dealing with elderly parents

The rain has stopped, and Eyelet is in being spoiled rotten!

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Well, today’s schedule sure changed.

First, a quick update with the home care crazy from yesterday. The plan was, if the guy didn’t come back to do my mother’s bed time med assist, as he said he would, by 9pm, I would drive over to do it.

My mother called me at 8:50 (the actual scheduled time) so say, no one arrived. I wasn’t 100% sure she was scheduled for 8:50, and sometimes they come late, which is why I asked her to call me if no one showed up at 9. I asked her to wait a bit longer and if he still didn’t come, let me know and I’d go over.

My other told me to not bother. She would just take some Tylenol and go to bed. She would be okay.

*sigh*

I hated to do that, but I also really didn’t want to drive to her town, in the dark, in the rain.

This morning, after I did my rounds (it was still raining), I gave her a call.

In which I will pause to share the cuteness! The first picture was taken last night, the second this morning.

Seeing Colby on top of his sister like that is adorable!

She needs a name.

Anyhow… back to calling my mother!

My mother told me she’d had a great night.

Then started going on about how the Tylenol helped so much more than her medications did.

Red flag time! My mother has done this before. Basically, she’s convincing herself that the medications aren’t doing her any good, because she has these other problems. How can she be taking all these medications, but still feel have all these other things? This time, because Tylenol did such a great job with her pains, to her that meant it was working better than her medications.

I have explained this to her before, but I did it again. NONE of her medications are for pain. They are all for different things, and I mentioned a few of them. Unfortunately, I could hear in the tone of her response that she was basically not believing me.

It’s a good thing she gets home care med assists, or she would start skipping her meds regularly, or picking and choosing which ones to take. Again.

To distract, I then asked her about her grocery shopping. She said she was only out of milk and hadn’t started a list. She was in her night gown and didn’t feel like getting dressed. I told her, don’t bother getting dressed, and I’ll help with the list. She was quite happy with that arrangement!

Since I was going to be dropping Eyelet off in the early evening, I wanted to get to my mothers a little bit earlier than usual. Once there, I first focused on her meds. I found a pill organizer and took the meds out of her “orphan” bubbles; last night’s bed time meds and a Monday morning bubble that’s been carried over to new packs for a couple of months now. I made sure to write down which meds they were and tucked the note in one of the organizer spots and tucked the whole thing away. My mother has strict instructions to leave them, unless there’s an “emergency”. I also prepared her bed time meds for tonight – I brought another of the tiny tagine sauce bowls to keep them in – and set up another note with it, setting it aside with the note facing where my mother sits at her table.

That done, we started working on her shopping list. It was mostly her usual items, but we did remember to include things we’d forgotten last time, like the instant oatmeal that makes things so much easier for her. Some things were just “see what looks good” type stuff. When she gave me cash for the trip, she included a bit extra, asking me to keep an eye out for anything else I might spot and know she would like.

Which worked out well. I was able to get her extra fruit that she likes but normally wouldn’t get. Today, they happened to be on sale. Her favourite bread was on sale, so I got extra for her freezer. That sort of thing. As I put things away, I always go over what I got and what changes I made, and she was very happy with the selections. Before putting the milk carton in the fridge, I made sure to open it for her, and I’m glad I did. For some reason, every now and then, they just don’t want to open. If it’s difficult for me to open, that would make it almost impossible for my mother to open! I do wish her grocery store still had their 2L milk in jugs as well as cartons, as jugs are so much better for people with mobility issues in their hands.

That done, I made sure to give her floor a sweep before heading out. One of her neighbours that has a garden plot has been sharing their bounty of tomatoes by leaving them in the common room for anyone to take. My mother keeps taking some, even though she already has, and is supposed to avoid acidic foods like tomatoes. So she gave me an ice cream bucket full to take home! We still haven’t finished off the last bunch she gave us!

Once I was in the truck, I started messaging my family to let them know the status of things. Which is when I started getting messages from the woman I was to bring Eyelet to. She was wondering if I could bring him to a different address, as she’d forgotten she was supposed to go there after her work this evening. It wasn’t far from her own address, so that worked out okay.

We continued our conversation as I got home when she asked when I was planning to head out with Eyelet. I told her, but mentioned that I was flexible, now that I was done with my mother’s grocery shopping. She asked if I could bring him in right away. The new address is for a foster that already had a room ready for him and was home.

!!!

I was back on the road with Eyelet within 10 minutes. My daughter went looking for him as I got a carrier prepared. Finding him was easy. He was napping in the sun room.

He did not appreciate being awakened, then stuck into a carrier!

I grabbed a donated carrier that is triangle shaped and opens on one side, which makes it easy to take cats in and out. It is, however, not our largest carrier.

Eyelet was not happy!

So not happy, he stress pooped in the carrier during the drive out.

*sigh*

He went back and forth between trying to claw his way out of the carrier, to just lying down calmly, and back again, which meant he got messy in the process.

When I got to the address and the woman came out to greet me, I made sure to let her know! I then followed her in to Eyelet’s new home for the next few days.

What a set up! An entire little bedroom, all to himself, with several beds, including one at a window, a cat tree, toys and, of course, a litter pan and food and water. He was enough of a mess that she brought a cloth to wipe him off a bit before taking him out of the carrier.

Dude was not impressed!

He did, however, start purring as soon as she touched him! He was very open to pets in general.

I’ve since gotten an update that he has settled into his new digs very well. I’m not at all surprised. The set up is pure luxury compared to the yard cat life!

The best part is that this was all done well before I was originally scheduled to deliver Eyelet. It even stopped raining shortly after I got home.

It was an awesome rain, too. Almost 24 hours of constant rain. Nothing too heavy, either. The sort of rain we could have used so much of over the summer!

Meanwhile, my brother came out today. I didn’t even realize he was here until I left for my mother’s and saw his car. He’s been busy preparing their trailer for the winter, including driving it out to where the tanks can be emptied. When I got back from delivering Eyelet, he was able to come over and tell me what he’d been able to do for my mother’s car. There’s still more to be done, but it can wait. The priority was to deal with that tire that keeps going flat. He just used the spray stuff in it, then made sure to drive it around, and even put it up on a jack to just spin the tire, so it wouldn’t cure in a puddle inside the tire.

Tomorrow afternoon, he and I will be going to my mother’s tomorrow, and her car is one of the main things she wants to talk about. She says she wants him to get it all fixed up, and that she would pay for it, so that we have a second vehicle, and one that she can get in and out of. It might be better off to sell it, or maybe trade it in for a newer vehicle. My brother is in a better position to make recommendations on that than I am.

So we’ll see how that works out.

Weather wise, next week is looking to be warmer again, and dry. That will be when we seriously need to get the sun room cleaned out. That requires basically emptying it, so we can wash the concrete floor. The cat cage can’t fit through the door without being dismantled, so the room has to be done one half at a time. It’s going to be a big, messy job. I’m going to have to stop storing most of my tools and garden supplies in there. The cats, skunks and raccoons get into it all and make such a mess – and make messes on top of things!

With the rain, I’ve made little additional progress in cleaning up the garden, but tomorrow is the 21st, which is when I’ve been typically doing my garden tour videos. It also happens to be the first day of our new average frost date range. Instead of one day, they now have a range of days. Which isn’t how an average works, but whatever. They now say our average first frost days is between Sept 21 and 30, from the previous Sept. 10. Of course, this year, we had two frosts before Sept. 10! Well, it’ll be another 30 years before they do the math again. I’m still sticking with Sept. 10, when I work out when to do things in the garden, and what the length of our growing season is. It was 99 days before. Now it’s supposedly 125-150 days, since the last frost date has changed, too.

Yeah… I don’t think so. Not a chance, where we are.

Gosh, though… having a 125 day growing season would be amazing. 150 days would be heavenly! There’s so much more we could grow with a season that long!

Ah, well. A girl can dream but, in the end, we have to deal with what we’ve got in our local climate, not what a map of averages says.

Time for me to head outside for my evening rounds before it gets dark, and see examples of that along the way!

The Re-Farmer

Morning in the garden, and good grief, what a day

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It’s the noon hour as I start this, and it’s already been a day!!! It feels like it should be evening by now.

Morning was pretty typical. I had to get my daughter to help me with getting into the sun room as kittens swirled their way through the door under my feet. My main focus is to not step on anything while holding the kibble bowl high so I can see. Once I got some food out, my daughter was able to put a food bowl of fresh kitten soup into the cat cage, was wasn’t able to take the old one out, as she was in a vortex of hungry kitties! By the time I got back from adding food to the different feeding stations in the yard, things had calmed down. My daughter and I had the chance to snag Frank’s two babies that had sticky eyes – one had both eyes stuck shut, the other just one eye – into the bathroom to wash their eyes until they could open again.

Then I could do the rest of my rounds and check on the garden bed. I’m glad we did water it last night, as the predicted storms and rain we were supposed to get yesterday fizzled out and we got no real rain at all.

The first photo above is of the blooming luffa. One by one, male flowers in different clusters are blooming. Still no female flowers. Not that it matters at this point. It’s the middle of September. Under normal circumstances, we’d have fully developed luffa gourds right now.

I had a surprise when I got to the trellis bed. The one sunflower seed head that was opening up has gotten much bigger, just overnight. This particular sunflower also has multiple seed heads, two of which just exploded open overnight! I tried to get a picture of all the seed heads that are starting to open along the stalk and did get most of them. In the third picture, you can see four along the stalk, but there’s a fifth one hidden by a leaf at the bottom that is also starting to open.

In the next picture, you can see our first aster flower bud has finally opened! The package of memorial seeds these are from had a mixture, if I remember correctly, so I expect different colours from the others I see forming buds.

In the last photo, we have our “just for today” harvest. There was a handful of beans to pick this morning, along with a single zucchini. I decided to go ahead and harvest the last of the kohlrabi. The remaining plants don’t seem to be forming their… bulbs? … at all. I also grabbed a few Swiss Chard leaves.

There was one wonky purple kohlrabi that I decided to use right away in my breakfast, along with the chard leaves and stalks and a small Turkish Orange eggplant that I’d harvested previously. Those got stir fried to go along with some leftovers.

I didn’t peel the eggplant, partly because I’d picked such a small one. I did find the peels to be a bit on the bitter side.

My older daughter had used one to include in her stir fry last night. I’d gone to bed before she was done, so when I was talking to my younger daughter this morning, I asked how it turned out.

She told me, her sister had had to throw it away.

????!!!!

They may her lips go numb! They were the only new thing in her stir fry, so they were the only thing that could have been causing it. We’ve eaten eggplant before and she’s never reacted to any of them before, but those were the more typical purple varieties. The Turkish Orange is very different. Being so different is why I got the seeds to try.

