dealing with pain

A good night, a rough day

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Last night, we were expected to drop to about 17-18C/63-64F

We dropped to 14C/57F

It was glorious. Best sleep I’ve had in a while!

I still headed out early to do the watering, after after the rest of my morning routine. While watering in the old kitchen garden, I decided it was time to remove the insect netting from the rectangular garden bed.

The self seeded poppies had pods pushing up against the nettings from below, as well as some onion seed heads. They are now free to bloom and be pollinated. The parsnip and beet greens are looking nice and lush.

The cats are going to miss their hammock!

While laying the netting out on the grass so I could fold it up to put it away, I spotted a couple of spots where eggs had been laid. When I folded the netting over, I discovered that one of them still had the spider mama on it! She would not move, and stayed clutching the cocoon of eggs.

I ended up folding the netting in such a way that the spider was on top and uncovered, then found a place in the sun room to tuck the netting away that should be safe from having cats climb on it.

Yeah, I’m a suck.

Even for spider mamas and their eggs.

By the time the watering was done, it was almost time for the general store to open, so I headed out right away. The kibble bin in the sun room was pretty much empty after this morning’s feeding, so I needed another 40 pound bag of kibble.

It is so much handier now that the local general store carries that size. Otherwise, I’d be driving to towns with feed stores, to the north or south of us.

Once back home, I had my breakfast and was on the computer when I started having issues. I was starting to fall sleep at my keyboard. Plus, the pain in my lower abdomen was back. So I decided to lie down for a couple of hours.

That seemed to help, but as I was up and about, the pain got worse again. It got so that I could neither stand nor sit properly because of it. So I tried lying down again. I fell asleep again, covered in cats, and after a couple of hours I woke feeling much better.

Until I moved.

All I did was shift a leg to a more comfortable position, and the pain was back. It went away after a while, until I had to move again. Then, just to top it off, I found I had a headache behind my eyes.

*sigh*

In the end, I had to ask a daughter to do the outside cat feeding. I’ve taken pain killers and am hoping to be able to at least do the evening watering, in a couple of hours or so.

On the plus side, we didn’t break 30C/86F again, as was being forecast last night. We “only” hit 28C/82F. The overnight low is supposed to be 18C/64F. The forecast for later in the week has also changed to less extreme highs. For me, I’m mostly looking at Friday, when I take my daughter to the city for her pro-op appointment, and Saturday, when I will be doing the market again. By myself, this time. My daughters have both been invited to a digital wedding on Saturday that they will be “attending”. For our time zone, it will be in the afternoon. It seems the couple live in different countries and are unable to travel, so they are getting “married” in a game, using their game characters as proxies. Obviously, not a legally recognized marriage, but it’s what they are able to do for now.

What a strange world we live in.

Anyhow.

My telephone appointment with my own doctor is next week. I find myself wondering what the next steps will be, if nothing showed up in those ultrasounds. An MRI, perhaps? I don’t know, but something is very wrong, and it’s causing problems. This started out as a side effect from anti-inflammatories I am no longer taking. While the initial side effect is almost non-existent now, it hasn’t gone away completely, and the pain has gotten worse. It’s gotten to the point that my husband, broken and in constant pain as he is, looks at me and comments on what bad shape I’m in, and that I’m moving around worse than he is!

Speaking of which, my husband finally broke down and placed an order for a new chair. An ergonomic, bariatric chair that he could potentially use as a sleep chair, if it ever came to that. Putting one more thing on his credit card is not something we wanted to do, but we were supposed to get it when our tax return came in, and that mess still hasn’t been sorted out. The new disability tax credit paperwork got sent in a while ago, and he did check off the box giving permission for them to go over his previously filed taxes, and that takes time. He should at least get the tax credit that didn’t come in this last time. Who knows, though. He was officially on long term disability back in 2014, and we didn’t know the tax credit even existed back then. We only found out about it after going to a different tax preparer a few years back, and she had asked me why he wasn’t getting it. She was able to set him up on it, right then and there, and set me up for the caregiver tax credit – something else we didn’t know existed.

Meanwhile, the chair he’s got now is breaking and unsafe, and this is a medical necessity. Perhaps not the specific type of chair. I suppose he could have gotten a prescription for a chair from his doctor, but that would just had more time, and he can’t really put it off for much longer. The chair he ordered should arrive before the end of the month. That’s the most important thing.

All four of us dealing with painful health issues, all at the same time, was not something any of us thought would happen, that’s for sure!

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: peas, gooseberries and volunteers

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Last night turned out to be a rough night for all of us. No one got much sleep at all. We couldn’t even blame the heat for it, as we had a decently cooler night.

