First off, I’m happy to say, we did get rain last night! A lovely, heavy downpour, enough to refill our rain barrel to the top.
I happened to get up at around 4am or so. I was able to see the flashes of lightning around us, and at one point, could hear the rain. My daughter was up working, and she told me we had a power failure during the night, too.
I was unfortunately, heavily disturbed during the night, so I didn’t get much sleep. I tried to leave my door open to allow all the cats in but eventually had to chase them out so Butterscotch could eat and use the litter without being bullied and attacked. That meant frequent scratching at the door for the next while. I’ve finally figured it out. It’s Ghosty, scratching at the new mat I have under my door, to replace the one they shredded. She doesn’t want in. She just wants to scratch at the mat under the door! I finally let them in again after a while, only to have to chase them out again after a couple of hours.
Interrupted sleep is far worse than no sleep at all!
It did mean the inside cats got fed early – I make lots of noise doing a barely there top up on their kibble to lure them out of my room – so I tried sleeping in a little bit before going outside to feed the yard cats and do my morning rounds. The plan was to do my rounds, which would be short, since no watering was needed, have breakfast, then get to work on the permanent trellis before things got too hot.
*sigh*
I was about half way through checking the garden beds when my cell phone rang.
It was home care.
*sigh*
No one was available to do my mother’s morning med assist, which was scheduled for 9:30.
My mom is right that they keep coming later and later. Her meds are supposed to be done between 7 and 9am.
I had time to quickly finish checking the rest of the garden on my way back to the house, update my family on our group chat, since I thought everyone else was asleep, grab my purse and go, still wearing my gardening grubbies.
My younger daughter, it turned out, was up and had come down to check on what was going on.
She was walking with a cane again.
I wasn’t the only one to have a bad night!
I haven’t talked to my mother since I walked out on her abusive behavior on Monday, and today is Friday. I did quickly phone her to say I got a call from home care and that I was leaving for her place right away.
I got there just a little bit before her scheduled home care visit time, so that worked out.
My mother was up, dressed and ready, complete with her cup of water and a cracker to eat with her pills. She noticed what I was wearing and commented, and I told her I was in the garden when the call came, so I just dropped everything and came over. She seemed surprised about how early I was working in the garden (I was actually a couple of hour later than usual) and I told her, I was trying to get things done before it got too hot out. She actually understood.
She seemed genuinely apologetic about my having to come out to do her meds again, and expressed gratitude that I did it. Which is actually pretty rare with her. She did say she didn’t want to do the inhaler, which I was okay with. She was prescribed the inhaler only to see if it would work, and she doesn’t feel it’s making any difference. I don’t really know why her doctor wants her to continue it, if it’s not doing anything. My mother, however, then said she didn’t want to take it because she woke up with a really dry mouth, and she thought it was because of the inhaler (she takes it in the evening, too). Usually, she tries to blame it on her food, or her other pills. Somehow, she just can’t accept the idea that she’s sometimes simply sleeping with her mouth open.
After she took her medications, she asked me…
Would I be able to stay and do her grocery shopping for her?
I told her I couldn’t today, explained about getting new tires yesterday, and that I would be going straight to the garage from her place to get our tires torqued (without using the word, since she wouldn’t understand it), rather than making another trip in the afternoon. I then mentioned that I’d asked my sister if she had a day off during the week when she could do it, and she said she could come today. My mother told me that yes, she was coming. !!! It was already arranged, but she still asked me to do her shopping for her!
She prefers I do her grocery shopping for her. I’d taken her for her errands so often before she could no longer go herself, I know what my mother likes, what substitutes are okay and sometimes even what to add to her list if it is within budget and I thought she might need/want it. I also know how to go over her list with her before I leave and notice if she missed anything, and what questions to ask. My sister doesn’t. She simply never had to do it before.
I told my mother to just make sure she has a good list and talk to my sister about it. My sister does the best she can. My mother assured me, she already had a list ready!
That done, I quickly updated my family and headed to the garage, which is about a half hour drive from my mother’s town. When I got there and the mechanic that worked on the truck saw me, he immediately grabbed the torque wrench and came out to take care of it. As we were chatting, I told him how glad I was that I asked them to check the tires, and that I hadn’t realized how much they were bothering me until the new tires were on. I could feel the difference right away. He was nodding along when I asked, just how bad where they? He told me that, in some places, they were worn down to the metal.
!!!
I mentioned to him that I’d originally intended to come in the afternoon, but had an unexpected trip to my mother’s town this morning. That got us to talking about distances and where I lived.
