family

A difficult day, but getting better

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One more day.

One more day after today, and then I’m in for surgery.

It was not a good day today.

Oddly, for the past couple of days, I have been feeling not just frequently hungry, but famished. I don’t have much appetite, but I make myself eat adequate portions yet, only a couple of hours later, I’m famished again. This morning, I woke feeling so hungry, I felt like I would pass out if I didn’t get some food in me.

I did manage to get the outside cat feeding done first. I later found out my daughters were having a difficult time, too.

I got a head count of 14 this morning, as they enjoyed their cat soup. From the state of the sun room, it looks like raccoons were digging around and moving things that cats just don’t have the bulk to move themselves.

The cats definitely are more comfortable with my cat whisperer daughter than with me. Even my older daughter has been able to walk up to and pet the Shrine Lady. You can see her in the second image, eating cat soup outside. She had been in the sun room but ran out with my moving around, even though I had made no effort to approach her. Meanwhile, my daughters have even managed to pet the remaining calico. I saw her this morning. She ate from the tray under the water bowl house and won’t let me anywhere near her. I ended up not topping up the water bowls because I didn’t want to scare them away by dragging the hose around.

I then made myself a large, high protein breakfast, as per my instructions in the homework I got from the cancer clinic. I had to make myself finish it. That whole “being hungry but having no appetite” thing is unpleasant, to say the least. Unfortunately, my pain levels kept getting worse, to the point I had difficult standing up straight and had to walk… in an… interesting posture, shall we say… to reduce strain on the pertinent areas. My daughter had to do the driving and most of the dashing around today.

Which she was having trouble with, too.

I’d considered leaving a bit later, closer to when the post office closed, as I thought a package might be in. I wanted to give the postal clerk time to process things. I checked tracking and found the expected delivery date had changed from tomorrow to Oct. 21, which is the same date as a second package. The depots the packages were in were also in different provinces. There was no way they’d be in this week at all.

So, we headed out about an hour earlier than I originally planned, but still stopped at the post office to get our regular mail. My daughter had to go in to get the mail while I stayed in the truck. It was good that we stopped, because my daughters got what looked like Government of Canada envelopes, and I got my annual notice about our vehicle renewal registration.

My daughter also came back with the package I had thought might come in today, but was suddenly listed as coming in on Oct. 21. So very strange.

As for my letter about our vehicle registration, it also included my driver’s license renewal reminder for next month. I have “safe driving” discounts, so the $55 for the license had a $15 discount. There was, however, another $20 driver’s license fee added on, so the total is $60. One fee goes to the province for issuing the license. I believe the other goes to the insurance company for processing it.

The monthly payments for the insurance on the truck, meanwhile, have gone down again. I have enough merit points on my license that it’s been going down every year. Not by much, but every little bit helps.

Our next stop was in town at the hardware store. My daughter went in with my cards to ask if they had any Roof Melt and pick up a bucket, if they had any in stock. It turned out that it was too early. They’ll be getting some later. I should remember to call them and ask them to set one aside for me and let me know when the inventory has arrived, so we can come in and get it right away.

From there, we finally made it to the pharmacy, and I had to go in for that one. I had to let my daughter take the walker out for me and get it set up before I could even get out of the truck. I felt a bit guilty about about that, as it was clearly painful for her to get it out of the truck for me. She was caning it the whole time herself, and looked like she could have used a walker of her own!

My daughter had her own prescription to refill, but they couldn’t do it today. Tomorrow is their delivery day and it will be ready for then. Which means she will have it before we leave to spend the night at my brother’s.

Then I talked to them about my husband’s refills, and they weren’t able to fill those today, either. They needed to fax his doctor for more refills on one of them. So I made arrangements for those to be delivered tomorrow as well. The pharmacist that helped me looked them up from last time to see the cost, and they weren’t covered, it seems, by either his private nor the province’s prescription insurance. Either that or his 75% coverage still left him with almost $150 to pay.

Then I asked to get a refill on my T3s, but also asked if I had any other painkiller prescriptions on my file. I knew the tramacet wouldn’t be there, as it was only for 14 days, but I couldn’t remember if I still had tramadol available.

I did not.

That’s okay. I just had to wait about 20 minutes to get my 3 month’s worth of T3s. That was less than $45 for the 3 months, after insurance covering 75%.

During this whole time, I was heavily relying on my walker, even as something to lean against while sitting on one of their very comfortable waiting area chairs.

We had one more stop before going home, this time at the grocery store. My husband needed distilled water, which happened to be on sale, so it worked out to be less than what it would have cost at Walmart, for his four 4L jugs. He requested some “healthy crunchies”, which is never easy to find. He was happy with what I managed to find, though. Since I’m supposed to be low carb/high protein, I found some snack meats for both of us – also on sale, which was nice. Since we’re all going to be having much to deal with over the next while, I ended up getting boxed cereal for all of us – all on sale – even though I won’t actually be able to eat any of it for a while. My daughter remembered that we had not picked up pasta at Costco, and some brands were on sale, so we got a few packages. It was a good sale, so there wasn’t much choice left on the shelf. There was a really good sale on a brand of pasta sauce, too, but those shelves were completely empty! Even with all the discounts, it still came out to just over $100, but it came out of my husband’s budget, not our regular grocery budget, which was nice.

Thankfully, by the time we were done there, I was finally starting to feel a bit better and the pain was slowly starting to pass. Which is good, because my daughter was in so much pain that she was trying – and failing – to hide, I could get the walker into the truck myself. Normally, with heavier stuff like the water bottles to bring in, we would have backed up to the house to unload, but my daughter said she wasn’t up to getting back into the cab again to park in the garage, and she didn’t want me driving, so she parked straight into the garage. Thankfully, I have this convenient walker and I used that to carry the heaviest bag with the water bottles, along with another bag, to the house with it.

I did stop along the way to check out the sunflowers.

The Mammoth sunflowers are still blooming, and are pretty much the only thing left for the pollinators (the alpine strawberries are also still blooming). Today is a bit warmer, but it’s still cool enough that the pollinators weren’t moving very much!

The plan had been to take advantage of today’s warmer weather to get things done outside, but that’s not working out. Both my daughters are having issues preventing them from physically doing the stuff today. As for myself, while the pain has finally passed by the time I started writing this, if I try to do any of this stuff myself, it would be back again in a very short time; probably worse. I’ll be heading out to do the outside cat feeding soon and will at least walk around the yard to get some fresh air and sunshine, but that’s pretty much my limit right now.

One more day.

One more day of this, then it’s surgery day! I am so looking forward to it! If all goes to plan, I’ll have my 6 week recovery period, and then I’m going to once again be the most able bodied person in the household again. 😄 By then it will be December, though. Anything we don’t manage to get done in the garden by then will have to wait until spring, unless we have a ludicrously mild winter. Which is possible. We’ve had them before. I recall seeing a local photo, taken in the early 1880’s, of farmers plowing their fields – on Christmas Eve!

A thought occurred to me, though. My daughters both have appointments in the city on November 3 and 4. My older daughter’s appointment is at the Women’s hospital. The original plan had been that I would drop them off, then leave the downtown area and hang out at a shopping area, with free parking, until they messaged me to come get them.