In my case, when I finally fell asleep, I was down so hard, I never even heard a cat knock a display off a shelf, onto the floor. Ghosty, for some reason, has been determined to climb up onto the shelf, through or over the display shelf, to jump down the other side, rather than simply walk on the floor to get to the same spot. It’s an ongoing problem, and she only does it when I’m asleep! I discovered it when I had to get up to go to the washroom and had to pick everything up, just to be able to get to my door.

*sigh*

I was outside, feeding the outside cats and doing my morning rounds early enough that I could go back to bed for a few hours.

Well… I tried to, that is. Didn’t actually get much sleep, again. I didn’t put the display shelf back again, figuring it was just an invitation to disaster, which meant half a dozen cats all wanted to explore the now empty top of the shelf it rested on.

Loudly.

Eventually, I gave up and headed out to get the mail and pick up a few things, including a 40 pound bag of kibble for the outside cats. Later in the afternoon, my older daughter joined me and I found out her night was bad, too. She has her pre-op appointment booked next week, but she’s considering finding the doctor’s phone number to talk about increasing her meds again. The girls and I had plans to do a deep clean of several rooms today, but with how we’re all feeling, it’s going to have to happen piecemeal, over several days.

Towards the end of the afternoon, I headed out to do the evening cat feeding and rounds. I was coming about to go to the isolation shelter when I realized there was a cat inside, watching me.

It was Sweetie! She actually was willing to go into the isolation shelter again!

She took off when she saw me walking towards the shelter, but at least we know she’s coming closer for food, and willing to go into the space she spent so much time in, before going to the rescue.

I saw Slick this afternoon, too.

Slick is no longer pregnant. *sigh*

She’s lost two litters this year. It’ll take time before we know if this one survived.

No sign of the one kitten I spotted not long ago, still. Hopefully, it will start showing up at the furthest food bowls, and we can start working on socializing it, or at least getting it comfortable with coming to the house for food and shelter.

After the cat feeding, I watered the south garden beds from the rain barrel. We’re not expecting rain again for almost 2 weeks, and it’s supposed to get above 30C/86F on the weekend. After today, I’ll be making a point of trying to get outside early, before the heat hits, to water the garden. On the plus side, the water table is high enough that I don’t need to water any of the trees and berry bushes. It’s only the garden beds that drain and dry out quickly, even if there are still puddles in the lower areas.

In the old kitchen garden, I actually did a tiny harvest.

The Tom Thumb Dwarf peas had pods large enough to pick. Or should I say, thick enough. They are not at all large, just like the plants themselves!

We have some volunteers in the wattle weave bed.

Next to the peas are three self seeded tomatoes. They won’t have time to reach full maturity, but I’m leaving them be, anyhow.

In the next image of the above slide show, growing along the edge by the path along the wattle weave bed, there are a few self seeded chamomile, including one that has started blooming!

After the south beds were done, I watered the main garden area, too, though with a hose. One of these days, I’d like to set up a water tank so that the main garden area can be watered with ambient temperature water, rather than from a hose. By the time it’s done, the well water is so cold, it can shock the plants.

With that watering done, I went to check on the food forest trees and bushes, and spotted something that made me smile.

We have gooseberries!

They are unripe and still rock hard, but we have them!

Unfortunately, by the time I was finishing up, I was starting to have pain issues. It seems to kick in after I’ve done a fair bit of walking. It’s almost at the point where I’m wondering if I should go to the ER or something. My own doctor is away right now and we have a phone appointment booked for when she gets back, but if this keeps up, I might have to find an alternative. There are no urgent care clinics out here. We don’t even have any walk in clinics any closer than my doctor’s clinic, so the ER would be pretty much the only other option. If I did that, I would expect to spend many hours in the waiting room, since I would not be an “urgent” case. At least the diclofenac works, though it can take a while to kick in. When the pain hits, it doesn’t matter if I’m sitting, standing or lying down.

Oddly, while talking to my older daughter and describing where the pain it, it’s almost identical to the pain she is having! Hers is worse in other ways, given what the cause is for her.

Ah, well. Nothing much either of us can do about it right now. I don’t even have a diagnosis, and I won’t until I talk to my doctor. Even then, that would only be if the ultrasounds actually found something.

Still, I’m managing to at least get outside and get at least a few things done. I’m quite excited that we have our first gooseberries since getting planting that bush. It brings back memories. We had a gooseberry bush here when I was a kid and I used to love eating them fresh off the bush. In retrospect, I was eating them under ripe, but I loved that sour taste. I did taste one of the biggest gooseberries today. It was pretty nasty! 😄 They still have a ways to go before they are edible!

On my list of things to get done in the garden over the next while, along with loosening up the area near the corn bed and sowing tillage radishes, it’s getting time to uncover the corn and put a mulch down around them. Right now, there are a lot of weeds and I’ve been leaving them, since they are acting a bit like a living mulch right now. We’ll see what I manage to get done over the next while. If the yards dry out enough, I might be mowing, instead. That, at least, shouldn’t trigger the pain levels like walking does.