I had no such reaction. I just found the skins bitter. Very strange! It does mean that we won’t be growing this variety again, though.

As I was setting down with my own breakfast, I noticed I had a phone message.

From home care.

Thankfully, it was NOT a call for me to come in. My mother’s med assist for this morning was scheduled for 8:50, and I was getting the message at past 9:30. The message was to let me know that there had been a last minute cancellation. They did find someone else to cover the med assist, but it would be much later; perhaps 9:45.

I called my mother right away to let her know. When she answered, she mentioned she was making her breakfast at the time, but didn’t say anything about no one showing up to do her meds. I told her about the message I got and when to expect someone to come. It was almost that time, so it was a short phone call.

That done, I finished my breakfast and was starting to upload the photos for this post on Instagram when my younger daughter came over to talk about what to work on today. She decided that this would be the day to do work on the yard and garden tools. So, for the next while, she got her supplies set up on the bench under the canopy tent while I gathered the various things that needed to be worked on. Some needing repairs, as well. It’ll probably take her a couple of days to work through them all.

After she was all set up (and we paused to wash kitten eyes again!) and working on cleaning and sharpening various cutting tools, I headed back in to work on this blog post. I got a message from my daughter who remembered there were some tools in the basement that needed to be worked on. Since I hadn’t started writing yet, I headed down right away to look for them. I knew I’d put all the ones that needed work into one container, but couldn’t find the container – in fact, I couldn’t even remember what container I’d put them in (it turned out to be an old plastic lunch box. 😄) – when the phone started ringing.

I was expecting an important call, so I started heading upstairs, promptly losing my slippers as I rushed up the stairs. The answering machine picked up before I got to the phone, and I heard my mother’s voice starting to rant at the machine.

I picked up the phone while she was doing that. It turned out she had tried to call my sister, first, and there was no answer, so when she called me and it went to machine, she was really upset. Was my sister gone on holidays already? She’s supposed to be gone for two weeks… I told her, I knew nothing about this. (This is the time of year for her church’s harvest feast – one of only two “Biblical” holidays they’re allowed to celebrate – but she’s not mentioned anything about it to me.)

My mother then started telling me how badly she was feeling. She was dying. She’d used the life line and talked to the responder, who asked her what she wanted them to do. She said, they kept asking what she wanted them to do until she finally told them to just leave her alone.

…

I told her, the proper response would have been to have them call an ambulance if she were feeling that badly!

She didn’t want an ambulance. She didn’t want the hassle (I can’t blame her for that!). She would need to someone to get her bag (her prepared hospital bag), her purse, and if she’s in the hospital “they” will come in and steal her stuff.

???

I told her that if she’s really feeling that bad, have the Lifeline call an ambulance (911 seems to be too much for my mother to grasp), and the paramedics could make sure to grab her prepared bags.

No, she doesn’t want strangers. She needs us (me and my siblings). She needs someone around her all the time. She relies on us…

I told her, we can’t live with her! What did she want me to do for her?

She had no answer. She just kept on about how poorly she is doing, how hard it is to do things, and her breathing. She needs someone with her. She needs to be in a nursing home.

But she doesn’t want to go to the hospital. She relies on us… then she started trying to rag on about my brother; he doesn’t call, he doesn’t visit. They’ve actually just gone through a rather scary health emergency with my SIL while she was out of province, but they don’t want to tell my mother about it. My mother handles such information very badly and can be downright cruel. They just got back home today and my brother immediately had to go to work to take part in a couple of important meetings. His job is in internet security at an international level. This is at a level even I have a hard time grasping, it’s so above my pay grade, so to speak. Not something my mother can even begin to understand. I did tell her that he was at an important meeting right now, but added that we did arrange to come out to her place on Sunday, as she requested. I’d forgotten to mention it when I called her this morning.

That mollified her somewhat. She told me that she would “be brave” and hold out until Sunday.

*sigh*

What I told her I would do is call the home care office for her town as soon as I got off the phone with her. I’d let them know that my mother’s condition is deteriorating. All the home care coordinator can do, however, is update the files with this information and send it up the chain. It’s another department that makes the decisions on whether someone can go into a nursing home or assisted living facility. I had to remind my mother about how shocked her doctor was that they hadn’t already approved her for a nursing home.

I wish I’d thought of it at the time, but if my mother did decide to go to go to the hospital, that might be just the thing that would finally get her into a nursing home, like she wants. That’s the typical way it works; a person ends up in the hospital with a broken hip or something, and only then do they get to go to a nursing home from the hospital. My father was an exception. He was getting home care three times a day, but his care included things like helping him use the toilet, bathing and even eating. A hospital bed was set up in the living room next to the window, so he could see outside, with a commode nearby, because he could no longer take the two steps between the old and new parts of the house to get to the bathroom. It was the home care aids that said he’d reached a point where they could no longer provide the care he needed, and that got him into a nursing home right away. Six months later, he passed away.

It is so incredibly frustrating. My mother should not be living on her own. She insists that she can still cook and dress and bath and toilet herself, when I really don’t think she should be. Every time home care offers what they can for her, she turns it down.

Among my siblings, none of us are able to have her live with us and give her the care she needs. None of us have accessible enough housing, even if we did. She is struggling, but refuses to make the decisions she needs to be making. She expects everyone else to make those decisions which, in many cases, they aren’t even allowed to make on her behalf. This is not a new thing; she’s always been one to deflect responsibility to others. It’s just gotten more extreme as she gets older.

Anyhow.

After telling my mother I would call the home care coordinator as soon as I got off the phone with her, my mother kept me on the phone for another few minutes. I finally had to get almost rude to get off the phone so I could make the call!

By then, it was past noon, and she was probably on lunch. I got her voice mail and left a message about my mother’s condition deteriorating.

That done, I updated my siblings on our group chat, then went back to looking for the tools my daughter had asked for – and retrieve my slippers. The box I was looking for turned out to be on a shelf right at the bottom of the steps. I’d put it there specifically so it would be easy to find!

So I brought that out to my daughter and updated her, since all I was able to do was sent a message that I’d gotten a call from my mother and needed to make more calls.

Updating her also gave me a chance to catch my breath.

Now that I’m almost done this, I’ll soon be going into town to pick up prescription refills for my husband. I’m still half expecting a call, but if it hasn’t come in by now, it probably won’t. While in town, while I’ve got a strong data signal, I’ll have to try and set my phone up for Wi-Fi calling again. I can’t even get text messages right now. Which is a pain when I try to log into my bank account on my desktop. They don’t do it on my phone, but if I use my desktop, they always want me to input a code. Every. Time. I try to log in. The problem is, by the time the texted code gets to my phone, the log in session is expired. Sometimes, if I go outside and walk around the yard, it’ll come in faster, but I’m not always in a position to do that.

Frustrating.

Ah, well. It is what it is.

Time to get ready to head into town!

The Re-Farmer

Fast little grublings, and … possible help?

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I just have to start with this adorableness.

Frank’s kittens have gotten big enough and active enough to get in and out of the cat cage.

There are two of them.

My daughter’s t-shirt is appropriate. It reads “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” It’s actually an old design by her sister.

With so many kittens figuring out where the food comes from in the morning, it’s getting really difficult to get into the sun room from the old kitchen, while holding the kibble bowl, going through two doors, trying not to step on any kittens and trying to stop them from running into the old kitchen. There’s one kitten in particular that is so incredibly tiny, and so determined to get underfoot! He loves to be picked up and help, but hasn’t learned to stay away from feet!

So my daughter has been joining me to help with the doors, catching kittens as they try to run inside and then, once I’ve distracted cat enough by filling the kibble trays in the sun room and starting to do the ones outside, put a bowl of kitten soup into the cat cage. So far, the littles have just sniffed at it, but their mama can at least enjoy her own special treat when she comes in to nurse them.

My daughter has also been able to help with eye washing. One of the kittens she’s holding in the photo had one eye stuck shut, and we’d just finished washing it. Aside from the occaisional stickiness, Frank’s kittens are looking really strong and healthy. More so than some of the older littes!

Today turned out to be another day of going to my mother’s place. I almost forgot that it was arranged for me to pick up her bubble packs at the pharmacy. The pharmacy opens at noon on Sundays in her town, and I knew someone was going to be bringing her communion after church, so I was shooting to get to her place closer to 1pm. Since I was there anyhow, I made sure to pick up the Tylenol and kitchen garbage bags I hadn’t been able to get at her grocery shopping trips. I figured she probably forgot that I was supposed to pick up her medications today, so I called her before I left the pharmacy, but got her answering machine. When I got there, she was in the common room, enjoying the view out the window, and was very surprised to see me!

Even though we talked about it before, my mother was a bit ticked off that her got her refills so “early”. She had the equivalent of 8 days left in her lock box, and she still has the mindset of not getting refills until the last minute. They make up their bubble packs on Saturdays only, and I had told her I talked to the pharmacist to push her refills back a week so there would be less chance of her running out before they make the next refills. I don’t think she remembered the conversation, but that’s okay.

I remembered her telling me that my sister hadn’t taken out her garbage yet, because she was out of garbage bags, so I took care of that – and found that she did still have a few garbage bags left. The box was hidden behind the garbage can. 😄

My mother was very happy that I’d picked up more Tylenol for her. That was something she was almost out of.

After I came back from taking out her garbage, my mother started getting some cash out to pay me back for her stuff. Which reminded her of something she had meant to talk to me about.

The next while was very confusing, as she first started asking me about if the front door had been replaced yet, and how much it was going to cost. Then she started talking about her car, and “using that” to pay for it. Now, the last time she talked about her car, it was to tell me to go ahead and sell it. At first, I thought she was suggesting we get her car fixed up to sell and use the funds to pay for the door, except she wasn’t talking about the door anymore. I did get a chance to tell her my brother had checked the car out and tried to explain what he’d found, but she wasn’t interested and got annoyed that I was telling her this, even as she was telling me she wanted my brother to get the car fixed.

After much confusing and questioning, I finally got the straight of what she was wanting. She wants my brother and I to sit down with her and talk about the car and her money that she has in a tax free savings account. She wants my brother, with his Power of Attorney, to use that to get her car fixed up and running, because I need two vehicles, and she can’t get into my truck anymore. When I told her, now that we have truck payments, we can’t afford to pay the insurance on two vehicles anymore, she said she would pay for the insurance. She then started saying some other things and…

I’m not going to count on this, because of her history on such promises in the past, but I think she was offering to cover the cost of getting the new door installed. Considering we’ve had to go into debt to pay for it, on top of the truck repairs we had to do (having to replace the front tires, the MAF sensor issues, etc), that would be a huge help for us. Her comment was, the money is just sitting there, may as well use it.