I will still be restricted from driving at that point. Which means we could park where I did last time and I would keep adding $2 to the machine ever half hour until they are done. Or my daughter would have to drive around the maze of streets to find a parking spot and we all walk over, which I would be very limited in doing. Or we would drop off my oldest daughter and my younger daughter would drive us to a shopping area with free parking and stay with me. The hospital has free wifi, so my older daughter, who has a phone but no plan and doesn’t want one, could message us to come back for her.

For her sister’s appointment, the creepy clinic does at least have a whole 3 free parking spots available, just behind the building.

It’s frustrating that we haven’t been able to get my younger daughter her full license by now, and she has to have someone with a full license beside her when she drives. We can’t use our truck for her road test, with the various dashboard lights on. We know what they are on for, but the tester can’t accept that. She has to get 2 hours with a driving instructor before she can do a road test, and we’ve heard of places where they do the 2 hours and then the road test is booked for right after, using the driving school’s vehicle, but there is no one local that does that.

Her sister, meanwhile, can’t even take the written test until she gets her new glasses prescription and finally gets new glasses, and a road test isn’t going to happen until after she has her own surgery. Whenever that will be. Same surgery as what I’m getting in a couple of days, but they’re talking about a 6 month wait, still. Somehow, she’s not considered as urgent as me, even though it nearly killed her.

Bizarre.

But I digress.

Time to go outside and feed some kitties for the evening.

The Re-Farmer

A non-day

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Can this be me?

I would love to have the life our cats are living. 😁

Today, the plan was to do the Costco shopping trip.

Last night, my older daughter let us know she was feeling like she was coming down with something and would be avoiding contact as much as possible to avoid spreading something.

Then my younger daughter also started feeling ill.

Which meant I would be doing the Costco trip alone.

Okay. Risky, but okay.

This morning, I found myself feeling like I was coming down with a cold, too. Very mild. Could have been something else. I decided not to take a chance, so when my younger daughter came in after doing the outside cat feeding, I told her Costco was out. It turned out she was working up to coming along with me, even though she was still not feeling well. Once I told her I was staying home, she went back to bed and crashed for several hours.

I tried to do the same but as soon as I started showing signs of being awake, I got covered in cats wanting attention, so that didn’t work out well. My husband was the only person feeling well enough to throw something into the oven for breakfast, which is saying a lot.

I’m glad I didn’t take the chance of going to the city. Before I was finally able to get up, I was no longer feeling like I was coming down with a cold. Instead, the pain levels started kicking in and the bleeding suddenly increased, after several days with no bleeding at all. It kept getting worse, even as I was just sitting at my computer, until I finally had to lie down. If I had done the drive to the city, then tried to walk around a Costco, without my daughter to take over with shopping and driving, I would have gotten much worse and would have had to wait it out before I could safely drive myself home.

When I did finally lie down, I figured I should phone my mother. I haven’t been able to visit her for quite some time, though my brother has, and kept me up to date. He had been able to set up internet in her room that allowed him to get her an internet radio that he programmed for all Polish radio stations, plus the one local multi-cultural station with a Polish hour that she used to always listen to. He was also able to set up a regular large button telephone for her, instead of the senior’s mobile phone, with an internet phone number. With that one, he programed the phone numbers for himself, our sister, plus two for me – one the land line, one my cell phone – all with photos of us on the buttons. My mother would only need to push a single button to call us.

When he got there, neither was working. Someone had taken away the device he’d set up that allowed both to connect through Wi-Fi. The phone and radio were working fine, but had no internet to connect to. He talked to someone at the front desk and they did find a note in the maintenance log about it, but nothing about why it was taken away. They found another one for her, so he got that set up again and working.

Which is when he discovered that all the pre-programmed buttons on the radio had been re-programmed, all to the one multicultural radio station. My mother had been button mashing again. She also had trouble understanding which knob to use to turn on the radio, which is also the volume button, and was instead using the knob to manually change stations.

*sigh*

While talking to my mother on the phone, she told me about her radio only having one station. I asked her if she was pressing a button and holding. She very proudly said yes.

That’s how the buttons get programmed. Instead of simply pressing a button and letting go when trying to change stations, she pressed and held and programmed the button for the radio station she was trying to move away from – and did it with all the buttons, then couldn’t understand why all the buttons had the same station.

I explained it to her a bit, but it will have to wait until my brother visits next for it to be reprogrammed, and he won’t be able to do that until after Thanksgiving weekend.

She wondered about my sister not visiting and I reminded her my sister was still out of province for a festival with their church. She did not ask me when I would be visiting next, though, and instead asked how I was doing. Nor did she say any of the other things she usually goes after me about. Which is quite unusual. I guess that’s one benefit to having cancer. My mother is behaving better towards me! Sad that this is what it took.

I did tell her about the huge number of trees we ended up getting through my brother. She was curious about how this happened, so I briefly explained. She was pretty thrilled about the idea that we might eventually have enough berries to actually be able to sell them, like she used to do with her raspberries.

In the end, it was a rather short call, and my pain levels were still spiking and I had to say good bye, which got no argument from her at all.

As difficult as things can sometimes be with my mother with her not being able to understand some things – things she used to have no problem with, like phones and radios – we are grateful that she is doing remarkably well overall. My FIL, who was in supportive living since my MIL passed away, had a fall a few weeks back and is still in the hospital. Physically, he’s doing somewhat better, but his cognitive decline increased substantially. He won’t be able to go home, has been diagnosed with dementia, and they are going through the process of getting him into a personal care home. The frustrating thing is that we are completely unable to go visit him. My husband simply can’t do the trip anymore, without being incapacitated by pain just from the drive. My FIL is more than a decade younger than my mother, but is in poorer physical and mental condition than she is. A reminder that, in the end, age has nothing to do with it.

I’m happy to say that my own pain levels did eventually recede, and I’m now feeling much better. I was even able to take a walk outside, and I did the evening cat feeding. Which had an unfortunate surprise for me. My daughter had noted this morning that we were out of kibble, and I told her there was another 40 pound bag of donated kibble left.

I was wrong.

Looking at the stack of bags where I thought there was kibble, there was only litter pellets. No kibble bag left at all.

So I “stole” some from the inside cats’ kibble bin. Enough to last until tomorrow morning. After that, we’re going to have to go out to get more kibble. Thankfully, we can do that at the general store the post office is in, and not have to drive to another town.

The girls were feeling better by the end of the day and considered digging more holes for those last haskaps, but we were starting to lose the light by then, so they will work on it tomorrow, instead. Ten more large pots, then as many of the little ones that we can find space for. We should at least be able to fill the last measured out spaces my brother had tilled, tomorrow.

My daughter and I are then going to have to go to bed early tomorrow and, hopefully, get a full night’s sleep, because we’ll be getting up quite early to get to my brother and SIL’s place to leave the truck while she drives us to my appointment in the city.

Today, meanwhile, was very much a non-day for all of us. We all felt unwell for one reason or another, and got next to nothing accomplished.

Which is really quite frustrating!

The Re-Farmer

City trip done, and more haskap transplants, with frost on the way

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We had a rather long day today, and it’s not even 5pm yet.

