food prices

Not a stock up trip: this is what $183 looks like. Also, what cuteness looks like.

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Well, I made it into town today to do a small grocery shopping trip.

I forgot about daylight savings. Most of our clocks automatically shift, but not the truck. I got there, thinking they were already open for a while, but I was 15 minutes early.

The truck now has the correct time! 😄

I was not the only one waiting.

As for the truck, it did run fine in general, though I was still feeling some shuddering that I couldn’t attribute to the wind. On the way home, I was headlong into the wind and actually had a hard time getting up to speed! I think it’ll run smoother after the oil change, though. Once I get the all clear from our mechanic, I’ll do the Costco stock up trip in the city.

For now, I did what is a more typical local shop. Getting a few things we needed, plus taking advantage of sales.

This is what $183.20 looks like.

I did end up getting a fair bit more than planned, but still… that’s not a lot for almost $200!

This is what I got.

I got a 4 pack of Monsters, mostly for my daughters. I did get one more from one of the store fridges for the drive home. We’ll pick up a case at Costco (which I get reimbursed for by my daughter). I also picked up some Coke Zero and Fresca. Those are for all 4 of us. I can’t stand Fresca, and my daughters don’t like Coke Zero. My husband likes both.

The Mafalda Corta is a pasta. I was actually looking for broad egg noodles, but the only ones I found were skinny ones from a specialty brand and cost over $13 for a bag! Nope. I got the pasta that was on sale. I want to make haluski, so I’ll try it with the Mafalda Corta pasta, instead. The radiatori pasta is something fun I like to get when it’s on sale.

The rice crackers were for my husband. I also got four packages of pudding mix because they were on an excellent sale.

I got two 18s of eggs instead of a flat of 30, because the cartons of 18 fit in my hard sided insulated bags.

There’s a couple of pounds of butter, because we ran out completely. I also got a 2L each of milk and oat milk.

Then there was the box of mandarins that were on sale, and a cabbage and onion for the haluski.

I wasn’t planning on getting meat, but took advantage of sales to get a pork roast, a couple of packages of breakfast sausages and hot dog wieners. I also picked up a garlic sausage, made by a local company, and dried salami sausage for my husband to snack on. The sushi was my breakf… er… lunch for the drive home.

While my daughter did do some bread baking, I picked up more bread products. A couple of packages of mini garlic Naan, a loaf of sourdough, a couple of loaves of marble rye, and some hot dog buns.

Between the sales and my points card, I saved $44.71, or 20%. I could have used my points to get $10 off, too, but I decided to save that for another time.

So, there we have it. A total of 36 items, almost all on sale.

It was enough to pull up to the house to unload. After everything was in the house and I headed out to park the truck in the garage, I spotted the adorableness.

This kitten, unfortunately, is completely feral. We can’t get close to it. However, it is quite comfortable using the isolation shelter!

It had company.

Midnight has practically moved into that cat bed!

The little tuxedo staring out the other side window is also feral. There is another tuxedo, even smaller, that is less feral and I’ve even been able to pick it up and snuggle it a bit. I have suspicions about that, though. I think it might be at least partially deaf, and possibly have vision issues. Maybe I’m just paranoid, after what happened with Button over time, but it seems the tiny tuxedo’s eyes are dilated more than they should be, all the time. If it’s at all like Button, that would mean it can see shadows and movement, but not much else.

Or, it could just be that it was very scared when I picked it up.

We still have an ongoing Canada Post strike right now, but they have moved from a full strike to rotating strikes, so mail is starting to get through. With that in mind, I placed an order with Amazon last night. One of the things I picked up was an outdoor cat shelter (not an affiliate link).

This is something I’ve looked at in the past and rejected, as there is no way they’d handle our winters. However, we now have the catio and it’s winterized. I am thinking of setting it up inside there, along with the box nests that are already in there. I will just have to find something to put under it, so it’s not directly on the ground, just in case water pools inside again in the spring. It is waterproof, insulated and self heating. Between that and being inside the winterized catio, it should provide better shelter – and a private hiding place – for the most feral cats. Who knows. Adam, Sprout and Sprout’s clone baby might actually start using it, instead of disappearing into the outer yard until feeding time.

Oh!! I just thought of a name for Sprout’s clone baby.

Sprig.

Both are still completely feral. Sprout’s fluffy orange and white is also feral, but is at least willing to come closer and I’ve even managed to sneak a pet or two as he runs by.

Speaking of the more feral cats, as I was driving into the yard, I spotted a cat running across by the driveway by the pump shack, disappearing into the tall grass. I didn’t recognize it.

If this works out, we might get a second one for the garage. Pinky does use the isolation shelter, but at night, I think she is once again retreating to the rafters in the garage, above the truck. If we had some sort of self heating shelter in there that would be better or her.

Best of all, of course, would be for her to get spayed and adopted out, but that might take a while longer. The rescue is still working with the six they took from us not long ago.

Meanwhile, we need to work on socializing the littles! At least they have the shelters. Right now, we’re supposedly 7C/45F, but with the wind chill, it feels like -5C/23F. We are under an ongoing wind warning, with some areas expecting gusts up to 90kph/56mph.

I’m glad I was able to make the small shop today, at least, even if it did mean fighting the wind the whole way home! We’re good for a while, even if the truck ends up needing work and the Costco trip gets delayed.

The Re-Farmer

First stock up shop: this is what $376 looks like

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Today was definitely a full day! I was able to both head into the city for the stock up shop, plus get winter sowing and garden clean up done. The garden stuff will be in its own post, though.

I headed out early, though I did wait until it was light out, first. The deer are very active right now. Sunrise is at about quarter past 8 now, and sunset at about quarter past 6, so I didn’t have a lot of daylight hours to work with!

My first stop for today was the Walmart. I did get breakfast there, which cost a whole $13.00 (I rounded up for the donation option). There wasn’t a lot I planned to get at Walmart, though. Basically, just cat food.

This is what $181.09 looks like.

That’s 7 items in that cart. There’s two cases of wet cat food.

The paper towels were on sale, so I got a package. I picked up some 30″x36″ puppy pads. The dry cat food actually went down in price. The wet cat food did not.

While driving in, I started getting notices on my truck’s onboard computer that my water fluid was low. It kept turning on, over and over. Very annoying! Anyhow, I picked up some all season washer fluid, rated to -40C/-40F.

That’s it. Seven items at almost $200, and that was taking advantage of cheaper prices!

My next stop was Canadian Tire. Yesterday, I noticed one of my headlights was out, so I picked up a new low beam headlight, along with a couple of bags of stove pellets for cat litter. That totaled $39.17, but I decided to use my Canadian Tire dollars, so it didn’t cost me anything. Instead, when I headed out, I stopped at a gas station and put in $50, until I can do a fill at Costco. That’s when I reset my trip meter, which is currently about 1900km since my last end of the month fill (we didn’t go to Costco last month).

I did have a weird thing happen with the truck. As I was leaving Walmart, I started getting an alarm dinging, the “slippery” icon showed up on my dash, and the onboard computer told me my stabilization system was turned off. Then it told me my traction system was off. Then it told me to service my stabilization, then traction, systems.

Then all the low washer fluid warning came on and all the other warnings went away.

