Today is looking like it’s going to be a gorgeous day! We finally have some sunshine and warmth, and while it’s still muddy out there, the water levels continue to go down. Even the water seeping into the old basement is somewhat better.
There was a whole crowd of cats waiting for my by the sunroom door, eager for breakfast. A lot of the ‘iccuses are hanging out. Still no sign of Chaddiccus, though – the only one of them that we could actually pet. Agnoos and Tuxedo Mask are still missing, too. Still, I saw a dozen cats in total, this morning.
It was nice enough that I brought the transplants out earlier, too.
I managed to get a slightly better picture of the developing Wonderberries.
On the down side, it looks like my mother will be going to the ER today. She’s been complaining of back pain for a while now, but it was really bad last night. My brother was planning to come out to join her in church and visit her after, but planned to take her to the hospital instead.
Oh, now that’s timing. I just got a message from him. They’re at the ER now, and she’s waiting to get her kidneys checked. From how she describes her pain, that seems the most likely cause.
We did talk about my driving her to the hospital and him meeting us there, but he decided he would do it all. Which is probably just as well. Since we are still under restrictions at the federal level, I probably wouldn’t be allowed to go in with her. Hospitals as still demanding people be masked, even though provincial restrictions are lifted, and in spite of all the evidence and data out there that shows it’s not only unnecessary, but harmful. My mother shouldn’t be wearing one, but she does, anyhow, because she’s been bullied into it. The way things are now, she would probably be sent home from the ER if she wasn’t masked and jabbed, as so many others already have been, all over the province. A lot of places responded to the provincial mandates being dropped by doubling down on the restrictions, instead.
Even aside from that, it’s probably just as well I didn’t try to drive my mother. I was awakened quite early today with a sort of headache. The kind that feels like it’s from eye strain. The weird part was that it hurt more if my eyes were closed then when they were open, so getting back to sleep wasn’t going to happen. Driving would probably have not been a good thing for me to be doing.
With the day being so nice, we might be able to get the fire pit going to have a wiener roast, and even finally use the new cast iron Dutch oven for the first time. I hope to be able to get more garden beds prepped, too. The weather forecast is now saying heat and possible thundershowers in a couple of days, then it’s supposed to cool down again, but we should still be able to get the cool weather seeds in. The garden beds we prepped in the fall have crab grass and weeds that made their way through, so I want to get those out before we start seeding, as much as possible.
What I would really love to be able to do, though, is close my eyes for a while. :-/
You know, for someone who is a hermit by nature, I’ve been out and about an awful lot lately!
Today I was out again, after an unexpected change in plans. With the roads clearing up and the days warming up, my mother was wanting to finally visit her sister in the nursing home, to see for herself how she is doing. Every time I suggested a day, though, she would defer on making a decision, and then say that she’d go any time I had the time to take her. She just wanted me to give her at least a day’s advance notice. So a few days ago, after looking at the forecast and seeing that Friday (today) was supposed to be warmer, I called to suggest Friday.
Oh, I was thinking Sunday, she tells me.
Hmm. Apparently, I was supposed to know this somehow? :-D
So we arranged for a trip on Sunday.
Then last night, while I was on my way home from visiting my friend in town, she called. It was pretty late when I got home, but I got through to her before she’d gone to bed.
She had been talking to someone in her building. They told her Friday was supposed to be a nice warm day, so she thought that might be a better day to visit her sister, instead of Sunday, and was I okay with that?
Oh, Mom.
I still had the day open, since that was the day I’d suggested to begin with, so of course, I was okay with the switch, but my goodness, that was funny.
We timed it so that she could visit in between when they would be doing lunch and supper. I used her car, of course, and left early enough to put some gas in the tank.
*sigh*
I filled the tank in our van last night. Gas was at 174.9/L It cost me almost $50 for a quarter tank. This morning, gas was up to 177.9/L My mother’s car was closer to 1/2 than 3/4 full, and she has a smaller tank than I do. It still cost almost almost $40 to fill her tank, and I didn’t even fill it all the way. The nozzle kept shutting itself off, so I kept restarting it until the pump got to what I knew would be close, and it turned out to be just a hair under full when I stopped.
Of course, with gas prices going up, the price of everything else is going to keep going up, too. :-(
We made the trip to where my aunt is, and since they still require masks and I can’t wear one (my mother shouldn’t be wearing any, either), I dropped her off with her walker and helper her in to the doors, where they had someone set up at a table. While my mom was being tended to before being allowed in, I found a place to park. We’d talked about where we were going to eat after the visit, and I’d suggested a fish and chips place instead of her usual fried chicken restaurant. She’s not doing meat on Fridays, so she agreed. I’m pretty sure the chicken place has fish and chips, too, but she would have just ordered fries if we’d gone there. It’s a tiny place and has only street parking, so after I parked my mom’s car, I quickly walked over to see how busy they were and what the parking situation was like, before heading back to the nursing home and waiting for my mom outside.
Her visit with my aunt was much shorter than expected, so I wasn’t waiting for long. We headed over to the restaurant so she could fill me in on how it went. Unfortunately my aunt, who’s 98, did not recognize my mother. She doesn’t talk anymore, and she fell asleep while my mother was there. At least my mother got to talk to the nursing staff about her sister, and left small gifts for her for later.
These visits are very hard on my mother. Still, she was glad to have finally seen her, and talk to the staff directly about how she’s doing. My mother can’t navigate their automated phone system, so I’ve been the one calling the nursing home to get updates for her which, thankfully, they are allowing. I’m not on the list of contacts for my aunt, but my mother is, and I’m someone they recognize as speaking on behalf of my mother, so they can give me information. Still, it’s not the same as my mother being able to actually see and try to talk to her sister, in person.