!!!

Once I finally understood what she was trying to tell me – half the time, she talked as if I could read her mind, or she thought she’d already told me some things – I told her I would pass that on to my brother. She insisted, no talking this out on the phone or messaging or whatever. She wants us to both be at her place, in person. Which is the slower way to do it, but I do understand why she wants that.

She also insisted that we not be in a hurry to leave, but to spend time with her. The only problem with that is, her idea of being “in a hurry to leave” can change pretty dramatically at times! I’ve been at her place for hours and, when I finally had to leave, she accused me of being in a rush, etc. Other times, I’ve been at her place for less than an hour and she’s all but kicked me out, because she was done with company! 😄

Like today. I asked my mother if there was anything else she needed help with, and offered to make lunch for her, but she said she was fine, then told me I could leave, now. 😄 I think I was there for maybe 15 minutes. Twenty, at most.

Once I was done, I had to make a side trip. I’d used my card to pay for my mother’s stuff and she paid me back in cash. Our bank that we have our main accounts in used to have a branch in my mother’s town, but it was closed some months ago, so I can no longer use a bank machine to deposit the cash. The nearest branch of our bank is now much further away, so I decided to go to the town nearer to us where there’s a bank I have my own personal banking in. I’ve had an account there since I was in my teens and just never closed it when we moved and moved and moved again. I could deposit the cash there, then do e-transfers to pay off what I used on my card.

I had just reached town and was slowing down for a stop sign when something strange happened.

The check engine light started blinking.

It didn’t just turn on. It was blinking. I’ve never seen that happen before.

Then it went away.

So now, after all the weird stuff we’ve had going on with it, I’m absolutely paranoid about the truck.

My brother and I had been talking about selling my mother’s car, as she originally wanted us to do. The truth is, we really do need a second vehicle, and that sudden blinking light on the dash just reminded me of why.

Tomorrow, I need to remember to hook up the OBDII scanner and see if it picks up anything of concern. I’m also due for an oil change within another 1000km, so that will give the guys at the garage a chance to check it out.

I’ve already passed on the message to my brother and we’ll be visiting my mother together next Sunday. We can work things out if my mother backs out on helping us again, but if she follows through with it, and my brother is made responsible for taking care of things, the help would be much appreciated. So we’ll see how that goes!

At least she no longer rants at me about how the house was perfect, everything was perfect, when we moved in to take care of it for her, so why are there all these things that we need to fix? It took a few years, but now she’ll say things like “nothing lasts forever”. 😄

The Re-Farmer

Sudden changes in plans, and morning photos

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First, a follow up from yesterday. It took many hours, but the debilitating pain that had set into my left hip during the night did recede. I found myself able to walk normally again – not even a limp! – but my hip still feels very… unstable.

Which turned out to be a good thing, because my evening plans changed completely.

Yesterday evening, after a very warm day, I took advantage of being able to walk again, headed out and watered what’s left of the garden. I was back inside and settled down with my supper when I saw there was a message on the answering machine.

From home care.

The message told me they had a last minute cancellation and there was no one to do my mother’s evening med assist (they are just a few hours apart and typically done by the same home care aide). I was, however, assured that Saturday and Sunday were covered.

I got the message about an hour after it was left, since I was outside when the call came – and about 15 minutes away from when my mother’s supper assists are scheduled this cycle.

It takes about half an hour to get to her place, even if I just grab and go. I did quickly call my mother to let her know I was on my way, got my husband to tuck my supper into the oven, and headed out.

When I got there, my mother did try to do her usual snarky comments about, have they hired me yet? and the usual giving me a hard time for covering for home care again. I’ve still been in a dark place in the last while and I just told her, please don’t. I’m not in the mood for it. She paused a moment, then said, neither am I.

She did, however, have a good day. My sister had come out on her day off. Being a Friday, it was my mother’s scheduled turn for the laundry room, so my sister took care of that for her, as well as doing her dishes and light housework. It was much appreciated.

I helped my mother settle in with her supper to take her supper meds with, so I could then get her bed time meds ready, and she asked if I wanted a piece of her birthday cheesecake that I got for her. She had just a couple of pieces left, and had already had one with my sister. I agreed, and it gave me a chance to ask my mother about when she wanted me to do her grocery shopping.

It turned out she was already working on her list. I asked if she wanted me to come back tomorrow (which would have been today), and she said she had an appointment with her hair dresser – someone who comes to her apartment to cut her hair, which is really nice! – in the afternoon. As we were going back and forth I suggested, I could just do it right then. That way, I wouldn’t have to come back over the weekend. My mother was surprised by this, as she thought the grocery store closed much earlier. It was too close to closing for the pharmacy, though, so that got skipped. She only needed one thing there, anyhow, and not urgently.

So I did her grocery shopping and got everything put away. As we were chatting, she asked how I was and I mentioned I was out of sorts and explained a little bit about why. My mother had heard of the assassination but, of course, she only heard it from the TV news – “that guy from the states?” – and Canadian news has been lying about Charlie Kirk at every turn. Especially the CBC. So I told her who he really was. None of which was talked about on the TV.

I don’t think it’s possible to hate the mainstream media enough. I’ve had plenty of personal experience as to how dishonest and manipulative they are, over the span of decades, yet it still surprises me, just how bad they can be.

I didn’t stay too long, though, and was soon back home and having my supper. Then I noticed a notification on my cell phone.

I had a voice mail message.

My cell phone never rang.

After fussing with it for a bit, I realized the Wi-Fi calling had been turned off again – my phone keeps doing that on its own, and I don’t know why. I wasn’t able to get the message because there wasn’t enough signal. I couldn’t even go through the process of getting the wi-fi calling set up again, which required once again confirming my identity. I ended up having to go outside and wander around the yard, trying to find a strong enough data signal, to finally get it set up. Only then could I finally listen to the message.

It was home care.

The scheduler was very apologetic, but there was another cancellation. There was no one to do my mother’s morning med assist for today.

*sigh*

We were already planning to do a dump run, then a trip to a Walmart, and now I had to go to my mother’s again. The timing for it worked out, but it did mean almost another hour extra of driving.

So I called my mother again, thankfully getting her before she went to bed, and let her know I’d be back in the morning. She was not impressed. None of us are. My husband is getting right ticked off. He even went online to try and find somewhere to complain. What he did find were some forums with many, many other people in the same home care region we are in, having to deal with the same problem.

With the time scheduled for my mother’s morning med assist in mind, I managed to get to bed early and, happily, I did not have a repeat of what happened to my hip the night before. I still don’t know what triggered it in the first place!

I did my morning rounds early. There isn’t much to do in the garden, so things are done faster these days.

I did have to get a picture of that one Hopi Black Dye sunflower again.

Every day, more and more of it is actually developing seeds and they’re starting to bloom! I’m still amazed it survived the frosts.

In the next picture, you can see a huge cluster of tree mushrooms I found. I’d heard a cat commotion by the collapsing log building by the fire pit and checked to see what it was. It turned out to be The Grink, chasing after Sprout’s little calico (Sprout, once again, is AWOL). It was way up in a tree next to the log building. I did get The Grink away enough that the little one was able to get down.

Speaking of little ones…

Frank is such a good mama! And her littles are getting used to being handled. The one kitten who’s eyes have been getting stuck shut seems to be past the worst of it. No eye washing needed today!

The next photo is of, I think, one of Slick’s little tabbies. It was enjoying the cat bed in the catio that we moved over to lure the garage kittens to the house. They’re not using the catio since we moved it, but the littles are enjoying it! The garage kittens still seem to be using the garage as “home base”, but I am seeing them near the house a lot more often now.

Last night, I was hearing that we were supposed to have a dense fog this morning. It wasn’t too close around the property as I was doing my rounds.

Then I started driving to my mother’s.

I had to pull over at one point, just to take pictures, about a mile from home. When I was driving between the trees, there wasn’t much, but as soon as I cleared the trees and reached fields, it was like driving through a wall!

Keep in mind with the above photos, that the camera “cleans up” the shots, so the fog was actually denser than it appears in the photos.

Very moody.

Also, by the time I was heading out, the sun was fully up and we had bright sunshine!

Once I got onto the highway, it was even thicker, to the point that I had to reduce speed due to lack of visibility. I did eventually catch up to a shadow that turned out to be a car. Then we’d go through a section of highway bordered by trees, and the fog would disappear and we could see just fine. Then we’d enter a section surrounded by fields, and it would be like driving into a wall of fog.

Then… it was gone. Such a stark delineation!

When I got to my mother’s she was really struggling. She was still in bed and really didn’t want to get up. I can’t blame her! She’s had a sleepless night, too.

Yesterday’s grocery shopping trip had missed a few things. Particularly milk. It wasn’t on her list and I’d considered getting some anyway, but my mother has specifically said she had milk. I figured my sister had brought her some. It turned out my mother was thinking she had enough to last until I came to do her grocery shopping… on Sunday.

The day she told me she didn’t want to have her grocery shopping done on anymore…

She was so out of sorts, though, one minute saying she needed milk, then asking me to check and see if she needed milk (she did), and not to get this other thing that got missed, or maybe something else or…

I finally told her to just enjoy her breakfast, and I would get her some milk. The rest could wait.

Then, as I was heading out the door, I hear “and apples!”

😄

So that was a short shopping trip.

That done, I headed home where my daughter had things ready to start loading up the truck for the dump run. When we got to the pit, we were happy to see that they had finally cleared the wall of garbage at the pit edge. There was room to turn again!

Once we were finished there, we continued on, first making a stop at a gas station in town, along the way. The price there was still $1.409, whereas in my mother’s town, it was $1.419 With all the extra driving, I was down to a quarter tank. I really try to avoid letting it get below half. I asked for $50 in gas, and it didn’t even get me to 3/4 of a tank. By the time we reached the Walmart, I was at half a tank again.

*sigh*

I had a short shopping list for myself – mostly more cat food – while my daughter had a list for herself and her sister. She couldn’t find everything on it, though, so we decided to go to a regular grocery store further on. As we were driving to it, we passed an independent gas station.

The price on their sign was $1.349

After we finished at the grocery store (my daughter still had trouble finding one item!), I made a point of stopping at that gas station again and added another $30.

The price on the pump was $1.299

That $30 sure went a lot further!

From there, we could finally head home, unload, and finally settle in. Today was originally supposed to be just a dump run day, and instead I was out for most of it.

It’s been hotter today than yesterday, and it just now starting to cool down for the evening, so I’ll be heading out to water things again before bed. The next three days are supposed to be as hot, or hotter, than today, so still no need to cover garden beds yet. After that, the temperatures are supposed to drop quite a bit. Enough that I will probably keep the winter squash bed covered both day and night. I’m still amazed that was have any squash developing at all, so I want to give them every change to mature!

