there could be anywhere from 4 to 7 buttons. For her TV, I was expecting four – input, volume up, volume down and power – and I first checked where my brother had been asking my mother to look.

No buttons.

The other corner?

No buttons.

The top? Underneath? The back?

No buttons.

I changed the batteries on the remote and tried that.

Nothing.

I kept looking for buttons. The closest I could find was a button in the recessed area next to the cables that was labeled “source” and had the power button icon beside it.

It did nothing.

I picked that thing up and was flipping it in all directions to look.

No other buttons!!

It’s so bizarre!

I ended up unplugging it, plugging it back in, and trying again with the remote.

Once that was done and I sent messages to update my brother, I again offered to go to the grocery store for her. Because she’d told me she didn’t need to go to the grocery store before, I’d gone over in our van, which still has the summer tires on the back and nothing else. It looks like we aren’t getting financing (still no word one way or the other), but we haven’t put our stuff back in the van yet, but I could still pick up some milk and bread or something for her.

She had a shopping list she’d made, since I was coming over anyhow.

She also decided she needed to do the shopping herself.

If I’d known that, I would have used her car!

We did remember to grab her little stool, so she could get into the van more easily. She also decided to just use a cane, not her walker, to get to and from the van, since at the grocery store she uses the shopping cart as a walker. I wasn’t too happy with that, and could have at least rearranged the tires to make room for her walker, but she insisted.

She did okay but, towards the end, her knee almost gave out. Next time, I need to insist on bringing that walker!

She ended up doing a rather large grocery shopping trip from her usual. So much for not needing groceries!!

Meanwhile, I heard back from my brother. He bought this TV from her not long ago, and it should still be under warranty, but since she wants a larger TV, he’s going to pick one up for her and bring it out, then take her current TV home to see if he can find what’s wrong with it – or return it.

He is such a good man. She treats him so horribly, and he still goes out of his way to do super nice things for her! He’s only been back in the province for a few days, too.

At least now we do know it wasn’t just the remote needing new batteries!

Meanwhile, I’m going to have more running around to do tomorrow. We’re going to have to get those tires out of the back of the van and make a much delayed trip to the dump.

I do wish we’d been able to get that Escape. Ah, well. We’ll manage.

The Re-Farmer

(edited for typos: many thanks, MP!)

A bit more updating

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I think the outside cats are very happy the roof is done!

I think I actually counted 28 this morning, including two of the bitties that were under the cat house!

We have been having almost rain, almost snow, lately. Many trees look like they’re covered with hoar frost, but it’s actually a layer of ice.

Something I had to deal with when switching out the memory card on the gate cam!

The entire front was covered with a layer of ice! The camera lens has a plastic protector in the front cover. I spent some time trying to melt it away with the heat of my fingers, then trying to scrape it off. Then I use my palms to try and melt the ice off the solar panel. There’s not much I can do for the divots in front of the infrared flash lights. At least not without some kind of tool that can get in, but from the looks of the file, enough light is getting through that the night vision still works. At least as much as possible, when the lens itself has a layer of ice over it!

I went around the house this morning, taking pictures from the ground (not getting very good angles in most places!) of the new shingles, and moving a few things back that got missed.

This is what’s left of the chimney! A lot of the bricks are broken, but that’s okay. We will likely use these to make paths, and broken pieces can be used mosaic style.

While they were working on the roof, I’d burned a pile of wood over burnable garbage, adding a few old and rotten pallets I’d cleaned out of the yard in the process. This morning, I found this on the banked ash pile.

I’d seen these by the house while they were working and was wondering if they were going to keep them or not. It was too funny to see they’d added them to my burn pile!

They didn’t stay there. There’s some salvageable wood in there! I moved them to the barn. The bottom one was a bit singed by hot spots in the ash pile, but that one also has more broken pieces, of it was better for that one to be singed than the one that is in better shape. 😊

I got a message from my brother saying that he wanted to come over again – not as early as yesterday, though, thankfully! I told him I was leaving to meet with the cat lady, and thought I’d miss him entirely, but he was here when I got back. So I stayed outside after the cats and other stuff was unloaded into the house. There isn’t much I can do to help him, but I still wanted to be available!

I also took advantage of the daylight and walked around looking for “flyaways”. They cleaned up as best they could in the dark, but there was bound to be stuff they missed. Especially the clear plastic strips that covered the adhesive under the shingles. Those are hard to see, even in daylight, and are so light, they were blown around all over. There were also pieces of white plastic, on white snow, that were very easy to miss. I expect we will be finding more bits and pieces when the snow melts in the spring!

