dealing with vehicles

Being watched!

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Before heading outside to do my morning rounds, I could see we had a deer at the feeding station outside our living room window, digging around in the snow, looking for seeds. I could also see another deer through our kitchen window, just outside the chain link fence into the inner yard, nuzzling around the snow, looking for something.

I’m not sure what. It was standing were we unload the van, now that we can’t drive into the yard, but we didn’t drop anything there.

I expected to spook it away when I came out to feed the critters. Which I did – but not as much as usual!

The deer ran into the yard through the vehicle gate, then followed the shovelled path the back of the garage, then up to the compost pile.

It was a very casual sort of run.

I did find it amusing, how dedicated it was in following the shoveled paths, instead of running straight through the yard!

The shoveled path turns towards the house from the compost pile, but the deer just stopped and stayed there.

Watching me, as I took care of the cats’ food and water. Even when I walked across to the kibble tray under the shrine, it stayed, watching me!

It wasn’t until I came towards it, carrying the container of feed, that it and the other deer ran into the bushes.

Well. More like a fast walk than a run.

Then they watched from from the trees for a while, as I went around the house. They did take off before I reached the feeding station and scattered the feed, but I didn’t see them actually leave the yard. Usually, they take off running, jump the fence, then cross to my younger brother’s property, across the road.

These two are definitely getting used to my moving around the yard a lot more!

The cats were happy for a kibble top up. :-)

Butterscotch and Nozencrantz continue their recovery in the sun room. They got treated with a can of wet cat food for breakfast. They definitely like shredded better than pate! :-D

Both are more active, and Beep Beep even made like she was interested in going back outside which, of course, I discouraged! They seem to still be okay with staying in the sun room by themselves as they recover.

When I heard from the cat lady today, one of the things she mentioned was dropping off our cat carrier, that was used for Cabbages, at the shelter in town. When my husband also let me know that a package he was expecting was in, we took advantage of the situation and made the Chinese food order we meant to do a few days ago! You know. Since I was going to be in town, anyway… ;-)

As I started heading out with the van, just turning onto the road from our driveway, a warning light turned on that I’d never seen before. Then the onboard computer started showing a message to check our brakes system.

!!!

When I took the van to get the oil changes yesterday, they checked some other stuff and gave me a list of things to get looked at. One of them was the brake fluid. Apparently, it’s dirty.

Now, suddenly, I’m getting warning lights?

Hmm.

Thankfully, we have my mother’s car as a back up! I parked the van and used my mothers car to go into town.

We’ll be using my mother’s car until we can get the van looked at. Brakes is one thing I don’t want to mess with!

I was very happy not to have to cancel the food order we’d just made! It’s been probably a year since we’ve ordered take out, and my goodness we were craving food we haven’t cooked ourselves!

When I finally got there, the owner even commented, “long time no see!” :-D We have never ordered often, but when we do, it’s a large order. Enough to feed us for a few days, and almost all meat items. We can do rice, noodles or vegetables ourselves, but we can’t recreate their protein dishes at home! It’s enough for them to remember me, even after such a long time!

The nice thing about having to use my mother’s car is, it has butt warmers in the front seats. I was able to use it to help keep the food warm while I went hunting for the animal shelter. It’s in an industrial park, next to a small airport, that I haven’t driven around in for more than 20 years and, even then, I hadn’t gone to that particular area since I was an Air Cadet while in high school! I drove past it three times before I finally saw it. Mostly because the snow around the building was undisturbed. Clearly, no activity is happening around it. Around the back was a cleared parking area, next to the back door and a donation box, which is where the carrier was supposed to be left. The building itself was closed; a sign on the door said it was open by appointment only.

!!

The carrier wasn’t there, though, and there was no signs in the snow showing that anyone else had been there. It turned out the cat lady hadn’t made it yet, having had to make an unplanned trip to another town to pick up another frozen cat.

No complaints from me, that’s for sure!

It’ll be waiting for us at the vet clinic, when we bring Beep Beep and Fenrir in to get spayed.

So we didn’t get the carrier, but we did get Chinese food!

I’m happy with that. :-)

Thankfully, we don’t need to go anywhere else again, until we bring the cats in to the vet. It’s supposed to start snowing tonight, and keep snowing all through tomorrow, for a total of 6-10cm/2-4in. Then we’re supposed to warm right up, with a high of -4C/25F on Monday, when we bring the cats to the vet, then +1C/34F the day after!

With more snow.

Because, of course. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Stretched!

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One thing about feeding so many yard cats. Especially in the winter.

Sometimes, they make you feel really, really loved and appreciated!

In between trying to chomp my fingers. :-D

Butterscotch in particular likes to strrreeetttcchhh out for pets. Or stand in her back legs.

She’s so sweet, when she’s not vicious and mean! :-D

I had a small addition to my morning rounds, and that was to check on the van. I have a habit of leaving really, really early for things, and yesterday was one of those days that got me into that habit. I was just about to leave for my course, and the van wouldn’t start.

The battery was dead.

I don’t know why. It was working fine on Friday.