Getting outside and being productive has also been good for my overall mood, too, so the more of that, the better.

The Re-Farmer

Morning in the garden, adorableness, and unexpected outings

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I headed outside this morning with my usual feeding of adorable beasts and doing my rounds. I had a bit of a surprise when I got to the main garden area.

In the first picture, you can see a Hopi Black Dye sunflower, still trying to bloom! All of the sunflowers, which I thought were killed off by our last frost, look like they’ve actually recovered! Wild!

I had some plans to make a stew later today, so I decided to do a small harvest (second image above). Just enough potatoes for the day, plus our only bulb onions of the year! These were in the high raised bed and their necks were bent by rolling cats, so they weren’t going to get any bigger. The only onions we planted this year were the seeds included in our seed mixes. Quite a few came up, then disappeared. In the high raised bed, just these got big enough to form bulbs. All the others were basically just the greens. Even the really strong and healthy looking ones in the old kitchen garden are nowhere near starting to form bulbs.

Next year, we’ll be starting seeds indoors again. 😄 From our own seed, too.

I was back inside, helping my daughter, who’d been working on the “cat free zone” (the living room) for most of the night. We’ve basically been just shoving things that needed to be protected from the cats into there, but never quite getting the chance to go back and put them away properly. It had gotten to the point that there was just a path in between furniture to the shelves in front of the window, where I’ve got tomatoes ripening and seeds drying.

I didn’t get to help her for long before the phone rang.

It was home care.

I have to admit, it’s been a long time since they’ve called. The scheduler was very apologetic, but they had a last minute cancellation. Someone called in sick.

My mother’s meds were scheduled for 9am.

It was about 8:35 when she called. Driving time alone to my mother’s is 25 minutes.

I didn’t even bother changing out of my grubbies. I just made a quick call and left a message with my mother, grabbed my purse and headed out. So she got her meds just a little bit behind schedule.

Apparently, the person who was supposed to come this morning was also supposed to do my mother’s two evening visits, and she didn’t show up for those, either. Apparently, a guy came to do it, and he was all the way from the city! I appreciate that they found someone to do her evening meds. Her and however many other people are on that home care aide’s list!

In the end, it worked out. My mother was still in bed and not feeling well. I ended up making some toast for her, so she’d have something to eat with her meds. She also likes to have milk, half and half with boiling water, as her beverage, so I made that, too – finishing off both her milk and a loaf of bread in the process of making her breakfast. I told her I would get her more milk and asked if she needed anything else. I figured I would go get it while she was having a peaceful breakfast.

Which is when things got strange. I have no idea how she interpreted my request, but she seemed to think I was trying to rush her and was leaving right away or… I don’t know. She started going on about how she needs to rely on me and my siblings more now, and making …. less than charitable, shall we say … comments about my brother and sister. Now, I admit, to a certain extent, I can understand about my sister. She used to call my mother almost every say, and visit on some of her days off from work (she only works 3 days a week at a Walmart). In fact, my mother used to lord it over me, how my sister was calling her every day. Then my sister started to get more involved in their church again. The Worldwide Church of God, which is recognized as a cult. Her behaviour has changed since then, and she has been … not cutting the family off, but definitely cutting us out of things. She’s back to refusing to celebrate birthdays (they’d relaxed on that for a while) and hating Christmas and Easter, going on with the long debunked claims about them being pagan holidays, etc. There are definite issues there, but my sister does still do things like to my mother’s laundry, or mop her floors, and will pick up things like clothes and other things from Walmart for her. My sister used to sew her own clothes all the time and she knows my mother’s measurements, so anything she gets for my mother, she tailors to fit. So while there is definitely tension and issues, she does still help out in ways my brother and I can’t. We each have things we can do individually for my mother that the others aren’t able to.

Anyhow.

She made a comment about my wanting to leave so soon (I think she decided my wanted to get her milk while she was having breakfast meant I was in a hurry to leave?) and how there are two girls at home that can help take care of my husband. Which threw me, because my mind wasn’t there at all. I told her, we’re winterizing. There’s lots of work to do. She actually seemed confused by that. I don’t think she ever knew all the things my dad and brothers did to prepare the house and yards for winter.

I kept trying to bring her back to, I want to get you milk, do you need anything else? but she kept going back to saying things about my brother and sister. Finally, I just grabbed my hat and purse and told her, I’m going to get you some milk.

To which she told me to hold on… she might need something else…

…

*sigh*

In the end, there were just a couple of things from the grocery store she wanted, but we also checked her Volataren supply. She still had but, since she’s using it on her back now, as well as her knees, it was worth picking up more. Which meant a trip to the pharmacy.

My mother then started getting cash out, took out a 50, and asked if I wanted an envelope. I said it would be good, since I put all her change and receipts back into the envelope for her to go through later. She started looking for an envelope, found one on her table – and it still had the change and receipts from the last time I did shopping for her! Then, just in case, she took the bills from that and included it with the $50 bill she already had ready.

I then left her to her breakfast and my first stop was at the pharmacy. They know me pretty well by now, and I’ve had pleasant chats with the manager a few times. They are aware that I’m shopping on behalf of my mother, and I’ve also talked about having to come in to cover for home care way too often. So when I came in and the manager saw me coming in so early in the day, I told him about home care cancelling again this morning – but, it turned out to be okay, since it meant I could run errands for my mother, too.

He laughed and said, “let’s not tell them that!” 😄

My mother’s Voltaren turned out to be on sale, which was nice – until I tried to hand over the $50, then went into my own wallet for the change. The manager very sheepishly asked if I had anything smaller. This early in the day, making change for a $50 would have emptied his float! He even commented that he should have a bigger float, but almost no one pays in cash anymore. In the end, I had enough of my own cash to add to my mother’s smaller bills and was able to pay with exact change. He was so very thankful!

I’ve worked retail for many years. I totally get it!

We talked about how so few people use cash these days, but then you have people like my mother. She simply could not use a debit card. It’s beyond her. He commented that, if ever the machines go down, though, it’s people like my mother that will be in the better position!

That done, it was off to the grocery store to pick up the few things my mother wanted, plus I got a couple of extra things that were on sale that I knew she’d enjoy and could put in her freezer. It was still a really small shopping trip.

When I got back to my mother’s and put things away, showing her what I got different, I tried to entertain her with what happened at the pharmacy. In the end, I think I only confused her. She seemed to be trying to figure out how they were trying to cheat her by not being able to make change for a $50 bill, that early in the day.

*sigh*

Then she started going through the envelope with the change and receipts and the contents didn’t make sense to her. I told her again, because I used the smaller bills, adding in my own cash, there was no change from the pharmacy. The change in the envelope was only from the grocery store.

I’m not sure she got it.

In the end, I didn’t stay much longer. My mother was feeling very tired and I encouraged her to go back to bed, which she said she would do. She told me she’d even used her LifeLine last night, to talk to someone about how she was feeling. She wanted them to tell her what to do, but they can’t really do that. The guy did ask her if she wanted him to call an ambulance, and she told him no. Instead, she told him he could go back to bed, and she would do the same.

I hope she did go back to bed after I left!

From there, I went straight home. My daughter had managed a lot more progress on the living room while I was gone, including moving some things to the basement. (If we can figure out how to get it down the steps, I’d like to move the big aquarium to the basement, too.) She was really exhausted – I think she was up all night! – and was feeling sick, but had just remembered that she had a prescription to pick up for our joint appointment tomorrow. It’s a vaccine that needs to be kept refrigerated, so it was something to call in at the last minute. She did that and was told it’d be ready for pick up this afternoon, and I told her I’d take care of it, and sent her off to bed. She was more than happy to do that!

Which meant that, after a couple of hours, I was on the road again. My husband needed a few things from the pharmacy, too, so that worked out. Before heading home, I stopped at the grocery store and picked up a couple of small trays of sushi as a thank you for my daughter. I’m pretty sure she hadn’t eaten, again.

By the time I got home again, it was time to feed the outside cats. I headed out again later, to close some things up.

Which is when I spotted this.

Some of the kittens have discovered they really, really like the portable greenhouse! That’s Colby snuggling with a much, much smaller tabby in the foreground. I’m not sure about the other older kitten, watching me through the doorway. I’ll have to remember that distinctive black chin. When I moved around, I spotted two more littles, curled around each other on the grass near a luffa pot. Today was a decently warm day, but they quite enjoy the extra warmth, when they can find it!

I’ll be heading outside one more time before calling it a day. With the extra trips out, I did not accomplish what I’d intended to, but none of it was particularly time dependent. We’ll be out again for much of tomorrow, too. After that, there are no more planned outings until I have to pick up my mother’s refills on Sunday, then my husband and I have a dental appointment later next week. We’re supposed to have good weather so, hopefully, we’ll be able to get the bigger outside projects done. Getting the sun room cleaned out for the winter will probably be the biggest and longest job. The critters have made a real mess in there – and I don’t mean just the cats!

Little by little, it’ll get done.

The Re-Farmer

Kitten updates, and birthday with Mom

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Today was my mother’s 94th birthday, so I had plans to head over to her place, not long after doing the morning rounds.

With the appearance of kittens in the sun room cat cage, I was expecting to see a fourth kitten by this morning, since I knew that the mama had four active nips.

Nope. Still just three.

With a slightly older kitten on guard, above!

My guess is, the fourth kitten was a loss, and that might have had something to do with why the mama, Frank, suddenly moved her babies into the sun room. Normally, the ferals don’t bring their kittens to the house until they are closer to weaning age. Frank is getting to be more semi-feral than feral, as she does allow some pets every now and then. The good thing is, we now have a chance to socialize her babies, which increased their chances of survival, and our chances of getting them fixed when they’re old enough and big enough.

I headed to my mother’s town a bit early, as I had plans to pick some things up for her. I was hoping to get her a small cake, as I knew she’s complain about things being “too much” (which she did), but there was none to be had, so I got her a cheesecake with two slices each of four flavours. I figured, it was something she could share. Then I picked up her favourite fried chicken and wedges for lunch. When I got there, she was in her living room, so I made a joke about how she wasn’t allowed to come to the table until I was done. Of course, she still had to come to the table – her glasses were on it! I had picked up a candles in the shape of a 9 and a 4 and got everything all set up and the candles lit. She got a good laugh out of it when I started singing happy birthday to her and brought it over. On her 90th birthday, when she was more mobile still, we’d celebrated her birthday at my brothers, and I’d bought her a little tiara to wear. I got it out and had her put it on before I took pictures for the family. She got a laugh over that, too, before blowing out her candles.