My brother sent me a picture of Dishy – after he secured it to the roof! It was held by only one screw. We figure they lost the other two while working around it.

My brother also tarred around the new anchor bolts he’d put in for the antennae wires, and checked the septic stack vents. There are two of them, and they were pretty blocked with debris. Not from the roofing job, but just from years of exposure. These vents are there to ensure no vacuum forms in the pipes as water drains to the septic tank. Now that they’ve been cleared, we should notice water draining better, throughout the house. He had a chance to talk to one of my daughters about it and, now that they know, they will include checking the vents when they’re up on the roof to clean the eavestroughs. They’d cleared those before the snow fell, but my brother found the downspouts were all full again!

Oh, and I had to laugh when I came outside this morning. Do you see the roof of the kibble house, behind the satellite dish? With something in the snow?

It is a forgotten can of A&W Root Beer! One of the guys must have put it in the snow, where it wouldn’t slide away, and would stay chilled, then forgot it there. 😄

There is one thing that we found – or should I say, didn’t find – that my brother is not happy with.

The parts and pieces from our old satellite dish that was still up there. Also, the remaining supports from the one that is now stored in the basement, that we’d left in place rather than leave screw holes in the roof.

I think they got taken to the dump. Those were not supposed to be throw away.

My brother will see if he can find out what happened to it when the company contacts him with the bill.

Oh, and he remembered to tell me something our mother had said when he visited her yesterday. She was complaining that none of the roofers, or someone from the company (I still haven’t figured out who she thinks it should be) came to visit her. Then she started saying that if they did any extra patch jobs on top of replacing the shingles, she won’t pay for it.

As in, if they found and fixed any rotted areas.

So… while talking to me, when I said they’d found no rot (only later did I find out they’d found and fixed one small patch of it), she was upset because she didn’t believe they’d recognise rot when they saw it, and/or that they would have put new shingles on top of rotten wood, rather than fix it, and the roof is gong to collapse like she saw on the news, who knows how long ago.

But in talking to my brother, she’s saying that if they DID fix anything beyond what was included in the estimate, she won’t pay them… for repairing the damage she doesn’t think they’d competent enough to recognise, and/or too corrupt to fix, therefore the roof is going to collapse.

My brother and I both know that she will try to go back on her word to pay for this, so he didn’t say much, or she’d get mad at him and use that as an excuse to not do what she promised she would do.

We will both be very relieved when the bill if finally paid!

Meanwhile, as my brother was up on the roof today, and I was picking things up around the house, he noticed a dark SUV suddenly slowing riiiiiggghhhttt down as it drove past on the main road. Slow enough to almost be stopped on the road.

It kept going until we could no longer see it through the trees, then I saw it going down the road by our driveway, as if it had driven around the other way. Which, since there is a “missing” road at a one mile mark, meant driving around an extra section (which is 1 square mile) to come back from that direction.

We both recognized the vehicle as one our vandal owns.

We saw it again, driving very slowly the other direction.

With the roofers coming, but not knowing when, we’ve had the gate wide open for quite some time. I went over to close it, but I looked down the road first. From our driveway, we can see open road for about 3/4 of a mile, but there was no sign of the SUV. I should have been able to see it. For it to be gone, it had to have turned into a field, and there are only two driveways into fields out there – one of them being part of this property, that is rented out. The other is a barely-their driveway that, as far as I know, doesn’t even get used in the winter.

I closed up the gate, then started walking back when I heard an engine coming.

Sure enough, it was the same SUV. Wherever it had disappeared to, it had turned around and come back, again driving ever so slowly.

So I started walking up the driveway towards the gate. Basically, I wanted our vandal to know that we could see him stalking around the property. When he saw me, he started driving faster, turned towards his place and didn’t come back.

Since he stayed on the road and never stopped, I don’t think he could be considered in breach of the restraining order we have against him, but he sure was on the edge of it!

My guess is, he noticed the new roof and was wanting to get a better look at what was going on, since he still seems to think he has some sort of claim on this place.

Which reminds me.

It turns out he’d called my mother again, though I’m not sure about the timeline of it. He said he wanted to come and visit her. She told him, sure, and started laying out the conditions of behaviour if he did. He’d responded by saying that he was going to be there on his own terms!