Well, my husband was a sweetheart and put it on the charger while I too my mother’s car to my course.

Having to pay expenses for two vehicles may be hard on the budget. Especially when one of those vehicles isn’t really mine, but out here, having a “spare” is pretty necessary. It’s not like we could just hop on a bus or take a taxi or something!

This morning, I made sure to start the van and check the battery level, and it was just fine.

Which is great, but it’s still a mystery that the battery would suddenly die like that.

Depending on how things go, I’ll be making our city shopping trip in the next day or two. We’re actually supposed go above freezing again, in a couple of days. It’ll be messy, but I prefer that to making these trips during a deep freeze.

Which, thankfully, is not on the horizon. The long range forecast are showing December will start to get colder at about the middle of the month, but even then, it’ll still be pretty mild for this time of year.

Still holding out hope that The Farmer’s Almanac will the the accurate one in predicting a mild wet winter for our area, and not the other long range forecasts I saw that predicted another severely cold winter. Either way, though, we plan to be prepared!

Including prepared to keep the outside cats warm and well fed. <3

The Re-Farmer

Still a bit chilly, and unexpected things

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We’re still on the chilly side these days, and will continue to be for a while longer. As I write these, we are just below freezing, and our predicted highs aren’t going to be much warmer. It’s like that mild weather we had, and my being able to do some clean up in the spruce grove, was just a tease!

I think the cats are still appreciating the kibble house, and not having to be on the frozen ground to eat. Their water is freezing solid overnight again (except for the heated water bowl, of course), and they’re enjoying the warm water they’re still getting every morning.

I look forward to when we can take that tarp off the kibble house and give it a good paint job! It’s still too cold for paint.

At least the snow is mostly gone, so I can extend my rounds, checking the fence lines, etc. Which is where I found this poor little pussy willow, desperately trying to develop its catkins! :-D At least since we cleared this fence line, it is finally getting morning sun and warmth.

One of the things we will need to do today is go into town and retrieve my mother’s car. A bit late to help my mother, though! Yesterday, shortly after noon, I got a call from my mother. When I asked how she was doing, she told me she was “dressed”. Meaning, she was dressed up and all ready to head out. !!

We had been talking about me helping her with errands when I got her car back, and I was suggesting Wednesday or Thursday, hoping it would be done by then. Somehow, my mother thought it had been settled for Wednesday! So she was all ready to go for her errands, and for me to show up at the usual time. Of course, I didn’t show up because I didn’t know this! :-D I told her I didn’t have her car, but she had quite a few errands to run, and didn’t want to delay them. So I headed out right away and, just in case, brought our little step stool for her to use to get in and out of the van. She has one just like it, but I wasn’t sure if she’d grab it or not. I’m glad I did, because she had forgotten hers. She realized this while waiting for me, outside the door where I usually meet her, sitting in her walker. She was going to give me her keys so I could run in and get hers, but it wasn’t necessary. It turns out she doesn’t need it so much to get out of the van, but getting in is much harder for her.

One of the stops she needed to make was at the Senior’s centre which, unfortunately, has stairs, so she has to leave her walker outside and hobble in. :-( I helped her with the door and saw there was quite a few people inside, so I told her I’d wait for her outside. One of the social workers that I’ve been talking to about the horrible caretakers in my mother’s building came out to chat. She asked how my mother was doing, since my mother has a habit of saying she’s having troubles when she’s actually doing pretty well, but saying she’s doing well when she’s having troubles. Which isn’t all that unusual, I’ve found! ;-) One of the things I mentioned was that my mother was getting some serious cabin fever.

Which is when I found out something interesting. Not a good interesting, either.

When our province locked down even harder (which, as I predicted a year ago, actually caused an increase in deaths and illnesses; the first uptick of excess deaths our province had was during the annual winter increase, since the pandemic bypassed our province entirely until then, and no one in either of our municipalities has ever tested positive), buildings such as my mother’s locked their doors and only “authorized” personnel were allowed in, while residents were told to stay in their own apartments as much as possible, though they were “graciously” allowed to not wear masks within their own homes. :-/ “Authorized” personnel included the social workers, and people making deliveries. Because of the caretakers, my mother would sneak me or my siblings in through a side door, as we brought her groceries in. Yes, technically we were allowed in the building to do this, but the caretakers look for any excuse to harass people. Especially my mother, who is one of the few people to stand up to them.

Well, it turns out that my mother’s building is the only one that’s still locked up. All the other buildings run by the province are open. The social worker speculated on just who was responsible for keeping the residents locked up, and I half-joked that it made it easier to “control the inmates”. Unfortunately, the joke was too close to reality. She told me that one of my mother’s neighbours is considering putting a sign on her door to turn her apartment number to “Cell ##”, because she feels like she is in a prison. To be honest, in a real prison, they’d have more freedoms than the people living in my mother’s building, it seems. The frustrating thing is, there’s nothing we can do about it. The people living there are too afraid of the caretakers to complain, and since it’s a government run building, instead of a privately run building, getting abusive employees fired is pretty much impossible. The social workers have been trying to get the problem addressed for years – long before my mother has lived there – and had their own jobs threatened, instead.