Being broken really sucks sometimes!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden, and a general update

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We were expecting a very hot day today, so I was up early to water the garden thoroughly before things got too hot – even though we have rain in the forecast. Depending on which app I check, we’ll either get rain or thunderstorms. Just before I started writing this, our phones started going off with tornado warnings, but it looks like the system will be passing to the north of us. We might get some rain from the edges of it. We did hit 31C/88F today. As I write this, past 7pm, we are at 28C/82F right now, with the humidex making it feel like 30C/86F.

After I did the morning cat feeding (with some cats very confused by the early hour!) and garden watering, I went back to bed. I must have been really beat because I slept for about 3 hours, checked the time, then passed our for another 2 hours.

Unfortunately, today has turned out to be a bad pain day, and not just for me. My daughter somehow ended up getting a sun burn yesterday, even though she was in the shade most of the day. I’ve been getting so much sun since it got warm enough to work outside longer, I don’t get burned, though apparently I’m quite the redneck right now. 😄 Meanwhile, my other daughter has had increased health issues again. Her pre-op appointment in the city is a couple of Fridays from now – the day the bin my brother is renting is supposed to be delivered! My younger daughter will have to stay home so she can meet them and tell them where to drop the bin off.

Aside from the pain related to why I got those ultrasounds done, my left hip has decided to start working wrong again. Not a lot of pain there. The joint just isn’t moving right and wants to give out.

I am so thankful for all the arm bars and hand rails that were installed for my father, all those years ago!

Eventually, though, I did head outside. I had to use the walker for it, but I set up the new deer scarer my brother picked up for me.

I’ve set this one up by the corn, which is going to need the netting removed from it pretty soon. I set the other one up by the peas to keep the deer away with the sound of a dog barking. With this one, I expect raccoons to be more of an issue, and I set it to the ringing of a bell, since I think raccoons would get used to the sound of a dog barking very quickly.

Once that was set up, I wandered around and checked on various things. In the next image in the slide show above, you can see some chard leaves. These are planted between the garlic and are finally starting to grow! Still pretty much nothing on the spinach in the other row; what little germinated and survived promptly bolted. It does look like we will at least have some Swiss Chard for greens this year.

In the next image, we have a red nasturtium flower. The seeds I collected were from a package with a variety of colours in it, and so far we’ve had yellow and red. They are still quite small, but adding that straw mulch once they got big enough has really helped.

Next is the row of summer squash. Those are picking up quite nicely. The plan is to grow them vertically, but I’ll need to remove the netting to do that, and they still need that protection for now.

The last picture is of the fennel and chicory. They’ve had a bit of a growth spurt! Unfortunately, some of the fennel at the end of the bed got flattened. Stinky found his way under the netting and I found him lying there. I opened the netting up at the other end, so as not to spook him, then moved to scoot him in that direction. Instead, he panicked and started running into the netting over and over before I finally got him to go out the open end. *sigh* He didn’t do too much damage, at least. We added more rods to the hoops over the fennel and it’s getting so tall, it’s almost touching the top of the netting again!

We just got another tornado alert on our phones while I was writing the above paragraph. While that is passing to the north of us, our region and the entire south end of the province are currently under a severe thunderstorm watch this evening and overnight. The warning includes 4-6cm (about 1.5-2.5in) hail, 50-70mm (about 2-3in) of rain and wind gusts up to 100km/h (about 62m/h). For us, we’re to expect rain starting around 4am tonight and lasting until about 10am.

We are definitely not going to be hit with the worst of it, for which I am thankful, but my heart hurts for the people that have been slammed by these storms, over and over again.

The Re-Farmer

Really??? It’s almost July!

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Talk about fluctuations!

Yesterday, I was seeing the forecast for last night’s lows change from 4C/39F to 6C/43F, though that changed with which app I looked at, too.

This morning, I woke at about 4:30am, and this is what I found…

We dropped to 2C/36F.

That’s a “cover your plants, there might be frost” temperature.

Today, we’re supposed to reach highs of 23C/73F and an overnight low of 8C/46F.

We’re in the last week of June.

I just took a look at the historical data. Our average low for today’s date, since 1951, is 12C/54F. The record low of 1C/34F was set in 1958. We almost matched the record low!

Needless to say, I was concerned about our cold sensitive plants, like the melons, squash and eggplant.