I told my mother that, now that the roads are clearing up and the temperatures are getting nice, she can visit her sister more often, and that I would be happy to drive her. She started saying, what’s the point? Her sister doesn’t even recognize her. I reminded her it’s been a long time since my aunt has seen her. If she visits more often, she might start recognizing my mother. Plus, at least she’s be able to see for herself how her sister was doing. My mother said she would think about it, but later on the the drive home, she brought it up again as if it was something she’s just thought of herself, and said it would be good to visit more often, now that the roads and weather are better… :-D
The place we ate at is very generous with their portions, and neither of us could finish even half of the fries, so we boxed those up. My mother didn’t want the fries, so she suggested I could give it to the cats. She’d covered hers with salt and vinegar, and I didn’t think that would work, but I took them anyway. My mother took advantage of having access to a car and we went to a couple of places before I took her home. While we were doing errands, I got a message from one of my daughters with a photo.
They’d got a fire going in the fire pit and were having a wiener roast for supper! We’ve used the fire pit so rarely since we’ve moved here, due to fire bans and drought conditions, so I was really happy that they did that.
By the time I was driving my mother home, I was so very tired. Being around people too much just sucks the energy out of me, and with all the other errands we’ve been running in just the past week, I was pretty wiped out. I think I was even more tired than my 90 yr old mother! :-D So I didn’t stay long after putting her groceries away. It’s a good thing I left when I did, because it was starting to rain! It was mostly done by the time I got home, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be driving on those roads any later in the day.
My daughters were still doing their cookout when I got home! They had the hardest time keeping the fire going, even with having access to dry wood.
The rain starting certainly didn’t help, but it didn’t rain enough to have to end their cookout, and it stopped shortly after I got back. I joined them for a while. It felt so good to be sitting at a fire like that, even with the mud all around the fire pit.
Then, since I had all those fries, the girls brought out cast iron pan to reheat them on the fire grill. I’m told they were quite delicious done that way! :-D
I didn’t stay out for too long, though, and left them to their cookout. I did pause to check out one of the little “lakes” that are forming in our yard!
Getting to the compost pile is going to be a bit of a challange!
We’ve got snowmelt forming a “lakes” forming all over the yard and in the paths we’ve dug right now! All that water, in between all that still-deep snow, is quite the sight!
We’re still supposed to get a bit more rain, then temperatures are supposed to dip below freezing overnight. I was going to say, I’m glad I won’t have to go anywhere for a few days, but I just remembered that we will at least need to go into town again to refill our empty water jugs. I really should have done it today, but it’s not something I could do while running errands with my mother. After that, we should have a few days “off”. I hope! At least until the middle of next week, when we’ll be dropping Turmeric off for her appointment at the vet that the Cat Lady arranged. Then, that same evening, we are now scheduled to pick up the freezer pack of beef I ordered last night. I chose their large “rancher” variety pack. The only item in the pack I know for sure will be in it is ground beef. I’m quite content with “surprise” packs, because we sometimes end up with cuts we normally wouldn’t think to get, usually due to the price/pound. Because it’s in a bulk pack, the price is by the pound for the whole thing, not for individual cuts, so we end up with a better price – and higher end cuts!
It’ll definitely be worth the extra running around.
Still, it all leaves me feeling so very tired. At least it’s a good tired, though!
With things going a bit crazy for the past few days, then being able to spend the day with a friend, I’ve been a bit behind on my usual computer stuff.
The kitties were very happy to see me this morning. I spotted a dozen of them this morning. Their trays in the kibble house had been knocked about; my husband tells me that, from the sound and smell at about 4 am (he had a sleepless night, unfortunately), there was a run-in with a skunk. Even the sun room had been ransacked a bit, again. It will be good when we can close those doors up again, which we should be able to start doing soon, now that it’s supposed to get warmer.
Going through over 300 files from just the one trail cam, then making a video using all those deer images, took a lot longer than it should have. Partly because I don’t have very good video editing software. The “easy” software that came with my computer suddenly needs a driver update and wouldn’t let me export all the work I did. I didn’t have the time nor inclination to search out and download the driver, so I used some old movie making software I have. It allows me to do a lot more, but the “new” version of the software I got was so much less intuitive, and useful than the first version I bought, not to mention a massive resource hog, I never updated it again and hardly ever use it. I’m told there are others that are better, but I just haven’t been up to searching for something that meets my needs.
Still, it was enough to get the video made. Setting it to export into an uploadable file gave me enough time to make supper. :-/
This evening, I finally sat down to go through the email notifications for the blogs I follow, and even find a few direct emails and notifications, including donation notifications to the fundraiser for the Cat Lady (thank you!).
It took several hours to catch up. Granted, I did leave the computer a few times to do other things, but I did finally get it done. I even managed to get it done before 11pm! ;-)
As I write this, it’s now just past 11pm, and we have continued to warm up to -2C/28F. Considerably warmer than this morning! Or even this afternoon.
We’re supposed to drop down a degree overnight, but tomorrow we’re supposed to reach a high of 1C/34F We’re also supposed to get a bit of snow, but that forecast changed from an expected 5-10cm/2-4 inches, to 1-3cm/<1/2 – 1 inch, in total, through tonight and into tomorrow.
If all goes well, we should be able to make our big, monthly shopping trip to the city tomorrow, and stock up again.
Thankfully, my brother made the 1 1/2 hour trip on Sunday to visit our mother, early enough to go to church with her. He was able to help her do her grocery shopping and other errands. Normally, I would have, but with the septic issues we were having, I lost complete track of how long it had been since I last helped her with her groceries. Usually, I would have phoned to ask when she needed me to come over, but that was when we found the mess in the basement and started having to get the snow cleared and the septic guy in. I called her today and mentioned it, as why I hadn’t called about her shopping earlier. She told me she had thought we would do the errands on the day I took her to visit her sister in the nursing home, now that they are allowing visits without appointments again.
Which was a bit of a surprise to me, since when we last talked about it, she had said it could wait until the weather improved again, and we would talk about it later. There was no other timeline discussed.