It’s so frustrating. I was hoping my mother was serious about escaping to another building in town – one where meals are included, so she wouldn’t even need to do grocery shopping – but she chose this building because her church is right across the street. She wouldn’t be able to walk to church from the other building. That and she really doesn’t want to go through the hassle of moving again, even though this time I’d be available to help with our van. Truthfully, with the exception of the caretakers, this place is pretty ideal for her. She shouldn’t have to move, just to get away from crappy employees.

What a mess.

After my mother finished at the senior’s centres, we did the rest of my mother’s errands, finishing with some grocery shopping. After everything was brought in and put away, I was even able to stay for tea. Before I left, I gave my mother a big hug. She almost started crying. :-(

Just before I got home, I heard my phone going off, so I checked my messages before unlocking the gate. It was from the garage, letting me know my mother’s car was ready! It was too close to their closing time, though. I suppose I could have grabbed my daughter and left immediately, but since I had just finished helping my mother with her errands, there was no longer any rush.

Meanwhile…

Today, I need to focus and prepare for tomorrow. We finally have our court date for the restraining order against our vandal. I really don’t know what to expect. I think the most likely thing to happen is that they will run through the docket as quick as they can, and it’ll be rescheduled for a hearing at a later date. Of course, what I hope will happen is that the restraining order will be granted. A restraining order is just a piece of paper, but it does give the police more to work with and, more importantly, our vandal will have his guns removed, and he’ll have to stop drinking. The order is for a year, and then I would have to re-apply, if I felt it was warranted, but I would hope that a year of being dry, and having to prove it regularly, will make a difference in his mental state. It’s a faint hope, but it’s there, nonetheless. There’s still his vexatious litigation against me to deal with, but that court date is in July. If he were at all sensible, he would drop that, as he has no case. It’s basically just his way of getting back at me for applying for the restraining order after he tried to break the gate again.

What a mess.

As crazy at it is, I have no regrets for moving out here. The positives far outweigh the negatives, and it’s still better than what we left behind.

Still, it would be nice if all we needed to do was take care of this place for my family, which is why we moved out here to begin with!

The Re-Farmer

Moving forward

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Well, my mother’s car is now at the garage.

It won’t be worked on today. The mechanic was missing some information on file to be able to order a new tire. Which is fine. I’m just glad I had my daughter follow me in the van!

I talked to him about what happened, and was saying the tires were maybe 2 years old. He told me they couldn’t be that old, because he hasn’t owned the garage for 2 years yet! He’s the one who replaced all 4 tires for us. I think he had just taken over the garage at the time; I remember the signs on the building still had the previous owner’s name. They have definitely seen two winters, though. So they are, at most, a year and a half old.

One of the things that I told him was that I had not hit anything, and the tire had been fine, previously. He thought perhaps the extreme cold we had might have had an effect, but I don’t think so. I mentioned the guy changing the tire thought it might be defected. Either way, I asked him to do an inspection of the other tires, just in case! Which he will do.

That done, my daughter and I headed to a nearby small town where we could drop off the paperwork for her taxes. We tried to do her taxes last night, using TurboTax, but weren’t able to Netfile it. We couldn’t tell if the problem was with TurboTax or the CRA. I actually think it was both. We figured it would be easier to just take them in and pay someone to do them. Our first year back, we’d gone to someone in town that had done my parents’ taxes for many years. He screwed up badly; my husband ended up owing thousands of dollars, and he didn’t even file a return for me, because I have no income. The next year, we went to another company in another town. The person who did our taxes has a disability herself, so not only did she fix the previous year’s taxes, but told me I qualified for the caregiver tax benefit, and was able to fix my husband’s file to reflect his disability tax credit. He still ended up owing money from the previous year, but that’s just part of moving back to this province. We’ve ended up owing money every time we’ve moved back here.

So I knew this was someone that we could trust!

I called her this morning and explained our situation. Which is when I found out that TurboTax has been really buggy this year. She had tried to use it to file her own personal taxes from home, and ended up doing them in the office, because she couldn’t get it to work! Plus, there is the CRA issue. There was some sort of security issue (but not a security breach) and they suspended the secure login information for 800,000 people. I got the email notification about that, but was able to log on through my bank (which is how I usually log on), and was able to reset things on my own file. My daughter, however, kept getting error messages, instead. We couldn’t even print out her file to mail it, because the printouts had a watermark saying, “Duplicate copy: do not mail” on them. We couldn’t get the proper forms for mailing in, anywhere! In the end, it just wasn’t worth the hassle.

With the crazy doing on right now, the tax preparers just ask people to drop off their paperwork, and they’ll call for pick up when they are done, so that is what my daughter and I did, after dropping off my mother’s car. It’ll take longer for her to get her return, but at least it’ll be done. Her sister is going to try the software first, but if it messes up for her, we’ll do the same for hers. After talking to the tax preparer, I don’t expect it to work, to be honest. The software couldn’t handle a bare bones return, never mind a self-employment one.

We took the opportunity to run some errands, and even remembered to go to the post office.