My younger daughter had her doctor’s appointment in the city, which meant we had to be on the road by 8:30am to get there, with extra time to be delayed by construction or whatever else came up. We had time enough to stop at a gas station along the way to pick up drinks and a couple of sandwiches for the girls, who hadn’t had breakfast before leaving. I noticed the gas prices in this town were still $1.729/L, and I hoped prices would be better while in the city, as we’d need to top up before heading home.

I’m glad we left as early as we did because, even with my daughter navigating and the map app talking out directions, I missed a turn. It was at one of the more bizarre intersections – of which there are many – and it was either turn right, or turn extra right. I didn’t catch the extra right in time. Then, because it’s one way streets all over the place, we ended up taking a completely alternate route – that turned out to make it easier to get into the parking we needed, than if we hadn’t missed the turn.

I truly dislike driving in the downtown area of the city. Some of the worst street planning out there and, for where we were driving, it can’t even be blamed on things like being split up by rivers and tributaries. Then there are the crappy drivers and the crumbling streets.

*sigh*

Still, we got there with about 10 minutes to spare. After getting through the security gauntlet to get into the building, which included my daughter justifying why we were there without our own appointments, I signed in for the parking spot we were in, then we waited. My older daughter ended up going in with her sister for what turned out to be two consecutive appointments; one with a doctor, one with a nurse practitioner. It ended up being more than an hour before they came out again, with another appointment for next month, plus some lab requisitions. There’s a lab right in the building, so we just waited until my daughter was called in. That went quickly, and we were soon heading out. Which was great “fun”, trying to find and read inconsistently placed street signs, including one that was half hidden by a set of street lights, and not get hit by drivers oblivious to everything around them. Oh, and dodging construction. Or course.

Have I mentioned I really dislike driving in this city? I don’t think I could say it enough.

My older daughter ended up not being able to eat the sandwich we’d picked up on the way out, so she was really hungry. So chose a different route out, so we could take the street we do one of our stop up trips on. Gas prices were $1.799 all over, except for one gas station we saw on the way in, at $1.639 – but it was a co-op franchise that we stopped going to after their cheap, dirty gas cost us over $400 in repairs in our previous vehicle, plus repairs on our lawn mower. There was a Domo along the way that was at $1.749/L, and today was discount day, so we got gas at $1.609/L instead.

This station is right near the international grocery store we like to go to, and that’s where we went for lunch. My daughters got themselves some steamed dumpling dim sum, and I got a large Chinese meal that I only ate half of, taking the rest home.

From there, we went to a Superstore that was along our way out. We have already run out of the torpedo buns we all like so much, so we got three more bags, along with a couple of pounds of butter, since I’m not sure when we’ll be at Costco to stock up on butter next. The girls found a giant Italian sandwich for their dad as a treat, and we happened to cut through the aisle with energy drinks, so I got some Beaver Buzz for home.

Of course, it was while we were doing all this that I got a message from my husband saying a doctor had called for me and would call back at around 2. I didn’t think we’d be home by then, so I told my husband that, if it was about an appointment, to take whatever they give me, except for November 3, and 4, when the girls have their next medical appointments.

When we got home, I missed the call back by mere minutes. The doctor hadn’t been able to talk to my husband because he’s not on the last as my “next of kin”. But she would call back tomorrow at around 10.

Which suggests to me it was the specialist getting back to me, not cancer care. I’ll have to make sure to let her know, she can speak freely to my husband about my file, if I’m not around.

We had barely settled in when my younger daughter headed out to start digging holes. Her sister followed soon after.

They were able to finish the first section that was planted in, where I’d already dug 3 holes yesterday, which is what you see in the first image above. Then they moved to the northernmost end of the new rows and started working across there. My younger daughter did the digging while her sister did the transplanting. In the second picture, you can see the 6 transplants along the north end are in. The next photo shows just some of what my daughter had to deal with while digging!

So. Many. Rocks, all over this area.

The last image is taken from the south end of the new rows. The transplanting will be done from the north end, so that when the south end is reached, we will be planting small ones out of the trays, rather than the big pots. We’ve got a total 77 haskaps in the large pots, but there are a total of 90 spaces to plant in. So, to fill the whole area, there would be another 23 plants from the trays, plus another 5 or so spots between the Silver Buffalo berry to fill. I’m pretty sure we can fill all those spaces, and still have plants in the trays left over.

I did pop out later on, though I was banned from doing any digging. Depending on which app I look at, we’re going to drop to either 2C/36F or 0C/32F tonight. I brought out the fabric to cover four beds – the peppers, eggplant and Chocolate stripe tomatoes in the main garden area, and the self seeded tomatoes in the old kitchen garden. My older daughter came out to help me while updating me on their progress.

I remembered that I still had an unopened package of frost cloth I got at a dollar store, years ago. I got multiple packages but, when I tried to use them, they tore apart. I figured I would try using it to see if I could protect the winter squash, which are more exposed on the chain link fence.

It wasn’t quite long enough to cover from end to end, but the developing squash, at least, are covered. The edge on the inside of the chain link fence got squished between the squash plants and the sunflowers, then it got secures with clothes pins to the chain link. The sunflowers might actually help hold it in place, too.

That was about my limit for today, as pain levels were starting to increase, and I wanted to not let it get worse. When my daughters came in, they updated me with their progress. All of the transplants got watered, as well as all the pots and trays. Later on, I’ll rake around the transplants and make water trenches, as with the first ones that got done, but that’s not as urgent as getting them in the ground and watered. After getting updated, I went out and took pictures, before we lost the light.

I really hope a lot of these survive. With the silver buffalo berry, we had a bundle of 30. Over the span of several years, we’ve lost only 5, and they were in great shape when they were planted. The haskap are not in great shape, so it’s reasonable to expect a higher loss rate. Still, it would be nice if they all made it!

Tomorrow, we do more digging.

Well. My daughter will probably do more digging. If I’m still banned from digging, I’ll see if I can finally get back to cleaning the sun room for the winter, which has had zero progress in the past few days! Too many other things dragging us away. After tonight’s drop in temperature, things will warm up again for the next while, with no rain, so we should get some decent progress done.

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer

A good day – mostly

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I’m happy to say that I woke feeling very well today. It was also a lovely, warm day, which meant getting things done outside. That included moving the cat stuff out from under the canopy tent to dry in the sun.

I got this picture before they got put back under the canopy tent for the night. The self warming mats were dry, and I ended up putting them into the catio for now, and the smallest cat bed was dry enough to go back into the shelf shelter it had been in before. The rest will eventually go back into the sun room, after that finally gets cleared out and cleaned.

In the back, you can see the summer window for the basement. It got a very thorough hose down, after the winter window was put back in. I’m glad I put hardware cloth as well as window screen on that. The screen has all sorts of little holes and tears in it. Without the hardware cloth, we would have had cats and probably racoons and skunks getting into the basement!

One of the top priorities on the list for today was to finally get a dump run done. My younger daughter helped, though there was nothing so heavy that I needed to be concerned about lifting it. The one thing I noticed during the drive, however, was that frustrating oil pressure gauge reading. As the engine warmed, the pressure reading dropped even faster than the last few days, just barely within the “normal” range, even at highway speeds. It wasn’t that long ago that the gauge didn’t start reading that way until we’d reached the city, and it would drop when I was stopped in traffic for one reason or another. When stopped, the needle dropped below the normal range. Not enough to set any alarms, but not where it should be.