She was also remarkably incurious about the septic issues we had. Also a bit odd, since such conversations usually involve her going over everything I did wrong and telling me how I should have done it, or telling me I should have gotten my brother to take care of it, and how sad it is that I “don’t have a man in the house” to take care of such things for me. I guess my husband being disabled means he stopped being a man. :-/ So I suppose it was a good thing that she didn’t care that we had to deal with septic backing into our basement for the third time in four years! Still, it was very unusual for her.
She did, however, find the time to chastise me for growing potatoes in bags last year, because that was something to maybe do in the city, but it was just stupid to do that out on the farm.
I don’t think she knows that I know about the very, very stupid thing we found out she did that hurt my brother so badly. But then, she still doesn’t realize that what she did was in any way wrong. My poor brother is still trying to fix the damage. It keeps him up at night from the stress. He’s told her that, and she’s completely oblivious.
My brother is such a saint.
I know I’ve said it before, but I am so incredibly glad he owns the property now. I’m also glad that our living here does relieve him of some of the stress and worry about keeping the place from from falling apart – and our vandal from stripping it bare even more that he already had. It’s very much a “win-win” arrangement we have with him, and he is a much better “landlord” than my mother was!
We have much to be thankful for, when it comes to living out here. Even if we do have to deal with unfortunate things coming up the drain in the basement, every now and then!
This morning, I had pretty much decided, Costco would wait until tomorrow. Which freed up my day for other things.
I was just starting to make a ham, leek and potato soup when the phone rang.
It was my mother.
After an atypical hesitant start in the conversation, of my mother saying she hoped she wasn’t interrupting anything (red flag! red flag!) she started asking me about a particular plaque that used to hang in the entry, above the doorway into the dining room. It had hung there for many decades, and was it still there?
No. It isn’t. She knew this, too, because we hung a cross of our own up there, made of olive wood from the Mediterranean, with the Lord’s Prayer engraved into the wood. She and I had had a conversation about it when she saw it. That was a while ago, so no surprise that she didn’t remember.
Then she started asking where the plaque was, asking if I even remembered it, and so on. I did remember it, but I did not remember where we packed it. I figure it’s on the storage warehouse. This building used to be a workshop, but it is now jammed full of my parents’ belongings, to the point we can barely move around in it.
She wanted me to get it for her, because she would like it now.
…
I reminded her that we can’t get to the warehouse because of the snow.
Oh, of course. It can wait until spring and the snow is going.
I pointed out that this is a very small item and would be very hard to find (in fact, I am not even sure it ended up in there, but it’s the most likely place) in all that stuff.
That’s okay, she tells me. It’s very important, you see. It’s patriotic.
The plaque has a Polish eagle on the front, and the Polish national anthem on the back.
*sigh*
Hopefully, but spring, she will forget all about it.
This is something that has frustratingly become more common. My mother suddenly remembers some possession she left behind when she moved out of here, decides she absolutely MUST have it, and then I have to find it and dig it out. Which isn’t too bag when it’s a large item, like a couple of framed prints she now has on her wall, but there is just no way we can keep on top of the little things. There was just SO much STUFF we had to pack away, just to be able to have the movers bring our own stuff out here, never mind the stuff we packed away, clean out and disposed of over the next couple of years. By the time we were cleaning out the old kitchen, we were having to put things in the old storage house in the front yard, because there is no more room in the warehouse. And the storage house is already full of junk and is so far gone, cleaning it up would require haz mat precautions. I don’t think we went in there even once, last year.
My mother has a very tiny apartment. The room I’m now using as my bedroom/office is probably bigger than her entire apartment. She has frequently rejected gifts, in her typically rude manner, because she has no room for them (then showing off the gifts given to her by family members that have been abusive towards her, but that’s a whole other issue…). Now, she’s suddenly wanting these old possessions she abandoned years before we even moved out here, with absolutely no consideration about how difficult it would be to even find these, while also worrying that someone is going to go into the warehouse and steal the things, and ALSO insisting we don’t throw anything away, because “they have value”.
*sigh*
I really don’t think anyone is interested in my late father’s old clothes, or the underwear she left behind in her dresser, along with the piles of old junk they just couldn’t let go of. Yes, there is some good stuff in there, too, but those pieces are literally buried in boxes and bags of stuff.
Thank God neither of them were actually hoarders!
Anyhow, after that conversation was done, my mother started saying she needed to run errands.
Which I will be helping her do tomorrow, thanks to her car being all fixed up, checked over and home again.
Since Costco tomorrow was not going to happen, maybe I should just go it today?
Nope. Not going to happen. Costco will wait another day.
I went back to making my soup.
After that was done, I came into my room and my daughter joined the cats on the bed as we got caught up on things. Even Butterscotch came out for attention, so she stayed longer.
There’s a problem with that.
I have a very comfortable, very large, bed.
It was covered with warm, sleeping cats.
We both got sucked into the cozy.
I fell asleep.
My daughter, sweetheart that she is, got up, laid more cats on top of me, covered us with blankets, then put away my glasses for me. She had some problems with my glasses, though, discovering that they don’t close anymore! LOL
Some time later, I got up, found my glasses, put them on and…
They don’t sit right on my face anymore.
It seems she bent them somehow, while trying to close them. They are so old and fragile, I don’t dare manipulate them too much.
So now I’m wearing my “spare” glasses, which are no longer the right prescription, but right now, the eye strain is slightly less.
Which means my plans for my tax return have changed.
With how much my progressive lenses alone cost, I’ll be lucky if I have anything left of my return by the time they’re done. Yes, we do have insurance, but only a few hundred dollars. Less than what my lenses cost – and that was years ago. At least the eye exam will be fully covered.