Now, it could be a sensor thing again. GM vehicles are apparently notorious for sensor problems. How am I supposed to know if a warning is for real or not?

Meanwhile, we still need to replace the inner handle on the driver’s side door, replace three more tire sensors and, when I get the oil change we are due for, we need to find out where there is a slow leak happening. I’ve had to top up our oil a couple of times, since our last oil change, and that is WITH the leak-stop additive.

So before I headed into the Canadian Tire, I sent a text to our mechanic. I told him I was going to book an oil change soon, but then I got these warnings (which did not happen again for the rest of the trip). We simply can’t afford any more fixes, after the huge expenses we had this past month. I told him it might be time to talk about trading the truck in for another vehicle. It would have to be something that would give us lower monthly payments. We may end up getting a car instead of a truck.

*sigh*

We shall see. He got back to me and I now have an appointment next week for the oil change.

Fun stuff.

Which means that, while we won’t have to skip our Costco shopping trip again, it will have to be a bare bones trip. With that in mind, my next stop was Superstore.

I actually did all right there!

This is what $195.31 looks like.

I focused on somewhat on protein on this trip.

From the top, there’s a large no-name container of peanut butter; my husband has been going through the peanut butter a lot, lately. There’s a big bag of penne pasta, and a Monster energy drink for the drive home.

From dairy, I only got a giant block of Old Cheddar cheese. The Oat Milk I got for my daughters is in the natural foods section.

In the frozen section, there’s two bags of perogies and a bag of mixed vegetables.

Not much in produce. A bag of “ugly” avocados. There were 7 avocados in a $6 bag, so that is a really good deal these days. I also got a small back of seedless red grapes.

With meats, I got a box of frozen chicken nuggets and two boxes of brand name chicken nuggets and strips. Those are mostly for my husband. All were on sale. I spotted some bacon on sale and grabbed a packages.

Chicken drumsticks were an excellent price, and I ended up getting three packages. My husband won’t eat those, though. He can’t tolerate meat with bones in them anymore.

There’s a package of pork and beef breakfast sausages and a package of pork tenderloin. They weren’t on sale, but were some of the best meat prices I saw today. For the girls, I got a frozen pink salmon and a fresh whole trout, both on sale. I also grabbed a pack of sandwich meats, half turkey, half ham. There are two packs of the torpedo buns we love so much (Italian buns, on the receipt) and a loaf of sliced sourdough bread. Last of all, I remembered to grab a couple of bottles of distilled water for my husband’s CPAP humidifier.

I believe that came out to 27 items in total.

So the two grocery stops totaled $376.40. Add in the $13 for breakfast, plus $50 for gas, plus the $39.17 that was paid for with Canadian Tire dollars, I purchased $478.57 in goods today.

Oh! I almost forgot. On the way home, I stopped at the feed store and picked up two 40 pound bags of kibble for the outside cats. That cost $124.99 in total. That brings the total for the day to $603.56 Of that, about $275 was cat food, puppy pads and litter pellets.

Well, one thing will be different at Costco. Since I got the kibble already, I’ll just need to get more canned cat food and maybe more puppy pads. They have a very good price for puppy pads, but only have one size. I’ve found the XXL size to be much more useful. It sucks that we even had to buy the things, when we’ve got litter boxes all over the place.

Anyhow.

That’s the status of the shopping!

Time to enjoy the supper my daughters have made, and then do and update on how much got done in the garden today. I’m rather pleased!

The Re-Farmer

First monthly stock up shop: this is what $448 looks like

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That, plus the things I didn’t get pictures of.

Normally, at this point, I would say “but first, the cuteness.” But no. Not this time.

This is not cuteness.

This is Clarence, being a jerk. 😄

As soon as I get up from my office chair, or go near it, Clarence runs ahead of me, jumps onto the chair and does this. As if to say, you can’t be mad at me! I’m adorable!

Then he goes all rubbery when I try to take him off.

Sorry, Clarence. You ain’t THAT cute! 😂

I fooled him this time, though. I didn’t need the chair. He was so disappointed. 🤣

Today, my daughter and I went into the city for our first stock up shopping trip. This is the one where we hit multiple stores along one strip.

Just as we were pulling out of our driveway, though, my cell phone started ringing. My first thought was, oh, no. It’s home care calling to say they can’t do my mother’s med assist.

My daughter was thinking the same thing.

I was able to pull over immediately – one advantage of living off of gravel roads! It turned out to be the autobody place. They wanted to book the truck in for the insurance claim repairs. That is now scheduled for the 26th to the 30th of September, and they have a courtesy car for me, so we can still do our stock up shopping. Yay!

Our next stop was at the gas station in town, where we picked up $40 in gas. Prices jumped 10¢/L overnight, a few days ago. Since the town nearest us is a resort town, they have the same prices as the city, at $1.449/L My CAA card gave me a whole 83¢ discount. Better than nothing, I suppose.

From there, we headed to the city and our first stop was at Walmart. The main thing we needed there was cat food.

This is what $200.23 looks like.

We did get a few other things to, of course.

For the dry kibble, we got a different brand because we could get three bags, about 21kg (a little over 40 pounds) for about the same price as two bags of our usual brand, which would have been 18kg total (a little over 36 pounds). Those were for the outside cats. We also got two 32 packs of wet cat food, one for the inside cats, one for the outside cats.

There was a really good price on some boxed cereal my daughters like, so we grabbed two of those, along with some feminine hygiene products I’ll be paid back for later. We got a 4 pack of Monster drinks for now; we’ll be getting a case at Costco (which I will be paid back for as well).

I grabbed some water flavours for my husband, and a pound of butter, as we were out this morning. We’ll stock up on butter at Costco, in a couple of days.

That’s it. That’s $200.

*sigh*

Our next stop was the Canadian Tire, with a side trip to Michaels. My older daughter needed a certain size of envelop we haven’t been able to find anywhere and really hoped we’d find them at the Michael’s! These are to fit some prints, among other things, my daughter sends to some of her higher tier Patreon supporters. They come in two sizes and we haven’t been able to find anything that fits both!

Thankfully, they did have a size that worked. We got her two packs of 50. That should last a while! They cost about $36, but I will be reimbursed for those, too.

Next, we drove across the lot to the Canadian Tire and picked up two bags of stove pellets for the litters. They weren’t in the usual place, so I asked staff. They directed me to the BBQ pellets. Which are fancy woods and really expensive. I found someone else and she tried to direct me to the same area. After looking it up on the devices all the staff carried, she finally saw what I was talking about, but had no idea where they were.

They turned out to be in the exit vestibule.

All we needed were two bags! That came out to $16.78.

Finally, we were off to the international grocery store. It shares a parking lot with a Dollarama, so we went into there, first. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but they did have more of those metal fence posts that I am currently using to fence around our corn and squash bed. I got four more, for a grand total of $21.25

Looking at the receipt, though, I see they have them listed as “flower stand”. ??? I have no idea how they would be used as a stand for flowers. I just tried looking them up and, after tweaking the search terms a bit, finally found them – being sold as fence posts. Which is what they’ll be used for!

Then we finally went into the international grocery store. It was past lunch time by then, so the first order of business was food! I got a three item dim sum meal that was so loaded, I only ate half of it, and the rest will be my supper. My daughter got some fresh sushi (they were in the process of making more while we watched) which turned out to be available for free with points, so I used them. So my meal, plus our drinks, totaled just over $16.