*sigh*

I think we’ll be sure to not drive anywhere until we get it to the garage on Monday!

After the much needed dump run was done, I stayed outside while my daughter headed in. I’d pruned the dead branches from the pink rose bush in the old kitchen garden last night, and today I added to the branch pile. The white Cherokee Rose bush in front of the sun room it remarkably tall and tied back, but when I had tried to get to the laundry platform, I was having to duck under violently thorn covered branches drooping over the path. We can now get to and from the laundry platform without risking serious injury! 😄

My daughter came out soon after with heavy leather gloves and cleaned up the pile or rose branches, straight to the fire pit rather than the branch pile. I got things moved out of the way in preparation to mow the lawn with the riding mower while she did that. My brother and SIL had gone out with their truck and trailer early in the morning, and they got back while I was doing that. I went to say high and mentioned I was planning to mow the lawn in the inner yard. My SIL was concerned, and she had been planning to do the lawn mowing herself, but I told her I can use the riding mower. I just can’t use the push mower. She still looked worried and told me she would do whatever areas I wasn’t able to get it.

Then I had to fight off my daughter from using the riding mower. 😂

So she switched gears and started working on the old kitchen garden, doing a job I can’t do right now. She started bringing wheelbarrow loads of wood chips to the old kitchen garden.

She got the one path done before her back started giving out. This is quite a thick layer of wood chips over the closely trimmed path. Hopefully, that will keep the weeds and grass from growing back for at least a couple of years! There are a couple more paths to cover, but that will be slowly worked on while the weather is good.

It was just reaching 1pm when I got the riding mower out and got started. In the half hour or so before my alarm went off to take my afternoon meds, I was able to get the southeast and southwest lawns done. The grass was still pretty wet, but it couldn’t really wait any longer. Then I parked the riding mower beside the pile of elm tree pieces that is still by the house, then went in for my scheduled painkillers and a late lunch.

At this point, I should not that the riding mower was working fine the whole time, and there were no bumps or ruts or other such things that might get run into.

Which means I had no warning for when I got back.

I started the mower, put it in gear, released the brake and…

Nothing.

It wouldn’t move.

I spent the next while trying different things, turning the mower off and on several times. Everything seemed to be working just fine until I tried to move.

Nothing.

Now, we had that happen with the riding mower my brother and SIL bought for us soon after we moved here. A chain kept falling off. This mower doesn’t have a chain.

I went to my brother’s caravan and my SIL was there. I told her what happened and she let me know my brother was working on his tractor – something he’s been trying to get to for the past three weeks!

On my way over there, I walked past his dump truck and, for a moment, I though he might have been working on that. The last weekend they were here, he’d been able to set concrete blocks under the tires, so they wouldn’t sink into the ground, with wooden blocks in front of the tires to keep them from rolling forward into the driving lane. The truck had been rolled backwards, completely off the blocks and onto the grass. As we walked past it later, he asked if we had moved it. !!! Of course, we hadn’t.

It had been rolled off the blocks by the wind!!!

I found my brother under his tractor and told him what happened with the mower. He went over to take a look as best he could. I shifted from reverse to forward to neutral while he tried to see what was wrong. He could see nothing.

In the end, he pushed the mower back to the garage, so he could go back to working on the tractor. He was going to have to put the mower on a lift so he could see better, but that will have to wait.

Since I could no longer mow the lawn, I worked on other things. I cleaned out in front of the basement window, put on the winter window and hosed down the summer window before setting it aside to dry. Then I cleared out along the side of the entry, next to where the basement window is. There were a few things being stored there, and others that just ended up there. I needed to empt the area because those *(^&$#%&$(#& elm tree seeds were sprouting. Plus, a larger elm sapling I’d cut away during our first spring and summer out here has been growing suckers. So everything got moved out and either set aside nearby or it went into the junk pile. Several things needed to be hosed down first. There was a whole lot of leaves, elm tree seeds and dirt to clear out and I had to start out with the landscape rake, then the fan rake and, finally, a broom to get most of it out. It needs to be hosed down, but the row of bricks closest to the house are all leaning towards the house and would drain against the root cellar wall that’s there. The area there is lined mostly with the glazed brick that we have around the house, which gets incredibly slippery.

My daughter had gone inside by then, so I was able to grab the wheelbarrow to haul the debris away. As I was putting it back my SIL rode their zero turn mower into the yard and stopped to talk for a while. She had been doing the outer yard and wanted to know how much I’d done on the inner yard before the little riding mower stopped moving. I told her what had been done, then we just talked. I told her about where I was working on, and the enameled bricks. We wondered where on earth my dad had managed to get so many! They are everywhere! I told her about how dangerous they are when wet, and that I wanted to pull them all out from around the house and lay down gravel, instead. Much safer! She agreed with that. The bricks are really nice and I told her I could see being able to use them – just not as a floor!

She had seen the water bottle collars I used when starting the summer squash stored on some T posts along the retaining wall and asked about them, and we talked garden stuff for a while before we both went back to work. I just had some things to put away, as I’d done as much as I could for the corner. Then I gathered the cat stuff and took care of those before heading inside.

Before I did, though, I made one last pass around the south yard to check the things growing on the chain link fence. Which is where I spotted this…

Four bees found the one late blooming sunflower (Mammoth variety) to gather pollen from! Some of the Mammoth sunflowers are looking to be more than 7 ft tall right now, and several have small seed heads that haven’t opened yet. Hopefully, that means more pollen for the bees. There isn’t much else blooming right now!

All in all, I’m rather happy with how much I was able to get done outside, though unhappy that my brother’s lawn tractor stopped moving. He has so many other things to deal with!

The main thing for me is that I’m still feeling good. I didn’t push myself too far and am not feeling any abdominal pain. Hopefully, it will stay that way!!

The Re-Farmer

A really excellent day – except for Damocles being weird again

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This morning, after taking my scheduled meds and supplements, I was feeling well enough to do the morning cat feeding. Which meant, of course, I stayed out to check on the garden.

There is definitely cold damage on a lot of things, but most might actually have survived. The winter squash on the chain link fence was my biggest surprise.

The first one is what should be a Black Futsu. It had been protected by a large leaf. The other images, save the very last one, are of the butterneck squash – and they are still producing female flowers! Even the summer squash, which could not be covered, seems to have had minimal damage. The last image above is of some lemon squash developing in the plant in the wattle weave bed that was a thinning by transplanting location. It’s smaller, but further ahead in maturity, than the plants in the retaining wall bed that were direct sown and never moved!

It will be another day or two before we really see how much the cold damaged things, though.

Yesterday had been quite damp and chilly, so we never did take the frost covers off. I did that this morning. The chocolate stripe tomatoes look like they didn’t handle the cold too well, but it’s still too early to be sure. The peppers and our single developing eggplant seem okay. We had rain yesterday and the frost covers were quite wet, so those went on the clothes line. The mock orange my mother had planted at the laundry platform has grown a lot this summer and was very much in the way.

My daughter and I headed out to our appointment at the garage at noon. The plan was to basically just hang out in their waiting area while the oil change was being done. My daughter even brought along her knitting. She has finished the socks she was making for herself and has started a pair of ankle socks for me with the glitter yarn.