My brother asked her, why are you even wanting him to come over at all? What do you think he’ll do? She told him he’d probably do the same thing he always does; make demands, rant and rave, without letting her get a word in edgewise. So my brother asked again, why do you want him to come over? She started making excuses but, my goodness… if she knows he will only continue to be verbally abusive and coercive towards her, how does she think letting him come over will help?

So we’ll have to keep an eye out on my mother, in hopes she doesn’t self sabotage again.

Meanwhile, it looks like we’re going to have to make sure to keep the gate closed and locked again. I was hoping to be able to leave it open for the winter. There isn’t much snow right now but, last year, when the snow got so deep it was hard to open and close the gate, we left it open – which our awesome neighbors took advantage of and cleared our driveway for us, before we even knew they were there! It’s just a lot more convenient to not have to be constantly locking and unlocking the gate, either for ourselves, or for when we are expecting things like prescription deliveries, etc.

I’d hoped, after things had been so quiet for so long, our vandal was finally letting go, but it looks like he’s still watching us.

Just one more reason we want to plant lots of berry bushes and trees, as privacy screens! Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about the driveway.

I am really hoping we won’t have to apply to renew the restraining order when it expires, but I strongly suspect we might have to go through that all over again.

Ah, well. We will deal with what comes.

My brother managed to find all sorts of little things to do while he was here, going up and down the ladder many times, and in many different areas. While I was still gone, he even carried the step ladder up the ladder so that he could use it to get to the second level roof! I was very happy to be there so he could lower it down to me, rather than try and climb down the ladder while carrying the step ladder!

It was starting to get dark by the time he was done, and he still had errands to run. He just never seems to stop!

I love my brother, but as much as I appreciate all he does for us, I wish he would take a break sometimes! He’s burning the candle at both ends.

It’s all done, though! All that the roofers were responsible for, plus the extras my brother did.

This should make quite a difference! I’ll have to remember to ask the girls, over the next few weeks, if they notice a difference in temperature upstairs. It wouldn’t be much; it’s not like insulation was added, but those extra layers of plastic barriers under the newly laid shingles might be enough for a noticeable change for them.

The Re-Farmer

What a day!

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So much good news today!

While doing my morning rounds, I was very happy to spot all of the bitties. I was worried about the orange caterpillar, as I did not see it at all yesterday, but he was there today!

The little tuxedo came outside to eat, even though there was kibble inside. I found the orange bitty, with one of the white and greys wrapped around him! A few minutes later I came back, and there was the grey and white tabby. That one is a very boisterous kitty!

Last night, I didn’t get much sleep. I had to close up the three kittens from outside in the baby jail we put together for them, as they were just too active during the night, and their presence was keeping Butterscotch and Noserncrantz from coming down to eat or use the litter.

When I woke in the morning, Princess was asleep at the foot of my bed. She is small enough that she was able to squeeze through the larger openings in the top level of the baby jail!

When it was time to head out, I had those three, plus Big Rig. We just managed to fit two hard carriers and two soft carriers all in a row in the back of the van.

Big Rig was most angry about the whole thing. The kittens, however, were pretty chill and were soon curled up and relaxing.

I was just starting to drive out when a truck pulled into the driveway, hauling a trailer. The roofers had arrived!

I was expecting it to be just one guy, checking the place out and maybe dropping off supplies, but nope. They were going to get started!

So that changed my plans a bit.

I stopped along the way to get some gas, and some cat treats for the kitties, then continued on to meet with the cat lady. We were meeting in the parking lot of the smaller, closer Walmart that I sometimes go to. Her husband was driving their SUV, which was a bit scary, since he’d just had that accident (their truck was written off completely). As we transferred the kitties, we talked about my coming out to meet them again on Sunday. That’s as long as she’ll be able to hang on to them after their visit with the vet. On Sunday, she’s going to be picking up litters with 8 kittens in total. They are outdoor cats that an older gentleman is doing his best to take care of, but the RM (Rural Municipality) is going to come shoot them on Sunday if she doesn’t pick them up! So she’s going to be taking the sickest ones for now, which means ours have to come back sooner, to make space.

But not all of them, perhaps.

I’ve just been getting updates from her. Apparently, she has already found a home for Princess!! It will be confirmed tomorrow. She told me that suddenly, she’s had a number of people that have recently lost their older cats to illness or old age, and are interested in adopting. She said she hoped to get more of our cats adopted out between Christmas and New Year’s – and now it looks like she’s already found a home for one of them!