This place is where we get a number of things we don’t find anywhere else – at least not anywhere we go regularly. Since we have to make special trips into the city, we won’t have the luxury of hunting down specialty shops, nor harder to get to locations. I was happy that we made it today, because it was the last day for some really good deals.

This is what $248.54 looks like.

Pretty much everything in there was on sale.

The main thing I really wanted to get was the frozen sushi grade Ahi tuna. They were only $1.99/100grams. I ended up getting to two biggest frozen chunks of tuna they had left. My daughters really loved it, the last time they had a sale like this and I was able to get one. They enjoyed it both raw and as steaks, lightly seared.

The other proteins we got was some regular ground beef, applewood smoked bacon slab and regular smoked bacon slab, which was on sale. I also got a salmon for the girls that wasn’t one sale, except that it was a deal connected with my loyalty card’s special offers, so that got price reduced when we scanned it through.

This store has an excellent cheese counter. They had lactose free brie that was one a “buy two and save” sale. I also got a pesto gouda, which is something new to try. Yes, it was on sale, too.

Let’s see. What else…

There is a bag of pearl barley – something only my husband and I like in this household. It was not on sale. I can’t believe these now cost over $4 each! We got the soy sauce my husband likes and, after much searching, my daughter found some liquid smoke I remembered to pick up, for something I want to try later on.

There is a clamshell of nectarines that was on sale, and the sale for the instant milk tea was so good, I got two. The Kraft Mac and Cheese was on sale, as were the granola bars and Greek yogurt. My daughter also spotted some hair accessories on sale, so we picked those up as well.

Finally, we got things for immediate eating when we got home. A huge Lumber Jack sandwich for my husband (that’ll be at least two meals!), plus my daughter chose three different sushi for herself and her sister that was part of a multi-discount, so they came out to only $5 each. Last of all were a couple of drinks for the road.

So my total for all that was $248.54 after taxes. I got bonus points that largely made up for what I used to get my daughter’s lunch sushi for free, plus I got $54.94 taken off with loyalty card sales. It doesn’t include the savings from items on sale that are sold by weight. Including those, it was probably closer to $65-$70 off.

In the end, counting the items not pictured, gas and lunch, our total expenditure for the day came out to just over $578, some of which I will be paid back for.

There were a lot of things we would have liked to get. They were even on sale. The problem was, what is considered a sale price now for these things is what used to be a high regular price, just a year or two ago! We stayed in budget, but even if we wanted to go over budget, we would not have been willing to pay those prices, sale or no sale.

It should be interesting to see what the prices are like at Costco, when we go in a couple of days!

Tomorrow, however, I’m heading out again, this time to my doctor’s appointment. If things go as I hope, I’ll be getting X-rays on my left hip to find out what the heck is going on there of late. It has actually gotten better, in that I can put weight on my left leg to go up a step or two, but it’s still really unstable. While I am ambidextrous with most things, I’m left dominant. Which means I’m more likely to step forward with my left leg rather than my right. I made the mistake of stepping up a curb with my left leg today. I really should not have done that! It messed me up enough that, even when I was stepping up with my right leg, I needed to grip my daughter’s hand to stabilize me as I did it. I know I have bone spurs in both my hips, along with the OA. It could just be that the OA in my left hip has gotten worse.

No way to know without getting X-rays done.

I’m quite curious about what showed up in the X-rays of my left arm. They wouldn’t have called me in if everything was fine, but it can’t be too bad, or they would have had me either come in earlier, or told me to go to a hospital.

I’ll find out tomorrow!

Then it’s back to the city the day after, for the Costco shopping.

We need to focus on stocking up. I’m seeing more long range forecasts for this winter, and the general consensus seems to be a mild fall (ha!) and winter (double ha!), with lots of snow and blizzards. Which means a higher potential of getting getting snowed in.

At least this year, my brother’s equipment is all out here. Including snow blowers and a snow clearing tractor attachment. None of which we can use ourselves, though. Some need repairs, and some have “tricks” to using them, that only my brother knows! I expect they’ll be out here pretty much every weekend, once their grandson is back home. I know my brother has a lot of stuff he wants to get working on, including repairing a tractor that got damaged when they were moving their stuff out here. Plus, things need to be organized, just to be able to get at some of the equipment. When their property sold, they only had so much time to bring everything they were keeping out here, and were just shoving things wherever they could find the space! It’s not even something we can help him with, either. With their “new” mobile home/caravan they recently picked up, they will at least have a winter worthy “home” to use in the winter, though being an older model, even that has some work my brother wants to do on it to make sure it’s winterized and no rodents or wasps or anything like that can get in.

So while we can expect to have a much better winter when it comes to things like snow clearing, that can only happen while my brother is here. Which means there is still the potential to get snowed in. At least the truck is better able to get through the snow than our previous vehicle, but even that only goes so far.

There is much to be done, that’s for sure!

The Re-Farmer

Costco stock up: This is what $635 looks like

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I am so glad to be home.

I forgot. We’re coming up on a long weekend. Even though today is Thursday, Costco was insanely busy! When I was done, it took several minutes going further and further to the back of the store before I found the end of the line I needed. The self check out line was almost as long!

Thankfully, everything went quickly.

Before going to Costco, though, I made a stop at the mall nearby for breakfast, then made a quick run through the Dollarama. I found a few things for both kitchen and garden, totaling just over $35 – including a couple of boxes of McKenzie Seeds wildflower mix. I’m considering trying again in the same spot I tried winter sowing last year, only this time, I want to find some way to keep the cats from digging and rolling all over it, even though I never removed the leaf litter mulch. We really need more wildflowers for the pollinators. I’ve left the sections of the old garden area uncut because they were pretty much the only things blooming right now. Once they start dying back, I’ll start working on taming the jungle. I’m not seeing as many pollinators lately, though. The constant smoke from the wildflowers is causing them problems.

I also got a couple of metal pinwheels that are weather vanes, so they will turn with the direction of the wind to spin. I plan to set one beside the peas that are trying to recover, and another near the plum and apple saplings. The plastic pinwheels I have now don’t seem to catch the wind very well, but something that moves with the wind should work better to distract the deer.

I’m glad I didn’t stop to get a bit of gas on the way into the city. I normally put in just a few bucks if I’m expecting to drop below half a tank. I did stop at the gas station in my mother’s town along the way, but that’s because the truck informed me that I was low on washer fluid. The only fluid I have in the truck right now is for winter. Gas prices there were $1.349/L At Costco, it was $1.199/L!! There rest of the city was $1.339/L It cost me $67.15 to fill my tank.

When it comes to shopping at Costco, this is where we bulk buy most of our non-food items, so that took up a significant portion of the budget. This is what $636.55 looks like.

There were two things on my list I didn’t get, because Costco doesn’t carry them. Those are for the next Walmart trip. I lost count somewhere along the line, as I ended up going a bit over my budget for this shop, when I thought I was still under budget. Ah, well.

With the long receipt, I ended up taking two pictures of it.

Unfortunately WP messes one of them up, due to the different dimensions. You should be able to see it properly if you click on the image.