We got there about half an hour early, even after being stuck behind a slow moving vehicle. The garage owner was there when we came into the office – me with my walker, my daughter with her cane. What a pair we make! For me, though, the walker was more of a “just in case”. I was actually feeling really good still. Usually, the pain levels start to creep up in the afternoon.

I asked him if he’d received the screenshots of the OBDII scan I sent him yesterday and he had. He spent some time going over the readings and noted that replacing the oil sensor had come up as a fix again. We talked about the other things, and they did not concern him. One of them is the gas cap sensor, which I didn’t realize until then. I’d look the part up on Amazon, following the link from the app, but didn’t look any further into it – I was pretty distracted by other things at the time. I described to him the changes I saw with the oil pressure gauge readings over the months since it last got replaced, and that I thought the oil change might help with. He said, only a little bit. Maybe. I should not be getting those readings. He asked more questions and spent some time looking things up on his computer.

In the end, he asked if I could bring the truck back on Monday and leave it with him for the day. He wants to set up an oil pressure tester and drive it around. This would tell him if it’s the sensor acting up again, or if there’s something else going on. I told him the only problem with that is, we have no other transportation. We talked for a while and, in the end, he asked me to bring the truck back on Monday morning. They’ll drive us into town, so we’re not stuck in his waiting room while he tests it out. He does not want to do the oil change until he’s had a chance to run the test.

So we booked that and headed home. We actually got home at almost exactly our appointment time. 😄 We didn’t even stop to get the mail because the post office wasn’t going to open again for another hour, and we have a parcel to pick up.

While we were gone, our prescription delivery came in, which included my new painkillers. My doctor is quite serious about pain management! I went from Tramadol/hydrochloride, 50mg, up to 3 times a day, as needed, to Tramadol/acetaminophen, 325mg, 4 times a day for two weeks. In two weeks, I should be in the city getting more tests done, so if I need more or something else, that’ll be taken care of, then.

Which means that when my afternoon alarm went off for my next painkiller dose, I had my new Tramadol to take, instead of the T3s I had in my purse I expected to take while the oil change was being done. I read the paperwork that came with it and noted that the potential side effects include dizziness and nausea, which is what I started getting about a week into the Percocet trial. Something to watch out for.

I was still feeling really good. So good, in fact, I was decidedly suspicious. At this point, not feeling pain is downright weird. (Even stranger is, the bleeding seems to have stopped, too!) After taking the meds, though, I got incredibly sleepy, falling asleep at my computer. That passed, though, and I was feeling good enough, I decided to take a chance and headed outside.

I didn’t push myself with anything too “manual labour”-ish. The outside cats got fed and I was going to finish washing and rinsing the cat beds and blankets from the sun room, but my presence was keeping the singleton kitten from going to the food bowls, so I switched gears.

I got the weed trimmer out. My brother had fixed the cracked handle on the larger one and brought it back, but I noticed there was only 2 batteries instead of 3 for that. Which was probably good, as it made sure I didn’t push myself too much. The lawn needs to be mowed, so the first thing I did was trim around the low rocks in the yard, so no one will hit them with the lawn mower, then moved to the old kitchen garden. The paths there have not been trimmed for quite a while, and some areas were getting pretty thickly overgrown. So much so that I needed to rake it all up before doing a bit more trimming around the garden edge and the nearby cat shelters. Now that we have a lovely, huge pile of wood chips, I want to lay down a thick layer on the paths in the old kitchen garden.

But not today.

Instead, I went back to the cat beds and blankets. They’ve had several soaks in the old tub with detergent, but for the past few days, they’ve been sitting on the grass, getting rained on. I got the wheelbarrow to wash individual pieces, having to use a scrub brush on some of them, to get the mats of cat hair and burrs off, then set them in the old tub for rinsing.

The first things I worked on were flat things I could hang on the line, so after the first few were done, I headed over and took the dry frost protector sheets off the clothes line.

Then I pruned the mock orange back, so the laundry would no longer catch on it. What a difference that made! I left the branches for a daughter to clear away tomorrow, though.

That was what I worked on for the next while; scrubbing a few pieces in the wheelbarrow, rinsing them in the tub, hanging them on the line, then doing another batch. Both the wash water and rinse water had to be changed several times. An entire winter and spring, plus part of a summer, of cats, skunks and raccoons make a serious mess! The last items could not be hung on the line. Some because of their shape, like two cat caves. Others because they were just too thick and heavy to be able to hang on a line. Some of those ended up on the water bowl house, which has a metal roof, to drain and dry. They’ll need to be flipped a couple of times, I’m sure. The last ones got draped over the upturned wheelbarrow to drain. Once they’ve had a chance to drain most of the water they soaked up, they’ll get moved onto one of the cat shelter roofs to dry in the sun. We are expecting rain tomorrow, but not until the evening, so we’ll have to keep an eye on things. The thicker items will probably take several days to dry.

I’m happy to say that I still felt really great, even after all this. I don’t know how much I can attribute to the new pain meds and how much to it just starting out a good day and staying a good day!

So the main thing we needed to get done today – get Damocles an oil change, at least – didn’t happen, but today still worked out to be a productive day.

That makes me happy!

Gosh, I miss being able to work outside more! That’s the part of all the health issues that bothers me the most. I really enjoy the work, and not being able to do it is so very frustrating. I’ve gone over the things that need to be done over the next while with the girls, to prepare the yard and garden for winter. Getting the sun room emptied and cleaned out is a priority right now. Nights are starting to get cold, and the cats will need their winter shelter. My older daughter has her commissions to work on, so there’s not as much that she can do, but my younger daughter is planning out her days based on the to-do list, now that we expect to be able to stay home for a few days, other than a much needed dump run on Saturday.

Time to catch up on things while the weather holds!

The Re-Farmer

*sigh* Didn’t make it…

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Can anything else go wrong?

Don’t answer that.

The girls and I headed out at 9 this morning. I even headed to the truck ahead of time to check the tires and secure my walker in the truck box. Everything was going as expected.

One of the things that I’ve been noticing on the truck is that the oil pressure has been slowly dropping over the past while. Still within normal levels, though, and I figured an oil change would address that. Yesterday, my husband had called the garage to book one for me, because I would remember while driving, then forget once I got home. In the last few days, however, it was starting to drop even while at highway speeds and, when stopped at traffic lights, the needle had started to drop just under the “normal” line. Again, not enough to be too concerned yet, but definitely something to look into.

Two things happened once we got on the highway.

The check engine light turned on, and the pressure gauge started to slowly drop while I was still at highway speeds. Still within “normal”, but it hasn’t dropped like that, while maintaining a speed, since we got the oil pressure sensor changed again.

My daughter messaged my husband for me to call the garage again (he’d left a message, yesterday) about the oil change appointment, and to mention the check engine light was now on. I’d texted them last night to ask them to do a general check on things during the oil change, because we were going to have a lot of medical appointments to drive to. So when my husband called, they were ready with an appointment time for me, tomorrow afternoon. They squeezed me in. Normally, it’s at least a few days before they can book me. Mind you, that was at their old location. They have more bays available in their new locations.

I was taking the highway into the city with no construction on it, rather than the one that went straight into the city almost directly to the hospital my daughter’s appointment was at. That meant we had a town to drive through, with gas stations and plenty of parking space. Since we’d left so early, I pulled over any my younger daughter checked the oil for me. Oil level was fine, but the engine was still hot, so it would not have been completely accurate, but with where my daughter could see the line (something I have a very hard time seeing), we didn’t see any need to add more oil.