We then had lunch together. As she was close to finishing her meal, she did stop to say, she wanted to tell me something, but didn’t want to hurt my feelings. 😂 Yeah. She complained about the food! Or, more accurately, that I was buying her too much food. I told her, she doesn’t have to eat it all at once! Oh, but it’s temptation, she said. 😄 She said she doesn’t want to get fat(ter). I just shake my head. She’s been fat for as long as I can remember, and she just turned 94. In her family, all the women that got fat after having kids lived to grand old ages. All her skinny relatives (the ones that didn’t have kids) died young.

I don’t think she needs to worry about it!

With the cheesecake, I told her she could share it with her neighbours. She stopped to consider the date and told me the next event in the common room would be on Tuesday (three days from today). They usually have a pot of coffee going, and sometimes snacks. She told me, she’d think about whether or not she wanted to share her cake with them! 😄

Since I was there anyhow, I did some light housekeeping and refilled her water bottles. Then I went to the pharmacy to get the things I couldn’t get last time, because they were closed for the holiday. This gave me a chance to finally talk to the pharmacist – I kept forgetting to phone them! – about just how close my mother was to running out of her prescriptions before her new bubble packs were ready. He was able to change the date so that her refills will be done a week earlier. Which means that I’ll be heading over to pick up her bubble packs two weekends from now, and getting them into her lock box. This gives some flexibility, in case I’m not able to get them on the day for some reason. We don’t want them to be delivered anymore, since the delivery person wouldn’t have the code to open the lock box, and we can’t trust my mother to not do something to her meds if they’re not locked away.

While my mother was in a good mood overall, that didn’t stop her from talking smack about my brother and sister. They don’t call her enough. They don’t visit enough. She knows my brother is out of province right now – running a “marathon” with his grandson! Then she started going on about both of them. I was done everything that needed doing by then, and still had to go to town, so it was definitely time to leave.

One of the things on my list to do in town was to go to a different grocery store with our water bottles. This place has a sanitation station, and our bottles were due. I had two to refill, got them both sanitized and started filling them. I had finished filling the second one and was starting to put a new cap on it before putting it in the cart when…

It split open at the base!

There was water spraying all over before I was able to shift it into the sanitation sink to drain. There was a woman using the second fill station and we got the attention of the staff. One guy came over but all he could do was take over holding the jug in place over the sink as it emptied. All 5 gallons!

So… I had to buy a new jug. I don’t like the new jugs that they have now. With the older ones, the handle is part of the jug itself. The new ones have the handle as a separate piece attached. We’ve already got one like it, and it always feels like the handle is about to break off when the jug is full. Ah, well.

That done, I picked up a few things we’d run out of. My husband had requested water flavours, but I couldn’t find any at all, so I ended up going to the other grocery store for those, plus the rest of my list. They happened to have a good sale on stewing beef (good being relative, these days!), so I got a family size pack. I look forward to having a beef stew! We eat beef so rarely these days.

From there, it was a stop at the gas station – the prices had dropped from $1.449 to $1.409 – then home. I pulled up to the house to unload. My daughters were sweethearts and got everything into the house, then distracted the yard cats so I could get the truck out of the yard!

It was feeding time for them, anyhow, so while they put everything away, I took care of the feeding.

It’s getting time to move the catio closer to the house. Even the smokey garage kitten is finally started to sneak closer to the house. Sort of. She’s been skirting the edges of the flower bed at the far end of the yard, along with her brother (I’m still just guessing that she’s a she). They are MUCH more comfortable eating in the catio, though.

What an incredibly unique looking cat!

The kittens in the cat cage were alone at the time, though Frank was no far away. I noticed their eyes were getting stuck shut, so I made sure to give them a wash. This was a first time experience for these kittens, and they did not like it, but they actually handled the whole thing rather well.

Since coming home, the weather geek group I follow on FB sent out some info. Parts of the province are under a frost warning. Our area is not included. Uh, huh. We already had our first frost night, and there were no frost warnings in advance for that one! It’s still rather warn as I’m writing this, but we’re still getting a low of 2C/36F being forecast for tonight. I’m expecting it to get colder than that. I’ll wait a bit longer before covering up the beds again.

Oh, that was something my mother had a hard time with. I showed her garden pictures, including the winter squash bed with its plastic cover. She had the hardest time understanding why one would do that. I had told her about how everything was behind this year and she was all, you know what that means, right? You planted too late.

…

I talked to her about our spring, and how in May we had such hot days, but very cold nights, so the soil didn’t warm up enough. We had drought this year. We had heat waves this year. Then there was the smoke, smoke and more smoke. She just shook her head and told me how she didn’t remember every having problems in the garden.

…

Now, I do remember her making a passing comment a couple of years back, when we had issues in the garden, saying that some years things are good, some years they’re not. This was several years ago. She did remember having bad years in the garden here. This stuck in my memory because she always made a big deal about how she had such a big healthy garden here, and was upset with me for not instantly recreating exactly how her garden used to be, some 20 or 30 years ago. Now, with things not turning out well, in her mind, it’s because I caused it somehow. She’s still wrapping her mind around the idea that I can garden in different ways than she did. Not that I have any choice. It’s physically impossible to do otherwise, at this point. She’s having difficulty accepting that things are not the same as she remembers! She would much rather think that the garden is struggling because I don’t know how to tend thins properly, like she did. 🫤

Ah, well. We do the best we can!

She did manage to throw dig at me, this time about how I didn’t bring her out to the farm for a visit this summer, and now it’s getting cold.

*sigh*

I told her, it’s been a very rough year. We don’t even have a front door right now. Which is absolutely true but, in past visits, we learned very quickly that my mother has zero interest in visiting us. What she wants is to look at everything, from how the yard and garden looks, to rifling through the cabinets in the bathroom while pretending she’s using the toilet (apparently, it didn’t occur to her that we could hear it). She would then follow up with declarations about how useless I was as a human being, and how terrible my family is, for not living the way she wanted us to, and because things aren’t exactly the way she remembers leaving it, when she moved out some 10 years ago. Not how it actually was. How she remembers it was. End result is, none of us want her to come out here again. Her motivations for wanting to come out here – even though, after we moved in, she declared she never wanted to see the farm again – are far from kind, to put it mildly.

My mother has no understanding of just how much her own actions drive people away – and then wonders why no one wants to call her or talk to her! I’ve told her, but she just goes on about why she’s entitled to behave the way she does, and doesn’t see how much she hurts the people who are trying to help her the most. She really and truly doesn’t care, either. *sigh*

Ah, well. We just do the best we can. What else can we do?

At least I can say that she was happy I visited her for her birthday, even if I did it all wrong. 😄😂

The Re-Farmer

Morning sadness, and helping elderly parents can be rough!

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Today is Labour Day, a statutory holiday here in Canada. I was still set to do my mother’s grocery shopping, though, as she didn’t want me coming over on a Sunday. I knew the grocery store in her town would be open for short hours, though. With that in mind, I wasn’t planning to head out until 11.

Which meant the usual morning routine, plus I would have time to water the garden in anticipation of one more really hot day, before the temperatures drop significantly. First things first was feeding the outside cats.

I spotted this, some time later…

I had to zoom in from quite a distance so as not to interrupt. Lady Hypotenose does not look pleased!

The first thing I spotted as I headed out with the morning kibble, however, was a kitten laying half out of the new cat cave, clearly passed on. Then I spotted a second one in the box nest in the water bowl shelter!

I messaged my daughter and she came out to help find a place to bury them. Once the food was out, I gathered up the remains while my daughter dug a hole to bury them in. I was quite surprised by the one in the cat cave. This was the kitten with one sticky eye I’ve been washing. Other than a sticky eye, it was looking pretty strong! The second kitten was also one that I saw no signs of illness in. One thing in common, though, is that they both had a bout of diarrhea. Which is the same thing I found with the previous three kittens I’d found and buried.

Once that sad morning job was done, I continued my morning routine, then got the garden watered. I even had time for a late breakfast before heading to my mother’s. By the time I headed out, my brother and SIL were out by his tractor that he needs to fix. It’s outside, so he wanted to put a shelter over it, so he could work on it under at least some protection. Since I didn’t know how long I’d be, and they had to go back home today, I swung by to say hello/goodbye. While I was doing that, they told me they got a voicemail message from my mother saying that she’d been trying to call me, but there was no answer. ?!?! I told them I was on the way to her place to do her grocery shopping, but that our phone had not rung. My brother was planning to visit her briefly on their way home, so I was asked to let her know (and to let her know my brother was in work clothes, not dressed to the nines; my mother has suddenly started to criticize my brother for not dressing “civilized” because he was wearing jeans or whatever).

I was more than happy to wage interference for him.

As I was heading to the truck, I messaged my family to check the land line. When I got to my mother’s, there was a message waiting for me, saying the phone was working fine. When I came inside, I mentioned this to her, only to be told she hadn’t tried to phone me today. It was yesterday! That’s when I realized what had happened (and it was actually the day before yesterday that she’d tried to call me). When I saw the missed call (no message), I called her back and she told me she’d tried calling my brother and sister, too, but no one was home. Somehow, my brother didn’t get my mother’s message on his voice mail until today!

I did let her know that he was at the farm, working on a tractor, and that he planned to visit while on his way home – and yes, I did bring up that he’d be in work clothes, and probably dirty, so don’t give him a hard time! She laughed and said she wouldn’t.

My mother, however, was having a hard time. She said she was not feeling well, and hadn’t bothered to change out of her night gown. I tried asking questions to pin down exactly how she was feeling. She got frustrated and just repeated her usual litany. The problem is, she keeps saying she feels like she’s about to die, but… well… She’s already been to a doctor about these things, time and time again. For some things, like her legs swelling, something could be done – her water pill dosage was doubled, and she now takes it twice a day instead of once a day, for example. There are other things recommended, like keeping her feet elevated, or sleeping on an include. She’s been recommended for a hospital bed so she can do that more easily by me and my siblings, home care and her doctor, and she simply refuses. She won’t even put her feet up in her reclining chair. Eventually, if we ask enough questions, it comes out that she wants the doctor to “fix” her – but not give her more pills – somehow, like magic. And if a doctor isn’t able to do that, well, they’re just hiding something for her, or they just want her to die, or the doctor is [insert racial/sexist slur here] and not a “real” doctor, and she wants us to find her another one. This when we have a major doctor shortage and she’s lucky to have a doctor at all!

Anyhow. It’s frustrating for all of us, including my mother!