When I meet up with her on Sunday, not only will I be taking back the kitties, but she already sent me a photo of cat food donations she has for us! Four big bags of kibble, plus two cased of large size cans of wet cat food! She wants me to give wet cat food to the bitties, but it would be very difficult to get wet cat food for them, without having the bigger cats come around and eat it all, first. With that much donated cat food, we’ll be able to spread it out among the kibble trays, then put some where the bitties are, and they’ll have a chance to actually get some!

After we were done, my plan had been to go the rest of the way to the city and do the Costco shopping, but in the end, I just went to the Walmart we were already so close to. Since I’ll be back in just a few days, I didn’t want the extra driving.

It doesn’t take much to convince me to NOT go to the city.

I’m glad I changed my mind on that. There were a few things that I couldn’t get, and I skipped going to the Canadian Tire to get pellets for the litter for now, but it meant I got home quite a bit earlier.

The outside cats were all over the tarps they laid out to catch what was being thrown off the roof!

Unfortunately, it turned out one of the guys was very allergic to cats.

When I got there, he asked if we could make some coffee and tea, which we were quite happy to do – it’s not like there’s a coffee shop they can go to for their breaks nearby! Actually, my daughter got that started while I brought the shopping in, then put away the van. She’s still pretty sick, so as soon as I was able to take over, she disappeared back upstairs, so as not to pass her cold on to the guys. It gave me a chance to heat up the chili I’d made yesterday, and I was able to offer them chili and rice as well. There were four guys working on the roof, but only two came in for tea and food during their break. I’m sure they had worked up quite an appetite by then, too!

They had cleared off all the old shingled and checked where we had problems with leaking. They could see where water had got in, but there was NO rot!

Amazingly, they kept at it until the east side of the house was done; the roof over the “new part” of the house, including the main entry, plus the section of roof above the second floor windows. It was fully dark by the time they stopped!

Things got really crazy after they’d laid down the plastic, and were starting to bring up the packages of shingles. They were dropping really hard – each package weighs about 80 pounds – and the whole house would shake! One particularly hard drop resulted in the plastic cover over the kitchen light to fall off, and it broke when it hit the floor. It’s a very old light fixture and has been needing to be replaced for a long time, so I’m not concerned about the breakage, but I did go out to let them know what had happened. There’s really nothing they can do about it, without risking injury. Still, we had a few things vibrating off shelves on our walls. Nothing else that broke, at least!

They will be back again to do the west side of the house tomorrow. Now that they know how to get here (they got lost, this morning! Someone gave them bad directions), I expect they were get here around 7:30 or 8 in the morning. They’ll be bringing another guy on the crew, which should make it 5 in total.

I will have to remember to tell them they can’t drop packages of shingles like that on the run room roof. It’ll shatter the windows. They’re going to have to find some way to drop them off higher up on the roof, or on the other side of the old kitchen.

Tomorrow, I was supposed to go to my mother’s to help her with errands. She’d told me my sister was also going to be visiting with her, so I called to confirm that. If my sister could drive my mother around, I could stay home while the roofers are here.

Well, it turned out my sister cancelled on coming out. I told my mother about the roofers being here, and that they were expecting to finish tomorrow.

*sigh*

The first thing she wanted to know is if my brother were here. She wanted him to be here while the roofers were here, and apparently he’d promised to do so. Which I don’t think he did. He can’t just not show up for work like that. I told her that, and said that’s part of why I wanted to be here, rather than at her place. I could keep an eye on things. Since she was already working herself up, being angry at my brother, I thought I’d tell her the good news about there not being any rot to repair, so far. Well, that made her angry, too, as she sarcastically commented “oh, sure… as if they’d know.” Which blew me away. Yes, once the old shingles were off, they would be able to see if there was any actual rot. Then she started ranting about making sure there was “insurance” (she meant warranty). I said yes, there are warranties. At least two of them; a materials warranty, and a workmanship warranty. She wants it written down. Yes, Mom, it’s part of the contract. It’s all spelled out. Oh, sure, she says; they’ll give us a receipt, but she wanted the warranty in writing.

My brother and I have both been trying to explain to her that this is a professional company that deals with contracts and warranties and roofing is all they do. I even commented on how she was used to just hiring some neighbour, and one that drink so the job, too. But he did a good job, she insisted! My response was “did he?” Apparently, she’d hired him to do the roof of the storage house. Where the eavestroughs were never put back on again, and are just hovering, several inches away from the eaves. That roof is also a simple roof compared to the house. One thing is for sure. There would have been no contract, no warranty, and maybe – maybe! – just an invoice. But she would have had no problem with doing that again, instead of hiring a professional roofing company!