I just double checked. The plan covers 90% of lenses and frames, but only up to a certain amount. I go for the bargain basement frames, since I really don’t care to pay hundreds of dollars for a brand name and fancy colours. Maybe I’ll have something left over. We’ll see.
*sigh*
Well, it was nice to think about getting that portable greenhouse for a little while, at least…
Beep Beep and her “baby”, Turmeric, were all shmushed together adorably, looking so sweet and innocent.
They lie.
;-)
I counted a total of 14 outside cats this morning. They were very happy to see me. The water bowl in the sun room was completely dry, and all the kibble was gone. From the state of things, it looks like something other than cats has been into it. We’d given them a big, meaty turkey carcass to pick at, but something made off with most of the bones last night.
I stayed out longer this morning, hauling more snow away from the pile at the well cap, and getting the burn barrel going again, to burn away more of the sawdust from the cat litter. It keeps going out. :-/ Not enough air getting into the barrel to keep it smoldering.
Before going back inside, I found Agnoos had claimed prime real estate in the sun room. :-) One of my daughters headed out later, to continue working on the snow pile, and Agnoos was still there!
Feeling the need for some cat therapy right now. I just got a call from my brother, who had made the drive out to visit our mother. I can’t go into detail here, but it turns out my mother has, yet again, stabbed him in the back and kicked him in the teeth. She actually did it over a year ago, but he just found out about it today, and the betrayal is just heartbreaking.
One thing is for sure. I am so very thankful that my brother owns the property we are on, not my mother. If my mother still owned the farm, we’d probably have moved out by now. Knowing all this is part of my mother’s slowly failing mental faculties does not make it any better. She’s just well enough to function independently, but also just far gone enough to really mess things up, with no understanding of the consequences of her actions.
After writing and update about Cabbages and announcing a fundraiser for her, I figured I should post about less exciting things. :-D
This afternoon was my day to visit my mother and help her with errands. She wanted me to “not be in a hurry” and not have to rush home, so… I had to rush out earlier to make sure I got to the post office before it closed to pick up some packages. :-D Mind you, the only reason it was a rush was because of how much time I was on the phone, being updated about Cabbages by the cat lady, so that was quite acceptable.
She had actually called at first to talk about these two. She still has the cat carrier she borrowed to carry Cabbages, and she wanted to make sure I didn’t need it before Monday. We do still have 2 more carriers that we can use. Butterscotch is Cabbages’ mother. It will be good to finally get her fixed! Nosencrantz isn’t even a year old yet, and she is easily twice the bulk Cabbages ever was!
After leaving kibble in the tray under the shrine, I turned around and saw this.
Seeing how deep the snow is, in relation to the size of the cats, is just funny.
They just love the paths we’ve dug for them. :-D
Once I was done with the morning rounds, and the call from the cat lady, it was a quick run to the post office to get what turned out to be two parcels, not one, then to my mother’s. While I was gone, the girls did some work in the sun room in preparation for having Butterscotch and Nosencrantz recovering in there. After one section was reorganized, they made sure to cover the windows where the inside panes have cracked, with some sheets of rigid insulation, so there would be no chance of them hurting themselves. Tomorrow, I’ll work on it some more, as I’ll be going through some of our seed starting supplies, plus I want to bag up the sunflower heads that are still there. They got knocked about a bit when Tuxedo Mask was recovering in there, and I know Butterscotch will be far more destructive!I made sure to stop at the gas station to pick up some chicken and wedges for lunch, first.
I had a good visit with my mother while we had lunch, which with my mother is not guaranteed! She didn’t get to her usual criticism until after we were done and the groceries were put away. LOL The first stop she wanted to make was to a small department store, which I took advantage of. The handles on her walker wiggle, and while there are knobs on the outside that can be turned to tighten them, I can see the screw heads on the other side, turning instead of tightening. I never have the right tools handy to deal with that, so I picked up a multi-tool, to keep in the zippered pocket under her walker’s seat. I paid for it right away, so I could use it to tighten her handles while still in the store. They still wiggle, but it won’t tighten any more than they are. Hhmm.
While there, I was also happy to see a new display of Jiffy pots that can be buried directly into the soil when it’s time for transplanting. Those will be perfect for the squash and melon starts. When I did our Walmart shopping, yesterday, they didn’t have any of these in stock yet.
After that, we did her grocery shopping. I had been encouraging her to stock up as much as she could, just in case. She’s been seeing about the trucker convoy, too, and she has started to understand what I was trying to explain about potential supply shortages. We’d talked about it before we left, and even from the incredibly horrible news coverage she has been seeing, she recognised how utterly ludicrous is was for our federal government to impose the new restrictions on truckers. I was quite happy to see her doing things like picking up larger sizes of things she would normally get. Her needs are small, so it doesn’t take much for her to be stocked up for quite a while. I am hearing about shortages in the city, but so far, that has not been an issue in the smaller towns. I recall, when the shutdowns first happened and people were panic buying, it was similar; things ran out in the cities, but not so quickly in the more rural communities.
As for the freedom convoy itself, it’s just amazing! Not only are we getting thousands of trucks coming in from the US – and from what I’ve heard, none are being stopped at the border! – but there are now freedom convoys being organized in countries around the world!
The excitement and sense of unity it has generated is absolutely amazing. The level of positivity is infectious and inspiring.
There are still the detractors, of course, that are doing everything they can to mock and belittle the truckers and anyone who supports them. Most of it is parroting the media and government narrative. One example was some commenter who, after reference was made to the convoy stretching across Manitoba, from border to border, was to along the lines of “truckers can’t do math, huurrrr, duurrrr…” Apparently, this person thought it meant the people were saying it was bumper to bumper trucks across the province. With so many trucks, there is no way to know how many there are at any given time. On the open highway, they have to spread out. Those big rigs need a lot of space if they have to make an emergency stop. Plus, there would constantly be trucks going in and out of the convoy, as they stop to gas up, eat, use a bathroom and sleep. So of course, the convoy itself is going to be really stretched out in places, while packed together in others.