She had not felt well enough to make a list, so we worked on that together. I did have to go into her lock box to get a pen. All the pens on her table were gone. I found five in the lock box. Every time home care give her her medications, they have a form to fill out. Instead of using the pen that’s always there for them to use, they’ve been grabbing whatever pen is in reach on the table – then putting it in the lock box when they’re done! 😄

In making her list, she had a few items that would be picked up at the pharmacy. She had also mentioned wanting me to change her bedding, so I knew I’d be there for a while. I was expecting that.

I had some warning as to how things were going to go when my mother started going on about how my brother should really be the one doing this, not me. She “gave” him the farm, after all, and it’s his responsibility. I reminded her that I’m the one in the best position to help her. Oh, I have too much to take care of at home. I had my (disabled) husband and two “babies” to take care of.

Yup. My mother has got it in her head that we’re basically forcing the girls to live with us, and they do nothing. She just sort of invents scenarios on how we live.

As I was deflecting as best I could, she got weird and asked me if my daughters were born boys or girls.

*sigh*

With the way she treats them, my daughter have little interest in spending time with her, plus my older daughter works on her commissions at night, so she hasn’t even seen my older daughter in years. My younger daughter came with me not long ago, as we were on the way to somewhere else and she was coming along as my mobility assistant, really. My younger daughter has pretty severe PCOS, and the symptoms includes having a pretty rad beard. She can even make little braids in it. She gave up trying to shave it years ago, as shaving was damaging her skin, and frankly, it’s just hair. We’re more concerned about the more debilitating PCOS issues.

When I, rather stunned, said that yes, my daughters are female, she asked, why the beard? I told her, it’s a medical condition. My daughter is seeing a doctor and getting referred to specialists about it. My mother just scoffed and made a comment about how she thought I wasn’t telling her everything. I told her, correct. I’m not telling you everything because she just twists everything to be nasty, anyhow, plus my daughter’s health is none of her business.

At which point, my mother twisted what I said to be nasty.

*sigh*

I managed to get away from that conversation and get back to making her shopping list!

As we were talking groceries, she started going on about how bad she feels, but especially after eating. She loves to blame certain foods for anything, because of something she might have heard on TV (sometimes decades ago!) or read in a magazine. She was winding up to the conclusion that she should basically stop eating anything but “liquid”. So… I guess that’s why she waters down her instant oatmeal so much!

After hearing her describe how she was feeling after she ate, it triggered something in my memory about digestive issues with seniors, so I looked it up. Soon I was reading to her about how our digestive systems tend to slow down as we get older, causing various issues. Going through the list, there were only a couple of things that applied to her. One being the heartburn (that she was convinced were heart attacks for many years), which I’ve already gone over with her about, with what foods can trigger it and what can help. She already ignores that. I’ve made printouts for her in large letters that she can ready easily, and she just throws them out. Another was to eat more small meals instead of large ones; again, something that would help her heartburn. She reacted as though this were a revelation, apparently not remembering that we’ve talked about this before. Last of all was physical exercise – something she just doesn’t have the mobility to engage in, at levels that would make a difference.

Then she asked about dry mouth again. She is constantly bringing it up, even though it, too, is something she’d talked about, and she even still has the spray she was given while at the hospital earlier in the year. She used it at one point, thinking it was an inhaler that would help her breathing. It worked so well! When I realized what she was talking about and told her that no, the only inhalers she has are in her lock box. The spray was for dry mouth, she stopped using it.

She has decided her dry mouth is because she had diabetes, and asked me about her blood tests. While at the doctor, she said she couldn’t hear what the doctor had said. I told her what her A1c was (she is not diabetic), and repeated what the doctor had said; she’s sleeping with her mouth open. All she heard was that it was not related to diabetes and she’s not diabetic, so it was another revelation for her.

As you can imagine, it took a while to get her shopping list done!

Today was a Meals on Wheels day. I made sure to leave before that was delivered, so my mother could have her lunch without interruption. I was going to the pharmacy, first, only to find that they were closed for the holiday. I hoped I could find at least some of what she wanted (she was not out completely, thankfully) at the grocery store, but the only thing they did have was ridiculously expensive, so that didn’t happen.

In the end, if was a much smaller than usual shopping list. My mother did make a request for something she could eat with her medications. Some are not supposed to be taken on an empty stomach. She usually eats a few crackers, but I think she’s tired of crackers. She didn’t really know what she wanted, so I told her I would look around the grocery store for something.

I went through the (rather small) store three times.

What kind of snack was there that was “healthy” (as my mother would accept), that didn’t need any sort of preparation, was either shelf stable or could stay in the fridge for a while after opening, and was easy for her to chew, since she refuses to get her dentures fixed after having a broken tooth removed. Some of the things I saw that would have been good, healthy snacks were things I knew she would refuse to eat, because she heard somewhere that they are “unhealthy”. Others were things that she would have a hard time chewing.

I finally settled on some fruit filled breakfast bars. I knew she’s complain because they are “sweet” (as anything fruit filled would be), but it was something to try.

After I was finally done and the truck was loaded, I found a message from my SIL. They were going to be heading out soon, and would I be able to stay longer, while my brother was there? Of course, I said yes. My SIL no longer visits my mother, after my mother started going on about how she wasn’t really family, just my brother’s wife, and blaming her for my brother not being ay my mother’s constant beck and call. So she was going to be dropped off, while my brother was going to pick up some chicken, then meet me at my mother’s.

Once back at my mother’s and everything was put away, and I explained about the pharmacy being closed, my mother started going on about how her “pink” pills were now a different size.

She doesn’t have any pink pills.

My mother was convinced her pills were changed but this time, after asking some questions, she told me that they were different from what she was taking before they started doing bubble packs.

Which has been for at least five years.

I ended up taking one of her bubble packs out so we could look at them together. The “pink” pill she was talking about was actually orange. My mother’s eyesight is failing, so it’s not really a surprise that she sees colours differently, but she’s interpreting that as the pharmacy changing her meds.

As we went over what was in her bubble packs, I went through how the only change has been is the one pill that she’s taking twice a day instead of once a day. Then I talked about how different manufacturers might have slightly different colours or shapes (this was an issue in the past), but the important thing is the dose. The colour or shape of a pill doesn’t matter, as long as the dose is right.

We were in the middle of this when my brother arrived. While he went through to the kitchen with the food he’d brought, she started to tell him that he should look at the pills, because he’s the one that knows all about them.

…

My brother told her that no, I’m the one that knows the most about them now!

At one point, while I was again explaining to my mother about her medications and doses, etc. I realized my brother had started to record the conversation. Which would be a good thing, as it would be a record of how my mother can get.

It’s such a good thing her meds are kept in a lock box now. In the past, when she got it in her head the her meds were changed, she actually took her pills out of the bubbles and “sorted” them. I found the ones she had issue with a while back and had to take them to the pharmacy for disposal. There was at least 50 of these pills that she had stopped taking, because she thought they weren’t the same medication anymore.

Once her bubble packs were put away and my brother was taking the food out, I remembered seeing my mother’s water bottles were needing to be refilled. So I got my brother to pass them to me, then left for the tap her building has in the laundry room for drinking water (I think it’s softened water, but my mother can’t quite remember the explanation she was given to use that water for drinking, not her tap water).

When I came back, my mother was already at my brother.

It got…

Interesting.

In the end, what became clear is that my mother still has zero understanding of the thing she did a while back that stubbed my brother in the back, and the year. In fact, she doesn’t seem to remember what she’d done, and isn’t accepting that she is now facing the consequences of her own actions. She also seems to have forgotten that she has already prepaid for her own funeral, years ago – she basically accused us of planning to have her cremated, like the sons of an old neighbour of ours did when their mother passed. She was also going on about all the things my brother should be doing for her when she passes – things he will not have the legal authority to do, once again thanks to her own actions. She pulled every trick in the book. Guilt tripping. Gaslighting. Accusations. She even started calling herself and orphan, because we were trying to explain to her that she was asking for things that could not be done by my brother. She even brought our sister into it, and had some pretty unpleasant things to say about her!

It took some doing, but we eventually got her calmed down and to some semblance of understanding of how things were, not how she thought they were.

Meanwhile, my mother refused to eat the food my brother bought; not even a single piece of chicken. Because she had her Meals on Wheels (some time ago, by then). I ate only a bit, as did my brother, which meant my mother would have enough prepared food for herself, for at least a couple of days. Which is good, because Meals on Wheels is available only three days a week. She seems to be thinking that, because she gets those meals on those days, she shouldn’t need any other food for the rest of the week… because… she needs to slim down???

*sigh*

Finally, my brother said he had to leave, because he still had a long drive and needed to go to work tomorrow.

My mother immediately started to give him a hard time for leaving “so soon”.

*sigh*

I left at the same time and walked my brother to his car – then gave him a huge hug. I think he really needed it by then! He had come, expecting some sort of behaviour like this from my mother. The good thing is that I was there, which tempers her a bit. When he’s there on his own, she is much, much more difficult and downright abusive. I’ve flat out told her, she teats my brother terribly. Her response is always to justify her treat meant of him because she “gave him everything” by signing the farm over to him. She seems to have completely forgotten that this was done so that her will could not be contested by our vandal, and to take a burden off of her. Since my brother was already taking care of everything for her before then, she doesn’t even understand just how much of a burden it was.

*sigh*

No one has done more for my mother than my brother, and she has no understanding of that. Instead, she seems to actually hate him. It breaks my heart to see how much she is hurting him, and she has no clue. None.

*sigh* again.

After that, I was more than happy to come home and just decompress for a while. I still need to go out and water the garden; I’d gone out earlier, and it was still too hot to stay out for that long. I might not actually need to, though. We’re going from a high of 25C/77F – 28C/82F (depending on which app I checked) today, to a high of only 16C/61F tomorrow. Tonight’s low is supposed to be 15C/59F, but tomorrow’s low is supposed to drop to 7C/45F, and then down to 4C/39F the night after. On the weekend, we’re supposed to get a low down to 3C/37F, and then it’s supposed to warm up again. If the garden is going to have any chance to survive, we’re going to have to cover some things, even if there’s no frost.

This morning, I found and hand pollinated more winter squash. If I can find a way to cover that bed, they might survive the colder nights. It’s so unlikely, but I want to give them every possible chance to produce! As for the tomatoes, we’ll probably just have to pick whatever green tomatoes there are, and let them ripen indoors. Except the Spoon tomatoes. They’re so tiny, and have been nice and productive, we’ll probably just leave them be for the season.

We’ll see how it works out.

For now, I’m going to at least enjoy doing my rounds outside, get some fresh air, and get my brain space back to where it should be, instead of constantly going back to all the things my mother was saying today. Just writing about it here actually helps with that. Now that it’s “documented”, it’s easier to let it go.

I just really, really feel for my brother. He deserves so much better than this.

The Re-Farmer

Planned and unplanned outings, and sooo many kittens!

