family

Home again

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Well, I’m actually glad the installers couldn’t make it in to do the front door today.

The rains stopped some time before sunrise this morning. It was still super wet when I went out to feed the cats at about 7:30am There was no rain in the forecast, but while driving today, we got hit by rain several times! Hopefully, things will be better tomorrow.

Before I get into more stuff, though, I just have to share this bit of fluffy adorableness.

There was one litter with four grey tabbies. Two of them are getting fluffier as they get older, and they look almost identical! This is one of them. The other two are short haired and one of them sometimes allows pets, but they are also almost identical. Which means that when I reach out to pet, I’m never sure if it’s the friendlier one that will allow it, or the skittish sibling.

Must. Socialize. The babies.

So they can get fixed and adopted out!

Meanwhile…

My daughter and I headed out to my appointment ridiculously early. I had a budget for lunch, and we could take our time with it.

Not long after we’d passed through my mother’s town, my cell phone started ringing. My daughter answered, and it was an automated call from Life Line. It was to notify that my mother’s pendant seems to no longer be connected, and recommended doing a test.

When the call was done, I pulled over to phone my mother. It went straight to machine, so I left her a detailed message about it, telling her to test her pendant and see if anyone answered. If they did, to just tell them it was a test. If there was no answer, I would be there tomorrow to deal with it, and would call her after I got back from my eye appointment.

Doing this didn’t take very long, but enough time that I was glad we left as early as we did!

Once in town, my daughter and I had lunch, then went to the eye clinic. We got there about half an hour early but, after about 15 minutes, I was take in for stuff they do before the actual appointment with the doctor. This time, it was just the glaucoma test. Taking photos of inside my eyes would be done after I got the drops and the field of vision test.

For the field of vision test, I just had to wait for another patient to be done and the usual sanitization, and was called in quickly. She did the eye drops first, which meant tilting my head back.

This is the first time I got the dilation drops in this room. Usually, it’s been done in the examination room. When I tipped my head back to get the drops, I found myself looking directly into a couple of bright lights! Very hard to keep my eye open for the drops! After the first one, I let her know and she shut the lights off to do the next eye. With the door open, she had enough light but, until I told her, she didn’t realize that doing the drops there meant getting blinded by the ceiling lights!

The field of vision test could be done right away, without having to wait for the drops, since it is all close up. By the time that was done, enough time had passed that I could go straight to getting the photos of the inside of my eyes.

There’s nothing like being told not to blink to suddenly want to blink like crazy! 😄

Those done, it was back to the waiting room until the doctor could see me.

I didn’t have to wait long.

The first thing she did was go over the photos with me, and compare from my last appointment. I’ve got the tiniest of hemorrhages that are being monitored. One slightly larger one – just large enough for me to easily see from the eye exam chair – was no longer there. Overall, nothing had really changed, so there’s nothing to treat. I’ll be back in 6 months for continued monitoring.

Then she did the physical exam with the bright light to see directly in my eyes.

Fun stuff.

Not.

The whole thing was done nice and fast. Being there so early meant we were out early, too!

I made my next appointment for April, and then my daughter started driving me home. Next time, I won’t be getting the eye dilation drops, so she won’t need to come with me.

In my mother’s town, there are two gas stations along the main road. One is a co-op, and we no longer go there for gas. Turns out they can pay dividends because they use old, cheaper gas. I found that out when we had to replace an expensive part in our previous vehicle that had gotten clogged up. Even our lawn mower got clogged up after only one summer’s use, and we only use premium for the mowers!

On the way out, both stations were at $1.199/L

On the way back, the co-op was at $1.310/L

!!!

We turned around and went to the other station that was still at $1.199 to put some gas in before they got the call to increase their prices! I mentioned the other station’s new price and it had changed so recently, she didn’t know about it yet (the two stations are close enough that they can see each other’s price signs).

We didn’t put a lot in, but it was enough to fill the tank at that price. Which is good, because I will be back tomorrow and probably would have needed to put more gas in by the time I was ready to go home from my mother’s. If all goes well, I won’t need to get more gas until our first city shopping trip next week.

Once we got home, it was later than I would normally have fed the outside cats, so taking care of that was my first priority. They were very hungry!

I’ve been keeping an eye out for Pinky. This morning, I didn’t see her until I was getting the truck ready to leave, and she was by the garage. I saw her again while doing the later feeding, and she was again near the garage. I’ve seen her sleeping – alone – in the catio, but since we took her babies in to the rescue, she has been alone.

She won’t let me get a closer look at that injured toe, but it no longer looks bright red, she isn’t favouring it, and there’s no sign of infection, so I think she’s okay. Still something to monitor.

I so wish we could bring her in to her babies! Of course, her “babies” are the cat equivalent of teenagers now, but they were the only ones I ever saw her with. She doesn’t get along with any of the other cats, and now she’s alone. She barely even lets me pet her anymore.

💔💔

Hopefully, we can bring her in soon – and can get her friendly enough again to get her into a carrier!

Once settled inside, I called my mother. She never noticed that there was a message waiting for her, even though I could hear that she was in her TV watching chair, which is right next to her answering machine. I told her about the call I got and had her test her Life Line pendant while on the phone with me.

There was no response.

So, I will have to deal with it tomorrow. I had planned to come earlier, so I could do her shopping while she was having her Meals on Wheels lunch, but she suggested I do the shopping after, so I wouldn’t have to be at her place for too long.

This being my mother, it makes me wonder what she has planned for the morning that she doesn’t want me to know about.

So I’ll be there for early in the afternoon. The appointment might take an hour or so, since the home care coordinator will be reassessing my mother for the nursing home panel, too. I pray my mother finally gets approved! She has been wanting this for over a year now, and her mobility is getting a lot worse. At the very least, she needs to accept increased home care for things she’s been insisting on doing herself, when she shouldn’t be.

We’ll see how that works out.

By the time I’m done at my mother’s, I should be coming home to a new front door!

As for now, the rest of my day is pretty much toast. Aside from it being too wet to get anything done outside, my eyes are still aching from the dilation drops and blinding tests. If it wouldn’t mess me up entirely, I’d be going to bed right now, just so I could keep my eyes closed!

I also need to stop looking at a monitor. Ouch.

The Re-Farmer

One more down, and a weird home care situation

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Well, no surprise that the forecast changed overnight. Instead of rain all day on Friday, the rain started here last night, and continued off and on throughout the day.

Thankfully, it was a light rain.

As usual, I started out the day with feeding the outside cats. Before starting on softening the bowl of kibble, I quickly tossed a scoop full through the screenless storm door window to tide them over and distract them, first. I still have gelled turkey stock and meaty bits to mix into to their morning kibble with hot water and some canned cat food, too. Once I got it all mixed up, I left it to soak for a few minutes.

I’d seen on the critter cam that they’d somehow knocked the big cat carrier off its shelf, and it was in the middle of the floor, so I knew it would be in the way as I stepped out of the old kitchen. I snagged a daughter for cat herding duty, then tried to get through the doors as quickly as possible.

There were cats and kittens trying to get in, while others were milling around and eating the kibble I’d tossed in earlier.

Including a strange new ca….

Not a cat.

There, in the crowd of cats and kittens munching away, was a skunk! It and the cats were completely indifferent to each other!

As I got through and added softened kibble to several trays, I paused to pick up the carrier while my daughter dealt with the cats that managed to get through the doors before she could close the storm door. The skunk did leave while I was doing that, as did some of the more feral cats. It seemed unbothered by me as well as the cats!

Not a good thing, but there isn’t much we can do about it.

Once the feeding and watering was done (I’m bringing warm water to top up their bowls now, instead of using the hose, which will soon be put away for the winter), I did my morning rounds. My weather app said it was raining, but it seems our climate bubble was doing its thing again.

While doing my rounds, I found this…

With the trellis netting and other stakes and supports done, the deer could access the sunflowers. I’d already grabbed the seed heads that looked like they might have viable seeds in them, so the remaining ones had immature seed heads on them. A couple of the tallest ones were untouched, but the shorter ones were either broken with the seed heads eaten, or the entire stalks were munched down to just a couple of feet in height.

Cheeky buggers!

After the morning rounds were done, I popped inside long enough to have breakfast, then headed out to work on the next garden bed.

I decided to work on the log framed low raised bed. I hoped it would not be as bad as the last two beds I worked on. This one had the failed melons, the successful, if stunted, Spoon tomatoes and the failed purple beans and Swiss chard.

Here is how the first half went.

The first picture is how it looked after the grass clipping mulch was removed. There were very few weeds and most of those were crab grass.

The question was, how bad were the tree roots?

Since I would be dealing with rhizomes, I started by loosening the soil of the entire bed before I started clean up at the south end of the bed. This is the end furthest from those trees we need to get rid of, being the source of so many of our problems.

I started finding roots right away. The bed is 18 feet long, plus it’s another dozen feet or so to the nearest trees on the north side.

This bed turned out to not only have fewer normal weeds than the other beds, but fewer rocks, too. As for the roots, the closer to the middle of the bed that I got, the harder it was to get the tree roots out. With some of them, it was because the roots were running under the log wall. I could also feel that there was a large root, somewhere deeper below the bed, because I was finding roots that were basically growing vertically from something deeper than I was going with my garden fork, not horizontal, as usual. By the time I got to the middle, though, even with the pre-loosened soil, there were too many roots I couldn’t pull out of the soil, so I went to the north end to work my way back to the middle.

I promptly hit a larger root.

After fighting around it with my garden fork, I went and got a spade to dig around it, plus the loppers. I was able to cut away one larger root that I found in the process, but it was not the one causing me the most problems.

That’s the one you can see in the second picture of the slide show above.

This was not the root that was causing an issue further down the bed, though. This one ran diagonally across the bed, so I was able to use the loppers to cut it close to where it went under the log frame.

In the next picture, you can see where I’d made my way closer to the middle, and some of the other roots I was having issues with. Some would have to be dealt with when working the other side of the bed.

In the last picture of the above slide show, I had finished clearing one side. At the middle, I’d pretty much dug a pit to try and get the roots out.

In the end, though, there weren’t as many roots to fight with as in previous beds. There wasn’t even as many rocks to remove. The amount I had in the bucket after getting the first half done was about what I’d picked from a third of one side on the other two beds I cleared!

It had started to rain while I was working on this. A light and gentle rain, so I kept working, but I was getting pretty damp by the time I finished the one side. It was well past noon by then, so I headed in for sustenance and hydration.

I took my time with my late lunch, which turned out to be a good thing.

I got a phone call from home care, just as I was wrapping up and getting ready to head out again.

They were unable to find someone to do my mother’s evening med assist for Friday evening. They were still working on finding someone, but it was possible I might have to cover for Saturday and Sunday evenings, too.

!!!

Then they told me, they did actually have someone available, but this home care worker was male, and my mother had said she didn’t want men doing her med assist, so they were stuck.

?????