There are still people saying the GoFundMe was frozen. It never was. As I write this, more than $7.5 million has been raised. Yesterday, the money started to flow. The last I heard, there were about 100,000 registered truckers in the convoy. The first priority for the funds it to reimburse truckers for fuel. Then, as needed, to reimburse for the costs of food and lodging. The organisers have been working closely with GoFundMe to make sure everything is above board.
The mainstream media and our federal government have, of course, been increasing the negative narrative. Most people know better than to rely on them. They are acting as if the truckers are intending to stage a violent insurrection, and invoking the fake-news “insurrection” in the US last year, every chance they get (never mind that the FBI itself concluded that there was no insurrection). The Counter Signal published about internal documents leaked, exposing how our government is treating this though violence is a given. You can read about that here.
What is happening is priming. The federal government and the media that relies on them to keep them from going under are doing everything they can to create the very situation they are condemning, even though it doesn’t exist. It has been very obvious, from the beginning, that violence is exactly what they want. They are trying to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. It would be just the excuse our Prime Dictator needs to do what his father did when he was PM; declare martial law.
Make no mistake. If there is any violence when the convoy arrives tomorrow, it will not be instigated by the truckers, but with the media and the feds already priming viewers to believe the truckers are evil incarnate, they expect people to believe them.
There is a problem with that expectation.
The past two years has seen our “leaders” doing everything the can to divide us. It’s been masked against the unmasked, the vaccinated against the unvaccinated, the believers against the heretics. The only acceptable thing we are supposed to shoot for is complete acquiescence.
However, this convoy has done the opposite. It has united this country at a level I have never seen before. Yes, people are angry, but that anger is being channeled into unity, positivity, excitement and joy.
These are people who are fighting for our freedoms with a giant party. Do people want our “leaders” to step down? You bet. That is because they have failed us, over and over. This gets twisted into being “hateful”, “anti-government” and “dangerous.” These leaders have imposed restrictions and mandates that have destroyed people’s lives, even causing developmental delays in children that they will probably never recover from, devastated the physical and mental health of our nation, and yes, even killed people, whether through deaths of despair, or from not getting diagnosis and treatment in a timely manner, to harmful treatment protocols. And when people try to stand up to what is happening, these “leaders” cry victim, while calling their victims the abusers. Pure gaslighting.
So what is going to happen over the next few days? Who knows. Our Prime Dictator has announced that he was exposed to Covid 19. While a rapid test came up negative, he says he’s going to isolate himself for 5 days, following the Ontario Public Health recommendations. The problem with that is, those recommendations actually say that a fully vaccinated person – which our Prime Dictator claims to be – does not have to isolate if exposed to someone with Covid. They’re just supposed to keep masking and distancing and watching for symptoms.
Meanwhile, in Ottawa, areas of the city are being marked off for a “special event”, so that people won’t be parking on the streets.
But only for 2 days.
Which suggests they expect it to all be over within 2 day, or at least under 5 days.
The truckers plan to stay there until all mandates and restrictions are lifted, however long that takes.
Thousands of them.
That doesn’t even count supporters that aren’t truckers.
How will our leaders respond?
Only time will tell. Whatever it is, it will affect every single Canadian, and possibly have ramifications around the world.
Yes, we were a lot warmer than yesterday. Technically, it was -10C/14F when I went out to feed the critters.
Stepping outside was like being smacked in the face with ice. We have GOT to do something about that gap in the wind break from the south! I think the wind chill was at around -23C/-10F at the time, but it sure felt a lot colder.
Then it started snowing, and for a while, I considered rescheduling the shopping trip with my mother. However, we were supposed to warm up even more by this afternoon, and it’s supposed to be our last day warmer than -10C/14F for the rest of the year.
By the time I headed out, it wasn’t snowing anymore, but there was so much blowing snow, the highway disappeared for most of the distance. My mother’s car is such a light little thing, I was fighting the wind the whole way. At least the highway was otherwise dry and clear. The gravel roads and the streets in my mother’s town were icy, with drifts forming.
I made a point of putting some gas in her tank and grabbing some of her favourite chicken and wedges, and got there early. She had just come back from church and hadn’t started lunch yet, thinking I might just do that again. :-D So that worked out perfectly.
My mother was not actually feeling very well and had seriously considered skipping church this morning. It is right across the street from her place, though, so she did attend. By the time we were finished lunch, though, she decided to just give me her list and some cash, and I did her shopping for her. My mom is doing very well for 90, but she is definitely having a harder time of things. Especially in the winter! I’m extra glad I didn’t reschedule.
When I got home, I had quite the crowd, ignoring me as much as they could. :-D One of my daughters had just topped up the kibble trays. There are 13 cats in that picture, and I’m sure I saw at least 2 more at the window in their house. I must say, the outside cats are doing really well right now. There was a while when a lot of them were coughing and sneezing and had runny eyes, though none that had eyes that went blood red like Tuxedo Mask’s. Now, they are all hale and hearty. I think only Creamsicle Baby has a leaky eye still, and it’s been like that since he reappeared a couple of months ago. Some of the inside cats are still struggling with stuffy noses and sneezing, but they are getting better. Including Keith, which is a huge relief. I’ve been setting up the heated pad that we used while Ginger was isolated in the sun room, before and after his amputation. I think he remembered it, because he’s been using it fairly regularly. The others take their turns on it, and it’s not unusual for me to glance over and find three cats, with only their chests on the heating pad, enjoying the warmth. :-)
As much as I’d like to turtle, disappear into my shell and not go out again until next year, we’re going to have a few trips to make over the next few days. I even remembered to plug in the van and my mother’s car, just in case things turn colder than predicted.