For the non-food stuff, we got:

  • scent free laundry detergent
  • puppy pads
  • four 9kg bags of dry kibble
  • one case of canned cat food
  • toilet paper
  • Shake ‘n’ Feed fertilizer (on sale)
  • a 2 pack of parchment paper

All of that cost $250 and change before taxes.

*sigh*

For beverages, there is a flat of Monster energy drink, which I will be paid back for, and a 3 pack of oat milk for the girls.

Then there’s the actual food:

  • spaghetti
  • Ramen noodles
  • 2 pack of Honey Nut Cheerios (on sale)
  • 2 jars of Hellman’s Mayo (the sale price made them cheaper than the Kirkland brand)
  • double flat of eggs (5 dozen)
  • 4 pounds butter
  • Old Cheddar, 1 block
  • Mozzarella, 1 block
  • pork tenderlion
  • pork sausage (on sale)
  • two packs of drumsticks (on sale)
  • two rotisserie chickens (cheaper than raw, whole chickens)
  • two 2 packs of salad mix
  • Basmati rice
  • two 2 packs of rye bread
  • two 2 packs of wraps
  • 1 bag hazelnuts

The food and drink part of the shop came to about $348 and change, before taxes.

What I didn’t get was beef. I checked out a fairly small flank steak, and it was over $88! A family pack of stew meat was over $43. They had a sale on ground beef, but they came in long chubs that all cost in the $60 range, before discount. Then there were the larger cuts of beef that were in the $200 plus, range. *choke* Even the pork is starting to creep up in price again.

We aren’t even going to be able to buy a beef share this year. Normally, we would have made payments throughout the year until they butchered in the fall. We already dropped from a quarter beef to an eighth, the last time we got a beef share, because of how tight our budget got once we had truck payments. We talked when I met to pick up the meat in January, and she said they weren’t sure what they were going to be doing, nor what price/pound they’d have to charge yet. All they knew for sure was that they were going to have to increase the price. So we didn’t start making payments at the beginning of the year, like I planned. Which, I suppose, worked out for the best, because we’ve had so many things needing to be replaced or repaired – and we’re still not done with that – that we couldn’t have made monthly payments this year, anyhow. They haven’t updated their website, nor have they announced anything on their social media pages, so I have no idea if they were even still selling beef shares.

I wonder if we can buy a steer from the farmer that rents most of this property? We have enough pasture in the outer yard to sustain 1 or 2 calves. Then butcher in the fall.

Oh, dear Lord. I just looked up the average prices for feeder steers and heifers, per hundredweight, in Canada right now.

*choke*

Never mind that idea! Yeah, we’d save money in the long run, but yikes! No wonder beef prices are so high right now!

Okay, so beef is going to be a rare treat for the next while.

😢😢

Anyhow.

That’s our Costco stock up shop for this month. It won’t last us the month, either.

*sigh*

Oh, that reminds me. Our federal overlords graciously “gave” people on CPP and CPP Disability a 2.7% raise that kicked in for July’s payment, which was a couple of days ago. My husband gets both CPP Disability, plus Disability through his private insurance with SunLife. With private insurance he was “allowed” to make a certain amount above the payments, then everything else gets deducted. The CPP Disability uses up all that “allowance”, which is why I can’t get a job. Anything I earn would be deducted from his SunLife disability payments.

He recently got a letter from SunLife telling him what his payments will be, starting at the end of July, meaning today.

Yup. While the CPP Disability payments went up by a few bucks, his SunLife payments went down by a few bucks.

They cancelled each other out.

🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

Honestly, I thank God that the company my husband worked for had such a good insurance plan. It’s keeping us afloat. I also thank God that we have the arrangement with my brother to live here and take care of the place in exchange for rent. We still have to be creative in making ends meet – like making these trips to the city to buy in bulk and stock up where we can. Especially in years like this, where we have next to nothing to harvest from the garden, never mind preserve for winter. Like my SIL said about their own garden, years ago: if we had to rely on our garden, we’d starve!

Well, it is what it is, and we do what we can with what we have.

What other choice is there?

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: still kicking! Plus, bonus kittens and insane prices

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First, the cuteness!

When I went out this morning to feed the yard cats, I had an adorable little surprise. Fluffy Colby was with some other cats INSIDE the sun room! I found the other three kittens around the cat shelters and they did run off, but Colby stayed close.

When it was time to bring out the kitten soup bowls, I found him sharing a tray with Havarti. He ran off a bit when I put the kitten soup bowl down, but he was soon back, sharing with with his cousin.

I want to pet that kitten so much!!

The garage kittens, sadly, still won’t come closer.

Today, my plan was to focus on finally giving the garden, and the food forest additions, a deep watering. Particularly since tomorrow will be hotter again, and I will be doing my Costco shop in the city. Tomorrow is supposed to reach 25C/77F. Today reached a comparatively cool high of 23C/73F. I didn’t need to go anywhere today, so I hoped to get some progress outside.

Well, of course, that changed.

My husband called in refills for his injections, so a trip to the pharmacy was in order. Of course, I combined errands as much as possible, grabbing our big water bottles to refill at the grocery store after getting the meds. Then, since I was there anyhow, I checked out the sales and picked up a few things.

There were also a few things I did NOT pick up.

Like Necterines.

$5.49/lb, or $12.10/kg

*gasp*

*choke*

Nectarines always tended to be more expensive, but they still were usually under $2/lb in season.

The next image is of a beef tomahawk steak. This is a cut I almost never see. I know people on carnivore that prize these as having an excellent protein to fat ratio. I just can’t imaging spending $84.95 ($55.09/kg) for about 3 pounds of bone-in meat (1kg=2.2lbs) that would be just one meal. Sure, that might be enough for the entire day on carnivore, but… yikes!

I did pick up a family pack of stew meat, though, which was in the $20 range.

Once back at home, I was soon outside doing the watering. When I got to the high raised bed, though, I also did some harvesting. In this bed, I had left one Purple Prince turnip to go to seed. Which it did.

Then the deer at the seed stalk.

So, I harvested the turnip.

Look at the size of that thing!

It’s probably past its best stage for eating, but it wasn’t regrowing a new seed stalk, so I figured it was harvest it, or it would start rotting.

In the next photo, you can find the fuzzy friend I found on one of the leaves. I broke off that section of leaf and set it aside, so as not to disturb the caterpillar. I have no idea what type of caterpillar it is. Hopefully, not something I will regret saving!

In the last image, you can see the turnip with the Uzbek golden carrots I also harvested. I was careful to pull the biggest ones. I’m leaving the smaller ones to give them a change to get bigger, instead of just harvesting the entire bed as I was considering doing. I found a single orange Napoli carrot large enough to harvest. I see hints of orange on some of the other carrots, but for the most part, it’s the Uzbek Golden carrots that have been growing. The Napoli carrot seeds were a couple of years older, and I finished off the last of what was left in the packet. I didn’t expect many of those to germinate.

For all the garden struggles this year, things are still kicking! In both winter sown beds, the radish seed stalks that the deer ate are trying to recover.

They’re blooming again, and sending out more leaves in some of them.

While watering the Spoon tomatoes, I noticed something. When they were being transplanted, I pruned off the bottom leaves before planting them inside the protective collars. One transplant had a larger branch that I pruned off. It was so nice and strong, I decided to just stick it into the ground between two other tomatoes and giving it a chance to grow.