I hadn’t heard about this at all. My mother hadn’t had anything negative to say about the male home care workers, either, other than to mention that they were “from other places” (meaning, recent immigrants that weren’t white). But for her to say no men at all?

We talked about it for a bit, and I told them I could call my mother to find out what was going on. They told me that, if anything changed, to call the number for the home care coordinator (it was the scheduler and a new trainee that had called me) to talk about it.

After the call, I quickly updated my family, as well as my siblings in our group chat, then called my mother. There was no answer so I left a message. I puttered around on my computer while waiting, staying close to the phone, but I didn’t have a lot of time before the home care office would close for the day, plus I was going to start losing daylight to work outside. After a few minutes, I tried again.

This time, my mom answered just as the answering machine picked up. She’d been in the common room and was just coming back when the phone started ringing, so she’d never heard my earlier message.

I told her about the call from home care, that they didn’t have anyone to cover for Friday night’s med assists, and possibly Saturday and Sunday, too. Before she could start going on about how terrible they were, I told her that they actually did have someone available, but it was a male, and they told me she’d said told them, no male.

My mother confirmed this. She had called the home care office and told the home care coordinator, she didn’t want any med doing her med assists.

I asked more questions, and she said she didn’t want a man rubbing the Voltaren onto her bad and seeing her partially naked body. Which, as far as I knew, was something only done in the mornings, as they have extra time booked for stuff like that. She admitted, she had never asked one of the guys (it turns out there are three different male home care workers that have been visiting her) to do it, but eventually said that, if they had been women, she would have asked them to. She also admitted that they have never been unkind to her, and had never caused problems – unlike for example, one of the female home care workers recently not bothering to count my mother’s meds from the bubble pack, and one was missing. It turned out to have fallen to the floor. Or another that always leaves without making sure my mother took her meds, first.

The conversation got very intense as she tried to blame home care for not having enough people, etc. She was all over the place with it, and I kept having to bring it back to it just being about her getting her med assists. Eventually, though, we got to the heart of the issue.

My mother didn’t want brown people doing her med assists.

I had no patience with this and pointed out that, because of her not liking brown people, I might have to do her evening med assists, three nights in a row. She tried to make it their fault, saying “they” (the home care office) did this to me but I told her, no SHE is doing this to me.

In the end, I got her to agree to have a male med assist only to do her meds. No rubbing the Voltaren onto her back. If they were doing a morning assist, they could still do her commode, but no back rubs. If she’s uncomfortable with being touched like that, fair enough, but at least they could do her pills.

Once we got that decided on, I told her I had to call the home care office back quickly, as the office wasn’t going to be open for very much longer. She kept going on and on, keeping me on the phone, even after I told her I had to get the call done as quickly as possible. She did, however, finally talk about getting extra home care services, though in a way that had me rather confused, but I didn’t care at that point. We’ve been trying to get her to accept more home care services for quite some time now, and she’s been refusing, even though she really needs more help. I told her I would bring it up with the coordinator when I called her, and they would probably need to make an appointment with her to discuss it, but I needed to get off the phone to call the office. She STILL tried to keep me on the phone and I finally had to cut her off so I could hang up and make the call.

Thankfully, the home care coordinator was in her office at the time, so I was able to talk to her and not just leave a message. I told her about the situation and that I’d talked to my mother about it. I said that my mother had agreed that, as long as it didn’t involve rubbing the medication onto her back, she was willing to accept male home care aids. The coordinator filled me in on the call from my mother and, apparently, one of the men did offer to rub the medication onto her back for her, and she’d said no. I told her that, if the workers visiting her were women, she would be asking them to do her back, but not the men. Which would have been an understandable restriction, but the home care coordinator knows my mother by now, and she already figured out it was really about race.

So that was taken care of. They would be able to schedule men for my mother’s med assists, with the one restriction regarding applying the medication onto my mother’s back.

I then brought up about my mother bringing up her need for more care, and the first question she asked was, is my mother willing to accept more care? Which has been the biggest problem. My mother simply refusing it. I told her that yes, she is willing to do it.

My mother was due for her annual re-assessment anyhow, so we quickly made an appointment for next weed. Along with the care assessment, the coordinator wanted to go over the panel for a nursing home again, as that needed to be updated, too. I told her about how my mother can barely get around her apartment of later, needing to hang on to furniture or the walls to move around, and how I’d actually heard her crying out in pain at times, when I was last at her place to help out with things.

That done, I called my mother back with the appointment time and updated my family.

I could then finally get back outside!

I had an assistant as I worked.

Grommet was very determined to “help”. Usually by being directly in front of me while I worked, trying to give my hands kisses, or even trying to climb up my legs for attention!

The second side was done a lot faster, thankfully. Here is the finished bed!

The bed actually seems fuller, now that the soil is all fluffy again, instead of compacted. I’m out of stuff to cover it to protect if from the cats, though. When it comes time to do winter sowing in there, I’ll have to watch out for “presents” from the cats!

While working on the bed, I did find three frogs! One had come out of the mulch on its own. I was able to catch it and release it in and area where it would be able to burrow down for the winter. While picking rocks and roots, I uncovered two more frogs! I’m so glad I didn’t accidentally stab them with the garden fork. I was able to catch and move them to a safe place, too.

It was still pretty light out when I was finished, but not for long enough to start another bed. Instead, I did my evening rounds. While I was at it, I cleared up the pile of regrown maples my brother had cut away from the back of the pump shack for me. I set aside the straightest pieces for use in the garden, and the rest went onto the burn pile. Later on, I’ll trim the trigs and side shoots off the straight pieces, then bring the useable pieces to the old kitchen garden. They will made good stakes for the bed that still needs the wall on the inside to be finished.

Now that I have written this, I realize I’ve not switched out the trial cam memory cards yet, and it’s full dark right now. That’s the down side of changing from switching them in the mornings! Ah, well. I’ll survive.

Time to shoe up, grab a flash light, and go take care of that!

One more bed is done. Three more in the main garden area to go!

The Re-Farmer

So much wind!

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Happy Columbus Day to my American friends!

Well, Canadian Thanksgiving has blown in like a tempest. Northern parts of the province have had snow and conditions severe enough to shut down a highway.

I can’t complain. I think it was our first Thanksgiving here, when we got hit by a blizzard.

The high winds, at least, as supposed to go away this afternoon. We’re supposed to warm up a bit over the next while but, depending on which weather app I look at, on the warmest days we’re expecting rain. I’m just hoping the weather holds so I can get more beds ready for winter sowing. Aside from a pharmacy trip tomorrow, and a telephone appointment to follow up on my hip injection, I should be able to stay home enough to get things done. Weather willing!

When I headed out to feed the cats outside this morning, they were absolutely bonkers. I used our turkey carcass to make a stock for them in the slow cooker last night, and that’s what I used to soften their kibble this morning.

They inhaled it so quickly, I mixed up a bit more so the less dominant cats could get a chance to eat!

I also had to pick up the catio, which had been knocked over by the wind (I left the vinyl wrapped around it for last winter, specifically to cut the wind and provide passive solar warmth in there. We will need to re-wrap it!). I had removed the weights on the roof to use them while painting. A couple to left the plant stand above the grass, and a couple more to weight down corners of the isolation shelter roof, where I’d used some wood glue under a support. I hadn’t put the weights back. Last night was windy, and the catio seemed fine, but the wind picked up so much since I did my evening walkabout!

Once the cats were fed and the catio secured as best I could, I moved the isolation shelter’s ramp door box in front, to reduce at least some of the wind. The upper level is enclosed, but the lower level is all wire mesh walls. We’ll be wrapping it in vinyl for the winter again, but not quite yet. The wind from below has been enough to actually blow one of the corners of the hammock loose from its hook.

I then did a thorough walk about, looking for wind damage. In the outer yard, I only found this.

The door on that rotting old … storage shed? … finally fell.

It’ll be good when we can clean up that garbage in there and get that away. It’s a shame it was allowed to fall apart like that. It’s got several shelves in there and looks like it used to be pretty sturdy. Once the roof was allowed to fall apart, that was it. I have no idea when this was built, but I expect it was built by my late brother, probably about 20-30 years ago.

For now, all I could do was lean the door back and find an old tire still on its rim as a weight to hold it in place.

While going through the inner yard, I found quite a few fallen branches. Not enough to need a wheel barrow or anything. This was the largest one I found.

I’m pretty happy with how little came down in the wind.

When it was time to come back inside, I found this in the sun room.

There were 11 kittens on that shelf, but Sir Robin jumped out while I was taking the picture.

Seeing Smokey in there is encouraging. She’s starting to enjoy being around other cats. The only concern is, she’s getting old enough to go into heat. I don’t expect her to, as they tend not to when the weather starts getting cold. Thankfully, she will be going to the rescue, next weekend.

Meanwhile, I’ll be heading to my mother’s this afternoon, with a couple of turkey dinners for her. My brother and SIL are actually coming here to the farm today, to do some more winterizing around their stuff. I’ll have a chance to see them before I head out to my mothers, but they’ll probably be gone before I get back.

It already looks like the wind is dying down, and the sun is shining! Our expected high for the day is still only 6C/43F, and we’re at only 4C/39F. We’re supposed to go below freezing overnight, too.

I did plug in the cat house, so they should be getting heat in there when the light sensor turns on the bulb as it gets dark enough. The heated water bowls are plugged in now, too, except the one in the isolation shelter. That one is nowhere near an outlet, yet.

We’re fortunate, really, so have temperatures as nice as they are right now. More time to get things done before the snow flies!

The Re-Farmer

Today’s progress – running around and work accomplished… sorta

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I am so glad my brother said he would take care of my mother’s morning meds today, after we got the call from home care saying they didn’t have anyone to do it!

After feeding the outside cats and doing my morning rounds, I grabbed breakfast, then backed the truck closer to the inner yard. I didn’t want to go too close to the house while loading the back, because of all the very curious cats and kittens!

Speaking of which, I did a head count of all the cats and kittens I could see this morning. I counted several times and got a different number each time, but the highest count was 42. Mostly kittens. I’ve been messaging with the rescue group and mentioned this, commenting on how I can now see why we’re going through kibble so fast. I told them I got four 40 pound bags when disability came in at the end of Septembers. Sixteen days, and we’ve gone through three of them. I had to start the fourth one, today. They asked if I could last a week. I think we might be able to. They also asked about the prices for 40 pounds bags, and I was later able to send them pictures of a couple of receipts from the two different feed stores I go to, and the two different brands I get from them. A rescue would certainly be on the look out for better prices on kibble!

Anyhow…

I am so happy we have that new cover installed on the truck!

We were finally able to take the garbage from cleaning out the sun room to the dump. After I loaded those much bigger bags from the sun room clean up, with my older daughter distracting kittens away from me and the truck as best she could, she helped me get the household garbage out of the old kitchen, where the bags go until we can do a dump run. With all the kittens running around, it’s easier to have one person pass these smaller bags through the screenless window in the storm door to a second person. That way, only one person has to dodge kittens! 😄

This is the first dump run we’ve been able to make since we took the truck in for repair and getting the new cover installed. With the extra garbage from the sun room clean up, it filled the entire space under the cover – and no worries that something would blow away on the highway!