We’ll have the quarter beef to pick up tomorrow, then I expect to go into the city the next day. I plan to do some gift shopping, so I intend to head out on my own, which means likely another trip before Christmas for the girls to do any last shopping they need to do. Hopefully, we will then, finally, not have to do any more long trips until after New Year’s.
When we first signed up for it, we read that it would be sent by mail. After it was ready to be sent and fully paid for, my husband started getting notifications about FedEx delivery. Which was weird for our area, but whatever. It was due for delivery yesterday but, as I had mentioned in my posts, it never arrived.
This morning, my husband got an email telling him it was successfully delivered by FedEx
???
Well, it wasn’t delivered here, so we were really hoping it got dropped off at the general store the post office is in. This has happened before, when a delivery driver couldn’t find our place.
When I got to the post office, I asked about a package from FedEx, while getting the mail. There was a whole bunch of packages in and…
One of them was our Starlink system.
Yeah. It was sent by mail.
*sigh*
I ended up swinging past home to drop off the mail with my husband, who was waiting at the gate with the wagon, because there we no longer room in the car for my mother’s walker!
While I was at my mom’s, my husband checked it out, but we can’t set it up yet. We need to put a wire through the wall, but it’s possible we can use one of the existing holes for the co-ax running to the satellites. I’m pretty sure they’re weather sealed, though. We’ll have to dig our way to that part of the wall, first. We will most likely set it up in the middle of yard temporarily, until we can safely access the roof to install in permanently. We’ll see.
Meanwhile, my visit with my mother went rather well. I brought her the honey she asked me to get for her, and I did bring some pierogi that we made last night for her to try. When she asked what kind of filling they had and I told her, she made some comments about how she’d never used mushrooms before, but didn’t say anything negative, so that was a good start. We had lunch, then I helped her with her errands, then stayed for a bit of a visit after putting away her groceries. There were a few attempts by her to bring up her … hot topics, shall we say, but I managed to distract her from what usually devolves into racist rants. At one point, she started asking me if I wanted to be “healthy”, so I knew that was going to go weird. It turned out to go back to her visit here, to see the finished sign, then used wanting to see how nice the inside of the old outhouse looked as an excuse to get into things. One of those was fighting her walker through the back door of the garage to look for things she could criticize me about. It took a few weeks, but she finally brought up about the cans. We’ve been bagging our aluminum cans to eventually sell to a scrap dealer. We’ve got about 4 years of cans stored in a corner of the garage. Most of them are cat food cans, and sometimes critters tear the bags apart, so everything needs to be rebagged. My mother, of course, only saw the pop cans. Or what she assumed was pop cans. There are V8 cans in there, too. They’re the same cans she complained about, 3 years ago.
We don’t actually use cans all that much.
Anyhow, she has decided that these are all pop cans, and that means we drink nothing but soda, and that’s why I’m fat, and because I’m fat, that must mean I’m unhealthy. Never mind that she’s been fat for as long as I can remember, and aside from things like injuries or hernia surgery, I don’t remember her ever being sick. When I pointed out that most of those cans are cat food, she just gave me a condescending look, because of course I’m lying. Right?
I managed to distract her from that, though, and the conversation continued. At one point, grocery shopping came up, and I decided to take a chance. I told her about the quarter beef that we’ll be getting soon, how many pounds of meat we were getting, and some of the cuts. Now, this was part of a conversation about the cost of groceries, so buying 125 pounds of beef like this is saving money from having to buy in the store. So what did my mother get out of it?
She wants me to be healthy. She doesn’t want me to be sick and die. Because apparently, buying enough grass fed beef to last us for months is going to kill me? Apparently, I’m going to sit there and eat 125 pounds of beef, all at once? Or maybe it’s because she has been convinced that red meat is bad, even though we used to raise our own beef, butcher it and fill our freezers with it, for decades and never got sick? Whatever her reasoning, our buying a quarter beef is somehow supposed to kill me.
I have to admit. That’s a new one.
Still, overall, it was a good visit, and I was glad to see her stocking up on things, taking advantage of me being there with her car and able to carry them for her.
I’m glad to be home, though. These visits are very psychically draining! There’s just no way of knowing if something well suddenly trigger her.
As for the Starlink system, it’s already getting too dark, so we’ll have to work on that tomorrow. :-)
Tuxedo Mask is doing just fine. His eye is looking good, and he’s been more active. The girls treat his eye in the evenings, then top up the kibble for the outside cats. He hasn’t been trying to dash outside, but he has tried to get into the old kitchen! He has also, I’m happy to say, started to use the litter box a bit. Hopefully, he’ll start using it all the time, so we’ll have less of a mess to clean up when things start to thaw!
Chadicous, meanwhile, has taken on the job of trying to kill me, by flinging himself tragically in front of my feet while I am walking! :-D
The other cats, meanwhile, mill about so much, I can’t get a head count! The most I got was 17, including Tuxedo Mask.
After I was finished my rounds, I was in a bit of a quandary. We haven’t done the rest of our big shopping yet, and while I would have preferred to go tomorrow, temperatures are supposed to drop dramatically. I really don’t like driving this time of year. I am just too paranoid about our older, fragile van with way too many miles on it. It’s actually done really well by us, but we’ve had too many unexpected vehicle problems too many times over the years, and it’s a whole lot different to have those problems in the city, compared to having them on the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere.
I procrastinated enough that I got the phone call from the ranch we’re getting our quarter beef from. The final hanging weight turned out to be 125 pounds, and she wanted to go over what cuts I wanted. The lower weight meant we over paid by about $50, too.