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The morning started out as usual, with the feeding of the yard cats and my morning rounds.

Oddly, I seem to be seeing fewer kittens? I think? Meaning the littles that have been showing up in the past couple of weeks. They tend to hide so quickly, I’m not sure, but it just feels like there are fewer of them. The older kittens are still around, but I just can’t get a handle on how many littles there are.

Even though I’d picked up another 9kg back of kibble for the outside cats recently, we were already running out. I was already scheduled to pick up my mother’s bubble packs and do her grocery shopping today, so I decided I would keep going from her place and hit the Walmart. Plus, my husband is having issues with his cracked tooth that won’t be worked on until the middle of next month. So I wanted to pick up foods that were safer for him to eat.

My younger daughter was able to come along with me, which was nice.

My brother, SIL and their older grandson were staying in their trailer this weekend and were going to be heading back to the city soon after I needed to head out, so we made a quick hello and goodbye visit. My great-nephew will be heading home next weekend, before school starts, so I wanted to make sure we got our hugs in!

My daughter and I got to my mother’s town early enough that the pharmacy wasn’t open yet – but the gas station with the best fried chicken and wedges in town had their chicken ready – so we picked up a meal for my mother boxed up separately, then got some for ourselves to eat in the truck. The truck’s seats are more comfortable than the chairs and tables they have in the station. 😄

We still got to the pharmacy just minutes after it opened. My mother’s bubble packs were ready, and most of it was covered this time, so I had very little to pay for it this time. I’m glad I made sure to pick them up today. When I put them in my mother’s lock box, I checked what was there. She had only enough for this evening, plus tomorrow morning. The pharmacy’s records show she should have had enough to last until Wednesday. However, with so many messed up times with her meds, and her abusive behaviour towards the home care aids for not using the partial packs of meds because they were the wrong days, etc., I have taken a few old partial packs back to the pharmacy. They were required to dispose of the meds, which I haven’t mentioned to my mother, or she’d blow a gasket, but it was that or have her constantly harassing the care aids about them. I’ll have to call the pharmacy tomorrow and talk to them about that. They do the bubble packs on the weekends, and that’s cutting it really close for my mother at this point. Better to have her meds prepared earlier. Normally, she would have had them delivered, but that leaves her medications outside the lock box, and she’s already tried hiding a week’s worth of meds away because she doesn’t trust the home care aids.

When we got to my mother’s, it was still not much past noon. Mass was still going on in the church across the street, but I was able to find parking. I wasn’t sure if my mother would have had the energy to make it to church or not, but thought it was unlikely.

I was right. My mother was home and praying the rosary, with her table all set up in preparation for when someone from the church would come by with communion for her. The interruption of us coming when we did messed her up a bit. Which I totally get. When I’m right into something and get interrupted, the mental shift can actually be physically painful.

My brother had given me a new drip pan specifically for my mother’s model of stove, to replace one she has that is completely rusted out for some reason, so I popped that in for her while she got out her shopping list. It was really short this time! We went over it and I asked a few questions, but she said she was well supplied with everything I remembered to ask about.

She was happy to see my daughter, though, and didn’t make any of her usual rude comments, which was nice.

She told us to take our time because she didn’t want to be interrupted when the guy came with communion, but her list was so short, we were back just as church was letting out. My mother was once again thrown by us coming in when we did. I told her that people were just starting to leave church, so we were quick about putting everything away, and making sure her mild carton was opened for her (the local grocery store no longer has 2L milk in plastic jugs, just cartons, and with my mother’s hands, it’s a real struggle to open a carton). My mother was a bit upset about the rush. She had been expecting me to come later, and had been looking forward to being able to “talk for hours and hours”… ??? Especially since my daughter was with me. So she said, no more Sundays for grocery shopping! Which is fine, but I was there today, on a Sunday, so that she could get her medications before running out!

We were in and out quickly, though, and soon on the road to the Walmart. I didn’t take a photo, but it totaled almost $200. Ouch! We got two 9kg bags of kibble, and a package of XXL (30″x30″) puppy pads, plus some on sale TP. Peanut butter, bananas and bread for my husband at times when no one is available to cook for him, and hot dog wieners/hoagies for times when there is someone to cook for him. He can’t chew “real” meat right now, no matter how tender! We got some water flavour packages for him as well. We remembered to grab a couple of containers of popcorn seasoning, and found a charging cable for my daughter’s older phone with a micro-USB port. After that, it was some cheese mini-croissants to snack on for the ride home, and some $1 chocolate bars for each of us as a treat.

I keep thinking I’m forgetting something, but nope. That list is all it took, to cost almost $200.

Once we got home, it was late enough that, while my daughter put away everything else, I refilled the kibble bin and did the evening cat feeding.

Which brings me to the cuteness!

I’ll actually start with a couple of pictures I got, yesterday.

First, there was this cuddle puddle!

Can you spot the Little in there? One of them has figured out how to climb up to the platform and discovered the cat beds up there. Here, it’s being snuggled by Eyelet on the left, and The Grink on the right.

Can you believe The Grink is about 2 years old? He’s barely bigger than Eyelet!

Then there were this two.

That black kitten was absolutely snuzzling its face into the tabby. This cat bed is in the back of the water bowl shelter.

When opening the door into the sun room to do this morning’s feeding, I found a while pile of kittens – large and small! – waiting right under the threshold, making it very difficult to step through! I need to be careful, as Sir Robin in particular REALLY wants to be inside. He managed to sneak into the house while my older daughter and I were bringing the cured garlic in, after covering the eggplant for the night, and my daughter found him in the kitchen!

Most of the kittens scatter as I step through, but one kitten didn’t. It stayed loafed and moved its head around, as if confused.

It turned out its eyes were stuck shut, so it had no idea what was going on around it!

I finished putting the food out but, when I got back to the sun room, I couldn’t see the stuck eyed kitten. I finished my rounds and tried looking again before heading inside. That’s when I spotted a little white kitten bum through the opening of the new cat cave.

It’s a bit difficult to get close, since it’s in a shelf, and I need to step around food trays and the little plant stand that’s there for the cats to use to get to the platform. I was able to reach in and felt a couple of kittens in there, but managed to get the white butted kitten. Once I got it out, I could confirm it was the one with the stuck eyes. It wasn’t happy, but I was able to get it to the bathroom and into the bathtub to chill a bit, while I ran the hot water in the sink while getting something to wipe its eyes with.

The kitten wasn’t happy about being picked up again, but stopped fighting me once I started washing its eyes. Once both eyes were cleared, it just started up at me for a while. This kitten is mostly white with grey “eyebrows”, like Button, Eyelet and Grommet – but where Button and Eyelet have blue eyes, and Grommet has yellowish eyes, this one has really dark eyes!

Once done, I took it back to the sun room and tucked it back into the cat cave. Then I used my phone’s camera to take a picture and see who else was in there.

Wow!

There were AT LEAST six kittens in there! Including another one that could have used an eye wash. It’s amazing I was able to grab the right kitten right from the start!

That little tabby with white in the foreground… he always looks so furious! 😄

As we were getting ready to head out, I went to open the gate first and spotted this adorableness, under the truck.

This is the garage kitten that will sometimes let me pet him and pick him up.

Still no such progress with his sibling (I’m about 98% sure the smokey one is a female).

Yes, we ALWAYS check the truck before starting it and driving.

After we got back from errands and the evening feeding was done, I did my evening rounds. As I was heading in, I spotted Lady Hypotenose on top of the cat cage… and what was that not far from her?

Oh! Hello!

My goodness, these two have such thick, thick black eyeliner!

Then there was the platform kitten, no longer in a cuddle puddle. I just had to get a picture.

It has claimed that bed for its own!

Last of all, I’ve got two pictures of this adorableness. The second one was taken yesterday.

We already have a cat we call Ink, because she looks like she got into a pot of ink with her mouth and paws. This one also looks like it got into some ink.

We’re debating whether to call it Spot or Blot.

What do you think?

I did try to do a head count of the littles this morning, and I think I counted twelve but, as I mentioned earlier, I’m pretty sure some are “missing”. Especially the ones that showed up in the junk pile by the chain link fence, instead of the sun room or cat shelters by the house. It could be that they’ve been moved on by their mothers, or they simply didn’t happen to be out while I was putting the food out.

The next few weeks will be ones to keep an eye on them. This is the stage where, if they are going to get hit with the local variant of herpes, now will be it. That’s the ones with the leaky eyes, and that’s what did in Kale and, I’m sure, Zipper. This year, though, not all the kittens got it. Poirot’s babies have had zero issues, nor have the outer yard kittens that started out coming to the shrine feeding station (they are now willing to go right into the sun room!). The garage kittens have shown no sign if it, either. It looks like some of the littles are resistant.

From what the Cat Lady told me, that would be because of the lysine we’ve been adding to their food for the past year or two. For the cats that are already struggling with the virus, I’m told it’s “lysine for life”, and if they stop getting the lysine, they can get really sick again. BUT, it benefits the next generation, and they can not need it at all. That’s what I seem to be seeing now, with the littles. In fact, at this point, it seems like more of them are resistant than not.

Still, if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen over the next few weeks. Which means we might start finding losses.

Well, it is what it is, and there’s not much we can do about it, that we aren’t already doing.

The Re-Farmer

[addendum: I was curious as to what WP’s AI image generator would come up with based on the contents of this post.

This is what I got.

What’s with the two headed kittens????]

Short notice shopping, too funny, and kittens, kittens, kittens!

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I got a call from my mother last night.

Her fridge was empty.

I asked if she wanted me to come over today (Sunday) and she said, I could come over to go to church.

So we arranged that I could come over earlier than usual so that I could help her walk over to church (across the street), then do her grocery shopping afterwards.

When I got there this morning, though, my mother said she wasn’t going anywhere. She wasn’t feeling well enough. So we went over her shopping list, instead, and I did that, instead. She was feeling bad enough to take her T3s after I left – something she flat out refused to do, the first time she got them prescribed to her. She was feeling a bit better when I got back. It was a larger than usual shopping trip for her, as she wanted to take advantage of some sales she saw in the flier, too. Extra is always good!

After the shopping was done and everything was put away, I was showing my mother pictures of her great grandsons at the large animal rescue when there was a knock at the door. It was someone from church coming over to give my mother communion, since they saw she wasn’t in church today. My mother was surprised, as she usually calls when she knows she can’t make it. Today was a very last minute change, so she never called. He assured her that if they see she isn’t there, they will make sure he comes over. He mentioned he had two more people to visit after, with one being in the hospital, so she’s not the only person he goes to do communion for. Clearly, he visits her first, since she is so close to the church itself.

I left soon after he did.