It’s still tiny but, as you can see in the next image above, it’s producing tomatoes!!! The entire plant is maybe 8 inches high, if that. Just one little branch, and it’s producing!

As for those Royal Burgundy beans in front of the Spoon tomatoes – the whole three plants that emerged – one of them has a tiny bean starting to grow! I didn’t get a picture, but one of the yellow Custard beans planted with the tomatoes in the East yard had a whole bunch of tiny bean pods forming. It’s really late in the season, but we might actually have beans to harvest before summer is over!

Even the sugar snap peas are trying to make a come back! Some of them are dying back – they are well past their season – but after the deer munched away at them, some of the plants are pushing out new growth, and blooming! I’ve got one Super Sugar Snap pea plant that I’m leaving (and the deer have left alone) to fully mature so I can save the seeds, but it looks like we might have a few more fresh pods to enjoy, too.

If the deer don’t get to them, first!

It’s encouraging to see some signs of the garden trying to recover and grow. The tiny summer squash are getting a bit bigger, and blooming, though still just male flowers. The winter squash seem to be recovering a bit, too, and some are blooming. The melons are still tiny, but some of them are blooming. The pumpkins are doing quite well, and one of them even has a female flower bud showing!

Whether or not any of this will have time to recover, grow and produce before our season runs out is questionable. With some things, unlikely. Looking at the monthly forecast, it’s possible we’ll have all of September with no frost, though we would probably still need to cover things on colder nights. August, at least, looks like it’ll stay pretty warm. Of course, such long term forecasts are completely unreliable. I’m still going to assume our average Sept. 10 first frost date.

After finished up in the garden and bring the little harvest in, I used some of the carrots, onions from last year – yes, we still have a few! – and an entire head of fresh garlic in a beef and barley dish for my husband and I. The girls hate barley, but my husband and I love it, so they get to make their own supper using some of the fresh fish I picked up for them, yesterday. There will be enough of the beef and barely for my husband to have tomorrow, as well, while I am in the city. My younger daughter is having some PCOS issues right now, so she won’t be able to come with me this time. Which is fine; I don’t actually need the help, but I do like her company. I’ve been doing so much better myself, since I’ve been on the anti-inflammatories, I’ve actually been able to handle these outings better, too. I’m only taking them at the end of the day, instead of twice a day, before with my last meal before bed. I can take them up to 3 times a day, as needed. I just haven’t needed to take that many!

I haven’t taken any pain killers at all since I started on the anti-inflammatories. I do still have pain. Particularly if I lie on my left hip for too long, and I still have issues with my injured left arm. The pain, however is now more specific, and really not all that bad. Nothing worth taking more meds over. I should probably take some painkillers before I leave for the city, though, since I’ll be doing a lot of walking on concrete, and these shopping trips really take a lot out of me.

Stocking up: this is what $263 looks like

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Plus another $137 I don’t have a picture of.

This morning, I headed into the city to do our first stock up shopping trip. Usually, on this first trip of the month, I would visit a Canadian Tire, a Walmart and an international grocery store, which are all along one street. This time, I did the Walmart trip, but then went to a Superstore, instead.

At the Walmart, I got only cat supplies. Two 9kg size bags of dry kibble and two 32 count boxes of canned cat food. I did the “round up to the next dollar” donation option, so the total was exactly $137 for the whole thing.

It’s been a long time since I’ve gone to Superstore. It’s also been a long time since I did a shop that was just groceries. Not cat supplies or paper products or cleaners, etc. Just groceries.

Weird, right? 😂

This is what $263.49 looks like.

I got some good deals, too. It’s all packed pretty thoroughly, and you can’t see everything, so I took a picture of the receipt this time, too.

I must admit, I really like how organized their receipts are!

Under “groceries”, there’s a big bag of pasta, then some water flavours for my husband. I picked up some sunflower cooking oil, and a big bag of pretzels for my husband. The Monster energy drink was one of the things I got for the drive home.

There’s the soy sauce my husband prefers and some Basmati rice. We usually get a specific brand at Costco, but we were out, so I got a different brand today. I hope it’s good. We’ve tried other brands and not liked them at all.

In Dairy, there’s 3% milk, Old Cheddar and Mozza, plus a flat of eggs. I also got oat milk for the girls, but that’s under “Natural foods”. In Frozen, there are two bags of perogies. Odd that they only that that under “frozen” when I got frozen meats, too.

In Bulk Foods, I got more raw pumpkin seeds to supplement the cat food. Produce included a 6 count bag of avocados. I also got 8 ears of corn, cherries and blueberries. All were at much better prices than anywhere else.

Under Meats, there’s a frozen bag of chicken nuggets for quick eats, a pack of ground turkey consisting of 4 plastic chubs of meat. There’s a bag of cheese hoagie style sausages, and a pack of ground beef. The price of beef is insane, and that was the only beef I could justify picking up.

The boneless pork loin was frozen, and a very good price.

Under Seafood, I got a package of frozen Pollock fillets, a package with two fresh pink salmon, whole except for no heads, and a package with two salmon fillets.

It’s really saying something when salmon is cheaper than beef these days.

At the bakery, I was really looking forward to picking up their torpedo buns, but the bakery was mostly empty. Too early in the day, perhaps. All I was able to get there were three $1 baguettes.

Under Deli, I got a little package of fig goat cheese and a Camembert that was discounted 30%, and needs to be eaten quickly. I got an antipasto mix of meats and a dry salami. We have the makings of a charcutier! The “euro pepprini” on the list is a package of small “European Style” dry sausages I got to snack on, on the way home. I don’t know what “European Style” is supposed to mean, but they were a dry sausage with zero heat in them, so I knew I could safely eat them. They were oddly sweet, but quite tasty.

There was have it. A grocery shopping trip that is basically all just food for humans, totaling $263.49 after taxes.

On the way home, I put in $30 in gas and that was it.

There we have it. Our first, smaller, stock up shopping trip. The next one will be Costco, and that one will include more cat food and other sundries, like paper products.

That will be on the last day of the month, which means tomorrow, I get to stay home!

Yay!

The Re-Farmer

Small stock up trip: this is what $209 looks like

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With yesterday’s stock up shopping getting cut short, with virtually no actual food purchased, my daughter and I headed in today to hit the international grocery store we had skipped yesterday.

We had a slight detour into town first, so by the time we got to the city, our first order of business was lunch, which we had in the dining area of the grocery store. Dim sum and sushi!

Driving to the city for our stock up shopping does have its perks!

My daughters had their own shopping list, so after lunch my daughter and I split up and met at the truck later. Without a cover on the box, we had to keep in mind that anything we got had to fit into the back of the cab. We already have a fair bit of stuff back there, from our supply of hard sided grocery bags to our emergency kit, etc. We did take out the bin of winter supplies, though, so that freed up a bit of space, but we are still limited. Basically, we used the space that’s kept open specifically to fit my husband’s walker.

We might have to split our Costco shopping up into two trips, because that’s where we get the most of our supplies for the month.

Anyhow.

This is what $209.20 after taxes looks like.

That’s… not a lot.

In the non-food category, I finally found a nail brush to replace the kitchen one that fell apart. We use it for scrubbing vegetables.