I had to change the subject back to tomorrow. My mother has simply decided that the roofers are going to go a bad job, they are going to over charge, and they are going to try and cheat her, because she’s an old lady, and companies always cheat old ladies. Never mind that they’re dealing with my brother, not her. She is determined to be angry about all of it!

She was still upset when I finally finished the call but, in the end, I will not be going over there tomorrow. I will call in the evening and see about coming out the day after, though it will be with my van, since her car isn’t booked with the garage until next week.

That was the only sour note of the day. Well. That and the amazing crashing on the roof when they dropped those packages of shingles!

It’s not even 7pm as I write this, but I feel ready to go to bed already! Hopefully, get some actual sleep, too. But first, I think I’ll make some stew for the crew for tomorrow. And we’ll be sure to have a pot of coffee, and a kettle going for tea, too! It’s supposed to be a lot warmer. The forecasted high is now -4C/24F tomorrow. If it’s a calm day, it would be a good day to do a burn, too.

We shall see!

The Re-Farmer

Changes in plans, and a little bit of everything

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Yesterday, we got our quarter beef in!

We had to juggle a bit to be able to close the freezer lid. No, it’s not completely full of beef – there’s other stuff underneath – but I’d say over half the freezer is now packages of beef.

After I took the picture, I dug out a couple of packages of T-bone steaks to thaw out for today! It’s been soooo long since we’ve had a good steak!

I love how big the stew packages are this time. They’re not visible, but there’s also about two dozen 2 pound packages of ground beef in there.

Today’s plans, however, had already changed before I went to bed!

I got a call from my brother. He’d just talked to my mother, and he was asking if I could take her to the hospital today. !!! My mother thinks she’s got a UTI again (she is likely right), but she told my brother more than she told me, and it’s more of a problem than I knew. My guess is, she was hoping my brother would drop everything, drive all the way to her place, then take her to the hospital and sit with her, like he had done the last time this happened. She’s been suffering for more than a week, but had only just tried calling the community health number yesterday. She can’t handle the automated phone systems, so she just hit 0 and left a message. Twice. No response.

So today, my plan was to call our doctor’s clinic, which is in a town about 40-45 minutes drive from my place, as soon as it opened (after doing my rounds; head count of 27 this morning, and I couldn’t see the new bitty). I wanted to see if I could make arrangements with them, or see if I should take her to the hospital (our doctor’s clinic shares a building with the hospital).

Then I got a call from the home care worker that last assessed my mother. They got her messages from yesterday, and followed up. The person who normally answered the phone doesn’t work on Wednesdays. *sigh* My mother seemed confused about things, so he wanted to clear things up with me, but she had already told him about going to her doctor today.

One of the things my mother has been pushing to do is change doctors again. There aren’t full time doctors locally, which is why we now to go another town. Plus, the local doctor, who came in from the city once a week, was female, and my mother doesn’t like female doctors. Apparently, there is now a new doctor, though. He might even be there full time now, instead of coming in from the city. I’m not sure. Our doctor in the other town isn’t white, and my mother doesn’t like that about as much as she doesn’t like female doctors. Having a closer doctor would be better for her (but he’s Greek; not sure if that’s white enough for her), however there have been issues in the past with getting good care locally. The hospital just doesn’t have the resources. Whether she switches doctors or not, she won’t be happy. She’s convinced she has cancer or something, but the doctors are keeping it a secret from her.

Anyhow.

I called the clinic right after it opened, but the line was already busy, so I called my mom and told her what I was working on. She was already getting ready to leave! When I got through to the clinic, however, it turned out her doctor had an opening, so I was able to make an appointment for her this afternoon.

So I called my mother back and we worked out a plan. I’ll be heading over to her place early enough to have lunch (she requested Chinese food this time! 😁), and we wouldn’t be in any hurry about leaving. I will be using our van, as it’s better for winter road conditions, so we’ll have to remember to bring her little stool to help her get in and out.

Which means I’m going to be out for most of today.

Ah, well. At least it’s supposed to be a relatively mild day today. Things are supposed to get colder again tomorrow, and I’d rather not be driving my 91 yr old mother around in the cold! We still need to do at least one trip to the city for our monthly stocking up, but thanks to the trip I did manage to make – and the beef delivery! – plus our current state of supplies, there is no urgency on that.

I really like being well stocked. It takes a lot of pressure off. It wouldn’t be as big a deal if we were still living in the city, but it makes a huge difference living in the boonies, and winter is coming on!