There was one odd thing that happened when we were heading out. After my daughter backed the van out of the garage, I started to close the door…

… and something fell, hitting me on the way to the ground.

I found a large screw.

I quickly popped into the garage and closed the door the rest of the way

Above the door, there is a part of the garage door mechanism, held in place with a plate. That plate is now sticking out, behind held in place with only one screw at the top.

The garage door is larger than usual, and I was thinking it looked like it’s starting to sag in the middle. My guess is that that’s exactly what’s happening, and as it sags, every time we opened the door, it was hitting that piece, pulling it further and further out, every time, until the screw finally fell out. Of course, this can only be seen if we are inside the garage, while it’s empty, and the door is closed. Which pretty much only happens when we’re trying to repair things (or get rid of wasp nests).

So for now, the door is going to stay closed, so as not to damage things even more. We’ll need to drag out the A-frame ladder from by the building my parents’ stuff is stored in, and see if we can simply screw it back on again. It’s really windy right now, so while it’s a marvelous 12C/54F right now, I’m in no hurry to be carrying a ladder across the outer yard …as I watch the trees out my window suddenly start waving around even more, in an especially strong gust! This is a day when I’m going to be checking for broken branches, and seeing if any new trees have fallen down, as part of my rounds. I might even skip the evening rounds and save it for morning!

Not knowing how quickly we’ll be able to get it done, I decided to park the van in the inner yard, where it won’t be visible from the road, in case our vandal decides to take a walk past our place again. With my mom’s car in town, that means the garage is actually empty right now! This would be a good time to take a rake to the dirt floor and tidy up a bit. :-)

After the plate is fixed and we can open the door again, though. Otherwise the dust will be insane in there! :-D

Little by little, things will get done.

The Re-farmer

Obligatory fundraising promo! Ginger’s surgery is scheduled for 2 days from now. If you would like to help support him, you can buy him a coffee (donations can be as little as $1 Canadian), or share the Ko-fi page on your own blog, or social media.

Many thanks!

Well, now

/ Re-Farmer / 10 Comments

So this lends weight to the “defective tire” theory.

I checked the trail cam files from yesterday. With the one camera, there just isn’t a view of that tire, but with the other…

I cropped this from a screen cap of the video. It’s the best I could get.

Even taking into account that the tire is sunk in mud, it looks really low!

The last time the car was used was then I took my mother grocery shopping about a week ago. It has been sitting in the garage every since. The only reason I took it out at all is because my sister helped my mother with grocery shopping, so I wanted to make sure the car got some time on the road.

I’ve just taken it out and checked the rest of the tires as much as I can. I’ll be asking the mechanic to give them a quick inspection once he has it up on the lift.

I was telling my brother and his wife about what happened, and they had the same immediate thoughts I did; could it have been deliberate? In their case, they actually know someone who had … issues… with someone else, and that person vandalized the inside of their tires. All four of them!

I don’t think our vandal did anything, though. Not just because it would be physically difficult; where the car is parked is so cramped, there is no way anyone of his size and lack of mobility could have gotten to that tire. Plus, he wouldn’t have been that subtle. If he was going to damage our tires, he would have just slashed our tires. So I don’t think this is the result of an act of vandalism.

It should be interesting to hear what the mechanic has to say when he finally sees the tire this afternoon!

The Re-Farmer

This is why.

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

You see this?

This is why I’m paranoid about tires.

Actually, I’m paranoid about vehicle break downs and troubles in general, but especially about tires.

My mother’s car got all new tires after we didn’t hit a deer, a couple of winters ago, and drove through a ditch, instead. With how infrequently my mother’s car is used, they are still in very new condition. In fact, the coloured markings on them haven’t worn off yet!

I have no idea what I could have hit that caused this! I hadn’t reached even 5 miles from home when it blew.

This is my best guess.

Every winter, as the snows melt off the gravel roads, the surface gravel is mostly gone, and a lot of rocks start protruding. These tend to be very rounded rocks, not angular ones, but sometimes they end up sticking out quite far. Because of the direction I was going, I took a different route to get to the highway. It added an extra mile of gravel road, and the final two miles are a smaller road than the one we usually take to get to the highway. (This route has the added bonus of us not having to drive past our vandal’s place.) It was a rough ride, and though I drove slower and tried to avoid the rocks, I did hit some. My mother’s car is very light in the back, so I was feeling every bump more than with our van, as it was.

However, it was about a mile and a half on the highway when it happened, and there was nothing on the highway for me to hit. I just suddenly started hearing the noise in the back, and immediately pulled over. I didn’t even feel anything different in how the car handled. At least, not with how quickly I pulled over.

After quickly messaging the family to let them know what happened, I called up CAA to get a tire change. I then spent the next 10-15 minutes, trying to explain to the person I was talking to, where I was. CAA, of course, wants an address. I had none. There was nothing but trees around me. I finally got out to see if what may have been a driveway up ahead had a marker number (I couldn’t actually see one, and they are supposed to be highly visible, which means the driveway was likely to an unoccupied piece of land). As I got out, I was able to see there was actually a road behind me. It took a couple of minutes to walk close enough to be able to read the road number.