The only vegetable I got today was celery, which was on sale, and the only fruit, grapes, which was also on sale. I picked up some cheese wedges; Irish Whiskey cheddar, Porter Beer cheddar and Maasdam. The Maasdam is a new one for us. It looks much like a Swiss. There was a sale on antipasto sliced meats, so I got two packages of those, plus three garlic baguettes that were on sale. The girls and I might have a charcuterie movie night soon!

There was a good sale on New England Clam Chowder, which I usually get at Walmart, so I picked up a bunch for my daughters and I. My husband no longer likes it. I also got a couple of cans of clams. We like to add some to the chowder, but I haven’t seen any in ages. Not something I would have expected to be hard to find! That they were on sale, too, was bonus. Oh, and I got a bottle of my husband’s favourite Filipino soy sauce.

There was a sale on sirloin tip beef, plus I got an extra discount through my loyalty card, which was nice. There are also some locally produced smoked, and applewood smoked, slabs of bacon, both on sale. For the girls, I got some frozen cooked white shrimp, which was both on sale, plus extra off with my loyalty card, and basa fillets that were on sale.

Since no one is up to doing dishes and cooking in this heat, we picked up food for quick eating. For my husband, I got a huge Lumberjack sandwich; it’s big enough to be lunch for him tomorrow, too! I’m glad he likes those. It’s getting harder to find foods he can eat, these days! I picked a bento box for myself, and my daughter picked a couple of boxes of steak taquitos for herself and her sister. They’ve been looking for that flavour in that brand for years, but they just disappeared for some reason. Now they’re back, so she was really happy to find them. They are not fond of the other flavour options. There were some Verka cream rolls on sale, so I picked up a pack of 4 for desert.

That’s it. That’s all I got. All those sales, and it still cost over $200. Even my daughter’s purchases cost over $130, and their list was mostly jars of Asian seasonings we can’t get locally.

At least I got extra points on top of the extra sale prices, too. I’ve already got enough to get at least one free turkey when those promotions come up in the fall.

I’m dreading going to Costco tomorrow.

The Re-Farmer

Stock up shopping, and future food forest! This is what $666 in total looks like.

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$666.59, to be exact!

Plus some extras not pictured.

It was a long day today, that’s for sure.

My daughter and I left rather early to take in a homesteading event near the city. We stopped for gas on the way out and picked up some sandwiches (made by the one restaurant in our little hamlet) and drinks for breakfast, and some pastries (from a very popular bakery in the town to the north of us) for later on. I picked up some lotto tickets, too, so that totaled about $76 and change.

I’m glad we gave ourselves extra time, because the entrance to the location was really hard to see! We drove right past it – then had to find someplace we could turn around!

It was held in a building that was on grounds that included a church and cemetery, and was surrounded by trees. The few parking spots were full, plus there were the vendor vehicles parked closer to the building, rushing to finish unloading. We found a spot to park, though I’m not entirely sure it was actually part of the parking area! We were early enough that we stayed in the truck for a while before going in. Things hadn’t started yet, but it was already full. The room was not particularly large, but it wasn’t small, either.

One vendor caught my attention very quickly; someone local had saplings for sale. He was talking to a customer while frantically trying to put labels and signs up before he had to dash away, so I heard him talking about a few things he had. His was the first talk of the day, though, and he soon had to disappear. I had to ask one of the other vendors where the talks were happening, as I thought it was in another room, but I couldn’t see any other rooms. It turned out to be behind a curtained off area at the far end of the room. When we got there, all the seating was full, and more people were crowded against the far wall, blocking off the canteen! Unfortunately, with all the people talking in the market area, I could hardly hear anything he was saying, though I could make out some of it. My daughter tried going to the opposite corner of the curtained off area to see if she could hear better. She couldn’t, but she did end up talking to the vendor that was there. She had a display of skin care products next to a display of honey products her husband was covering. It turned out they were the organizers for the event! With my daughter discovering she’s allergic to ingredients in a lot of shampoos, deodorants, etc., she was very interested in the skin care display. After I finally gave up trying to hear, I joined them. The vendor not only made all of the products, but grew all of the plants, berries and herbs used in them, plus honey from their own bees. We ended up getting a sample pack of their products, plus a tube of hand lotion made with sea buckthorn, among other things, for the scraggly skin on my hands. Both together cost about $45. I didn’t bother getting a receipt for it.

The vendor with the skin care products was also doing the next talk, which was on regenerative farming. My daughter and I snagged a couple of seats right in the front. It was a very enjoyable talk. It was a lot of stuff I was already familiar with (what is now called regenerative farming was what used to be called subsistence farming, when I was growing up here), but with her, it was all from the perspective of planting for their bees, so heavy on successive flowering plants to provide pollen and nectar from when the bees first emerge in the spring to when they settle in for the winter.

After each talk, there was 10 minutes scheduled for Q&A. I left my daughter to that while I went to hunt down the tree guy. He was busy with customers, so my daughter caught up to me before it was my turn. We ended up looking at another vendor nearby that had soaps, bath bombs and other related products. We ended up getting a bar of herbal soap there that cost about $12. I would normally never spend that much on a bar of soap, but I’m willing to do it once in a rare while!

Then it was my turn with the tree guy. Quite a few of the things he had, we already have, but what really caught my attention was the walnut. I’ve been looking at getting walnut for years, but while they will grow in our zone 3, our growing season isn’t long enough for the nuts to fully ripe.

Well, he not only had year old saplings, but walnut seeds, already cold stratified. He grows them himself, in a smaller city a few hours drive to the west of us. If he can grow walnut to the seed stage there, that means we can, too!

This is what I ended up getting from him.

Bundled together is a gooseberry and a zone 3 variety of eating apple; he showed me so many different ones, I forget the name of the variety I chose. I’ll be able to see the tag when it’s unwrapped. In the pot in a year old walnut, and the bag has 8 walnut seeds in it. He said the trees grow pretty fast, too, and can get up to 40 feet high. He recommended planting them about 20 feet apart. I already know where I intend to plant those. The gooseberry, which already have leaf buds, and the apple tree will go into our food forest area, where we already have highbush cranberry, silver buffaloberry, sea buckthorn and mulberry.

All of these together cost $73.50 after taxes – the total before taxes was actually higher, but he gave me a discount, simply because the mental math was easier! 😄

While there were many other talks my daughter and I were interested in, it was too busy and too noisy, and we were already reaching our limit. They definitely need a larger venue, and a separate room for the speakers. Which is a good problem to have! As we were trying to leave, I ended up having to exit through the entrance simply because parked cars were blocking my way to the exit. When we got to the highway, we found more cars parked on the shoulders!

From there, we headed to another area of the city to do our non-Costco stock up shopping. By then, it was almost noon, so we went to the international grocery store, first, where we could have some dim sum and sushi for lunch. I honestly can’t remember how much that cost, but it was under $30.

There wasn’t a lot that we needed at this store, this time. This is what $175.36 looks like.