It was a couple more hours before my daughter and I did the outdoor cat feeding. They are such a mob in the mornings, since the adults have discovered the cat soup we’ve been making for the littles, it’s gotten quite necessary to have two people doing it. For the kittens, I mash up a couple of cans of wet cat food, add enough hot water to make it very thin, then add dry kibble. That gets divided up among a whole bunch of bowls. Those then sit so the kibble can absorb most of the liquid while I go out with a the dry kibble bowl. That gets distributed in many areas, so that even the shiest of ferals can have breakfast.

The first challenge is just getting out the doors into the sun room. Once both doors are open, there’s a crowd of kittens right under the threshold, making it very difficult to step down without stepping on a cat or kitten. Poirot’s 3 are particularly eager to jump up onto the threshold to go into the old kitchen, so closing the doors behind me is also hard to do without hurting kittens diving into the space.

Once the sun room door – the storm door with the missing screen in the window – it closed, it is safer, though I still have to wade through swirling cats and kittens. They are very hungry, by this time! Some of them actually start fighting, so I try to get food spread out for them as fast as I can.

There are kibble trays in the sun room, the shelter shelf just outside the door, the kibble house, under the shrine and in the open isolation shelter. I also put some out on the cat house roof, in a tray on the well cap, the patio blocks outside the sun room, inside the catio and on the front step.

A number of adult cats, however, know that the warm cat soup is coming out next, so they hang around the sun room door, instead of going to the kibble bowls. Kittens are also milling around, so I try to scoop them into the bowl I used to carry the kibble and get them into the sun room.

Then my daughter starts handing me the kitten food bowls through the screenless window.

I try to put a couple of two sided bowls into the cat cage and get Poirot’s babies into there. Poirot usually joins, as well and, if I can snag them, one or two of the bigger kittens. The Grink, who is still very tiny, will jump into the cat cage and push away the kittens, if we don’t act fast! I set some bowls in one of the larger kibble trays on the floor before starting to take the rest, outside. This morning, I had to actually chase most of the adult cats out of the sun room and close in the kittens, so they could eat without being bowled over by bigger cats, while taking more bowls of cat soup outside. Several go into the water bowl shelter, one or two into the entry of the cat house, or wherever the kittens are. While going back and forth, I was able to snag all the bigger kittens – even Havarti, who did not want to get got! – and put them in the sun room, where they could eat their fill with only Magda to contend with. Magda is so small, my daughter mistook her for a bigger kitten, at first!

That done, I was finally able to do my morning rounds. While switching out memory cards on the gate came, I spotted Adam, making her way down the driveway towards the house. I have not been seeing her as often, and I think she may have had a later litter of kittens somewhere. She’s so fluffy, we can’t tell if she’s pregnant or nursing. I’m still 99% sure that one stillborn kitten we found in the cat house, about the time Brussel had her two in the sun room, was Adam’s.

Of course, while doing my rounds, I carefully checked for cold damage in the garden. This is where I think our cat protection and water conserving measures actually helped. The melons and winter squash all have their plastic collars around them, which would have protected them at least a bit. Even the tomatoes, which are much taller, would have had some protection. A lot of other things we have growing right now are more tolerant of colder temperatures. Eggplants and peppers are no, but they are in the wattle weave bed, and that little garden is more sheltered in general.

Everything seems undamaged, though it might take a day or two before we can be sure.

So that’s a relief, for now.

Once done my rounds, I opened the sun room to allow free access again. I couldn’t see most of the kittens – I think most of them were playing under the counter shelf – but I did spot this cutie.

Eyelet is big enough to discover how to climb up to the platform above the cat cage. That meant, he got to enjoy a cat bed, all to himself!

As for today, if all goes well, my younger daughter and I will be loading up the truck for a trip to the dump, then to pick up another birthday take out courtesy of my older daughter. We’re all so busted up right now, no one is up to doing any cooking!

Doing the first stock up shop in the city tomorrow is going to be… interesting.

The Re-Farmer

Chilly

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Today is definitely working out to be a chilly day. Depending on what app I look at, we are at either 1C, 0C or -1C! (34F, 32F or 30F). We’re supposed to reach a high of 5C/41F by early evening, but that’s also when the high winds are supposed to hit us, too.

Yesterday’s high pain day did lead to a high pain night, and these fluctuating temperatures sure don’t help. Part of the problem is that a lot of my pain actually gets worse after I lie down. Particularly with my hips. Along with my prescription pain killers (which are working even less than the first ones my doctor tried me on), I had to get my husband to slather on the Tei Fu lotion before I could finally fall asleep. With the cool and overcast conditions we have now, I feel like I could crawl back into bed right now and sleep for another week.

*sigh*

While doing my morning rounds, I tried to get a picture of the littles in the cat house.

It’s through a window, zoomed in and cropped, so a pretty terrible picture, but you can at least see the two littles in there, in the cat bed under the ceramic heat bulb.