Apparently, I made things really easy for her. She’d emailed me a list of available cuts, and I just said “I’m good with a little of everything; feel free to surprise me.” LOL So that’s what we’ll be getting; a little of everything! We’ll have ground beef, stewing meat, several types of steak, several types of roasts, and even soup bones. I’ve never made bone broth before, and I’d like to try it. I also went with having the cuts wrapped in paper, rather than the Styrofoam and plastic; paper wrapped last longer in the freezer. It was a little bit extra per pound, which worked out to $10 for the whole order, but I had that credit, so that didn’t matter. At the end of the call, she asked me if I wanted her to etransfer the credit back today, and I was all, nope! I’d rather get more meat! They are low in inventory this time of year, and will be for a few more weeks, but when I asked about sausages, I had several types to choose from. The family really liked their breakfast sausages, so she said that, for the $50 credit, that would about 5 packages of sausages. I said, you mean for $40, right? She had forgotten about the extra charge for the butcher paper wrapping! Once she remembered, she said that’s okay. We’ll squeeze in 5 packages for you! :-D
So she will pass on the list of cuts to the butcher and, at this point, they are expecting to get the cuts around the 20th or 21st. She’ll contact me again to arrange how we will get the meat.
Meanwhile, I’ve also been talking to our neighbour about getting a half pig. They take orders in the spring, so they know how many extra animals they need to rear for fall butchering. A half pig would get us about 70-80 pounds of butchered meat.
In the future, we would like to buy in larger quantities, but for that, we’ll either need a second freezer or do a lot of meat canning!
Or both. I’m good with both. :-D
Once the call about the meat order was done, I headed out to do the shopping. It’s mostly the larger, heavier stuff we couldn’t set enough of, like the big dry cat food bags. It doesn’t take long to fill a shopping cart with those!
When I first headed out, things were looking fine, though the closer I got to the smaller, nearer city I chose to go to, the less visibility there was. By the time I was driving home, we had blowing snow. The roads, for the most part, were still good, but there were a couple of places where it was starting to accumulate. I was quite glad I’d left when I did!
I got a message from my brother while I was driving home, and it turned out to be some video. He had gone out to visit my mother and go to church with her (he does that often enough that he’s considered a member of the church, but with the way the restrictions still are, I probably wouldn’t be allowed in the door anymore). He convinced her to practice driving the motorized chair they got for her, and it was pretty cool to see video of her zipping around the lobby in her building.
Hopefully, the roads were still good for his drive home! We’re now seeing news stories about blizzard like conditions expected to the south of us, and my brother’s place is in the region.
I left just in time!
The temperatures are supposed to be quite bitter tomorrow, then whip right back up to just below freezing a couple of days later! My mother had asked me to pick up some honey from my cousin, which I was able to do yesterday (while picking up some creamed honey for ourselves). She said I could bring it over the next time I came to help her with shopping. My brother did take her to the grocery store today, so we decided to wait until Thursday, when it’s supposed to be much warmer, and I’ll come over. By then, she might be running short of a few things again. I brought up that she might want to stock up more than usual, since prices are expected to go up, and shortages are expected. When I explained about shipping and transportation problems, she dismissed the concerns. We have enough in our province and will be fine, she said. She just can’t understand that what we have in our stores are brought in almost completely from the port in Vancouver, which has been devastated by recent flooding, and the US, which has its own transportation and supply issues. This is all far away, so it can’t affect us, right?
*sigh*
Well, if necessary, between my siblings and I, we will be able to give her stuff if the local stores run out. We did find, when shortages happened last year, that the cities were harder hit than smaller communities, so hopefully, it won’t be an issue.
Meanwhile, I am more than happy to hunker down for a few days, and not go anywhere!
For now, I will enjoy warming up with a big mug of Rooiboos, and an arm full of cat making it difficult to type, and have a nice, quiet evening!
I had a very enthusiastic crowd waiting for me this morning. Including the new edition. I was even able to pet her a few times, though she kept moving away when I did.
But yes, I was able to confirm. Our new addition is a she.
I just hope that, wherever she came from, she’s already fixed.
In the end, I counted 19 cats this morning. Only Rosencrantz was missing. :-)
My morning rounds now include going to the very corner of the property to check on the sign. No vandalism! (yet?)
What I found interesting is that the squash tunnel was shaded. It is only this time of year that the shadows from the spruce grove reach this far. In the summer, the squash tunnel gets full sun, all day. The main garden area’s beds, meanwhile, are now in pretty much full shade all day. What a difference, time of year makes!
The transplanted mint is looking just fine; not at all droopy from being moved.
One of the empty blocks, however, seems to attracted a critter. Possibly a skunk digging for grubs. Whatever it was, it lost us some of the soil in those openings around the edges! I want to fill those with sand or gravel.
After I finish my rounds, I spend some time going over the trail cam files. We had a long list of things to work on outside, while it is still relatively warm in the afternoon. I was going to head out right after having lunch, then calling my mom to arrange to bring her to see the sign tomorrow.
She called me first.
She wanted to come today.
I told her I was thinking of tomorrow, because it’s such a warm day, and we have lots to do outside. She said the warm day was why she wanted to come today, because it would be harder for her when it was cooler. And I could spare an hour for her, couldn’t I?
Which would mean just driving her over to see the sign, taking some photos of her next to it, then driving her home. Was that what she was wanting to do?
Yes.
Okay.
So off I head to the town she lives in, and when I get there, she is cleaning out her purse and preparing a list of things she needs.
Since I’m there with her car, anyhow…
Okay, so we’ve added grocery shopping to the list. No worries.
We head back to the farm and as we come to our driveway, my Mom suggests we go straight to where the sign is from the road, not in the driveway. As we get closer, however, she suggested we keep going to look at the other quarter section, first. Just a drive by. This was something she had talked about wanting to go before, so I was expecting it. We did the drive, saw that it looks like the renter has moved his cows to that quarter, since there is a hay bale, salt blocks and a feeder set up near the gate. At the far end of the property is an intersection I can turn around at, then back we went to the sigh. I pulled over on the road, and there was thankfully a nice level spot she could go over with her walker. We got several pictures, and then back to the car.
Did she want to see what I did with the outhouse? I ask.
Oh, yes! was her enthusiastic reply.