My older daughter made the executive decision to cancel her appointment (which, to be honest, she’s been wanting to do for at least a couple of weeks now), and we headed home.

As soon as I parked the truck, I linked the OBDII scanner while my daughters headed inside to call and cancel the appointment. A couple of codes came up. This was one of them.

Top reported fix (the only reported fix, actually): replaced EVAP Canister Vent Solenoid Valve Assembly.

The other code was for the oil pressure sensor performance. That one listed 4 top reported fixes. Replacing the oil filter, which would have been done with an oil change, was the first. Second was replacing the oil pressure sensor, which has already been done, and is finally working. Next is to replace the engine valve lifter oil filter, followed by cleaning said filter.

It also doesn’t look like it’s going to be a very expensive fix, though I have only the link to Amazon parts to compare to. The price will likely be higher, locally.

On the plus side, after this fix, our mileage should improve. When we stopped at our usual gas station’s parking lot to check the oil, they were at $1.699, down 10¢ from yesterday. The other gas station, across the highway and just up the block, had gone UP 10¢ to $1.899 !!!! Yesterday, I’d pre-paid enough gas that the needle was just barely touching the full line, and we’re already down a quarter tank since then.

I screen capped the scanner’s readings and texted them to the garage once I got inside. My older daughter had called the hospital and left a message telling them we had vehicle troubles. My younger daughter remembered to call prescription refills to the pharmacy for delivery tomorrow. The doctor called back not long after. I had a chance to talk to her for a bit and said we’d turned around and come home because of the truck. She was understanding. She spoke to my daughter for a bit, and they will call back with a new appointment time later.

Ah, that reminds me. While we were out yesterday, my husband answered a call from the eye clinic. My 6 month eye tests are in the middle of next month, and they were needing to reschedule. That came in before I reached my own doctor’s appointment. Since I’m now expected to have my surgery in about 4 weeks, that actually works out, since I would probably have had to reschedule, anyhow! I want to book an appointment for my older daughter at the same time. It’s been years since she had her eyes tested, and she needs new glasses badly. Once she has them, she can finally take her written test for her driver’s license. She knows how to drive – we taught her how when we were living not for from here before, and she was just big enough to reach the pedals. Since moving out here, she just hasn’t been able to get it done. She doesn’t even have photo ID for this province.

Now that my younger daughter has her current medications, she wants to do her road test, but she needs to do 2 hours with an instructor, and get access to a loaner vehicle, since our truck wouldn’t be accepted for a road test. They don’t care that the light on the dash is just tire sensors needing replacement. We don’t know how much a road test and loaner vehicle will cost, but with all the extra bills we’ve been having, we don’t have anything “extra” to cover it anyhow, even with the girls helping out as they are able. Now there’s going to be another truck bill.

*sigh*

Well, it is what it is. We just need to deal with things as they come.

It would be nice to get a break, once it a while, though!!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: winter squash and a harvest

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After a draining morning, I lay down after taking my pain killers to wait for it to pass.

It didn’t, but it at least got less severe.

Somewhere past 3:00, I headed back outside with my walker. I fed the outside cats, then say with the fishing rod toy to keep Sweetie busy so the littles had a chance to eat. We have storm warnings for tonight (as I started this, I could hear thunder in the distance!), so I took the bigger carrier we had set up for the kittens to explore and put it inside the catio, setting the door mostly closed. Then I headed to the garden.

One thing I noticed over the past while is that some of the winter squash on the chain link fence are producing more female flowers! I was even able to hand pollinate a few this morning.

Most of them are these Butterneck squash. There’s at least one that looks like it’s going to wither away, but the ones I got pictures of all look pretty darn good. I also spotted a new Black Futsu female flower that was open and hand pollinated it. Why I bother, I don’t know. It’s Sept. 6 today. There is basically no season left for them to mature! Still, I want to give them all the chance they can. It should be interesting to see how big they get before it gets too cold.

We will, however, have one winter squash this year, at least.

The outer shell of the Arikara squash is getting pretty hard. I should be able to cut it and set it to cure fairly soon. All the other squash that started on this plant have died off, almost as if it pruned itself.

The yellow bush beans around the Arikara squash are producing quite nicely, and I had plenty to pick from a relatively few number of plants. I also found a single red Manitoba tomato, hiding under some leaves that I picked. Then I went to the high raised bed and picked the bush beans there…

… after I picked the two Chocolate Stripes tomatoes that were ready.

In the above photo, all the beans to the left of the tomatoes are from the later planted beans by the Arikara squash. Everything to the right of the tomatoes are from the high raised bed. The yellow beans in that bed seem to have had a second life and are suddenly producing quite a lot, again. There’s only a couple of green bean plants, and they are not at all productive.

I didn’t keep this. I got a bowl for it all, then wheeled over to my brother and SIL’s caravan and offered it to them. They were quite happy to accept. After my SIL transferred them to their own container and brought back my bowl, we were able to stay outside and chat – I just sat on my walker rather than try to climb up into the caravan. They have stairs with a hand rail now, but they came outside rather than have me hobble my way in.

Unlike my mother, with her snarky comments about the little tomatoes I brought her, it was nice when my brother and SIL quite appreciated the beans and tomatoes I brought for them! They have been growing some things on their balcony, but no beans. My SIL is thinking that, next year, she’ll try to grow enough tomatoes to do some canning. This year, they have cucumbers and cucamelons that have done quite well!

We got all caught up with the birthday visit with my mother this morning. My brother hadn’t had a chance to go into detail with my SIL yet. My mother was so all over the place, it took both of us to describe things and figure out what she was saying. Part of the challenge is that her sense of time is completely gone. There was something she’d said that my brother thought had happened recently, but I’d caught her mentioned the town she used to live in, which means it could have happened several years ago. In some things, we had to mash together things, my sister had told me my mother had said to her, compared to what my mother had told me, compared to what my mother had told my brother, and work out what was actually intended. It’s like putting together a puzzle, but half the pieces are still missing, while pieces from another puzzle show up randomly, too.

Still, we do the best we can.

I can hear that the rain has started. My SIL was very happy to have gotten the mowing done!

It would be really awesome if the weather holds long enough for us to actually get more winter squash.

The Re-Farmer

Morning kittens and a birthday visit

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This morning, I headed out with my daughter while she did the morning feeding. We were hoping to catch some more kittens for the rescue.

The kittens are definitely more comfortable around my daughter, and were willing to come over for cat soup while she was right there, and she was able to pet them. When she tried picking them up to put in the waiting carrier, though, that was too much. These kittens are a lot more skittish than the ones we took in yesterday.

Sweetie, of course, didn’t help much!

After a while, my daughter and I talked about it and decided it would be better to wait. We made sure to leave the big cat carrier out, door open, so they could go in and out as they pleased and not find it scary. The white and grey singleton also came out, but it’s even more nervous that the littles.

We will try again tomorrow – if the weather holds. We’re supposed to get heavy rain in our area overnight and all day tomorrow. It’s supposed to be worse to the south of us, and the city is getting flash flood warnings, so we shall see.