We got the short grain rice my daughters prefer (and it does very well, cooked in the Instant Pot), plus some salmon, frozen cooked and frozen raw shrimp for them. I got a bunch of teas that were on sale, including something called Breakfast in Paris. There is also a bag of instant milk tea. We picked up a goat gouda with honey to try, regular milk plus oat milk for my lactose intolerant daughters. There’s the oyster sauce they prefer, plus the soy sauce my husband prefers. We two pieces of slab bacon, one applewood smokes, one regular smoked, a flat of eggs to tide us over until we get our usual double flat at Costco, plus I got myself a Cherry Coke Zero, since I neglected to get myself something to drink with our lunch. Our loyalty card savings came out to $23.54, which was nice.

After we were finished here, our next stop was the Walmart. That turned out to be a much larger trip. This is what $417.73 looks like.

The main things we needed to get was cat food to last us until Costco and feed store trips. There are three 7kg bags of kibble, plus two 32 packs of canned cat food buried in there. My husband requested some sours, but they didn’t have the kind he prefers in stock, so we got two packs of mixed sours that hopefully will still work. There’s a case of Coke Zero and a package of facial tissues under the basket, plus a small package of paper towel buried in the cart.

We went a bit nuts on the frozen heat and eats. These are all things that my husband can cook himself in the multifunction air frier/toaster oven we got to replace the broken microwave. With his medications, his hunger cues and appetite are pretty messed up, so having something he can cook for himself when he does feel able to eat comes in handy. So there are a whole bunch of $10 bags of different types of stuffed chicken, popcorn chicken, meatballs and even corn dogs. Plus, some Pizza Pops to be our heat and eat supper when we got home.

There is a bag of carrots in there, two clamshells of strawberries, four different types of cheese, frozen Basa fillets, three different flavour packs of bouillon cubes, a couple of loaves of bread that my daughter chose and, completely hidden in the cart, a dozen cans of Monster energy drinks, to be split three ways. Last of all is a cold Gatorade my daughter got for the drive home.

So, including the items not pictured, we spent around $830 in gas, groceries, etc., though the food forest items did come out of a completely separate budget.

By the time we got home, it was late enough to feed the outside cats for the evening, but our day wasn’t over yet! My brother and his wife had come here to the farm while we were gone. They had a few things to do around their trailers and stored items, but they also did a huge job that I was able to help out with – which I will cover in my next post!

The Re-Farmer

Additional stocking up: this is what $319 looks like

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After getting as much as I ended up getting yesterday, today’s stock up shopping was mostly cat food. There wasn’t much else on my non-Costco list that I needed to pick up.

I did the shopping while the cats were at the vet, but that will be for another post.

For now, this is what $319.49 looks like.

Not much actual food in there – at least, not for humans!

From the top of the receipt, I picked up some fish fillets for the girls. Hopefully, I’ll find more that’s affordable at Costco, but just in case, I got these. They like their seafood.

The bananas are a good price at Walmart; 79¢/pound. Cherry season is starting, and they were only $3.99/pound, which is almost half of what they normally are.

I picked up some raw, unsalted pumpkin seeds to grind up for the cats. Usually, I include that with their lysine, but my order of lysine hasn’t come in for some reason. I did still have some at home, but I’ve been eating them myself, so I got more for the cats. 😄 I also got walnuts and sunflowers to add to our pantry ingredients.

There are a couple of large bottles of shampoo and conditioner, some Q-tips, hand lotion, plus a package of ankle socks at my daughter’s request. In the multi-discount, there are some sours for my husband.

I just realize. She charged me for 8. I got six. Crud. I should have double checked! I put one on the belt and told her I had 8, but then double counted and corrected to say six. I don’t know when I’ll be at that Walmart again. I’ll need to keep the receipt in my phone case (it’s a wallet type) until then.

Then there is the cat food. I got four 8kg bags of kibble in different flavours, plus two 32 packs of wet cat food. I chose a pate variety pack for both, as we find the cats seem to prefer the cat soup made with pate rather than shredded or chunks. Last of all was a small donation to the food bank.

Aside from that, I also went to the Canadian Tire to pick up a couple more bags of litter pellets. That totaled $16.78 after taxes.

In between things, I noticed one of my tires was low, so I went to a gas station. The prices had gone down from 155.9/L to 143.9/L, so I did get $20 in gas (I’ll fill at Costco), before topping up my tire. The cost of using the air compressor has gone up from $2 to $2.50 since I last used one. Some places are still only $1, and I know of at least one place where it’s free.

Oh, I just remembered. I was going to pick up distilled water for my husband’s CPAP humidifier. I didn’t even see it!

Ah, well. I’ll do that on another trip.

I will do the Costco shopping either tomorrow or Saturday. Preferably tomorrow, with a visit to my mother at the hospital, first. Since I was driving around with cats in the truck, I couldn’t stop to visit while I was out and about today. There are still ongoing tests with her, and they want to send her to the city for more diagnostic imaging soon, but they may not be able to get an ambulance to transport her. Normally, they would get family to do the transport (like I did for my husband when he was in the hospital), but that’s not really an option for her in her condition.

As for our stocking up and cat supplies, we got much more than what I picked up today, but I will cover that in my next post about the kitties! 😊

The Re-Farmer

Not a stock up trip: this is what $262 looks like, ER visit and nasty road conditions (unrelated!)

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My goodness, how things can change in a short time!

Today was supposed to be my day to do our first stock up shopping trip in the city. There’s one major street with several stores I go to that are all conveniently in a row. I save the Costco shopping for another trip.

Then I got a phone call yesterday, late afternoon.

Against our advice, my mother had made an appointment with the doctor in the hospital clinic near her place. They have one doctor that comes in one day a week. That appointment was yesterday afternoon, and a friend from church was driving her. We’ve advised against it as we’ve started the process to try and get her into long term care, and switching doctors could slow that down, but we can’t stop her if she decides otherwise. When she told me about the appointment, I just asked her to call me after and let me know if she had officially switched doctors, so I could call home care and let them know. The only reason she’d told me about it was because I’d called her to pass on a message from the home care coordinator! She had just gotten home from the walk in clinic when I called. She was having issues with her breathing again, which she says has been getting worse. From what I’ve seen the last couple of times I’ve been with her, it definitely has, though she still says it’s the worst when she’s lying down in bed. Apparently, they didn’t actually see her, but made an appointment for the next day.

I didn’t get a call from my mother.

I got a call from the ER in the hospital in her town, instead.

She’d gone to the clinic, but it turned out the appointment was with a nurse practitioner, because the doctor wasn’t there that day. After checking on her and hearing her complaints, he sent her to the ER. They were treating her on the assumption of heart failure, based on the symptoms she described, which she told them she’d had for only a couple of weeks.

She’s been complaining about these symptoms for longer than we’ve been back in this province.

I spoke to the nurse for a while, as my mother was having difficulties remembering her medical history. She asked about the contact numbers they had on file, so I also let them know that I was the nearest of my siblings and to call me first but, if things got to such a point, my brother is PoA, so he would be the one to call for decision making authority. Since this hospital doesn’t have a doctor, they were in the process of doing an EKG, and where then going to transfer her to the nearest ER.

An ER with a doctor.

She mentioned the two most likely ER location possibilities, one of which my mother would probably refuse to go back to, so I filled in about that, too, and why. After we spoke, she told me she would call back once they knew where she would be going.

Which turned out to be the hospital we are closest to.

So much of my evening was spent keeping on top of things and updating my siblings. By the final call I made to the hospital my mother was transferred to, it was concluded that my mother had pulmonary edema.