I am such an idiot.
First, we drove over to the old workshop that is now completely filled with all my parents’ stuff we cleared out of the house. There was an old framed print she wanted. This was something else that had come up in past conversation, so we too the opportunity to grab that. Then we drove into the yard, and I backed up towards the outhouse.
My mother being ticked off that I did that, instead of parking further ahead, as usual, should have been my first warning.
To make it short, because I really don’t want to relive the experience, my mother decided to tour the inner yards, starting with the newly finished brick lined bed where the tomatoes were (she liked that, at least), but not until after making snide comments about the newly framed low beds where we have two types of garlic planted (so this is where you’re putting the garden now, is it? Uhm… no, Mom. It’s just the garlic).
I tried several times to redirect her to the outhouse, and she ignored me every time. As she worked her way around the yard, she made sure to give me a hard time about the garbage pile, which we need to hire someone to haul away for us (she didn’t have much to say when I pointed out this was garbage we found all around the yard that’s now in one place), acted surprised about the tire planters being moved, even though she’s been here since they were moved, and had just walked past the one that isn’t wrecked and could be used again), made sure to tell me to leave the spruce tree she planted at the chain link fence (I’s talked about transplanting it, before it gets so big it tears the fence apart, shortly after we moved out here, and she went ballistic on me, so I didn’t say anything this time). I commented on the second one that had been there dying, and she lectured me on how I should have watered it (it was killed by the cold, two winters ago), made numerous comments about the things I should have done around the yard (things I would have been doing, if she hadn’t asked me to bring her over), asked why I’d cut down the crab apple tree by the old compost, and when I told her it had died of diseased, lectured me about watering things again. Because, in her mind, if you water the trees, they won’t get disease. Then she mocked and laughed at me for building the high raised bed, the squash tunnel, the trellises and the low raised beds. No one does things like that, you see. They just plowed the whole thing.
Then she nagged me about various other things as she worked her way around the yard. When I thought she was finally going to the outhouse, she ended up going to the back door of the garage. She wanted to see the wood chipper.
That door leads to where her car is parked.
I tried to get her to go around, but she wrestled her walker through to door, so she could snoop in the garage. Which was have not even come close to cleaning up. I got the chipper out for her to see, and she really liked that, but then complained because there were still branch piles. Then she complained about how ugly they looked, and how ugly the post pounder my late brother built looked. I’d covered it with a tarp I’d found in the barn that was big enough, but after several years, the wind has torn it to shreds. We don’t have anything else big enough to protect it. But it looks ugly, and people can see it from the road, so it needs to be covered.
Eventually, we made our way back into the yard and…
She went to the car to leave.
By then, I’d opened the door to the outhouse, but hadn’t put the mat back because I wanted her to see how nice the floor looked, too.
She wouldn’t go near it. She just glanced over and said she could see it through the door. Then got into the car.
So, I put the mat back, closed up the outhouse, put her walker into the car, then we headed out.
Along the drive home, I tried to chat and mentioned the electric chainsaw we got. She mocked me about it, but in such a way that I didn’t understand her “joke” at all. Which then led to a whole slough of mockery.
I shouldn’t be using a chainsaw. I shouldn’t be doing men’s work. I need a man. Also, I’ve done nothing at the farm at all. Apparently, I’m a weak, useless, stupid woman who shouldn’t do actual work, except for the stuff that she used to do on the farm (while everything else magically did itself, apparently), which I am not doing right, because I haven’t done it yet, but she thinks I should have done it by now, or I’m not doing it the way she did, therefore I’m doing it wrong.
Oh, I forgot. At one point, when I told her that I’d lost a day of work by having to drive her around, she told me, what work? I don’t have cows to milk! What work am I doing? I don’t have any work.
Well, I called her on her behaviour, and pointed out that she shows no appreciation, gratitude or kindness. To which I got a sanctimonious, “yes, yes, get that off your chest” response. Because, clearly, I’m the one with the problem, and her cruelty and insults are neither cruel nor insulting.
*sigh*
Still, when we got back to her town, we were civil. I helped her with her grocery shopping, though she brought up getting an apple pie to have with tea when we got back to her place. I told her I didn’t have time to stop for tea, but she could get one if she wanted.
She didn’t.
Once at her place, I put her groceries away and she was going to give me some money for gas, which I do appreciate. She then brought out a bill (almost enough to cover the amount of gas spent in driving, but I do still appreciate it!) and told me, if I’d invited her inside for tea, I would have gotten more.
I told her, I didn’t realize that was an expectation.
By the time I left and put some gas in the tank, it was so late, I couldn’t even stop at the post office to pick up a package. My day was wasted. There was no time to even start anything when I got back, because I wouldn’t have enough time to finish before the light was gone.
I’m just so ticked off right now. After talking with my husband and telling him some of how it went, his response is, not to have her back here again. And at this point, I can’t disagree.
My mother is why we are living here. We came here to take care of the place for her. Now that the ownership has been transferred to my brother, I still try to respect her wishes as much as possible, and keep her informed of how things are going. In the end, though, she doesn’t own this place. My brother does. And he is very happy with what we are doing, and with our various plans for improving the place. He is our “landlord”. Not my mother. She has no actual say in how this place is run, and she certainly has no right to verbally abuse me.
I am lost past the stage where she can actually hurt me anymore, but my goodness, she can drain every bit of energy out of me. I feel more exhausted from a few hours with her – and it wasn’t even an unusually bad visit! – than I would have felt if I’d spend those same hours doing manual labour. Mental exhaustion is far more difficult to recover from than physical exhaustion. Still, to look at the bright side, at least there wasn’t a single racist rant or shouting about political issues she doesn’t understand, either.
Thank God my brother now owns this place. He and his wife more than make up for all the trouble my mother causes. They are such awesome people, and make it all worthwhile.
The Re-Farmer 