Once the truck was loaded, I was off to the dump. I got there right at 10. There was already a truck parked on the road, waiting for the gate to be unlocked. It turned out that the car in front of me was the attendant! I had it in my head that they opened at nine, forgetting that winter hours starts at the end of October, not the beginning. Glad I didn’t leave for a 9am opening!

By the time I unloaded the truck, there was a whole crowd of vehicles that had come in behind me, including a dump truck with two huge crushed cubes of garbage. !!! I’m happy to say that the area in front of the pit was relatively clear of huge piles of garbage. I’m still nervous about getting a flat tire every time I got in there, though.

That done, it was off to the pharmacy in town. I wanted to get refills before I ran out. I’m glad I didn’t wait. I have my anti-inflammatories, and my stomach meds to protect from the anti-inflammatories. I take the stomach meds only once a day, but can take up one or two anti-inflammatories, up to three times a day. If I were to take the max dose of the anti-inflammatories, I would finish both at the same time. I only need to take a couple of anti-inflammatories once a day, though, so those last a lot longer. I’d actually picked up a refill a while back, but it has disappeared, and I never used any of it. I’m still finishing my first bottle. I suspect a cat knocked the second bottle of the shelf, but I haven’t been able to find it, anywhere! So I had to get another refill.

The stomach meds, though, have already been refilled twice before, and my prescription was done for refills. The pharmacy would have to fax my doctor to get an extension. Unfortunately, today is a Saturday on Thanksgiving weekend, which means the earliest the doctor will get the fax is on Tuesday.

Once again, glad I started this now, and not later! I’ll have enough to last until the updated prescription is in. If I’d waited, I would have run out, and I really don’t want to do that. These have saved me from so much pain and stiffness, it still amazes me.

Meanwhile, I was able to get the other refills. While the pharmacy was taking care of that, I headed over to the grocery store to pick up a few things before Thanksgiving.

I didn’t have much on my list, but I did spend time going through the store, looking for something I might want to add to our Thanksgiving dinner. I should have picked something up while in my mother’s town, yesterday! They had much better sales on pies. This store had sales, too, but they were not only more expensive even with the sale price, you had to buy two of them to get the sale price, Otherwise, they were regular price – and there was no way I was paying that much for a small pie!

Taking my time at the grocery store gave the pharmacy the time then needed to fill my prescriptions. They were just bagging it up when I got there. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get the missing one on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, my brother had surprised my mother by showing up to do her morning med assist instead of the home care worker. He also had a couple of Thanksgiving dinners my SIL had packed for her. She was very happy about that and said they would be her lunch and supper! 😊 He stayed long enough to take care of her portable air conditioner and the window set up for the winter. He was done and already here at the farm before I got back from my own errands, so I went over to see how things went. She can be particularly cruel to him.

She turned out to be having a good day today, and was actually mostly kind to him. As we were catching up, he remembered to tell me my mother brought up about me and the farm. I immediately became suspicious, but he told me it was good. She had brought up about how we are paying for the utilities here, and he said yes, plus things like the internet, and fixing things, and so on. She started to say how she wanted to help. I told him, she has teased about helping with the door replacement a couple of times, but I don’t expect her to. He assured me, she’ll help with the door replacement. As her PoA, he could even make it easier for her and do an etransfer, or she can write me a check, if she prefers, but he says she intends to help with the door. She wants this place to be in good shape.

I don’t trust her. She’s burned all of us, at one time or another, by making promised and then backing out at the last minute. She has cost my brother many thousands of dollars by doing that. Even the times she has helped, like with the new roof and replacing the septic ejector, it was because my brother made sure she followed through. She actually tried to back out of paying for the roof like she promised, after the work was done, because she refused to believe it should cost more than a thousand dollars (it was around $15,000, I think), even though we got estimates and showed them to her.

I trust my brother, but there’s only so much he can do, and I don’t trust her.

We shall see. Lord knows, we could use the help after this past very rough couple of years, and my brother knows it.

Meanwhile, as I got caught up with my brother, I came into the house to find my purchases had all magically put themselves away. 😄 That allowed me to go back outside and try and get some work done.

Painting the isolation shelter and a few other things, were priority. It was supposed to be a much warmer day today, but it has been insanely windy.

I did get the painting done, though. The new paint is very noticeably lighter! I don’t care, though. I made no effort to try and keep the new colour off the painted parts. When I find something better to bring in for colour matching, we’ll get another can of paint in the right shade, and give what I got painted today a second coat, after winter.

The sliding windows had to be removed, of course. I was careful when painting the tracks, as I didn’t want them to get filled with pools of paint by accident.

In the first picture, you can see the box to shelter the ramp opening. Later on, I want to flip it upside down to paint the inside, but that’s not a priority. I got the old plant stand painted, and it’s sitting on a couple of broken sidewalk block pieces to keep it above ground.

The second picture is the side where the sliding window can only side towards the front, not over the insulated side wall. There was a bit to do in the front, and a single piece on the back that needed to be done, but most of the painting needed was on the sides.

I did not do the wire mesh door. It was so windy, I was starting to get an ear ache and had to head inside for a while.

After a break, I headed out again. By then, the paint was no longer wet to the touch, so I put the sliding windows back, which you can see in the third picture. Everything was sliding just the way they should!

That cats could now use it, too. Without those windows, the wind was blowing through so much, it actually blew a corner of the hammock loose!

My next project was to continue that garden bed I’d done half of.

Just in time for it to start raining!

I stayed out as a light rain came and went, while thunder rumbled in the distance, until it finally started coming down too hard to stay outside.

The first picture is the “before” shot. The second is how far I got before it started raining too hard.

So. Many. Tree roots. I think I got about half way down that side. Maybe a bit less. The rock bucket is a little over half full.

Once the roots and rocks were cleared, the soil was wonderfully light and fluffy. Perfect to grow in – if we didn’t have to worry about those roots coming back!

I’m glad I got as much done as I did. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get back at it. Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer, but rainy. We’ll be having our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, anyhow. I plan to pack up a care package for my mother and visit her on Thanksgiving day. She will be getting her Meals on Wheels, though, so it will be for later in the day. Monday and Tuesday are supposed to be quite chilly, with overnight lows reaching below freezing, but then it’s supposed to warm up again. That will be my time to get the beds finished, then start some winter sowing! I’ll have to go through my seed packs and work out where I want to plant things. Some things will be more appropriate for the old kitchen garden, right against the house. Others can be planted well away from the house, as they would get harvested in the fall. Some beds will get the winter sowing marked clearly, so that I can sow other things among them in the spring.

I’m really looking forward to having a better gardening year than this one was!

The Re-Farmer

Got some progress in, and cat news

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As I was finishing my rounds this morning, I got quite a few cat pictures that I could send to the rescue. Including this one of Rolando Moon.

Rolando, being one of the cats my late father cared for, is not up for adoption, but I wanted to share that face with the folks at the new rescue!

I shared quite a few other pictures as well. There was a fair bit of messaging throughout the day, and some things were finalized. One person is going to take in 6 cats herself, not this weekend, but next. There is another cat she is fostering right now that is going to a forever home this week, and the extra days will give her time to clean out the room she has for fosters before she can take more.

That’s something we can’t do. Have an entire room in the house dedicated to cats to be isolated for a week or two!

We have confirmed I will be delivering Smokey and her brother, the cat with the severe ear mite infection, plus three friendly kittens. None of the more feral ones, on this trip.

I had sad news to share with the rescue people, too.

Last night, around 1am, I was still up and tending to the inside cats, when I decided to give the outside cats a top up in the sun room. I figured the skunks and raccoons would have cleaned their kibble out by then, and I didn’t want them to be too hungry before the morning feeding.

As I was adding their kibble treat to various trays in the sun room, cats came running – except one, in one of the cat beds.

It was one of Frank’s remaining two kittens, passed away.

*sigh*

I was kind of expecting it, as her kittens were pretty sick, but still…

At least I can say it passed away while being in a cuddle puddle, and not cold and alone.

I let my older daughter know, as she was available at the time, and she came out with a flash light so I could bury the kitten. His brother actually came running and was so curious about what was going on, it was hard to get the job done! I finally was able to grab him and take him with me as I went to put the spade away, while my daughter found larger rocks to put over the new grave, so nothing could dig it up.

When feeding the cats this morning, Frank’s remaining little got to have his own bowl of special food in the old kitchen, supervised by my daughter, before getting an eye wash. He was pretty active and eager for attention, which was encouraging.

After the morning routine and planting of garlic, I was off to my mother’s, set to arrive after she’d had a chance to enjoy her Meals on Wheels lunch. I had quite a few things to get done, including helping her with her feet, so I brought along my micro-pedi thing and a proper set of toenail clippers, with plans to leave them with her. She has a fungal infection on a couple of her toenails and refuses to use the prescription treatment for them, because it was so expensive, so I don’t want to be bringing the stuff I use on her toes back home with me!

When I got there, though, she was lying down and her Meals on Wheels tray was on her table, untouched. My mother had forgotten that I was coming. She said she wasn’t feeling well, but since I was there, she got up to join me, and eat her lunch.

She had not made a shopping list, so we did that together. It was a really short shopping list this time. She still had much of what I’d picked up for her, last week.

When I called her last night about coming over today, I asked her to take a package of chicken out of the freezer that I could cook for her. I had been thinking of the meaty legs and thighs, but she took out the split wings, instead. After I got back from the grocery store, she even had them out and in a bowl, where she’d started to rinse them off.

Before I left for the grocery store, though, we got her laundry started. The wash would be done by the time I got back. Which is exactly how it worked out, so I got her stuff in the drier, and her third load started, before I got to work on the chicken.

I asked her how she wanted me to prepare them and she seemed surprised by the question. It turns out she just boils her chicken. (She never uses her oven for cooking; instead, she uses it to start pots and pans!) She’d even brought out a small pot and a large frying pan do use to cook them, as she doesn’t have a single pot large enough for the package. She asked me how I would have prepared them for myself and I mentioned a few things. She almost went with pan frying them, but she decided she really wanted that chicken stock.

So… boiled split wings it would be!

Then I asked her what she usually put in with them. Once again, she seemed surprised by the question. Water? was her response. Then she asked me again, how would I do it. Knowing what she had in the fridge, I said I’d be adding some carrots, celery and onion to it, some salt and pepper…

Then she remembered she was almost out of salt, but forgot to include it in her shopping list.

She had enough for the day, though, and told me to go ahead and add the vegetables to the chicken, too.

I’m glad she went with that because it turned out she was intending to have the chicken as a soup for her supper. Now, she would have chicken and vegetable soup!