In the sun room, the little black and white kitten almost managed to climb all the way out of the cat cage! I managed to snag him for cuddles before he did, then distracted him with wet cat food pieces I’d put into their cat bed. Once he figures out he can get out on his own, it’ll be pretty hard to keep them in there! At that point, I’ll unblock the opening under the doorway, so they can get in and out freely. There is currently a stuffy in front of the opening, and the “door” is hanging down over it on the outside. I’ll set something to hold the door panel away from the opening.

With the cooler temperatures, we’ll be staying inside for the most part, but I really want to get the one garden bed with the sprouts covered. When I checked on it this morning, there were fresh signs of digging in it. Not in areas where sprouts are coming up, thankfully, but seeds are spread out pretty evenly in this bed, so any digging at all is potentially killing things off.

My goal for today is now to pot up the peppers, tomatoes and eggplant. I am thinking we may have to start using the portable greenhouse, as even with the lights, the basement set up is just not cutting it anymore. The thermometer in the greenhouse was at just below freezing when I checked it this morning.

In theory, we could put things in the portable greenhouse during the day, then bring them into the sun room overnight. We do have the platform and shelves. The problem is, it’s still set up for the cats to use. We could move things around, but I still think the cats would end up knocking things about, or even walking right over them. They don’t deliberately try to get at the pots. It’s more a matter of them getting from point A to point B, and just going through whatever is in their way at the time. We’ve got to figure something out, though.

But first, we’ve got to get the seedlings transplanted.

In other things, I remembered to book a telephone appointment for my mother with her doctor to go over the blood tests and Xrays results. I was surprised when the receptionist asked if I wanted to book the call for today, but that would have been way too short notice for my mother. So I booked it for tomorrow morning. I then called to let my mother know, but it went to machine. She might have been out voting. Today is election day, and they set a mobile poll up in her building for people like my mom, who can’t get to the regular polling station. We voted at the advance polls, already, just in case something came up today. Of course, we’re already hearing about all sorts of election shenanigans going on. Ballot boxes from the advance polls are supposed to be kept sealed at a secure location. Just this morning, I was watching a video someone took. The guy happened to go shopping at a store next to the polling station and surreptitiously recorded ballot boxes being loaded into personal vehicles. One guy had opened the ballot box and was rifling through it. The guy taking the recording ended up following the vehicle, and the boxes were taken to someone’s home. He even questioned the people doing in, but thinks they figured he might be recording. They claimed they were moving the boxes to a secure location, which was obviously not true.

Meanwhile, in BC, people working in remote locations are told they are not going to be able to vote. For these jobs, people get flown in to work for 2 weeks, then flown out for 1 week off. They come from all over the country to work these very high paying jobs in the energy sector. Normally, they would be bussed to the nearest town to vote on election day. It’s been done this way for many years. Only a couple of days ago, they were told that, because they didn’t live in that town, they wouldn’t be able to vote there.

A lot of people going to advance polls told of polling stations running out of ballots (which should never happen), and being given blank pieces of paper and told to write in the person they wanted to vote for. This morning, I watched an interview with a couple of seniors that had a mobile polling station, like at my mother’s building – but it came on Thursday (the advance polls closed on Monday night). They didn’t have ballots, and the “scrutineers” offered to write in the names of who they wanted to vote for, for them. The women even saw them “help” one of their neighbours vote, and this was someone with cognitive decline that they knew would not have had any idea who she was voting for. Another example of shenanigans was in the riding for Opposition and CPC leader, Pierre Poilievre. The ballots had 90 candidate names running against him! There are only 16 registered parties for the federal election, and most of those do not have enough candidates to be in all ridings. The candidates are listed in alphabetic order by surname, so Poilievre’s’ name would have been in the middle somewhere. All this is on top of the RCMP report that the CCP has been actively working to influence the election results (the guy the Libs installed as the new leader and, by default, the current PM, has borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from the CCP). The Governor General (who is supposed to be a neutral representative of the Crown, and was chosen by the Liberal party) approved millions of dollars to the Libs not long ago, even though Parliament is shut down for the election, so there was no debate to approve it and no one knows what the money was for. Etc. We’ve got the most corrupt government in Canada’s history, and now what is obviously the most corrupted federal election in our history. The only thing we can do is hope enough people get out and vote, to make it too big to rig. It’s blatantly obvious, in spite of the government paid polls saying otherwise, that the Libs can’t win. If they do, Canada will fall apart; everyone knows it would not be a legitimate win. Alberta has been ready to separate for years. Thanks to Quebec threatening to separate for so many decades, this is one thing that is relatively simple. A referendum is held, and all that’s needed is a simple majority. If AB goes, SK will soon follow. BC and MB would, too, except both currently have NDP leaders, and they are hand in glove with the Libs, so as much as the population would want to, the leadership is unlikely to actually act on behalf of their own citizens. Unlike other parties, there’s no real separation between provincial NDP and federal NDP. Even Ontario is talking referendum. Northern ON is getting very tired of being screwed over by more populous southern regions.