The poor woman on the phone just could not find me. She couldn’t find our little hamlet. She couldn’t find the provincial route number it’s on. She was using Google Maps, so I tried giving her the names of larger towns in the area. Every now and then, she’s say, “near [suburb near the city, an hour’s drive away]?” or “near [small town I know the name of, couldn’t tell anyone where it us, other than “somewhere north of us”]?” The road number I gave her did not come up for her at all, as if it didn’t exist.

I swear, it was like trying to explain to a delivery company, how to find the farm!

Eventually, she had enough information to give to a driver and told me it would take about an hour for them to arrive.

An hour???

That done, I messaged my family, asking someone to come with the van. My younger daughter has her license, but with all the crap going on right now, she has not been able to book the 2 hours of driver’s training she needs to do, before she can take her a road test for her full license. Which meant my husband had to accompany her for the drive.

My husband, who has been having extremely bad pain days for the past couple of weeks.

My husband, whose walker is now kept in the sun room, where it is easier for him to get in and out through the doors. Where Ginger is camped out right now.

He didn’t even bring a cane! Not that it mattered. We keep several canes in the van, and there’s at least one in my mother’s car. We collect canes! :-D

While I was waiting, I got a call from the driver, much sooner than expected. He asked some more questions about where I was. Since he’s actually from the area, I could tell him some land marks (you know that radio tower? I’m looking at it right now.) that he knew. He arrived not long after my husband and daughter did.

I would really like to invest in the tools he had! Especially the jack. The tire was changed in almost no time at all. The little jack that came with the car would have taken three times as long, just to lift the car.

Once he had the tire off, we could see the damage, and I was just amazed!! I was half expecting to see a piece of glass or something (I’d seen some on the shoulder as I walked to read the road sign for CAA).

My daughter and I were talking about how these were quite new tires, so wear and tear can’t be blamed. He took a closer look and said he thought the tire might have been defective.

The spare tire is the little donut, not a full size tire, so I drove home at almost half speed, with the flashers on, with my husband and daughter following behind.

Because at this point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the spare tire went flat or something. :-/

Once we got home, I still wanted to run my errands, but I decided to go to town, rather than the small city I was originally planning to. That allowed me to swing by the garage and talk about bringing my mother’s car in.

I’m bringing it in tomorrow afternoon.

*sigh*

First the cat, now my mother’s car? What more can go wrong?

Never mind. I don’t want to know. The list would be too long! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Really?!?!?

/ Re-Farmer / 10 Comments

I took my mother’s car out to run some errands. This just happened.

I am now on the side of the road, waiting for CAA.

It was very difficult to explain to the person how to find me. She couldn’t even find out little hamlet on Google maps.

I have no idea what I hit to cause a flat.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

We have a “baby”!

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

Another day where some things went to plan, and others… not so much!

But that’s not always a bad thing. :-)

While today wasn’t as warm as yesterday, we were still very mild. For the first time in ages, there was no ice at all on the cats’ water bowls!

Things are very messy out there. While checking on things, I saw that one purchase we made in the fall had most definitely paid off!

This is the waterproof case covering the plugs for the power cords between the cats’ house and the sun room. The cords themselves are encased in ice. I’d have to chip them loose. The waterproof case, however, seems to be absorbing heat and has melted out it’s own little space. It is not sitting in water at all, but everything around it is very wet.

We did have to buy them (it came in a three pack) online, because no local stores carried any. It was well worth the time and effort to find them!

Later this morning, I brought our van in to get the new EGR valve cleaned out of whatever crud came loose from the lines that were too far to reach to clean. It was just a drop off, and he was really busy with other customers, so I just left the keys in the office and headed out. Thankfully, it was much warmer than the last time the van was brought in, so I had no problems walking around outside while I waited.

There were two things that I wanted to get with my tax return. The garden soil, which will have to wait until it thaws out enough to be loaded onto the trucks, and a chainsaw. We’ve been doing some research and are leaning towards a battery operated chainsaw. I could have bought one online, but there is the place I took our riding mower to last summer, not far from the garage. They sell and service riding mowers, chain saws, weed trimmers and a whole host of landscaping related tools, and I wanted a chance to actually talk to someone and get feedback and advice.

I am glad I did!

Also, they had zero issues with medical mask exemptions. I walked in with my Mingle Mask, and they didn’t even blink. Bonus!

So I started talking to the guy about what I was thinking of (and what my budget was!), and about the sort of work I need to do. The main thing is, I’ve got those dead spruce trees to take down. They’re about 60 ft tall, and there’s probably 6 of them.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t really show me different models suitable for the job, as he just got new inventory for the season, and they weren’t even in the computer yet, never mind on the shelves. Of what he did have on display, they were waaayyy out of my budget, and designed more for commercial needs.

For a job like the dead trees, they recommended a gas powered chainsaw, because a battery powered one would drain way too quickly, even with the high end, high power models. And you don’t want to run out of juice half-way through cutting down a tree! Given what I would be using a chainsaw for the most, they suggested I might want to simply rent a gas powered chainsaw to take down the trees.