I had remembered and made sure to call them earlier about the kidney function issues my mother had, some time ago, and this was why she was no longer on water pills. By then, they’d already figured it out.

Pulmonary edema certainly explain her breathing problems!

So my plans changed for today. I was originally going to go to the post office for some packages that came in yesterday, then head towards town to take a particular highway straight into the city and the street with the stores I meant to go to. Instead, I would go to into town to see my mother at the hospital (after phoning to confirm where she was and what room she was assigned to), then go to the city.

After our very warm day, followed by a colder one yesterday, I started seeing all sorts of reports for poor highway conditions, today. All that melting resulted in roads that were icy and snow packed. Today was supposed to be a bit warmer again, but the high winds were back, so now there was blowing snow on top of everything else.

At that point, I was going to decide whether I would go to the city or not, based on what the conditions were like when I got to the hospital to see my mother.

The east-west road to town was not too bad; there were icy patches. Enough to drive below the speed limit, but nothing too excessive – until I got closer to town, when it was all ice.

Then I got to the junction for the highway I would have been taking to go to the city.

It was barricaded in one direction with vehicles, warning cones, people in high viz vests, and a sign saying “emergency scene ahead”. Wherever the emergency scene was, though, it was too far away to see from this intersection. The cross roads are every mile, so that’s not surprising.

My brother was talking about visiting my mother after work, if the roads were safe, so once I parked at the hospital, I updated my siblings on road conditions, as well as posting on the highway conditions group I’m on.

As for my mother, though she has been admitted, she was still in their ER and not yet transferred to her room. They had just finished doing another series of tests on her.

She’s actually doing really well.

She was still wired for EKG; they just need to plug her in for the next test. She had an IV port, but no IV. They’d given her the IV version of her old water pills, and she was already feeling a difference. They’re going to do bloodwork repeatedly to figure out what’s going on with her. She expects to be there for just a few days, though typically, someone admitted with her symptoms would be there for a week.

We had a good visit, and I told her I’ve been keeping my siblings up to day. I also told her about my brother hoping to visit this evening, if road conditions are safe, but they didn’t seem to be. I even checked again while she went to the washroom and found more recent updates from people saying how icy the conditions were on the highways.

As for that accident scene, it turned out a couple of miles of highway was shut down, and the medical helicopter from the city had to be brought in!

My mother said she was just fine without any visits!!

I had already decided by then that I would NOT be going to the city. I’m going to be in the nearer city tomorrow, after dropping the cats off at the vet, anyhow, so I can do most of the stock up shopping there.

After having a good visit with my rather indestructible mother (seriously. She’s amazing), I headed to the local grocery store, instead. I was just going to pick up a few things to tide us over and then head home.

Well, I ended up going an almost stock up trip. I took advantage of a lot of sales.

This is what $262.32 looks like.

Quite a lot of stuff is buried and can’t be seen in the photo.

Because of all the sales, I found myself with a ridiculously long receipt, and had to take two pictures to make it manageable. Here’s the top half.

The cat food was one necessity. We’ve still got feed store kibble, but the inside cats will not eat it! Even the outside cats don’t like this particular brand of feed store kibble, though they do like the other brand this feed store carries. So I got two 8kg bags of house brand kibble, which was a lot more affordable. Hopefully, the cats will actually eat it!

The Basmati rice is for my husband, as we’re low and that’s usually a Costco item. He does love his rice!

My daughter requested and sent funds for energy drinks. The cases of 4 were on sale, so I got two. At Costco, I will pick up a flat for her. The Coke Zero is for my husband and I.

My husband requested nacho fixings and there were sales on, so I got four bags of nacho chips, in hopes to have enough unbroken chips to make a decent sized batch of nachos! The salsa dip is for him as well.

I even remembered to grab garlic powder, as we ran out.

The pre-sliced olives were for the nachos. The canned fruit cocktail was a good sale, so I picked those up as a pantry treat.

I don’t normally buy cereal, but do pick it up as a treat when it’s on sale. Two boxes are in flavours my daughters like, two for my husband and I.

I got a flat of eggs, because we always need eggs. The blocks of cheese were on sale, so I got one regular and one lactose free. We still had cheese at home, but since we’re making nachos, we’ll be using up a lot more than usual in a short time.

I got only 1 pound of butter because it was on sale. I’ll pick up the month’s supply at Costco.

Since we got cereal, I got more regular milk and oat milk. The frozen perogies were another sale item that also got me extra points on my Scene card. The rice crackers were for my husband. It doesn’t show, but those were on sale, as was the bag of McIntosh apples and the baby spinach.

The bacon was also on sale, plus there was a points bonus, so I got two packages. Same with the hot dog wieners. Which means I had to get hot dog buns, which were not on sale. It amazes me that the buns cost more than the wieners! I picked up a couple of loaves of Texas Toast bread, so I got some sliced meats for sandwiches. They are “pizza” meats, but they’ll make good sandwiches, too.

I also picked up more dips for the nachos that my daughters and I like; a 6 layer dip and an artichoke asiago dip.

That made my bill a total of $262.32 after taxes for 43 items, while my total discounts and savings was $57.66, for a 19% savings. I also earned 1230 points with just this trip, which more than doubled my balance. I save the points for times when getting cash off my groceries will be an extra help. As of right now, I could get $20 off, but I’ll save that for a tighter month.

So I ended up getting more than planned, with a lot of things I don’t get very often. We could easily go for some time without a full stock up trip, but after I drop off the cats at the vet tomorrow, I will be close to both a Walmart and a Canadian Tire, which is where I will get specific stock up items without the big city trip. I had been looking forward to going to the international grocery store in the city, as today is the last day for some promotions and sales, but I’ll just have to miss them this time. The Costco trip might be on Friday, or on the weekend.

As for tomorrow, I’m really hoping the roads improve, because there is no way I’m skipping getting the cats to the vet. The rescue set this up for us, and I’d hate to be a no-show. The Cat Lady would understand, but the vet gets so many no-shows, they’ve had to start banning people from their cheap spay days for it. I don’t want to get the Cat Lady in trouble with one of the few vets that gives her such decent discounts! Plus, I will be meeting the Cat Lady, then later on will meet with someone from a feral and stray cats group that has some donated cat food for us.

I would normally live an hour before drop off time, even though it typically takes 45-55 minutes to get to the nearer city, but with potentially bad road conditions, I will plan on leaving even earlier.

I just really hope we can catch either Brussel or the fluffy lady – the ones I am sure are pregnant right now. Sprout has shown up again and had the boys following her around. The last time I saw her, the boys were no longer following her, so she probably is, too. No possibility of catching her without a trap, though. The fluffy lady is our best bet to catch, I think. We’re booked for one male and one female, and we will bring in whichever ones we can snag!

Well, that’s where things stand today. I’ll be calling the hospital again later today to see if there are any updates on my mother. I don’t expect my brother or sister to make the drive out to visit, but there is another highway they could take that is supposed to be in better condition, so we’ll see. Unfortunately, since I’ll be having cats in the truck with me, I won’t be able to visit my mother tomorrow. We’ll see how things go over the next few days.

What would be ideal is for the home care panel to see what’s going on with my mother and this will be enough to get her into the nursing home she wants to be in! That would make her so happy.

We shall see!

The Re-Farmer