That reminded her of something else she wanted us to pick up for her. “Tiny macaroni”, she said. I didn’t know what she meant and tried to get more details, but she got really frustrated that I didn’t know what she was talking about. I told her, there are a lot of different kinds of pasta out there! Did she mean orzo? Couscous?

I don’t think she’d heard of either before.

When she still couldn’t find the words to tell me what she wanted, I got my phone and and started searching for small types of pasta so I could show her pictures. I found one to show her, and it wasn’t small enough.

When she started talking about it being quick cooking, so she wouldn’t have to stand at the counter for long, I had a light bulb moment. I did some more searching and found a picture to show her.

She was talking about ramen noodles. She was very excited when I found the pictures for her!

Talking about her having food that cooks quickly, it got me to bringing up her home care again. She needs to have them come out to help her more often. Not just med assists, but help with dressing, making small meals – even if it’s just to make her some toast, or heat up a can of something for her, which is about the extent of what she’s up to on her own – even bathing.

My mom just got more and more frustrated at the idea. Her comments against it came down to “I’m not used to having servants. I’m used to doing things myself.”

So… that’s how my mother sees the home care workers. Not as people helping her with her medical needs, but as servants.

I told her, she’s causing her own problems by not accepting help she needs, because this care would get her into a nursing home faster. It’s either that, or have a fall!

I’m hoping she’ll come around.

This did give us a chance to talk about something else. I got a notification for a voice mail this morning, which meant there was no signal and the call went straight to voice mail. It took a few tries before I had enough signal to listen to the message, as the wifi calling isn’t working for some reason. It was this morning’s home care aid. She told me that she had emptied my mother’s commode and fount it very full, cloudy and smelling strongly. She’d asked my mother if she felt burning or any pain while urinating, and was told no. She brought up that she didn’t now if maybe it hadn’t been emptied for a while.

So when my mother and I talked about it, I asked her if she had any symptoms of a UTI, and she had none. Then I asked her how long it had been since the commode was emptied (it’s supposed to be done every morning).

I didn’t get a straight answer, but she started talking about one particular home care worker that is always in a hurry and leaves as soon as she gets my mother’s meds out. I told her, they are supposed to empty it every morning – there is extra time scheduled for my mother’s morning assist for stuff like this. She told me she can empty it herself, and I said no – that’s their job for a reason! I told her, just imagine trying to go to the washroom and having a fall, while carrying that bucket!

Hopefully, she will insist on it in the mornings. Otherwise, this will happen again. She shouldn’t have to, though. It’s part of their morning assist, not just the meds.

When I got home, I checked the schedule. My mother had someone yesterday with a name I didn’t recognize. The three previous mornings where this person my mother has issues with, that just comes in and leaves, without even making sure my mother takes her meds.

Which means that, potentially, that thing wasn’t empties for 4 mornings.

!!!!

Anyhow…

I stayed around until her chicken soup was cooked and her laundry was done and put away. I got some sweeping done, but I never got to do her feet. She wasn’t up to it. By the time I headed out, I had been there for almost 3 hours. I made a quick stop at the grocery store for ourselves before heading home – just some bread and eggs for now. Tomorrow, after I do the dump run, I will be going into town to pick up prescription refills, then going to the grocery store there, where prices are a bit better than in my mother’s town.

Overall, my mother was on one of her good days, though I had to redirect her to other topics a few times. There were also a few times when she was moving around, leaning on walls or furniture as she did, where she made sudden outcries of pain.

She really needs to be in some kind of supportive living, or a nursing home. It’s so frustrating that the home care office that decides this hasn’t approved her for it!

By the time I was heading home, it was late enough that I asked my daughter to feed the outside cats. When I got home, there was a message waiting for me, saying that she got it done, that she had a chance to pet all sorts of cats she’d never been able to touch before…

… and she couldn’t find Frank’s last little grubling.

*sigh*

Once I was home and settled in, I updated my siblings on how things went with my mom, including about what she remembered she wanted from the grocery store, after I’d made the trip. Then I got changed and headed outside to try and get some stuff done while there was still enough light.

That included checking the sun room for a missing kitten.

I found him in the same place I’d found that little white and grey tabby, a few days ago. Under a shelf, looking like he was all curled up for a nap.

*sigh*

I headed out to bury him beside his brother then my cell phone rang.

It was home care. They didn’t have anyone to do my mother’s morning visit tomorrow.

*sigh*

While I had the person on the phone, I mentioned finding a voice mail earlier in the day. I said that if a call goes straight to voice mail, that means I’m not getting a signal, so to call the land line instead. For some reason, while outside the house, I had enough signal to get that call, but would not have gotten it, if I were inside the house.

After pausing to let my family and siblings know about the call from home care, I continued the sad job of burying Frank’s last kitten. I updated the rescue about that as well. Two kittens in one day! 😢

I was starting to lose light, so I started working on the box for around the front of the isolation shelter ramp door, to keep the winter weather out. Parts of the roof were cracked, as was the front panel. I started out trimming the smaller opening in the front panel first, when I got a message from my brother.

He was planning to visit my brother tomorrow, and said he could do the morning med assist!

That was so, so appreciated!

He wanted to call me to talk about it, so I quickly popped inside so I could use the land line. We went over what gets included in my mother’s morning med assist. He confirmed about the grocery items she remembered later on, so he will be picking that up for her. My SIL, meanwhile, was making a chicken dinner to pack up for my brother to bring and have an early Thanksgiving lunch with her. It’s also that time of year for him to put away her portable AC for the winter, and set in the Styrofoam insulation in the window opening for the night. The glass in the window was removed so my mother could have the AC, and is set aside to be put back after my mother finally gets to move out and into a nursing home.

That done, I headed back outside again. Once the duct tape patching was done, I got out what I was planning to use as handles on the sides, so it can be carried more easily, and without damaging the plastic parts more.

The white piece of wood on the side, with a matching one on the other side, is the new handle. It’s the same thing I used for the legs, except they are half the length.

I’d picked up 1″ wood screws to attach these, as I’d run out, only to discover I really should have picked up 1 1/4″ screws. In the end, I attached them with two screws on the outside to hold them in place, then with three more screws through the thinner plywood on the inside.

Thankfully, my drill and driver both have lights on them, because it was pretty dark by the time I was finished, and the inside of the box, of course, was even darker!

It is now ready for painting.

Since I’ll be running around so much tomorrow, even without a trip to my mother’s early on, I’ve asked my daughters to do the painting, as soon as the morning chill is gone. Which will probably be around 10am. I want the paint to have as much time to cure as possible before the chill of the night. The exposed wood on the isolation shelter needs to be painted, the entry box needs to be painted, there’s a plant stand I scrubbed clean that can be painted, and plus there’s the wire mesh “door” for the old basement that we didn’t use this summer, as it was part of the platform in the sun room before we did the deep cleaning. There was plenty of grime from messy cat feet that needed to be scrubbed off of it, so I figure a paint job would help protect the wood, even if we don’t end up using is as part of a cat platform again.

Once the painting is done, there’s some rigid foam insulation inside one of the side walls that has been thoroughly scratched up by cats, so I want to cut a new piece for that. Then I want to wrap the bottom half with vinyl for the winter again, plus add handles to make it easier to move around.

All of which can be done after the paint dries!

Getting this done has been pushed back by other things coming up, so often. I’m just glad to have gotten it all to the point that all the painting can be done at once, rather than piecemeal – and that my daughters will be able to get it done for me while I’m running around, again!

That will give me more time to focus on getting more garden beds clear of weeds and tree roots, and finishing the inside wall of the garden bed in the old kitchen garden.

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

How things went today

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I’ll start with the more pleasant things!

First up, while doing my morning rounds, I spotted something very white in the wood chip pile, from quite a distance. Check these out!

The first picture was of a group of three very round mushrooms – I thought they were puffballs at first, until I saw the stems. The next three pictures are with my hand for perspective – then I found a fourth one, off to the side!

I have no idea if they are edible, and have no intention of finding out.

As I was heading inside, I found this adorable cuddle puddle.

Two of them! The smallest kittens really like to pile together.

Once the morning round were done, I was able to get a few things done before heading to my mother’s. My brother came out today, but he had to focus on replacing the radiator on one of his tractors that got damaged last fall, then try to get it going. Days are short, so I just popped over to say hello before I headed out.

When I got to my mother’s, she was all “prepared” for me. I barely got through the door! She had ice cream buckets of tomatoes she wanted me to take home. One of her neighbours in her building has had a great tomato year in their little garden plot and has been leaving boxes of them in the common room for people to help themselves. My mother keeps taking more than she needs for herself, because apparently no one else is taking any, and she doesn’t want them to go to waste.

So… she gives them to me.

While I was getting the two ice cream buckets of tomatoes out from under her table for her, I saw her collection of jugs for her drinking and cooking water, so I refilled those right away.

There were other errands she wanted me to do, but I told her I’d do them after I’ve put away her groceries.

She didn’t have a list, so I sat down to start that with her. It took a while, because she kept wanting to go on about other things. There’s one home care worker she has issues with in particular. For a basic med assist, they are supposed to be there for 5 minutes, making sure she takes her medication before they leave. The morning assist is for 10 minutes, as they are supposed to help with emptying the commode or helping apply her Voltaren to her back. This one rushes to put the meds in the little bowl she has for them, to make sure they’re all there (sometimes, they can get caught in the packaging), locked the box up and leaves without making sure my mother takes her meds. Apparently, she’s been so rough with the lock box, she ended up knocking my mom’s phone off its charger and just left it where it fell.

My mother was also angry about her new schedule. She has five evenings, which is two med assists done by the same person, plus four mornings, done by someone else (out of a 2 week schedule) listed as “unfilled”. I tried to explain to her that they have to have the schedules out by a certain time, so if they don’t have someone for a specific date or time, they have to list it as “unfilled”. That doesn’t mean they won’t find someone. Just that they hadn’t, before the deadline. My mother thinks it means people are going to show up because they’ve… called in sick, in advance? She doesn’t understand how scheduling works.

It did give me a chance to try and talk to my mother about things she can do to try and get herself into a nursing home faster. I tried to explain that, because she’s only getting med assists, they basically view her as being able to care for herself. But if she takes advantage of the other assists they have available – meal assists, bathing assists, dressing assisted, etc. – that would go a long way to helping her get in faster.

She just got angry at me. She doesn’t trust the home care workers (there’s one that she says is really good at her job, and that’s the one that helped care for my father, before he went into the nursing home) and doesn’t want them touching her or preparing her meals. I tried to explain why she needed to get it anyhow and, besides, if she were in a nursing home, she’d be having that all done for her, anyhow. To which she said, in a nursing home, she would have “professionals”. I told her, the home care workers are “professionals”. They may or may not be good at their jobs, but they get training, first.