In other things, I talked to the cat lady yesterday evening. She showed my pictures of the new bitty to a vet already. Given the size, they agree that it is younger than the other bitties. Once we are sure there are no siblings, she wants to take it in. Like the other cats, it probably already has upper respiratory issues, and being so young, they don’t expect it would survive the winter, either, even in the relative warmth and comfort of the heated cat shelter. The new bitty will join the other bitty. Things have changed there, too. He is not going to the lady that took the other two. Instead, he will be going to the cat lady’s cousin! He’ll be going to his new home after Christmas. Maybe, he’ll have a little orange buddy going with him? Wouldn’t that be cool! Also, she has managed to find homes for 6 cats she was fostering! She will have room for more, soon.

So we will continue to monitor and, if things go as I expect, we will have an orange bitty in the house tonight.

We shall see! It’s not like anything seems to be going to plan, today! 😄😄

The Re-Farmer

The bitties are gone away, and vehicle updates

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Well, the transfer is done! The bitty kitties were picked up late this morning… but not before they had a good nap.

On me.

After filling their bellies, and cover themselves in kitty formula!

The grey and white tabby is male. He is a show off, so that was pretty easy to determine. It took more effort to check the black and white, but I’m pretty sure it was female.

The cat lady, meanwhile, came baring gifts! A big bag of dry kibble, a cat bed, some small cat blankets, a baggie of cat treats and…

… a toy for the outside cats!

We talked a bit about all the cats running around, with several of them coming right up to her. She noted quite a lot of them look old enough to be fixed, so after she gets the three we have in mind right now done (they will stay with her for a week after surgery, then come back, unless she finds adoptees for them), she will start looking into booking visits for more outdoor cats, and hopefully adopt some of them out, too.

We didn’t stay long after she left with the bitties, heading out to pick up my mother soon after. It was supposed to be a warm day today, but there was a chill wind, and my mother wasn’t too happy about that. We picked up some fried chicken and wedges for a picnic lunch, though, and she was very happy about that! After we ate, the girls took the short hiking path around the marsh, while my mother and I made our way into the interpretive centre. She wanted to visit the gift shop. I ended up buying a cookbook of recipes submitted by volunteers. We left soon after the girls caught up with us again. My mother is noticeably having a harder time walking. It’s a shame we couldn’t load her little power chair into the van for her. The ramps we have are fine for loading snow blowers and riding mowers. Not so great for something more delicate! Mind you, just getting in and out of our van was really pushing it for her, too. My mother was more than happy to go home and get some rest.

The girls and I took advantage of the outing and went to a different town. They wanted to hit the grocery store. Our mechanic’s garage is across the street, so while they did that, I went in to talk to him.

After booking an appointment for my mother’s car, to get the leaking tire looked at (I expect it will only need to be patched), I talked to him about our van. He sells vehicles, too, now, and I was suggesting maybe using it as a trade in – he’s done enough work on it to know it very well – and talked about what we might get. It would have to be another older vehicle, because we can’t afford much, but once the quarter beef and the branch chipping are paid off, we can use that money towards a slightly newer vehicle.

He actually recommended we try selling our van privately. At best, he’d be able to give us $300 for the van, and it would be sent for scrap. On a private sale, we might be able to get about $500. (Or, he suggested, we can just keep it as a back up vehicle.) For someone who has the tools and knowledge to do most of their own repairs, it could still do well by them. The problem is all those little things that go wrong on an older vehicle – it’s a 2005 – that is the issue. There are just too many little things that should be fixed, before they become big things, but taking it in to get them all fixed at a garage is still more than we can afford.

We talked about what sort of vehicle we are looking for; the Grand Caravan we had before did well by us, and this Uplander is doing remarkably well, considering how abused it turned out to have been before we bought it. The Uplander hasn’t been made and sold in Canada since 2010, though. He still finds some decent Caravans, though. The other possibilities we are looking at are an older F150 or Ram1500 – both vehicles that are highly rated for winter driving, and that my husband would be able to get in and out of all right. He happened to have an F150 in one of his bays that was for sale that he could use as an example. It was a 2010 and well out of our budget, but my goodness, it was in fine shape!

Because he’d mentioned scrap dealers, I brought up that – now that our vandal can no longer try to claim the junk here on the farm – we can actually have it sold as scrap. He said to wait. This past spring, the prices where the highest he’s seen, but right now, the prices are down again. They go up again in the spring.