Personally, I am going to ignore the media for the day as much as possible, and not check in until evening. With our first past the post system, the election will be decided by the East well before the polls close in the West. Another frustration. Canada needs something like the US Electoral College. It’s one thing to vote for your local representative. Is should be something else to vote for the PM. Right now, leader of whatever party gets the most elected MPs because leader by default. No one votes for the PM in Canada. We currently have 343 ridings, so what we really have is 343 independent elections, all on the same day. I fully expect that the Conservatives will win by a landslide, but that Marx Carnage will somehow get reinstalled as PM anyhow. Lord knows, the media has been priming us for a Liberal “win” for weeks now. The psychological manipulation and behavioural modification has been out in full force. What gets me is that it’s so blatant, and so few people care. They seem quite happy to be manipulated.

Well, what happens, happens. We’ll figure it out when the time comes.

I’m going to go tend to my seedlings now.

The Re-Farmer

Who dat chonky boi?

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This afternoon, I glanced out my window and saw a stranger.

I think.

This Big Boi was loafed in a sun spot against the old garden shed. To get the photo, I had to zoom in through three layers of glass and Lexan in my window. I’m actually surprised I got as good a photo as I did! 😄😄

I don’t know that I recognize this cat. We have a lot of similar tabbies, which always makes is harder to tell, but this particular beast seems unusually chonk for an outside cat!

There is that distinctive slash of white fur through the black line running along the side of his nose. That’s the only thing that seems at all familiar to me. This may be a cat that has returned for the winter. Chances are, if I go through my old photos, looking specifically for that distinctive marking, I might find him there.

I just got back from doing the last outside feeding of the day, and did not see him among the other cats, though. Perhaps he is a visitor from one of the neighboring farms.

In other things, I’ve had a pretty non-productive day. I had a very interrupted night, so very little sleep, and was in a lot of pain in the morning. I got the outside cats fed with their warm, softened kibble, then took some pain killers and tried to go back to bed.

That didn’t work any better than last night.

I did eventually get some inside stuff done, at least. We have another batch of mostly San Marzano tomatoes that are ripened, so I went through those to pick out any of the damaged ones that started to go bad, then set the rest to soak in some vinegar water. I’ll set up the slow cooker for the night to make another sauce. We have plenty in the fridge right now, so this will be for the freezer. There are still green tomatoes in the old kitchen, and I’m still regularly picking out the ones that are starting to show a blush and setting them in one container. Once it’s full, I’ll bring them to the living room to finish ripening.

Mostly, though, today has been another enforced day of rest. Which, I suppose, is not a bad thing. Today was a bit cooler, and there was a smattering of snow on the ground in the morning. The next two days will be warmer, so that will be a good time to get outside and get some more stuff done before winter really sets in.

All in all, we’re having a very lovely and mild November. Last year was a mild fall, too, but around this time last year, well…

… we were missed by a storm, but did get quite a snowfall!

So I am really appreciating the temperatures we’re having right now – and the lack of snow!

Even if these temperature fluctuations are brutal on my arthritis!

The Re-Farmer

I guess I wasn’t done, after all!

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But I at least got some rest, first.

I saw my daughter on the garage cam, trying to cut her way through a snow drift in front of one side of the garage that didn’t need to be cleared. It was so deep, she had to use a shovel to cut into it before little Spewie could do its job. When I cleared the area in front of the garage, I hadn’t made a wide enough turn radius, so when we headed into town and I tried backing the truck out of the garage and turning into the driveway, I couldn’t back up far enough to clear a corner of the drift I’d left behind.

So I quickly took some painkillers, bundled up and headed outside, grabbing the snow shovel along the way.

After talking to her for a bit to explain that only the one edge of the drift needed to be cleared, not the whole thing, I stayed out to help. The area in front of the garage was drifted over even deeper than when I cleared it yesterday, and it wasn’t light and fluffy, like in the yard! To top it off, my daughter could maneuver Spewie only in certain directions without the wind blowing the snow right back into her.

For the next while, we had a routine. I’d use the shovel to break up the snow along the edge she’d just cleared, then rested while she cleared the area I broke up. Once she did a pass, she’s drag the snow blower back towards the garage, then she could rest while I broke up the next area of snow.