At one point she told me she had been talking to a woman that used to live in our little hamlet, that I went to school with. Her mother lived in the same building as my mother, having moved in a few years ago. It turns out her mother is in a nursing home now! She was visiting a friend and stopped to chat with my mother. As my mother told her how much she wants to be in a nursing home, she was told to try falling down! Which is pretty much what I was thinking, but hadn’t mentioned. My mother is constantly afraid of falling down, so she is super careful not to. If, however, she did have a fall, she’d have to use her Lifeline to get help, because she certainly couldn’t get up again on her own. They could call her an ambulance (and would call me to inform me of any issues). Chances are if that happened, my mother would end up going straight to a nursing home or supportive living, somewhere.

She did mention about the last time she used her Lifeline to talk to someone about her she was feeling. At the end of it, she was asked if there was anything else they could do for her. She said, help me get into a nursing home! The person on the Lifeline said they would talk to someone higher up about it.

I don’t know what they can do, but if there’s something, it would help! Lord knows, my mother isn’t willing to do anything herself that would get her in faster. We keep telling her things that would help (like getting other home care assistance that they have available), but she just refuses. I can understand why, but she doesn’t understand that she is sabotaging herself. She much prefers to complain and expect other people to do things for her, not do them herself. This is not a new thing. She’s been like this for as long as I can remember.

After much circular conversation, I did manage to get a shopping list written down for her. Some of it was “see how it looks” or “depends on the price” type stuff. She needed more of her Voltaren, too, so a trip to the pharmacy was also in order.

I was able to find everything she wanted, and even got her a pumpkin pie as a treat I was pretty sure she would be happy with. Either she’d be happy, or she’d be angry. Thankfully, she was in a good mood, and was very happy to see the pie!

Once everything was put away, she insisted I sit with a cup of tea for a while before I finished doing things like sweeping her floor, taking care of her garbage, etc. Then she foisted a bag of aluminum foil she saved from her Meals on Wheels packaging onto me, together with the tomatoes! She’s been carefully washing and setting aside the foil each part of her meal is wrapped in. From the amount in the bag, it’s been probably a year’s worth of foil! She thought I might be able to use them in the garden (??) or something. I told her, I could add them to our aluminum recycling. We save up our aluminum until it’s worth the trip to the salvage yard. She was quite happy with that idea.

All in all, the visit with my mom was pretty good. Just one racist rant I had to distract away from, and during the times she did get angry because she didn’t like what she was being told, it wasn’t quite the personal attacks on me such things often become. It was actually a pretty good visit, as far as that goes with my mother!

That done, I had a request from my husband, so I went to the town we usually go to for our local shopping. The difference in prices between grocery stores was worth the extra driving.

Thankfully, fruit cake was not part of his shopping list.

I could not believe how expensive these fruitcakes have become! Not that long ago, seeing them at prices above $7 was considered expensive!

After I got the few things on my husband’s list and made a stop at the gas station, it was time for home.

My brother was still working on his tractor, so I headed over for a quick hello and to update him a bit about how it went with Mom. Then I went in to change into my grubbies to do some work in the garden, instead of in the sun room, while there was still light enough.

I made sure to water the winter squash and cover them for the night, first. We’re supposed to get rain, but it’s also supposed to get cold enough that I’m not sure the winter squash would survive it. They might be kept covered for several days, if the 7 day forecast is at all accurate. The next three nights in particular will probably put an end to the eggplant, peppers and summer squash, so if there’s anything to bring in an ripen indoors, tomorrow will be the day to do it.

I need to get more garden beds ready for winter sowing, though, and today I started working on the bed the carrots and peas were grown in.

*sigh*

I got a little more than a quarter of it done. As I was working my way down one side, I kept getting tangled up in tree roots. It was a while before I found root they were all coming from and got that pulled out. Then I found more from another root!

It was starting to get dark, so I didn’t want to start fighting with roots I couldn’t quite find yet, so I decided to call it a night. For all the work done in these beds, particularly when they got shifted to their permanent locations, getting them ready for the winter should be easy. All of these roots I’m hitting were not there in the spring. I’m blown away by how far they are extending from the trees, and how big they are.

According to the weather apps, we’re supposed to get rain all night and all through tomorrow, with heavy rain warning. So it might be a couple of days before I can continue. The overnight lows that had been forecast to drop below freezing have changed to just at freezing. Hopefully, the cover will be enough for the winter squash. After that one cold night, we’re actually supposed to get decent, if cool, weather again. That would be a good time to get the garlic in.

Well, we’ll see what actually happens! I’ll take the mild weather for as long as possible!

The Re-Farmer

Change of plans, and still creepy

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One of my goals for today was to get more done in the sun room. Which did happen, though quite a bit later than I originally intended. My daughters had their own grocery shopping to do that was worth a trip into the city, which we ended up doing today.

Last night, for some reason, was a sleepless night. It was one of those nights where, the more I wanted to sleep, the more wide awake I became. Not because of pain, or busy brain, or cat shenanigans. Just… awake. I finally fell asleep somewhere around 5am. I woke up a couple of hours later, as it was starting to get light out, and ended up asking my daughters to do the morning routine outside, so I could get some more sleep. The only thing they didn’t do was switch out the trail cam memory cards. Which was okay. I was considering changing from switching them in the morning to switching them in the evening.

Which turned out to be a good thing.

My younger daughter and I started heading for the city in the late morning. I was in the truck at the end of the driveway while my daughter closed the gate behind us. By the time she was in the truck and buckled in, I saw that a tractor on the road was close enough that I waited for it to go by.

I didn’t recognize him at first, but it turned out to be our vandal, sporting a new beard. Instead of driving past us, he stopped his tractor on the road, directly in front of us.

When it looked like he was going to get off the tractor, I drove around him and down the road. It’s just a short distance to a stop sign, and I could see in my mirror that he was still sitting on his tractor, in front of our driveway.

Creepy Creeper was creeping again.

As we continued on our way, my daughter texted the family to keep an eye out on things. Then she checked the security camera’s live feed and he seemed to be gone. She updated the family again as we continued on our way.

When I switched out the memory cards this evening and checked the files, I could see from the time stamps that he sat there for a full two minutes after we drove away, before finally leaving.

Creepy.

The rest of our trip to the city was uneventful, thankfully. My daughters’ shopping list was for the international grocery store I’d skipped when I did our stock up shopping last week. It happens to be near a Dollarama, so I went there first while my daughter started her shopping. I’ve been getting a particular pattern of dishes from there, but the cats knocked a couple of bowls off the counter and broke them, and I wanted to get replacements. Of course, I found a few other small items that would be useful, then met up with my daughter at the grocery store. I took advantage of the trip to pick up a few other things – bread, milk, eggs, mayo and a box of large slide-lock freezer bags (generic brand). Those five items cost over $50!

My daughter had a much larger shopping list that ended up being over $200. It looks like they’re going to be doing a lot of Asian themed cooking over the next while!

That done, we headed home, backing into the yard to unload. It was getting around 4pm by then, so I fed the outside cats to distract them so we could unload. It almost worked! My daughter unloaded the truck to the door, where I grabbed the stuff to bring in the rest of the way. She kept having to use her cane to push kittens away from the door! Even so, Sir Robin and one of Frank’s tinies still managed to get through the door once. They are so fast! Sir Robin would happily be an indoor cat. So would all three of Frank’s grublings!

Once the truck was parked and everything was put away, I headed outside. I didn’t get too much done inside the sun room. There were two plastic storage shelves, one large, one small, that could be brought in the corner I want to keep covered so the critters won’t do their business in it. I might still change things, but I put the larger shelf in front of where the bathroom window is, and the smaller shelf in the corner. The cats like to climb up to the window to say hello, but the cube shelf that was there before is a lot shorter. Cats would scramble to reach the window to look in. Now, if we decide to leave the shelf there, cats could potentially go on the top two shelves to look in.

Yes, I’m a suck for the cats!

It also means they won’t be scrabbling up the wall to reach the window sill, scratching things up, and they’re less likely to fall and potentially hurt themselves.

I moved a couple of other things in – parts of the platform we’d had on the other side, previously, a metal garbage can we used to store things like hoes and spades, plus the actual garbage can. Those were moved mostly because we might get rain tonight, and I didn’t want water getting in them.

Another part of the platform was our “summer door” to the old basement. It allowed us to keep the door open for air circulation on hot days, while keeping the cats out. It didn’t get used that way this year, because it was part of the platform and had the clamp lamps hanging off of it still.

That will get stored in the sun room, too, but first it needed a good hose down and scrubbing of the wooden frame. I’ve got it set under the canopy tent to dry. Now that we have a gallon of paint to cover the exposed wood on the isolation shelter and the box that will go in front of the ramp door to block wind and snow, I will paint the frame of this summer door, too. One of the plant stands that the cats used to get up onto the platform was also in need of a scrub. I’ve decided I will paint that, too.

With the shelves in place in the sun room, I spread the kibble trays out a bit, so they’re not all crowded on one side. I’ve been watching the live feed on the critter cam and the cats and kittens seem to be really happy with the set up. They’ve been running around and playing all over the nice, clean floor!

I could probably bring the floor mats back in, too. I forgot that they’re still hanging on the chain link fence, after getting pressure washed with the hose. These are indoor/outdoor water proof mats with a carpet-like surface. One more thing to protect tiny toe beans from a cold concrete floor, in the winter.

I still don’t know how I’m going to set up the heat lamps. One is a 250 watt ceramic heat bulb and has a protective cage so nothing can accidentally touch the bulb. I would like to have that one over the open space between the cat cage the the shelf at the window. I can’t clamp it to the shelf itself, which would be the easy thing to do, as that shelf is all cat beds, and it might get knocked about as they move around the different levels. The only other thing above the area I want to set the heat lamp is the hanging pair of shop lights. Nothing stable enough to hold a heat lamp, there.

Must think about this some more.

The second lamp should probably go closer to the cat cage, more or less where the heated water bowl will be set up, once it’s plugged in. There’s an arm bar on the wall there, but I don’t think the clamp lamp would hold onto the chrome surface very well. I could set it up on the other side of the door, but I’d rather encourage the cats to use the west facing half of the sun room.

All things to figure out over the next while. I’ll need to sort through the bins that will go into the shelves I set up today and reorganize them, which will include storing things somewhere else entirely. Once the space under the canopy tent is clear, I want to roll the isolation shelter under it, so it can be painted and protected from any rain (or snow!) we might get over the next few days. The weather apps said we might get rain storms this evening. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to get rain all day but, again, I think it’ll mostly be south of us.

I will be heading to my mother’s do to her grocery shopping tomorrow, anyhow.

*sigh*

I’ll be honest; I’m not looking forward to spending time with my mother. I never know, from one day to the next, if she’ll be having one of her good days or, more frequently, be on one of her nasty days. Ah, well. It is what it is.

Tomorrow is looking like our last warm-ish day for a while. From the long range forecast, I’ve got maybe two weeks to prepare more garden beds and get the garlic in. I might be able to hold off until the the second half of October before I do the winter sowing. Once the isolation shelter is painted, we need to set it set up by the house for the winter, where we can plug in the heat lamp and heated water bowl.