Once inside and having breakfast, I remembered to tell my brother about the chainsaw mill. He would have seen it by now, but I wanted him to know that he was welcome to use it at any time, since it’ll be a while before I am able to. While we were chatting, I mentioned my plans to go into town to buy a birthday card and visit out mother, since I wasn’t able to do it yesterday.

He was planning to visit our mother today, too, so he offered to drive me in his car, which was very sweet of him. I had enough time to head outside again to move some hoses, as my SIL said she wanted to mow the inner yard for me, then I picked some Orange Currant tomatoes and even a few Blueberry tomatoes for my mother. I figured she make snarky comments about them being so small, but thought she would still enjoy them.

We dove out in their recently acquired electric car, and there’s a charging station almost across the street from the nursing home, so we went there to top the charge up, then walked over to the dollar store, half a block away. I found a card but decided against looking for the other stuff I had been thinking of on this trip. My brother had already brought a card last weekend, but found an actual 95th Birthday card and got it for her, too. Then we walked over to his car to fill the cards out inside.

We had brought my walker along and, by then, I felt that I was going to need it, so he got it out for me and we headed in. It was coming up on lunch time, but my mother was asleep in bed when we got there. Once she was awake enough to realize we were there for a visit, she got up and moved to her corner chair.

The visit was… draining.

My mother almost immediately went at my brother, going on about how she wanted a “good” radio – she simply will not accept that the station she wants to listen to cannot be picked up in her room, and insists the problem is the “junk” radio. My brother had not intended to tell her yet, but he ended up explaining that he did get her an internet radio, like she asked for, and had spent the last week setting it up. She can’t understand any of it, but when she gets it, she’ll only need to push a button to get a Polish radio station. It was not easy, since the one station she wants doesn’t broadcast online like most others. It took him 4 days to figure out how to get their website stream connected to the radio. It was just that one station that was an issue, but none of it was easy. The next step is to activate the new internet that was installed in her room. He tried to explain all this, but she kept interrupting him and complaining.

The rest of the visit did not get any better.

She mostly dismissed the cards we got her. She mocked the tiny tomatoes, then was wondering where her garlic was. She had asked for a bulb of garlic, which my sister had brought, but apparently it wasn’t good garlic (small?). Then she asked me if I had garlic in the garden. I told her no, it’s harvested. She glared at me, asking why. I told her, it’s September. It’s all harvested. She then went to talking about how my sister and her husband eat garlic every day, and that’s why they are so healthy, so she wants garlic.

My sister and her husband are not that healthy.

Then she went on about how she’s gained weight (she hasn’t; she has water retention and bloating) because they feed her too much and keep “pushing” snacks, and “they” put chemicals in food and that’s why she’s gaining weight and why people are getting cancer. She’s cutting our beef and pork, convinced it’s the cause of her “stomach problems”. Then she started talking about something she saw on the news (she doesn’t have a TV, so I’m guessing in one of the common rooms?), except she was clearly combing two completely different things into one, but that’s why everyone is dying of cancer. ??? Then she started on how, after she’s gone, she wants my brother, sister and I to all get along and not fight and push each other away – clearly she had imagined some sort of scenario and believes it happening or will happen, or… I don’t know, but she was making a big deal of it. Not the first time, though the first time she assumed we were behaving a particular way. Then my brother mentioned she’s used our sister for something (he didn’t even try to cover how badly she had stabbed him in the back and broke his heart in the process) and I mentioned she has specifically told our sister to keep it a secret from us, pointing out that she is the only one doing things like that.

It went over her head.

On and on it went, until someone came in with her lunch. We helped her set up with her table and tray to eat, then my brother said he and I would be going out for lunch now, leaving her to eat.

I think we were there for maybe half an hour.

My brother is a saint. I would have left much earlier. Mind you, by then the pain killers were wearing off and I had very little patience in me.

We did not go out for lunch. Neither of us had the energy for it.

Once at home, I had to pretty much lie down right away and my brother, being my brother, had many projects to work on. Later, he said that with all the manual labour he did over the next few hours, none left him as tired as that half hour or so with my mother! I’m glad we were able to go in together. If it had been just him, she would have been much worse. *sigh*

I eventually made it outside again, too, and get into the garden, but that will be in my next post.

See you there…

The Re-Farmer

Cautious

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Well, I am not sure just how things are going, right now!

Last night, as I was going to be, I started feeling very ill.  Nausea is s potential side effect with the new painkillers, so that might have been it. 

Or it could have been the piece of birthday cake I’d had not long before.  I may have been sighted out.

Or it could gave been both.

Either way, I had to message my daughter to help me just to get to the bathroom, which waz an extremely slow and careful walk.  She got dome Pepto into me first, which seemed to work.

After I was finally stable enough to lie down, I took only 1 tablet instead of 2, for the next two doses.  That didn’t quite cut the pain, but there was only mild dizziness.  By the afternoon dose, I was back to 2 tablets, they kay riwn right away. 

That seemed to work, because I felt well enough to get things done outside.  I changed out the water in the tub all the cat beds, etc. were soaking in.  That was really gross.  I expect to be changing the water out at least one more time before I start using the wheelbarrow as a tub to wash individual pieces.

The kittens were looking for food around the shrine bowls, so while the tub was draining, I decided it was time to move the catio back to the inner yard.  It topped up all the other kibble bowls to distract the adult cats away, then cleared and emptied the catio, including the weights on the roof to keep it from blowing over, into the wagon.  The catio itself could then be walked over and got set uo where it was before.

Once everything was put back, eith fresh food and water, I went back to working at the tub nearby.

I then had to keep chasing away adult cats and skunks that were stealing the kittens’ food. 

Which scared away the kittens.

*sigh*

While I was doing that, my younger daughter was doing some pruning of the lilacs by the house.  We had talked about propagating the Korean Dwarf Lilac, so she went ahead and planted sone near where the sea buckthorn is, to fill gaps in the hedge.  They may not take, but lilacs are much like willow or birch.  You can just stick a branch in the ground, and it can grow.   It’s really sun baked and dry out there, though, so they will need frequent watering for them to have any chance at all.

My daughter is dealing with a lot of her own pain, and walking with a cane again, so dhe headed in once the pruning and planting was done.  After I finished refilling the soaking tub – and chasing off more skunks – I was feeling well enough to stay out and water the garden beds.

I didn’t get any pictures, but I’m seeing some Chocolate Stripe tomatoes starting to ripen.  There is a single white Caspar eggplant developing.  I even spotted some tiny melons developing, and one of the winter squash climbing the chain link fence is showing several female flowers, and even a few squash developing.  With no season left to mature, unless that Super El Nino keeps things mild for a long time.l.

The pain killers were starting to wear off by then, so I headed back inside for a while.  Just as I was sitting down with supper, my mother phoned.  It was actually a pretty good call.  She mostly just wanted to chat. 

While we were talking about her health, my mother suddenly declared that she has a round belly, too, so maybe she has what I have.

…

I tried to explain how this could not be true.  I don’t think she believed me.

*sigh*

I ended up having to cut the call short so I could have my supper, and my evening meds time was coming up.  While I was eating, I updated my brother and SIL on the call … then they showed up!  I wasn’t sure if they woukd make it out this weekend.