And when I mean “they”, I mean the owner/manager I was talking to, and the guy at the counter that chimed into the conversation.

Who turned out to be the Stihl rep that just happened to be there when I came in.

We are already fans of Stihl products. We’d had a Stihl chainsaw that we gave to my late brother when we last moved out of province and to a city. We had been very happy with it, and so was my brother. I don’t know what happened to it after he died, but it certainly isn’t here on the farm.

Having a guy from Stihl right there to give me advice was welcome, indeed!

We spent quite a bit of time talking about what I needed and, in the end, they suggested that I wait until the end of the month to get a battery powered chainsaw. That’s when a sale is starting, and I’d be able to get one with a higher powered battery for the price of one with the regular powered battery.

As we were talking about the dead trees I need to take down, I mentioned that we have other ones that are closer to the house that we plan to hire someone to take down. It would probably be easier – and safer – to get them to take down all the other dead trees as well. The manager started looking something up on the computer when I added that we’d already hired a particular company to take down the trees that were hanging over our roof, and to clear our power lines. As soon as I said the name, he turned back to me from the computer, saying he was just about to look up the contact information for the same company to give me as a recommendation! This company has a most excellent reputation. :-)

So I had pretty much decided that I would wait until the end of the month, then come back to buy the chainsaw, when I remembered something else I ask about. Little hand held chainsaws, and if they had any.

I swear, both of them got so excited! Especially the Stihl rep.

The manager wasn’t sure if he had any, then spotted them and pointed them out.

I was confused. All I saw was a display of weed trimmers.

It turned out the boxes were on the shelf above the trimmers. His last three of the dozen he’d just added to his inventory. There were none actually on display, because he’d never had a chance to add any!

They got one down for me and opened the box.

Oh, if only I’d had this in the last few years! I didn’t even know they existed until a month or two ago. There are so many jobs I’ve been doing with pruning saws, a carpenter saw, and the reciprocating saw (which seemed to be giving up the ghost when I last used it around the pump shack) – even buck saws – that would have been much, much easier with this tool!

Yup. I picked it up.

I now have a baby chainsaw.

Okay, it’s really a “cordless garden pruner”. Whatever. It’s a baby chainsaw. :-)

I decided not to wait until the sale at the end of the month, because there was no way of knowing there would be any left. These things are so insanely popular, the manufacture can’t keep up with the demand. I can totally see why.

As I was getting ready to pay for it and we continued to chat, I mentioned that I’d first discovered these existed online.

Both of them practically jumped in horror, almost simultaneously saying, “noooo!!!! Don’t get it online!” They both had stories to recount of people coming to them with these little chainsaws that they’d bought on Amazon that had already broken. The Stihl rep had a woman insist that she’d bought hers from Stihl, and wanted it repaired or replaced. A $20 hand held “chainsaw”. The one they carry – that I was in the process of buying – is just under $200. His comment to her had been, why would Stihl sell their $200 product for $20 – and also undercut their distributors?

My comment was, you get what you pay for!!!

So, I have a new “baby” in the house. One that’s going to get a real work out this spring! Eventually, I’ll be getting a second battery.

We will still need a chainsaw, but I will bring in the little electric one I found in the garage and see what they can do with it. It likely just needs to have its chain sharpened, but the chain might need replacing.

Which had reminded me that I want to bring in our new push mower. I mentioned this to them, telling them how it had worked fine when I bought it in the spring, then didn’t use it for most of the summer (when it got too dry for grass to grow), then suddenly I wasn’t able to start it anymore.

The first question they both asked: where do you buy your gas?

Yup. Just like with our van. That poor quality co-op gas! Even though we only used premium, it makes no difference. They had both seen all sorts of problems from people who bought their gas from the co-op. It seems that not only do they provide the poorest quality of fuel, but also the oldest. Gas is only good for about a month. This fuel seems to already be old before it gets to the stations. Leave it sitting in the tank of a lawn mower or something over the summer, then try and start it, and it’s likely the fuel is several months old. After I described what was happening with our new push mower, he figures he’ll probably have to take the carburetor off to clean it.

Sounds a lot like what was going on with the EGR valve in our van!

Speaking of which…

I was able to leave my purchase at the store until after I picked up the van. The new valve did, indeed, have crud in it. It only took the mechanic half an hour to clean it, so the bill was very small. He cleared the codes, too, of course. Once again, he recommended I just drive it as much as I could.

I needed to use up time so that I could stop at the post office after it re-opened on the way home, as we are expecting packages to come in this week, so I ran some errands, then drove to different areas where I could park and play Pokemon Go for a while. At one point, I was pulled over and left the engine running while doing a gym battle in the game. After finishing and getting ready to move on…

I saw the check engine light was on again!

After finding a better place to park, I hooked up the OBD II reader, and got the same two codes as before.

*sigh*

So I phoned the garage and left a message, adding that there was no need to call me back today. We might just leave it until I bring the van back for regular maintenance, which would be to put the summer tires back on, next month or so.