Meanwhile, we’re still waiting on that new pre-hung door that needs to be installed! They have to move a hand rail against the wall to do it, which means the isolation shelter can’t be set up against that wall until the door is installed.

Lots to do, and not a lot of time to get it done.

On a completely different note, while I was doing my evening rounds, I was happy to see more flowers blooming.

Not only are both the asters and Cosmos blooming, but there are even a couple of late nasturtiums!

I’m still holding out hope that the warm weather will last long enough that I can collect seeds from the memorial asters.

The Re-Farmer

A day in the city, and a cheeky thief!

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Today was my day to get into the city for my appointment with the sports injury clinic about my hip.

I had a really rough and sleepless night. Not because of my hip this time, but I kept waking up and just generally couldn’t settle in. As dawn approached, I messaged my daughters, who both ended up awake all night, and asked them to take care of the morning routine for me, so I could try and get more sleep. I didn’t want to be driving to the city feeling the way I did.

They were sweethearts and took care of the entire morning routine for me, from feeding the cats to switching out the memory cards on the trail cams, to all the yard and garden checks.

My appointment was for 1pm, and I made sure to check the maps for the address. It turned out to be well within the area we normally do our not-Costco shopping. My landmark was a Shell gas station that seemed to share a driveway with the clinic, from what I could see on the satellite map.

Still, I ended up leaving about 2 hours before the appointment, even though it would take only a little more than an hour to drive there.

I am so glad I did!

As I was heading out and reached the first highway, there was an ambulance, lights on but no siren, that turned towards the north of us. A short distance away, I could see the vehicles of volunteer fire fighters at the fire station, and the fire truck was gone. On the other side of town, there were a couple of police vehicle, sirens and lights going, rushing through.

When I got to the next highway, I paused at a case station to pick up an energy drink and a sandwich (made by the restaurant in our little hamlet) for “breakfast”, and messaged my family. They kept tabs on the news, but nothing came up. Hopefully, whatever happened, no one was seriously harmed.

The highway I took into the city turned into the street that went past the clinic I needed to go to, so no turning or side trips needed.

Almost.

When I reached the Shell station, I went past and turned at the next entry, trying to find a street number, somewhere. I ended up driving around a building and, on the side facing the gas station, finally saw a sign over a door, saying “medical clinic and mall entrance”. That entire side of the building was all grey concrete, with a few service doors along the way. You really needed to want to find this place to get there!

I went in and the inside was just as bleak. Nothing but narrow hallways with lots of doors. The doors all had signs for different businesses, with some saying “employees only”. Eventually, I reached a door that actually had the street address on it.

It was a different address.

???

I headed back out and went into the Shell station, and asked the guy behind the counter. I gave the address I was after, and the name of the clinic, but all he could tell me is what his own address was and point vaguely further down the street.

*sigh*

So, off I went again and continued down the street until…

I passed another Shell station.

I’ve gone down this street so many times, but only really paid attention to where I needed to go. I had no idea there were two Shell stations so close together.

This one, however, had a very new looking building with a big sign and the name of the clinic. I swear, it wasn’t there the last time I drove this far.

I also drove right past it. Missed the entrance completely.

I was able to turn around and go back fairly easily but, again, you really had to want to find this place! The building may have been well marked, but the entry and exit lanes were very hard to see.

Then, there was finding the right door. It turns out this place has several related clinics in it, plus a pharmacy with a drive through (very unusual in our neck of the woods).

By the time I got to the right place, I was only 10 or so minutes early.

They did take me in a bit late, but not by much. The first person to see me was not the main doctor. He introduced me to himself with his first name only, telling me he was an orthopedic surgeon from China. Since he had just given me a very English name to us, I’m guessing his real name is hard for English speakers to pronounce! Much like my previous doctor who used his initials as his name.

This doctor started off by asking all sorts of questions to try and get a bead on why I was there.

By the time he was done, he seemed a bit perplexed. The thing that seemed to make it more difficult to figure out is that the hip troubles I’m having only really happen when I lie down to try and sleep. The more I try to relax, the worse the pain. It’s actually been a lot better lately, but it’s not gone away.

After a lot of questions and discussion, and looking at my file (for some reason, my most recent X-rays didn’t come up; just the report), he left to consult with the doctor my appointment was with. Then he came back with more questions before leaving again to consult with the doctor.

The doctor I was booked with swung by a short time later, apologizing for the wait (which I really didn’t notice as a problem) and said he just had to finish with another patient, and then he would be back to talk with me.

When he came back and we started talking, he was able to give me a diagnosis. GTPS. Greater Trochanteric Pain Syndrome. In looking it up, I can see why there was some confusion. My pain is really, really localized, and it happens only at certain times. My thought is that the anti-inflammatories I’m on, as low a dose as it is, helps with most of the symptoms that I would normally be feeling, or feeling more acutely, and now it’s just that hip joint that the anti-inflammatories aren’t enough to help with.

The other doctor had already given the area a physical exam, plus he also had me doing a number of range of motion tests. I had no issues with range of motion at all. During the physical exam at one point, he had me lying on my back, got me to lift one leg at a time, while he pressed down on my thigh. I was to resist his pushing my leg down as much as I could. He wasn’t able to push my leg down. When I got up from that, he commented that I had a lot of muscle.

The primary doctor got me on the table again, too, but he focused on finding the exact area in my hip to work on. That location would be the site for an injection. At first, as he poked and prodded, it was no big deal, but then he found THE spot. WOW did that ever hurt! Worse, he kept having to poke and prod around the area to find where the pain was the most acute.

Ouch.

That done, he explained the situation and that they could try a steroid injection. Which is exactly what my regular doctor and I were expecting. He wanted to know if I could come back tomorrow, or if I was okay to wait to get it done today. I told him, it’s a long drive, so I’m more than willing to wait to get it done today!

That decided, he had another patient to see before he could come back. While I was waiting, the first doctor came back to check on me and make sure everything was all right.

I didn’t have all that long to wait, really, and I was able to update my family on things. When the doctor came back, he made sure to go through all the usual disclaimers, then got me up on the table again. More poking and prodding to find the right location. He actually inserted the needle at one point, without doing the injection, and I didn’t even feel it compared to how much the poking and prodding hurt, when he hit that “sweet spot”. He ended up moving the needle to a different location before finally giving the injection. He told me it would take a while for the anesthetic to kick in, but there still might be pain in the injection location later on. I was also warned that there might be a “rebound” affect, where the area might actually hurt more before it starts feeling better.

He wanted to do a follow up with me in two weeks. Looking at my calendar, I asked if 4 weeks would be okay. In the end, he said he didn’t need me to actually come in, in person, and we could do a phone appointment in 2 weeks, instead. Which was just fine by me!

All in all, I was really happy with how things went. I now have a name for what’s going on with my hip and, hopefully, the steroid injection will make the difference. For some people, it doesn’t help at all, for others, it helps, but by how much is really an individual thing.

That done, I made the telephone appointment and headed out. I had a couple more places to go to.

My first stop was a Canadian Tire. I remembered to bring a paint sample for the colour of the isolation shelter. The exposed wood on it needs to be painted before winter, plus I want to pain the wind/snow break box that fits in front of the door when it’s open at its winter location.

Unfortunately, the piece of painted wood I brought as a sample wasn’t smooth enough. The colour matching machine “saw” it as a grey. So the paint person and I went looking at the colour samples and found one that was pretty close, and she tinted a gallon for me.

When she opened it up afterwards, though, we were both pretty surprised. The purple was a LOT darker than it should have been. She checked and double checked, and she had all the inputs and base paint correct. Yet the result was a darker purple than any of their samples!

After talking about it, we decided on another shade that we had been choosing between. It’s lighter, but not by much. When she tinted another gallon of paint, this one worked out and matched the colour sample. It’ll look a bit darker when dry, but will still be lighter than the original. It’s just for the cat isolation shelter, though, so it’s not like it’s meant for anything fancy. It’ll be close enough!

That done, I also picked up a large bag of kibble for the inside cats, some wood screws I needed, and a quick release hose connector repair kit. I also went looking and found a “calming” spray for the cats. We’ve got a lot of problems with some of them pissing outside of the litter boxes and other places – that’s why we go through so many puppy pads – which is likely stress related. I’ve been looking at pheromone diffusers, too, but all they had here was the spray. I decided it was worth a try.

I was able to pay for all this with my Canadian Tire dollars, so nothing at all came out of budget.

My next stop was the Walmart nearby. My husband gave me his card, a budget and a shopping list that included another bag of kibble for the inside cats. We should be set for the month for both inside and outside cats now. Along with a few grocery items, I ended up getting another box of moon cakes, very different from the last ones I got. The Autumn Festival is over now, so they were on clearance. I snagged a package of chestnuts, too, because they were also on clearance. I love chestnuts, but I seem to be the only one in the household that likes them!

With all this walking around, I did have some issues with my left hip after a while. Not pain, but it did feel… unstable. I used shopping cards as if they were walkers and was limping but, overall, the hip and injection site were feeling pretty good.

The shopping done, I was soon on my way home. By then, it was late enough that I asked my daughters to do the evening outside cat feeding, too.

When I got home, I was going to pull up to the house to unload, forgetting the vehicle gate to the inner yard was still closed. I don’t think we need to worry about that heifer getting through the outer yard fence again, and if he does, I really don’t think he’d wander into the inner yard, all by himself. Too far from the rest of the herd. I’ve left the gate open with that in mind. Hopefully, we won’t find ourselves with cows in the inner yard tomorrow! 😄

After everything was put away and I had my supper, I decided to head outside to walk around before it got dark. I brought out the hose repair kit and cut off the leaking and of a hose at the tap, only to discover…

I bought a quick release connector kit. Not a repair and quick release kit. I ended up having to switch hoses so I could still reach to water the winter and summer squash, until I can get the proper kit to replace the hose end I’d cut off! At least I was able to water what needed to be watered.

While I was outside still, my phone gave me a notification for a voice mail message.

It didn’t ring, of course.

Yes, it was home care again.

This time, it wasn’t to let me know about a cancellation, though! The person who was to see my mother for her bed time med assist was having vehicle troubles, and would my mother be okay if she came in almost an hour early, instead?

This time, the scheduler actually left a phone number, so I went in to use the land line to call back. I tried to listen to the message again to get the number, but I couldn’t access voice mail. Apparently, my number isn’t “registered” (I’m having no end of troubles with wi-fi calling!) and I had to go back outside to get enough data signal to listen to the message again and get the number. I had the land line handset with me and tried to call.

It failed. Twice.

Finally, on the third try, I got through.

It rang, then went straight to voice mail. The voice mail with the message saying no one would be checking the messages outside of office hours.

Why ask me to call back, if I can’t get through to a person, and any message I leave wouldn’t be listened to until the next day?

Still, I left a quick message confirming early visits to my mother was okay, then I called my mother.