Turns out, we’re “neighbours”.
Okay, he lives about 5 or 6 miles from us, but in this area, that’s “neighbours”.
That done, I messaged my family and my older daughter started messaging me. Normally, she would have been in bed by then, after her night’s work, but was staying up because her sister was feeling so terrible. I was going to pop into the grocery store to grab something to eat on the way home, since I’d skipped breakfast and was starting to feel light headed. My daughter ended up sending some funds with a request for birthday cake and heat and eats for her sister.
(As an aside, we don’t tend to celebrate actual birthdays, but instead do nice things for the birthday person, all month)
That done, and another top up on the gas, since the extra driving basically used up what I’d put in yesterday, I finally headed home.
By then, it was already starting to feel warm, but I was still hoping I could get outside to work on the trellis.
Instead, I found myself falling asleep while checking the trail cam files on my computer. I finally gave up and tried to lie down for a nap. The hottest part of the day wasn’t expected until 4, so I might still get something done.
After a couple of hours, I woke to find a message from my husband, saying a prescription refill was called in and ready to be picked up in an hour.
…
???
Normally, he calls his prescriptions in for delivered on Thursdays, but obviously wasn’t going to do that on a Friday. Especially since some of his medications cannot be filled until 3 days before he’s out, because they are listed as controlled substances. But why did he call it in after I’d already come home from town?
My younger daughter was feeling better enough to come with me, and I found out what happened as we drove. When she saw his message about the refills, she went to ask him about it. My husband knew I was planning to be in town to get the tires torqued this afternoon, so he called it in for while I was in town. He never saw my messages I’d sent this morning and had no idea I’d already been to town and back, and was taking a nap when he sent his message!
Oops.
No matter. While at the pharmacy, I picked up some supplements I was low on, too.
By the time we got home, it was late enough to do the outside cat feeding. In this heat, their water bowls get gross pretty fast, so those got a scrubbing. It took a while to get the scalding hot water out of the hose before I could refill them. Then they all got new frozen water bottles added to them. The sun room thermometer was above 30C/86F, but with the littles now much more mobile, it’s not as life threatening as it was during the heat spell we had when Poirot’s babies were really tiny and in that cat carrier up on the shelf. I do still put ice packs out around the cat beds at times, but it’s not as necessary now.
So all my original plans, and then my adjusted plans, got thrown out the window. As I write this, it’s coming up on 6:30, and we’re still at the hottest part of the day. We’re still at around 24-25C/75-77F, while the humidex puts us at about 29-30C/84-86F. We’re barely expected to cool down at all, even in a few hours when we’re expected to get more rain and possible thunderstorms.
Tomorrow is supposed to be slightly cooler, so I’ll be shifting things over to tomorrow morning and will hopefully get things done then. Along with putting up the permanent trellis supports, I want to take the netting off the potato bed, as it no longer needs the extra protection, and put it around the tomato bed in the east yard. While checking the bed this morning, one of the cats actually used it as a little box behind my bad – and dug up one of the beans to cover his business!
I was not impressed. We have very few bush beans coming up!
Before starting this post, I realized I hadn’t even taken an pictures today.
I was going to say I planned to take some garden tour video tomorrow, as it’s the first day of summer, but double checked and realized that today is the solstice, not tomorrow!
Happy first day of summer!
Maybe I’ll head out and take some video this evening, instead.
Since I have no pictures to share from today, I thought I’d finish off with some adorableness from a couple of days ago.
Adorable sleeping Ginger!
For month, he had isolated himself pretty much to the dining room table. He had been bullied by other cats and it was his only escape, so he and Toni (our two tripods) became the only cats allowed on the dining table. We turned a box into a bed for them, to a certain extend. It didn’t stop the bullying. For some reason, the cats that do the bullying are particular about attacking while Ginger (or Butterscotch) try to use the litter.
After a while, though, we just couldn’t keep the cats off the table anymore, and would often find two or three of them smashed together in the box bed. Cheddar and Toni have become especially snuggly.
Then Ginger started showing up in my room again.
So now, when I chase the cats out for the night, Butterscotch and Ginger get to stay together in my room. Ginger has a particular fondness for that green frog bed that was donated to the cats. The “hood” that forms the frog’s head always gets flattened, though. They seem to light it that way. In the second picture, you can see what a beautiful round loaf Ginger forms while in there!
Time for an evening walk and, hopefully, a early and good night’s sleep. I really need to get work done, before it gets too hot!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 