This morning, when going my rounds, switching trail cam memory cards and checking on the garden, I picked a small handful of bush beans. Small enough to tuck into my pocket with my memory cards.

When I got to my computer, however, there was only one memory card in my pocket.

Before going to my mother’s, I went out again to pick an ice cream bucket full of crab apples. The big tree with the smaller apples has lots of ripe apples right now. Once I realized the memory card was missing, I back tracked everywhere I went, after I’d switched out the memory card that was now missing. In some areas, like around the crab apple tree, the grass is really tall, but a memory card in its case is light enough and flat enough that I would expect it to just “float” on top of the grass. I even got a daughter to look in the kitchen, in case it fell out of my pocket

Nothing.

After back tracking a couple of times, I left my daughters know it was missing and were it was most likely to be, so they could check while I was gone, then headed out.

Nothing.

After I came back and had a quick lunch, I went to look again.

Nothing.

I was going around the crab apple tree again when I thought of one other possible place it could be.

I had those beans I’d put in my pocket. Could I have accidentally put it in the fridge with the beans? I messaged my daughters to check.

Yup.

I’d accidentally refrigerated the memory card!

Well, at least I was able to pick some crab apples to bring inside. 😄😄

Will all that walking around, I got to see lots of kitties.

First, we have the sun room kittens.

After breakfast, these four in the first picture were soon snuggling together in the bed in the cat cage. The black and white in the second picture seems to prefer under the counter shelf, though I’ve sometimes seen it in the cat cage cuddle puddle, too.

Then there were the garage kittens.

The first picture and the video were taken during the morning feeding. Yes, I was able to pet them all! The only reason the smokey kitten didn’t run off was because it was more hungry than scared.

The last photo was taken just after I got back from my mother’s. As I drove into the garage, the mama jumped down from the riding mower and ran off. I thought I saw some ear tips, though, so after I parked, I went to take a look, and found both kittens sitting on the comfy seat, watching me.

They wouldn’t let me come close, though. I had to take stuff out the passenger side of the truck, which meant going past them, and they both ran off.

Ah, well. At least some progress was made at feeding time!

Then there were the “missing” kittens, which have started to creep out from under the cat house. I don’t know why they won’t go inside the cat house; there are three big comfy beds in there!

A couple of faces were familiar. The tuxedo and the mostly black kitten.

The tuxedo was peaking out at me this morning, and then that tabby in the second photo came out to eat at the tray under the water bowl shelter. I did see other faces peaking out, but not long enough to get photos.

The other pictures were taken after I got back from my mother’s.

That mostly black kitten is pretty much confirmed to be Adam’s baby. But how many does she have? Two? Four?

Six???

There was a mostly white kitten that came out, plus a white and grey, and I knew there was a tabby with white under there somewhere.

Eyelet came over and tried to play with the mostly black kitten. The black kitten did not like that at all!

I also got some short video clips of them, as they got braver and started to come out, even with me standing about 10 feet away.

Once I was at my desktop, I kept looking at that mostly white kitten. I hadn’t seen it by the house before.

Yet, it looked familiar.

So I went looking through my photos from a few days ago. It is confirmed.

That log I put up against the collapsing log building by the fire pit has done its job.

The four kittens that were in there have now moved under the cat house.

From what I can see, it looks like there are six littles under the cat house in total, from two litters. There’s five from two litters in the sun room. That makes eleven littles that have shown up recently.

Then there are the older kittens; the two in the garage, Eyelet, Grommet, Havarti and Sir Robin in the sun room, plus Sprout’s four in the outer yard, making ten older kittens.

The only other litter that I know is still out there is Frank’s babies, born just a few days ago. If they survived. I’m seeing Frank around quite a bit and, so far, I’m not sure if she’s nursing or not. She has been letting me pet her more often lately, but she’s still more semi-feral than socialized. I thought I might have seen some active nips, but she just wouldn’t stay still long enough for me to be sure.

I’m really hoping the large animal rescue can take more kittens, but cats are not their focus. Poirot’s babies are thriving there, but they were already fully socialized, and have no problem with lots of different people, including children, handling them. Feral and semi-feral kittens are not something they are set up for. A horse or a llama or a bunch of beat up chickens, sure, but not unsocialized kittens.

Well, we will do what we can to socialize the newbies, so they at least have a chance to get adopted out. Currently, the most socialized ones are the older sunroom kittens. Sir Robin has his wonky eye and sounds like he has respiratory issues, Eyelet is deaf and Grommet has leaky eyes. Only Havarti has no such issues, and he doesn’t like to be picked up and carried, though he loves pets. Sir Robin would be ideal; he can’t get enough attention from humans! But the chances of a rescue with even minor health problems being adopted are pretty much nil.

It is what it is, and we do the best we can for them. It’s going to be harder once the Cat Lady officially shuts down her rescue.

We’ll figure it out.

The Re-Farmer

Mid month stock up: this is what $178 looks like, plus a very long day.

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It may not be mid month on the calendar yet, but it is for our stock up shopping schedule.

It’s been a very long day.

First up, the cuteness. A really bad, cropped critter cam image, but still cute!

That is Lady Hypotenose, in the wee hours of the night, tending her now five kittens! I saw them on the camera earlier, swirling around her like a vortex, except the new baby, who was hunting nip. I look a couple of minute later and there she was with three of her babies (the fourth one ran out of frame), and her newly adopted baby, nursing them all in the middle of the sun room.

What a good mama!

When I went to feed them this morning, they were all over the place, but when I came back after finishing my rounds, they were all gone! Every one of them! I couldn’t see them anywhere in the sun room!

I went out to check the cat house and various other spots, but nothing.

Then I came back to the sun room and found a single kitten, going for the food. I had no idea where it came from.

So I went into the old kitchen and watched through the door with the missing screen, and spotted a kitten squeeze its way out from under the counter shelf.

*phew* What a relief! I was afraid Lady Hypotenose changed her mind about keeping her kittens in the sun room!

After that, I had a bit of time before I needed to head out to my mother’s, to take her for her doctor’s appointment. She really struggled to use the stool and get into the truck but, unfortunately, this was not an appointment that could be done over the phone.

We were able to go through a whole bunch of things during the appointment, from going over the results of her various blood tests (all is fine), talking about her leg swelling with a dosage change and confirming that yes, she has toe fungus, and getting a prescription for that. My mother brought up her frequent complaint about dry mouth, that happens only when she’s sleeping. I’ve been telling her, she’s probably sleeping with her mouth open. I get it, too, sometimes. So when the doctor asked some questions and came to the same conclusion, my mother was right ticked off!

I think the doctor was ticked off, too – or at least shocked – but not at my mother. I brought up the referral for another mental health assessment, since it’s been more than a year, and home care needs it for paneling my mother for a nursing home. The doctor looked up the last penal report and was shocked it wasn’t enough. She wrote a referral for the assessment, but also wrote a letter to the home care coordinator (I’m glad I keep her business card in my phone case, because she needed the contact information!). I brought up that my mother really shouldn’t be living alone, and my mother added that she is having more trouble moving around and has to lean on furniture to get around he apartment.

I think the case coordinator is going to get a rather brusk letter about my mother’s conditions, and that she needs to be in care.

There were a few other things, some of which I had to explain to my mother as I brought her home. Normally, we would have stopped for lunch or something after the appointment, since we were on the road at lunch time, but with the changes in her prescription, I needed to get her bubble packs to the pharmacy.

My mother was so tired, she actually started to fall asleep during the drive!

Once I got her home, I went through the lock box and took some bubble packs out, leaving the new one that just got started today. My mom will stick to the same dose until that pack is done.

I also found a message from my daughter. The pharmacy had already called me on the land line, wanting to talk to me about my mother’s prescriptions! When I got there, I joked with the pharmacist that they are FAST! They were calling before I even got my mother home, yet!

They took the bubble packs to adjust them, but the new prescription for my mother’s toes as another issue. I was warned right away that it was expensive, while she looked up if it was covered by our province’s prescription insurance.

It wasn’t.

My mother had given me cash, and asked me to get some more Voltaren as well, since she’s using it on both her knees and her back now. Between that and the new prescription, it wasn’t enough, so I paid the balance.

When I got back to my mom’s and went over everything with her, and told her I’d covered about $50, she was furious. This little bottle was $50? she said, as she threw it across the table. No, it cost over $120. The $50 or so was what I covered.

Cue much ranting and raving about how it’s just toes, she didn’t need it, she didn’t want it.

She had been quite happy to get the prescription when we left the doctor’s, but I guess she expected it to be free, just like she did with the inhaler when I covered that for her, too.

It took a while to calm her down and give her the instructions on how to use it.

I suspect she will refuse to use it.

After all that, I was more than happy to leave. I still had my own errands to run at Walmart, since I was out, anyhow.

It had been raining off and on all day, and I even got warnings from home that it was pouring buckets. It wasn’t that heavy where I was, though, so the drive to the Walmart wasn’t too bad. I’m just happy to have the rain. We need it so badly!

Once I got to the Walmart, I could finally have my own lunch, too!

I didn’t have a large list, but it was enough to make the drive to Walmart worth it. Especially when it came to the cat food.

This is what $178.63 looks like.

Yeah. Not much there at all.

The most expensive items were the two bags of kibble, plus a case of wet cat food. I also got a box of pet stain/odour remover, to cat supplies alone were in the $100 range.

My husband requested water flavours, but they had only one flavour of his preferred type/brand, so he got three different types. I also grabbed more distilled water for his CPAP humidifier. He still has a good supply, but it’s a lot cheaper at Walmart, so I got extra.

There’s some coffee creamer for the girls, some cleaning vinegar and facial tissues, some powdered chicken bouillon, and some rye bread. They had an excellent price on corn on the cob, so I picked up a bunch.

And that’s it. That was almost $200

Ouch.

By the time I was heading home, it was late enough in the day that I asked my daughter to feed the outside cats. She tells me that all the kittens, except the two garage kittens, came to the house to eat, and she even got to pet some of the new littles! I’m glad because, by the time I was bringing in more cat food through the sun room, they were almost all hiding again.

The system that gave us all that wonderful rain today has passed us by and it seems like the main body of it will go right over where the huge fire across the lake is. Even with the rain, the air was still smoky. We might get a bit more rain tonight, but just barely.

I actually don’t have any appointments or planned errands for the next couple of weeks! I’m amazed. It’s been so long. Of course, there will be the usual unplanned stuff – trips to the dump, any new calls to cover my mother’s med assists for home care, stuff like that – but I’m otherwise actually going to be able to stay home for the next while!

What an amazing thing. I might actually get some progress done on various projects that had to be set aside!

I think I’ll celebrate by going to bed early.

The Re-Farmer