After how terrible the call went the last time I talked to her, this one was actually almost pleasant! I had interrupted her evening prayers and was going to make it short, but she was talkative and kept me on the phone. I finally was able to end the call because the med assist was supposed to arrive.

That done, I was finally able to go back outside to finish my walkabout – this time with a flashlight, because it was full dark!

I heard some strange noises as soon as I came out. Noises from the shrive feeding station.

I chased away the skunk, then saw something moving in the isolation shelter.

I found this bugger!

Yup. That’s a raccoon in the cat bed! It had been at the empty food bowl when I first came over, then went to “hide” in the cat bed.

What cheek!

I did get it out, but it was really a moot point by then. There was no kibble left, anyhow.

Then I went and chased the skunk out of the sun room.

Once I was done my walkabout and settled at my computer, I got the live feed to the critter cam open. Since then, I’ve had to chase both skunks and raccoons out of the sun room, several times!

Greedy buggers.

It’s been getting really, really hard to get in and out through the old kitchen door into the sun room, lately. Frank’s three littles, plus a couple other really tiny kittens, all make a mad rush for the old kitchen door. They want in, so badly!! I really hope there’s a rescue out there than can take Frank and her babies. The new rescue we’re working with is putting feelers out, I’m told, so we’ll see.

Anyhow. That’s how the day went today. As I write this, I can say that my hip is feeling a lot better now. Tonight will be the first litmus test, though.

I might even be able to sleep on my left side and not wake up in massive pain for a change!

That would be pretty awesome!

The Re-Farmer

Work in the garden is good for the heart – especially when our mothers aren’t.

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I had two main goals for today. The first was to take care of my mother’s morning med assist and do her grocery shopping. The second was to get more progress cleaning up in the garden beds.

My mother turned out to be having one of “those” days.

It actually started off okay. She was in bed and not wanting to get up. I can’t say I blame her! She told me she feels like she just wants to lie in bed all the time, these days.

I got her morning meds out. I took out her other type if inhaler, too – the one that home care workers aren’t allowed to give her. I’d already talked to her about the doctor removing it from her med assist list for home care, and she doesn’t need to take it anymore, but when I’d called last night to let her know I’d be coming over, she told me she decided she would keep taking it after all.

When I brought it out, I told her again, she doesn’t need to use it. The doctor removed it from her prescription list. The experiment was to see if she had asthma, and she clearly doesn’t. It won’t hurt her to take it, but it’s not helping her and she doesn’t need to.

Usually, my mother is all about trying to drop her medications because she doesn’t think they’re helping. If they were helping, why does she feel this, or that, or this other thing? when her meds are for completely different things. Now she has a medication that was a trail, it isn’t helping her, she doesn’t need it… and suddenly she wants to keep taking it?

I told her I’d planned to take it to the pharmacy for proper disposal, but in the end I just left it out of the lock box for her to take or not take. It only has 28 doses left in it, so 14 days of daily use, if she keeps it up.

She had not made her shopping list, so after she took her medications, I went through her fridge and cupboards and we talked about what she needed before sitting down and making her list with her. Then she gave me cash in an envelope; I always make sure that the change and receipt is put back into it for her to go over at her leisure, later on.

All of that went smoothly, and I was soon back and putting everything away for her.

My brain is already trying to wipe things out, but I think it was the spaghetti squash that started it.

This is what WP AI image generator thinks my mother looks like.

My mother no longer has a garden plot, officially, but she did grow a spaghetti squash along the fence outside her window, which produced for her a single spaghetti squash. She’d already eaten half of it, but struggles with the hard skin, so she offered the other half to me. I politely declined, saying I was the only one in the family that likes spaghetti squash.

That lead to a lecture on how we’re all so fussy, and that it just needs to be cooked right (she still thinks I don’t know how to cook), etc.

Then she offered me some of the seeds she’d saved from her spaghetti squash. Again, I politely declined (I just told her I’m the only one that likes it; why would I grow something no one else wants to eat?) and told her I have lots of seeds.

While all this conversation was going on, I started sweeping her floor and doing other little things, as I usually try to do for her. She kept going on about the garden, asking me about how our garden is. I had told her before that it was a messed up year, but I told her again, things were really behind this year. We had the spring with hot days in May, but too cold nights. Then we had drought conditions, heat waves, and wildfire smoke. So the garden really sufferred.

Oh, I’m the only one complaining about the smoke! No one else is! (I wasn’t complaining, just listing it among other things) I have two daughters to help me! I should have a big garden, etc. etc. etc. I should have so much food from the garden, etc. etc. I told her, we did have some, just not much, and even tried to show her pictures of the winter squash and said I have been managing to keep them from freezing. Freezing? she asked. I guess she forgot that we’ve already had frost, and that our nights are getting pretty cold.

Then she just flat out said: I’m a bad gardener

My response was, And you’re very rude.

She agreed.

???

It was around that time, when I’d just finished sweeping her floor and was about to start emptying all her garbage cans, that the door opened and my brother walked in! He’d been on the way to the farm and decided to swing past my mother’s place to see if I was still there. He saw a Caravan parked, and knew the courtesy vehicle I had was a Caravan, so he decided to pop in.

He barely walked in and gave her a hug hello when she started going at him, immediately asking about pictures of his grand kids. My brother has shown her digital pictures, but she wants something she can tack onto her wall. The problem is, the last time he gave her prints of the grand kids, the first thing she did was ask if one of his grandsons was Downs Syndrome or something. Which neither of them are, but she didn’t like how one of them looked and basically said he looked retarded.

Needless to say, he’s not eager to give her more photos of his grandsons.

I don’t even know if he has a printer anymore. My sister’s the one that’s into that stuff, so she’s got a high end printer. I think my mother even paid for it. Anyhow, I tried to distract her away from that, then continued into empty her garbage cans into one bag then, emptied her commode.

Which is how I missed the first part of what they’d started talking about. I didn’t get the straight of it until much later, here at the farm, as we filled in my SIL.

It turns out our vandal had showed up at my mother’s place on Tuesday. The day the mental health assessor was interviewing my mother. It seems he walked right into her apartment and immediately started ranting at her, right in front of a stranger, about how she gave the farm to me (????), then started saying nasty things about my one of my daughters, (getting them mixed up, apparently) that were complete fabrications. He hasn’t seen either of them in years. Someone, however, seems to be telling him things (like my younger daughter having a PCOS beard), and then he’s going from there and just making things up. He didn’t even use my daughter’s correct name! Whichever one he meant to be talking about, anyhow.

My mother, however, believed him. ?!?! She started saying that it was true. As if she knows any better?

I’d asked my mother before about how that meeting with the mental health assessor went, and she just brushed her off in disgust, saying she wasn’t any use, and had told my mother something along the lines of, “there are people worse off than you”. Which is true, but pissed my mother off. My mother did NOT mention that our vandal showed up.

Or that the interview was cut short and that the assessor left with our vandal.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Red flag time!

Now that we know this happened, both my brother and I plan to phone the mental health assessor. If I’d known earlier, I would have already phoned her by now!

Meanwhile, in the middle of all this, my mother found the time to ask us to take her angel here to the farm. Years ago, my brother bought her a resin garden decor angel that my mother just loves. She’s been doing a lot of “when I go up-up, who is going to take this? Who is going to take that?” After confirming that no one else among my siblings wanted it, I assured her it would go to the farm. It’s made to be outdoors, so I said I would set it up somewhere nice.

My brother and I then joked that we should set it up facing the gate, so our vandal would see it and maybe be reminded that the things he’s doing isn’t particularly Godly. Or whatever.

Today, my mother brought it up and asked if we could take it.

That was our cue.

My poor brother was there for less than 10 minutes, and got jumped all over right from the moment he came in. He didn’t even have time to finish giving her a hello hug before she started, and he was more than happy to leave right away.

In bringing the angel out, he noticed there was a crack under one wing. That led to a whole other thing with my mother, because she didn’t know it was there. My brother suggested it had fallen over, but she said it had never fallen. We quickly distracted away from guessing, though. Later on, my brother said it probably happened when her apartment was being fumigated, and someone knocked it over. She’s already convinced the exterminator stole things from her, so my brother wasn’t about to bring that up around her!

We headed out together, with me taking her garbage out and my brother carrying the angel to load into the van. I used the fob to open the rear gate for him before going out the other door to the building’s garbage bin.

As I came around, my brother was trying to figure out how to get the angel into the back. One of the third row of seats would need to be folded down. As he was looking around, I decided to open up the side door to try and see from the other side. I had the key fob in my hand as I did.

I accidentally hit the panic button on the fob – or so I thought. The horn started honking an alarm.

I tried hitting the panic button again, but it only changed the pattern of honking. I couldn’t see how to shut the honking off, and the buttons I pushed didn’t work! My brother has seen this type of square key fob before, so I showed it to him, but he didn’t know either. He just started smashing buttons, and it stopped.

Well, the entire neighbourhood now knew we were there!

In the end, I figured out that I hadn’t accidentally hit the panic button. I had tried to open the door, while it was still locked. I didn’t even know the van had an alarm, but with the rear gate open, I thought the other doors were unlocked as well for some reason. So I had set off the car alarm. I think it stopped when my brother hit the unlock button while button smashing!

At least it worked.

We then headed off here to the farm.

I brought the angel to the door, messaging a daughter to bring it in. Because of the cracked wing, it will need to be repaired and sealed before we set it up outside. Otherwise, water will get inside it.

I joined my brother and SIL in their “new” camper – it’s the first time I’ve been inside it – and we had a chance to catch up my SIL on how things went. My brother and I both needed to decompress, that’s for sure! There was more than what I mention here, of course. The main concern was our vandal showing up like that – and leaving with the mental health assessor!

After we had a visit, I left them to their work. They needed to winterize the camper and the trailer, and would only be around for a few hours. I headed in to grab lunch, change and get to work in the garden.

Which was very therapeutic. Part way through, my younger daughter even came out to check on me and make sure I was okay, after that visit, which was much appreciated.

My focus for today was on the beds with carrots in them, both winter sown and spring sown. I started on the East yard garden bed, removing the bamboo stake trellis that was holding up the radish bushes, first.

After the trellis was removed, I pulled all the remaining radishes – this bed had quite a few go to seed – and lettuces. Some of the lettuce were going to seed, so I broke off the tops and set them aside to collect the seeds later. Everything else went onto the compost pile.

While this bed had the same root vegetable mix as the high raised bed, it also had lettuce seeds added. Those grew so well, they became a weed and choked other things out. I was curious to see how the carrots did, under those conditions.

The answer is “surprisingly well”.

They’re mostly small, and some of the smallest ones at the end just got added to the compost pile, but it was actually better than I expected. There were even a few of the orange “Napoli” carrots in there. Those seeds were pretty old, so I wasn’t sure what to expect with them.

Once the carrots were harvested, I went over the entire bed, loosening the soil and pulling weeds, none of which could be added to the compost pile, or they’d start growing again!