We kept this up until we cleared a decent sized area, far enough to clear that section of drift that I’d hit, then my daughter started making the first cut through the snow to the gate. While she did that, I started working on the turning radius space that she couldn’t get into with Spewie. After a while, though, she stopped and asked if I could help her out. In order to not trip the power bar by overtaxing the snow blower, she was doing a lot of slow back and forthing, while dragging the extension cord behind her. She kept stepping on the cord as she backed up, so I helped by simply following along, holding the cord off the ground behind her, moving back and forth with her, while also pulling more slack from the garage along the way. My daughter had the cord slung over her shoulder, so this ensured she never had to have the cord pulling at her as she went along. We have 100′ extension cords, and we need to use both to reach the end of the driveway – roughly 150-160′, I’d say. Dragging that behind you can get pretty “heavy”.

As we got closer to the gate, I was trying to see if the road had been plowed, but was very perplexed by what I was seeing. Everything was so glaring white, I just couldn’t make things out until we get closer.

I was seeing a mountain of snow, blocking the end of our driveway.

It was easily the worst plow ridge we’ve had left across our driveway, in the 7 winters we’ve seen since moving out here! Not even when we were snowed in for a month, did the plow leave behind a ridge so high!

Once we reached the gate and my daughter stopped to unlock it, I went back to get the snow shovel, and a metal shovel to break up ridge. The snow shovel is plastic and already has a crack in it, so I didn’t want to use that to break up the plow ridge.

Then I clambered over the ridge to start working on it from the road side, first. I quickly realized that, even if Spewie were powerful enough to clear the ridge (which it isn’t, even if I broke it up, first), the snow was so full of gravel, we couldn’t have done it, anyhow. Spewie’s parts are plastic, so the gravel would have completely wrecked it.

Check this out.

It’s hard to see, with everything so white, but that plow ridge reached to over halfway up my thigh. I had to use both shovels to steady myself, just to climb over it.

You can get a better idea of how tall it was in this next photo.

I’d cleared about half of the ridge at this point.

The thing is, it isn’t enough to clear enough space to fit the truck through. There needs to be a turning radius, of course, but we also need enough space to get in and out of the truck to open and close the gate.

It’s a good thing I enjoy shoveling.

By the time I mostly cleared the ridge, my daughter was almost done the rest of the driveway. She even cleared a path to the trail cam for me, while I got the last bit done, and she could finish her pass and turn around.

While she did her last pass, I went back to working on the turning radius by the garage. I hope I got the range right. It was actually faster for me to use a shovel to clear the space than it took for my daughter to cut her way through the last section of driveway with Spewie, so I just kept on clearing until we finally caught up with each other.

Once everything was put away and my daughter brushed the snow and ice off of Spewie, we were more than happy to hobbler our way inside. I’m thankful for the longer daylight hours, because it was already starting to get dark by the time we were done!

My husband, sweetheart that he is, has offered to order take out pizza for tonight. Once I’m done writing this, I need to decide if I’m up for the drive. Not that I can eat pizza during Lent, but they might have something on their menu I can have, instead.

What do I feel more up to? Cooking, or driving?

I think driving might just win.

The Re-Farmer

Still messed up

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Well, I really did a number on my right rotator cuff yesterday. I can’t raise my arm at all in two directions, with limited mobility in other directions.

During the night, I heard a commotion on my craft table and discovered Ginger peeing on it. Getting up to chase him off was quite difficult, and I ended up having to put weight on the injured arm. By the time I was done getting him off and cleaning the mess, I was in a cold sweat and feeling ready to throw up.

Yes, I did take painkillers. In fact, I went so far as to take one of my husband’s prescription pain meds.

It made no difference at all.

After a couple more hours of attempted sleep, things have improved. I will probably need to see a doctor, but I’m not sure where to go. I don’t really have one, and my interim doctor isn’t in the clinic on Fridays, anyhow. I really don’t want to spend hours waiting in an emergency room, either.

My daughters are taking shifts to be available to help me. My younger daughter has the day shift. She fed and watered the outside cats and tried to do a head count. She counted about 20 or so, which has been typical for our warmer days of late.

My daughter is cooking breakfast for me now, so I will have to de-cat myself and get up. I have been trying to at least lie down, if not sleep. Oddly, lying on my left side has been more painful, and not just because of my arthritic hip. I just can’t find a good position for my right arm that doesn’t strain the joint. Lying on my right side, I can at least find a position that supports the shoulder, rather than strains it.

I really, really don’t want to go to a doctor.

The Re-Farmer

Got it done

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My husband and I needed to head out today, so I made sure to get his walker through the sunroom doors for him before bringing the truck over. Going through the sunroom eliminates stairs, but there are still thresholds and different levels of sidewalk blocks that make it harder for him.

The cats love his walker!

Our trip today was to the bank. It’s amazing how much difference having a car payment has already made to our credit scores. While I was able to get a low limit credot card (though I was approved for more), it was for naught, since this financing company would only use my husband’s income, rather than a generic “household income”. While we were going through all the financing battle, my husband tried applying for a credit card online, to rebuild his credit rating, as I was doing.