So we will wait.

I think we’ll be waiting with replacing the van until spring, too. Whatever we get, I’d want to be able to have it paid off within a year, and that might not be easy.

Ah, well. We do what we can!

The funny thing is, after the girls and I were back at the van and were about to leave, someone came knocking at my daughter’s window, wondering if he could ask us about how we liked our Uplander. I recognized him as an employee from one of the local hardware stores, so I just got out and went to talk to him. It turns out he needs to replace his wife’s car, and was thinking of getting an Uplander, but had been hearing conflicting reports on how good they are. So we had plenty that we could share with him! I think he found it helpful.

We did get a laugh about his asking about the van, just as we were talking to someone about trading it in for something else!

We shall see how things work out. I’m glad I finally had the chance to talk to our mechanic about it.

Oh, and guess what?

He also hauls scrap. Which makes sense. With all the cars he works with, he’d have plenty to send to the scrap dealer. One of these days, I’ll have him come out to our place and look at what we’ve got and see what he says about it.

All in all, it’s been a very productive day, even though we were away from home for most of it!

The Re-Farmer

Kitten progress, and… Oh, Mom. *sigh*

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After several delays, my mother was finally good with my coming over to help her with some errands. I used our van, as I don’t want to drive her car with the slow leak in one tire. Neither of us remembered to bring a stool for her to use to climb in and out, though!

While I was gone, my daughters were able to go outside to check on the bitty babies. They actually quite liked the attention. Even the one that would hiss and spit came running back for more attention after being put into the cat house!

When I got home, I topped up the kibble trays, and three of them were out and about.

That little grey and white one in the foreground REALLY wanted attention! As for the black and white clones, you can see one of them peeking out from under the kibble house floor, behind Judgement.

These two started very enthusiastically eating kibble! I’ve been putting kibble into the entry of the cat house (the only area that can be reached without opening the roof), so they’ve been around kibble since they showed up, but this is the first time I’ve seen them actually eating any!

The fourth kitten was in the cat house and, aside from peeking out the entry, seemed content to stay there.

I still have no idea who the mother is. Of the adult cats we see around (all the adult males have disappeared again), none of them seem to belong with the babies.

We’re going to have to check on them as the day winds down and things get chillier, to make sure they are safe and warm in the cat house. I do wish we could reach into there without lifting the roof, so we could pop food and water in the main area, instead of just tossing kibble through the entry.

As for the outing with my mother, that went well enough – aside from her struggle to get into the van! It’s easier for her to get out, and I keep having to tell her to wait until I get her walker out and over to her before she climbs down. She frequently ignores me, of course. 😁 I’m just concerned that she might fall while I’m getting her walker out of the back of the van.

Along with errands, she took me out for a late lunch, and then we made a quick stop at the grocery store. She didn’t even try to get out of the van for that one, and just asked me to run in and pick up some milk for her.

After getting her home and putting things away, she gave me a bag of stuff that she didn’t need anymore, including a couple of pairs of jeans. My sister had bought them for her, but she said they were too big, and thought they might fit me. I looked at them when I got home and had to laugh. My mother completely forgot that my sister had not only taken them in for her, but also hemmed them for her. My mother has shrunk quite a bit over the years, so the pant legs are really, really short!

As she was telling me what was in the bag, she mentioned she had some yarn for me, and told me to look into her storage closet. There were things in the way from reaching it, but I could see the balled yarn in a bucket. My cousin had given her a shawl, you see, so she undid it and saved the yarn…

Two things came to mind when she said that. The first was the memory of her doing the same thing to a shawl my daughter had crocheted for her, using some lovely Peruvian wool yarn she had bought specially for this gift. My daughter was so very proud of the finished shawl, as well she should be. Her stitches are always so perfect! She was so happy to gift it to her grandmother. Years later, we were able to make a road trip out and my mother wanted to give us some yarn. We both recognised the yarn immediately. When asked about it, she said she had undone the shawl so that the yarn could be use for “something useful.” Like slippers. The look of hurt on my daughter’s face still sears my heart. We still have that yarn, and my daughter still refuses to even look at it. Though she has since had it explained to her, my mother remains oblivious to the pain she caused, or why it was such a hurtful thing to do.

The other thing that came to mind was recognizing the yarn and realizing what just happened. I asked my mother when my cousin had given her the shawl. It was very recently. My aunt passed away not long ago, and my cousin brought some things of hers to my mother after the funeral.