When I finished eating, I headed out to give the kittens a top up, since the cats and skunks steal their food donations quickly.  I found the two bravest ones on a shelf in the catio.  They ran off as I added some cat milk to the remains of kibble in the bowl, but they were soon back.

I still had to chase away Sweetie and two other adult cats, so the kittens could eat.

My brother passed by on the way to the garage, so we got to say a quick hello.  He wanted to get their zero turn mower out and cutting the grass in the outer yard whike it was still light out.

I headed back inside just in time for my alarm to go off gir my evening meds.  Including a full dose of the new painkillers.

I’m now in bed, in an over abundance of caution.  I don’t want a repeat of last night!  I’d forgotten my daily post, though, so I am doing this on my phone.

I much prefer my desktop!! 😁

I hope the night goes well. 

Tomorrow, the main goals are a dump run, then a trip into town to get a birthday card and a visit with my mother.  She’s turning 95 this weekend.

She is doing amazing for her age!  Even with all her aches and pains, and declarations that she is dying. 😁

I did not tell her I was planning to visit while on phone with her, just in case I’m not physically up to it.

We shall see how things go, when the time comes.

The Re-Farmer

Hard to hold back

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In some ways, I am a really terrible person to myself.

I am doing very well, which means I want to do more than I should, without even thinking about it! I was doing so well, I was able to do a walkabout yesterday evening… with my daughters both joining me to make sure I was okay!

Here we are, past the middle of August, and the sunflowers are just starting to form their heads. In the second photo of the slide show above, the one tomato we have that formed the earliest is finally turning red, but it’s taken so long, the skin looks dried out and damaged. There are, however, a decent number of other Manitoba Tomatoes on the plants, though still very green. The Blueberry tomatoes have quite a few forming fruit, all incredibly hard. There are lots of Orange Currant tomatoes, and they’re the only ones in that bed that have had anything ripen, but only from the same spray of fruit. Everything else is solid green. Same with the Chocolate Stripe tomatoes in the main garden area. We might be able to bring them in to ripen off the vine, but it’s way too early for most of them. Meanwhile, we’ve had some surprisingly cool night temperatures lately. We dropped to 6C/43F last night! Overnight temperatures over the next while as supposed to be warmer. The app on my phone says we’ll get another drop like last night within the week, but that app is also saying it’s raining right now, has been for hours and will continue through the night.

It’s not raining. It’s not even overcast.

Looking at the weather radar, the system is passing to the north and south of us. We might get a bit of rain in about an hour and that’s it.

I was able to sleep last night, and even sleep in, as my younger daughter took over the morning routine. She made sure the catio food bowl had a generous amount of cat soup to lure the babies (I have not seem or heard them at all today), and she watered the garden. We talked about that for a bit and the potatoes will no longer be watered so the soil will dry out and they can be harvested.

Which won’t be by me.

Later in the morning, she and I headed out to town, stopping first to pick up a parcel at the post office that turned out to be three parcels. I’m really amazed by how quickly my husband’s Tei Fu order came in! This time, he got some oil as well as the lotion that my daughter will test out. I was up to driving, but my daughter ran into the post office so I didn’t need to get in and out of the truck.

Our first stop in town was the pharmacy so I could get my post-op prescriptions filled. My husband has a refill scheduled for delivery tomorrow and I was hoping to pick that up, too, but I was not allowed to. Being a “controlled substance” it was too early for a refill. Idiotic and frustrating. Both my daughters had refills to get filled as well, with one of those also being a “controlled substance” that had to wait until it was almost gone before it would be refilled – which means it would have been out completely if she waited for delivery day.

While we wait for the prescriptions to be filled, my daughter got a wrist brace for her sister and I ended up getting a thumb brace for myself. I wore it only for the afternoon, and it has already made a world of difference.

Wandering around the store started to be a bit much, though, and I didn’t want to push myself, so I sat in the waiting area for most of the time. My daughter got the meds for herself and her sister faster, so she paid for the wrist brace (their meds were both covered 100% by our province’s pharmacare insurance) then headed out to another store while I waited.

My meds, being new, got a discussion about instructions with the pharmacist. The antibiotics need to be taken every 6 hours until the bottle is empty. The number of days is a bit off, since I wasn’t able to fill it yesterday so, in theory, I’d already “missed” several doses. The other is to stop bleeding. I can take it every 8 hours, but only as needed, and the fewer I take of that, the better. It’s the same thing my older daughter has a prescription for, and she had asked if I was getting it. The prescription was hand written in a short hand, so I had no idea until the pharmacist named it as she gave it to me. My daughter was very happy to hear I got this prescription, because it works incredibly fast and well. It’s highly unlikely I’ll need to take it for more than a day or two.

Once done at the pharmacy, we decided to go to the grocery store for a few things; bread, eggs and milk, mostly. We ended up getting more, of course. They had several cuts of steak, plus beef roasts, on sale for prices I haven’t seen in a very long time. I ended up getting two packages of steaks for tonight, a small roast plus a seasoned pork roast that is always a good price. Pork is about the only affordable meat right now.

Before we could finish going through the store, though, I had to give my daughter my cards and turn the shopping over to my daughter, so I could head to the truck and sit down. I had only been walking around, using the cart as a walker as I usually do, but I could tell I had started to push myself too far and needed to sit. My daughter did the driving and, once we got home, I took my new meds and lay down pretty much right away, making sure to set a timer and an alarm for the two different lengths of time to the next doses.

The girls took care of all the stuff I normally would have done at least part of. My older daughter also cooked the steaks for supper, finishing off the last of our store bought potatoes, together with cabbage and beans from our garden, to go with it.

It was deliscious.

Before supper was ready, I felt well enough again to go outside for the evening cat feeding – promising my daughters I wouldn’t do anything else!

Then my older daughter saw me through the kitchen window, dragging the hose across the yard, and sent my younger daughter running. I was just taking it to the catio to refill the water bowl for Slick and her kittens, but they were afraid I was going to start watering the garden or something! 😁

My daughter stayed with me while I finished and brought the hose back, and we got to talking about how Sprout’s little one has gotten so talkative!

It has a squeaky little meow it gives off while waiting for us to distribute the kibble. It is so nervous about eating, and I’d had to use the hose to chase off a big skunk that had scared it way, just by being there. This poor baby is all alone. Mama doesn’t stay close to it anymore, and it’s too scared to come to the house, so it has formed no “friendships” with any of the other cats. If they come by to eat, she runs away, so we try to get them to eat from other bowls, instead.

Once the cats were fed and watered, my daughter chastised me until I went back inside. 😄

Along with the meds, I’m under some pretty strict instructions on what I can and can’t do. No lifting anything over 10 pounds. No “strenuous activity” for a week… I suspect digging up potatoes counts as “strenuous activity”. Apparently, I’m supposed to be eating a “light diet” or things like toast or soup until I can tolerate more. I have had zero issues with what I have been able to eat. The steak dinner my daughter made REALLY hit the spot! Of course, there are also the warnings to look out for that, if they start, I am to get to the nearest ER immediately.

So far, though, I just had that while where I could tell I’d pushed myself, and lying down was sufficient.

The down side of feeling so good after the procedure; I REALLY need to force myself not to just get back into my normal activity levels!!!

Meanwhile, my timer just went off… time to go take the next dose of antibiotics…

The Re-Farmer