Too bad we didn’t have to run the van so much back when gas was really cheap for a while.

Ah, well. It is what it is!

The Re-Farmer

Well, half the job is done!

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

What a huge difference between yesterday and today!

At a time when we were at -28C/-18F yesterday, we were at -8C/17F this morning!

When I changed out Potato Beetle’s water bowl yesterday, which was up close to the heat bulb, I ended up with a shell of ice. This morning, there was no ice at all. In fact, when I let Potato Beetle out, I unplugged the heat bulb and took the water bowl back outside. There’s no need for him to be kept in the sun room anymore. The Potato is free again!

Oh, I managed to snag a photo of some visitors yesterday evening.

This herd has been coming by regularly! That group is the back is four deer, bunched together. :-)

With the temperatures warming up 20C in 24 hours, I was able to do my full rounds before heading to the city with the van, to finally try and do a Costco run.

The van was running well and I had no problems, and yet, shortly before I reached the city (after about a hour of driving), the check engine light came on.

Crud.

I kept going to the Costco parking lot, then plugged in my OBD II reader. I got two error messages this time.

The first error code, I’d had the last time I checked, but the second one was new. The app allowed me to look it up.

I got this:

SPECIAL NOTES: OBD II code with the definition “IAT [Intake Air Temperature] – B Circuit Malfunction / Exhaust Gas Recirculation Closed Position Performance” is mostly relevant to some General Motors (and a few European) products from the late 1990’s to the early / mid 2000’s, and is therefore no longer in common use by most manufacturers. Starting in the mid-2000’s, the “IAT [Intake Air Temperature] – B Circuit Malfunction” component of the definition was dropped, largely due to improved PCM programming, even though it still appears in many sources, including online lists of OBD II code definitions.

However, the transition from the definition “IAT [Intake Air Temperature] – B Circuit Malfunction / Exhaust Gas Recirculation Closed Position Performance”, to the definition most commonly used by many manufacturers for OBD II code P1404 today, “EGR Valve Closed Position Performance”, has NOT been smooth and/or uniform across all manufacturers, and it may still be encountered on older USDM applications and some European imports. The General Motors TSB below that describes a potential cause of this code on some older GM applications with the definition “IAT [Intake Air Temperature] – B Circuit Malfunction / Exhaust Gas Recirculation Closed Position Performance” is reproduced from official GM sources. Note that the “electronic noise” referenced in the TSB often originated in the Intake Air Temperature sensor.

https://www.troublecodes.net/p1codes/p1404/

Which basically tells me “our van is old”. :-/

For our specific vehicle, it means “Exhaust Gas Recirculation Closed Position Performance (Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GM, Pontiac, Saturn)”

I also found this:

If the Check Engine warning light turns on or your vehicle fails an emissions test, have the powertrain of your vehicle undergo a diagnostic scan. If the scan provides you with trouble code P1404, then it means your EGR valve is stuck in the closed position. This will ultimately raise the combustion temperatures in your engine cylinders. The temperature gauge on your dashboard may even reflect this too.

The engine control unit constantly communicates with the EGR valve and will know whenever it is in the wrong position. Once you know that it gets stuck in the closed position, you must either replace the EGR valve or figure out if another component is causing the problem. Sometimes you may just have a clogged EGR valve which must be cleaned out. But this isn’t a treatment which you should perform alone. It requires someone with the proper knowledge and skills of automobiles to make it happen.

https://autocartimes.com/p1404/

However, this is a completely new EGR valve.

I ended up texting a screencap of the error codes to the garage, then called him to let him know I’d sent them. He checked them out, then got back to me. After confirming that the van is otherwise running fine, and this is the first real trip I’ve made since the EGR valve was replaced, it is likely some carbon he couldn’t reach to clean out came loose. For now, I’m to keep an eye on it. If the van starts acting up, bring it in. Otherwise, it should just clear itself out.

*sigh*

So I went ahead and braved Costco.

I almost didn’t. The entire time I was in the van, I was watching the line that extended almost the entire length of the building. It was moving, but not very fast. I finally decided to go for it, instead of going to a Superstore or something.

Thankfully, this location is still somewhat sane. There were signs all over for “face coverings”, but even the ladies at the door were wearing face shields, not masks. They didn’t even blink at me with my Mingle Mask. So that was a relief.

This being Costco, I grabbed a flat cart. With so much to stock up on, I only got half the cat kibble and litter I normally would have – not only for the space on the cart, but also because I didn’t want to fully load the van with heavy stuff like that, quite yet.

I still got pretty much everything from the Costco part of my list; just not all in the quantities I normally would have. Still, the whole thing came out to about $750 – part of which went towards renewing our membership, which lapsed back in November. We’ve got an Executive membership, so I did have the rebate check on that. It didn’t quite cover the renewal fee, but that’s okay.

One thing I was able to find was a three pack of storage bins. I was on the look out for a bin to store our canning supplies, which are currently scattered about in various places in the kitchen. When it came time to pay, I told the woman that was going to repack the cart that she could use the new bins to hold things, if she wanted. She liked that idea and was going to, but the bins were Zip tied together. After seeing them struggle with the bins, I asked if she needed a knife, which she did, so I grabbed my little pocket knife out of my coat and went to cut the ties.