I was the one who made the shawl, and had given it to my aunt as a Christmas gift, several years ago. I especially chose the pattern to make something she could wear over her shoulders while in her wheelchair. The yarn I’d chosen was bamboo silk, because I felt she deserved something was both warm and luxurious. It had an amazing drape to it.

And my mother undid it. She thought the nursing home had given it to her, because there was a label with their name on it. A label they would have added to all my aunt’s garments, to keep track of who they belonged to while being laundered. My mother thought the yarn would be good for some slippers or something.

I told her that I had made the shawl, and that this yarn was not at all appropriate for making anything that would be walked on. Yarn for footwear needs to have certain manmade fibres in it, or they wear out and get holes very, very quickly. My mother seemed to think it was quite funny that she had undone a shawl I had made for her sister. She even commented that it took a lot of work to unmake it. I told her it was a lot of work to make it!

She remains completely oblivious.

*sigh*

She still wants to give me the yarn, though when she asked, I did tell her that I don’t crochet much anymore. My hands simply hurt too much for that kind of fine motor control. Especially when it’s chilly out. Winter is usually when I can get back into crochet and crafting, but these days, that just hasn’t been happening, and this year, the pain in my hands has never been worse. I’ll take the yarn, though. I’m sure I can make something “useful” out of it that won’t also completely destroy it.

What a send off before heading home!

Well, at least I had some kitten therapy when I got home!

The Re-Farmer

So tired…

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Who knew that sitting around all day could be so exhausting?

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I was up early to do my rounds before heading to my mother’s, timing it so I would get there before the official time range for the exterminator guy. The hope was that he would start at my mother’s town and building early in the day. Then we’d do some stuff around town, have lunch together, and she was even considering staying in the lobby for a few hours at the end of the day, until she could go back into her apartment. Maybe after only 6 hours, though she is supposed to stay away for 12 hours, due to respiratory issues.

So we waited.

And waited.

And had repeated visits from a neighbour that was also waiting – with her cat in a carrier in the lobby/ A neighbour that is one of those people that will wander in and start talking, and not leave. Even when I finally got some Chinese take out and we were eating, she swung by twice – first to tell us the guy was there, then she came back to tell us she’d made a mistake. As we chatted, I found out she’s someone who should be staying away for 12 hours, too, but she never has. !!

After hours of being ready to leave at any time, my mother was really tired and tried to nap several times. Of course, the neighbour tried to come in while she was napping, too. By the time the guy arrived, my mother was fighting a wicked headache that Tylenol couldn’t touch.

It doesn’t take long for him to spray an apartment as small as these ones are, so we waited until he was done so we could lock up and go. This gave him a chance to explain to things to me, which I could later explain to my mother.

The first part is good news.

This is the 4th time her apartment has been sprayed, and the first time he saw zero trace of any bed bugs.

Now the not so good news. They don’t go with just one clear month. They go with three.

Sort of.

She will have her apartment sprayed again next month, just in case anything got missed this time. If there are no signs of bed bugs for a second time, she will get another notice a month later, but he will not be coming in to spray again. He will just do a visual check. If there are still no signs, she is officially done!

So it all hinges on there not being any evidence of bed bugs next month.

At least we know it’s going to happen, because my mother is so frustrated with the whole thing, she stopped telling us about the letters.

Because he came so late, my mom has to stay away until at least 2am. Once things were locked up and we could leave, we went to a nearby park where she could sit and get some fresh air, which did wonders for her headache. She was too tired to do any of the things she wanted to do, or even go to a sit down restaurant for the late birthday dinner I was planning to treat her to. She decided to get a hotel room again, and that was it.

She didn’t have a bag packed, so she basically had the clothes on her back, and the contents of her walker.

Once she was checked in, I made sure she got her complimentary coffee and a couple of muffins to eat when she took her evening and morning pills. She keeps some in her purse at all times, just in case she happens to be out when she’s supposed to take her medications. I offered to get her anything else – even buy her a nightgown or something – but she said she was fine. She just wanted to take her meds and go to bed! She was so tired, she was struggling just to move around the hotel room, even through everything is close at hand.

I’ll be coming back tomorrow morning to help her check out and take her home. She insisted I don’t come too early, because she wants to sleep in! So I’ll time it to be there just before check out time.

Even my mother commented on how it felt like such a wasted day. Neither of us got anything useful accomplished. And there’s no way to get around that. The guy shows up when he shows up, depending on how many towns and buildings he was to do.

At least there is now a light at the end of the tunnel.

The Re-Farmer