There was one carrot that had gone to seed, so I gave it a support stake and left it to finish maturing.

The soil was pretty compacted and hard to clear. I know there’s still lots of weeds in there, but I plan to amend the soil before any winter sowing gets done, so there will be time to get more of them.

From there, I moved on to the high raised bed.

Again, I pulled the few radish bushes that were left in there, then started on harvesting the carrots. These ones were not crowed out, like the other winter sown bed was, and I could really see a difference!

I was pleasantly surprised by how many orange Napoli carrots there were.

Once the carrots were out and I started weeding, I found these…

A couple of those beets are supposed to be white, but they look more yellow than white. Then there are the teeny onions. I’d picked what beets we had, earlier, but these had no greens left (thanks to the deer), so I’d missed them. As for the onions, I’d included onion seeds in the mixed, but only a couple managed to form proper bulbs. With these ones, I could potentially use them as sets for next year.

Once again, I left a carrot gone to seed. It had branches sprawling all over, but now they’re held together in the support stake. I’ve already cut some of the seed heads off a while back, as they were fully dry, and now there’s more that I could probably harvest now.

The next bed to work on was the spring sown bed. Being in an almost ground level bed, it was easier. I could just go along each side with the garden fork to loosen the soil, first.

Which was much needed. Compaction is a definite problem.

The first carrots I picked where the Uzbek Golden carrots using our home made seed tape.

I’m rather surprised by how well these did.

There was also a surprise orange carrot among them! I also noticed that some of the yellow carrots had a more orange caste to them as well.

The other side were the Atomic Red carrots.

With these ones, we’ve been thinning by harvesting, as needed. That gave them space to get bigger… but they didn’t get much longer! These are supposed to be a deep red and quite long. Instead, we have light orange and stubby.

Odd.

I didn’t continue cleaning up the bed, though. That’s for another day. This took several hours – my brother and SIL headed out before I even finished the first bed, it took so long – and it was time to stop.

Not before gathering the harvest and giving it a quick hose down, first.

A lot of them are pretty small, which will make them harder to work with, but that’s a pretty decent amount of carrots. Plus a few bonus beets!

I was glad to have the work to do. Physical labour goes a long way to working out any stress and, after being with my mother this morning, I had plenty of stress to work off!

Now, I need to head back outside. It’s getting dark, and we’re in for a cold enough night that the winter squash need to be covered again.

But I’m such a bad gardener, don’t ya know!

The Re-Farmer

One more little harvest, and how the morning went

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Well, I did get some more stuff done in the garden, even remembered to upload a couple of photos – then completely forgot about the post I meant to write! 😄

Anyhow…

I decided to harvest most of the eggplant, just pruning the entire plants at their base so I could reach the fruit better.

They look so much like tomatoes, don’t they?

In the end, I left three plants. In the next photo, you can see the green eggplants on one plant. On another plant, I did find a few tiny green eggplants, and on the third, I couldn’t find anything at all – that’s the one that was the most damaged by cold – but I left it anyhow. After removing the extra cages and doing a bit more clean up, I moved the jugs of water in between the remaining three plants to act as heat sinks on nights they’ll need to be covered. I did a bit of clean up in the rectangular bed as well, then gave everything a watering from the rain barrel.

Today was supposed to reach a high of 24C/75F, but we ended up hitting 26C/79F. The over night low is supposed to be around 12C/54F, so I didn’t cover the winter squash, but I did give them and the summer squash a thorough watering, too. It was starting to get pretty dark by then, which is when both my daughters came out, looking for me. They’d messaged me, but I never heard the notification, so they were coming out to make sure I was okay! That was sweet of them. :-)

The end of the day was a lot calmer than the start.

This morning was my telephone appointment with my mother’s doctor, so I did short rounds so that I could be close to the phone during the 1 1/2 hour time frame I was given for her to call. Thankfully, she called closer to 8am than 9:30!

We talked about my mother’s inhaler being out, and about her refusal to spend to much money on the refills (the one inhaler cost almost as much as her bubble packs). We also talked about how it really wasn’t helping her breathing, anyhow, and I suggested it get dropped from her med list. The doctor asked about my mother’s breathing issues, and I told her she does still have problems, particularly at night, and described her situation.

In the end, she agreed to drop the inhaler from my mother’s meds, which would require a letter to home care. I could hear her typing it as we spoke, so she was right on that.

After that call was done, I called the home care coordinator. It’s actually a different one, in another region, as the one for our area is on holidays. When I told her about the call with the doctor, and that she could expect the letter, she told me she’d sent a note to the doctor, yesterday, asking for her letter to be sent to her office in another town, since there’s no one to check emails at our local office. I don’t think the doctor had seen it before she called me.

It will take some time for the change to my mother’s med assist instructions to go through. Once the home care coordinator gets the letter from the doctor, it gets sent to a nurse. Only a nurse is allowed to make the actual med assist instructions. Once that is updated, the revised instructions will go into my mother’s file that the home care aids have with them, when they do her assists.

Until then, the coordinator can let the home care aids know the change is in the works. Since my mother is out of that inhaler, anyhow, it will be as if it’s gone through, already.

That done, I updated my siblings in our group chat, then phoned my mother. By this time, it was past 9am and I knew her med assist should have come and gone for the morning.

When I mentioned to my other that I spoke to the doctor, she told me that doctor had already called her! She must have called right after talking to me. She had asked my mother, what can I do for you? My mother wasn’t expecting the call, so she told her that she was having her breakfast just then – and then the home care worker arrived to give her her meds, so they finished off the call. Then my mother asked me, what should she tell the doctor?

???

I told her that we’d been talking about her inhaler not helping, getting it off her med list, and that I had told the doctor she was still having breathing issues. My mother knew I was doing this for her, but I guess she forgot all about it.

As for having the inhaler removed from her med list, you’d think she would have been happy, as she’s always complaining that she is taking soooooo many medications and keeps wanting to drop them. Nope. She just told me that the home care aid that had come in this morning – her favourite one – had actually used one of the other brand inhalers in my mother’s lock box. Which, technically, she should not have done, but it’s what the hospital has been using with her and given her a prescription for. She had prescriptions for two different types of inhalers at the same time, for a while.

After I explained to her that it might take a while before the home care aids officially have a change in her med assist instructions, they will be told the inhaler is being dropped, so they don’t have to fuss about her not having the one on their list anymore.

We were just finishing what had been a pleasant conversation when she remembered the Pepto.

The eight bottles of Pepto my brother had bought for her so she wouldn’t have to worry about running out. It’s one of the few things she takes where she can actually notice she feels better.

She started off saying, she never asked him to get it for him. As if this was somehow his “fault”. I was eventually able to say that I was the one that mentioned to him and my sister that I hadn’t been able to get any for her, so she didn’t need to ask him.

Then she started ranting and railing. It’s too many, it’s up high in her cupboard, and it’s such a terrible thing that he got her so many bottles. I told her, this is a good thing. This is a helpful thing. She should have enough to last her a year! It’s something she takes regularly.

Oh, no, she told me. She only takes it when she needs it.

…

I told her, I didn’t mean that she was taking it every day, several times a day. Just… regularly.

What I was eventually able to figure out is that my mother thinks that they will go back. Because they’re medicine. They’re liquid. She’s not stupid.

…

I told her, they are fine. This is not like a prescription medication. They’re not like food. They last for years.

It does explain why she insists on keeping her open bottle in the fridge, though.

After I told her, several times, that they will be fine and won’t go bad, telling her that we keep ours in the bathroom cupboard with no issues, she said that she would see; she would ask a “professional” about it. A doctor even. They will tell her.

I told her, she’ll just be told the same thing I was telling her. Then I told her to call the pharmacy. Talk to the pharmacist. He’ll tell her.

Which got her to asking where my brother got them from, the pharmacy? (meaning the one in her town). I told her no, he got them at Costco (which turned out to be wrong; I later found out they were out at Costco, and he found them at Superstore).

Her response?

Oh, from China, then.

?????

I told her, it’s the exact same brand that I get for her a her pharmacy. It’s the same.

Oh, you know there are so many scams out there, she tells me.

…

I told her to stop making problems up where there are none.

She kept on ranting that my brother should not have gotten her so many. I told her, he was being kind to her. “It was “too much” kindness”, she retorted. Like she was being sarcastic, except meaner.

During this, it occurred to me that I might just take the bottles and bring them here to the farm to store until she starts running out again. I wasn’t going to bring that up at the time, though.

I did remind her to use the little cup to take a full dose. She usually just throws them away and uses a teaspoon. As in, a spoon for tea, not a measuring spoon, so the actual amount she’s taking is probably less than a third of what the dose is supposed to be. Apparently, that’s all it takes to help.

By the time I got off the phone with her, my brain was pretty fried. It can get so very hard to follow what she’s saying, to get to what she actually means. I completely forgot to ask her how things went with the mental health assessor, yesterday!

I did make sure to update my siblings again before I started forgetting details. Which happens very quickly, with how convoluted conversations with my mother can get.

My poor brother. Every time he tries to do something nice for her, she gets weird about it in some way. I think it bothers me more because if it were our vandal getting something for her, she would be singing his praised for years. Which she actually does. No matter how horribly he treats her, she makes him out to be a saint because he did something nice for her, 20 years ago. But my brother has been taking care of her and her affairs, diligently and with great care for her, often seeing what she needs long before she sees it herself, and he just can’t do anything right by her. Something as simple as getting her a supply of something she has made a big deal over how much better it makes her feel has been blown out of proportion into this huge drama as if he’d done something nasty to her.

My heart aches so much for my brother. He deserves so much better. And she still doesn’t understand just how badly she stabbed him in the back, some time ago. She’s fortunate he’s a good man and a good son, and hasn’t simply cut her out of his life entirely.

*sigh*

Once I was done with the calls, I needed to take some time to wind down and decompress. I had to go into my mother’s town – something I did NOT mention to her at all – to hit the feed store for more kibble, which my daughter generously paid for. The bag of donated kibble was a 7kg bag, so it didn’t last long, and we were down to dregs by this morning..

A forty pound bag of the brand we get, which is more expensive (not even the outside cats will eat the cheaper brand if they can avoid it), comes out to $62 and change, after taxes. Forty pounds is just over 18kg. That works out to about $3.44/kg after taxes.

Locally, a 9kg bag costs $45 and change (or more), before taxes, which is about $5/kg. At Walmart, a 9kg bag costs about $35, before taxes, or about $3.88/kg. The Costco Kirkland brand of kibble is a better price, but not by much. There is the other feed store, to the north of us, that has a brand that cats like that has a slightly better price, but the drive is longer. Worth it, if I’m getting more than one bag.

All of that, including a trip into my mother’s town, and it was barely noon when I got home.

It felt like it should have been several hours later!

Speaking of later, I just realized what time it is! It’s past 1am! When did that happen?

😄😂

Time to get to bed! There’s lots of work to do outside, while the weather is good!

The Re-Farmer