Behind me I hear a customer saying “It’s a good thing we’re not at the airport!” LOL

It worked out very well. When I got to the van, I repacked the cold and frozen items into insulated bags. All the other smaller stuff fit in the three bins, and with their lids, it made for a very efficiently packed van!

During the drive home, I paid close attention to the van, and it was running fine. If there was anything out of the ordinary, I’d say that the gas mileage was somewhat worse. That was it.

Once at home and everything was put away (so good to see everything well stocked again!), I went over the list and made up a new one for non-Costco shopping.

I’ll be going back to the city tomorrow for the rest, just to get it over with. One of my daughters will even be coming with me, as they have their own shopping list. Once that’s done, we will be fully stocked for the month, and need to only make trips into town for fresh stuff.

If that check engine light is still on after tomorrow’s trip, I’ll see about bringing the van back to the garage.

I am so looking forward to not needing to go anywhere again.

The Re-Farmer

Of course…

/ Re-Farmer / 13 Comments
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Image source

Well, I’m back from taking the van to the garage.

I should be happy. I really should.

As I write this, we are still at -21C/-6F with a wind chill of -30C/-22F.

Before heading out, I made a point of starting the van, then headed back inside to give it a good 15 minutes to warm up. As usual, the power steering pump was whining loudly when I started the engine.

When I came back to it later, for the first time in weeks, the noise was gone.

Because, of course it was. I was finally getting it checked today.

As I was driving, I did hear a slight whine, but only while doing a hard turn, for example, but not if I were just changing lanes, and not at all while driving straight.

When I got there, I was happy to see he didn’t have other vehicles in the bays, which meant I wouldn’t be spending hours waiting for him to squeeze a check in between other jobs. He just had to deal with getting a vehicle outside loaded and hauled away. I had a chance to talk to him about the noise now being gone, even though it was there when I first started it. Yes, he agreed it could be just the cold causing it. He asked me other questions, and I told him that we’d had problems with the pump leaking before, but not for years (since I topped it up with a leak-stop fluid, it’s not been an issue). There’s no puddles under the vehicle, the fluid level is still fine, etc. Since I had the opportunity, I mentioned the power train error code that I got with the OBDII reader, and he also thought it was probably just the residual carbon from changing out the valve, and that it will clear itself after the van has been run a bit. Then I left the keys and went to the grocery store. Since I was stuck in town, anyhow, may as well get a few things!

It did not take him long at all to call me back.

He could find nothing wrong.

He could not recreate the noise. The closest he could get was when he turned the steering wheel as far as he could, and at that point, the noise was nothing out of the ordinary.

Everything checks out fine.

At which point I was saying, I should be happy to hear this, but the van has become like a Sword of Damocles hanging over my head. Thankfully, he took my concerns seriously, and told me to keep an eye on it over the next while, as things are warmer. If the noise comes back, he wants be to bring it back and he’ll check it again. If it doesn’t come back, then it was likely the cold causing it.

Now if only medical doctors took our mystery health issues as seriously when they don’t know the answers, as our mechanic does about our vehicles!

That done, I took the van back to the grocery store to load up the cart I’d left at the door, went to fill the gas tank, then headed home.

When we had the valve replaced, one of the things he recommended I do for the next while is floor it, every chance I got. I normally never do that. I tend to be a “gentle” driver. I do the speed limit. I don’t slalem back and forth between lanes. When I get on the highway, while I do try to get to speed quickly, I don’t gun it. I don’t even like passing people, if I can avoid it, and that is partly because the van has no get up and go.

Or should I say “had” no get up and go.

On the way home today, I followed his instructions and floored it whenever I could do so safely (clear road, no other traffic, etc.).

The van’s get up and go is the best it’s been since we bought it.

While the poor quality gas would have cause problems to escalate since the move, that build up of carbon probably started long before we owned it.

If I hadn’t been assured, long ago, that the vehicle was actually worth maintaining, we probably would have tried to trade it in for something else, instead of spending all that money on it.

Even so, with our need for a reliable vehicle that meets my husbands mobility needs, the constant issues cropping up are adding a level of stress I just don’t need!

However, having had it checked out, and with tomorrow supposed to reach above freezing temperatures again, I am finally going to try and make a trip to the city and do a full, much needed, monthly shop. I’m going to try going to Costco, in our usual location, which I’m told does accept face shields or Mingle Masks, and even complete medical exemptions still – though that seems to depend on who is on shift at any given time.

And if that goes well, I’ll later be able to pick up the replacement hot water tank and get it installed.

Just thinking about making these trips is stressing me out. Not just because of the vehicle paranoia, but because going out in public, surrounded by faceless people, is increasingly becoming the stuff of nightmares. As a student of psychology, I understand the effect it’s having and why, but knowing that, and feeling that, are two very different things.

Thank God we don’t live in the city anymore. If I were surrounded by this on a daily basis, I’m pretty sure I would have wigged out long ago.

The Re-Farmer