He was instantly turned down.

After only 2 months of car payments, when he tried again, not only was he approved, but approved for a limit twice what I was approved for!

One thing was different from my getting my card, though. He couldn’t have it mailed directly to him. It was sent to the nearest bank branch (we never switched our home branch after the move, as there was no need). He needed to show two pieces of ID to claim it.

He still does not have photo ID for this province. They would not accept the name he has always used as his given name, since it did not match his birth certificate. Never mind that they still had his old driver’s license data on file with the name he uses. Or that all his other ID has the name he uses. While we lived in another province, the rules changed here because of identity theft. It took me months to get my ID done. For my husband, they told him he would need to do a legal name change.

In the end, we found he didn’t, and what he needed to get his ID, but he simply could not handle the pain while being made to wait, etc. So he never went back.

Which means he was expecting to have issues today.

He was right.

The funny thing, though, is they accepted his expired driver’s license from the other province with no problem. It was still on file! Finding a second ID their system would accept took a bit longer, but they did eventually figure oit their system could accept birth certificates.

That done, he could activate the card, but still needed to use the card, using the chip rather than tap, first.

After deciding he was up to the trip, we went to the nearer city and Walmart, to pick up more cat food. The 8 bags I picked up at Costco, just a couple weeks ago, were pretty much gone. There was still some for the inside cats, but the bin for the outside cats had enough for today, and that’s it.

I counted 37 yard cats this morning, do… yeah. We go through a lot of cat food. Especially since it’s winter. The inside cats need far less.

We got another six bags. There was only one 11kg bag on stock, so the rest were 9kg bags.

The 11kg bag actually cost a couple dollars less than the 9kg bags.

So the whole thing cost over $200 – before taxes!

Thankfully, we got a donation, plus my daughter will be transferring funds as soon as PayPal does its thing for her.

At least we have a break at the gas pump. Our province is temporarily stopping tax collection on fuel right now. Regular gas prices are now around 115.9 or 116.9 cents per litter. Someone local on FB posted the Costco price right now. 99.9! It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen a gas price under a dollar per liter, even if it is just 0.1 cents.

By the time we got home, though, my husband’s pain levels were getting really bad.

Not as bad as they could have been, thanks to the truck! He’s able to tolerate noticeably more travel in it!

I’m so happy we were able to get that truck!

The Re-Farmer

I’ll likely pay for this, tomorrow!

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After taking a break, I went back to the mowing, planning to stop when I ran out of the third refill on gas.

I didn’t quite make it. Just too tired! Working through that super tall grass involved a lot of back and forth-ing, and at times, the bag would be full within just 3 or 4 feet. It felt like I spent more time emptying the bag than mowing. I definitely spent more time trudging to the main garden area to dump the clippings than mowing. I did get all the necessary mulching done, though, and have been working on a second pile of clippings.

Once everything was put way, it was time to feed the outside cats, so I took care of that, too. Which is when I spotted these guys.

At first, it was just the one mostly white kitten at the food bowl, then the other three emerged from under the spirea. You can just barely see the black and white one on the other side of not-Junk Pile’s front leg.

That other white and grey one has really distinctive markings on one side! The other side is pretty much all white.

I’ve seen these kittens in a group of 6, but I think this litter is just the 4 of them. I think the other two are from another litter, but I have no idea who the mama might be.

From the size of the kitten I saw with Brussel, I think we’ll be seeing those ones around the kibble bowls too, pretty soon!

I was pretty tired when I finally came in, but it was after I’d sat for a while and had supper that I realized I will probably paying for today’s progress. My entire body stiffened up to the point that I could barely walk when I finally got up again. Yes, I did take pain killers, but it wasn’t pain that was giving me trouble. My joints just didn’t want to move! Of course, the only way to take care of that is to force them to move until the limber up again, but until that happens, I’m hobbling and lurching around like a broken automaton.

I keep telling myself to go to bed early, so I can get an early start on the day, only to find myself still up at 2 or 3 in the morning. Or awakened around that time by cats. Decimus is wandering around more often when her kittens are asleep, and that sets Marlee of into continue snarling and growling. Decimus just ignores her.

Now that the mats are trimmed off of her, and most of her fur is gone, we’re getting to see what an incredibly tiny cat Decimus is! Small in stature, but also very thin. I’m hoping that having a kibble bowl right next to her and her kittens, plus regular wet cat food, will get her filling out soon. I don’t think she’s going to grow any larger in size, though. She would be about a year and a bit old right now, and should be at her adult size.

I see the other cats have been fussy again, and didn’t eat much of their share of the wet cat food. More for Decimus, later! 😄

Okay. Time to pain killer up and try to get some sleep!

The Re-Farmer