groceries

Yard cats and how much does that cost???

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Today was my day to go to my mother’s to do her grocery shopping, but first, I headed out for my morning rounds and yard cat feeding.

I counted 26 or 27 this morning. In this picture, a well fed group is under the higher wattage heat bulb. When I did the evening feeding, I noticed none where hanging out under the lower wattage heat bulb, which is closer to the floor. I checked it and there was no heat coming off of it. It was plugged in, the switch was on but, nothing.

No. It wasn’t burned out.

Somehow, it was unscrewed, just enough to cut power to the bulb! The heat cover was also loose from its threads. I’m not sure how the cats manage to do this!

I headed to my mother’s earlier than usual, as I wanted to get her grocery shopping done before the home care aid arrived for her lunch assist. When I got there, she had actually started some vegetables cooking on her own. She does things in stages, so she can sit down frequently.

After double checking and modifying her list that we put together when I was there on Saturday, I headed out. There wasn’t much on it, so I was done quickly. Fast enough that I took the time to stop at a little department store along the way. I know my mother won’t be able to do a Christmas tree, and very little decorating, if any, so I wanted to get her something festive. I ended up finding a little tree set, complete with a string of lights, small enough to sit on her dining table. Then, spur of the moment, I got her a Hickory Farms set with a sausage, crackers, cheese and mustard.

When I got them out and showed them to her, making sure she knew that these were gifts from me, not something I got with her grocery money (because that would have been her first thought), she got all angry with me for getting her gifts. Especially the Hickory Farms pack. With that one, I opened the box and showed her what was in it, and saying it was something to go with her tea, if she wants, or to bring out if she has company. She was still angry with me.

Which is what I expected, really. My mother has never known how to accept gifts graciously, that I can remember. I know that she will eventually enjoy them, but will likely never admit it. At least not to me!

As I was putting her groceries away, the home care lunch assist worker arrived. Since I was there anyhow, she didn’t stay and I took care of making my mother’s lunch for her, and finishing off what she had started cooking, doing all her dishes, etc. At one point, she asked me to look for something in her cupboards (we never found it), but she has a bunch of stuff that she would like to take. These are things she brought from here at the farm – glasses, bowls, etc. – but had never used. They are, however, vintage things that we would actually keep and use. Especially my younger daughter, who really appreciates such things. They are fragile and just out of my reach, though, and we decided today was not a day to drag out the stool and start taking them down. Mostly, she’s just happy to know that they are claimed and won’t end up disposed of in some way.

I wasn’t in any hurry to leave today, as my husband messaged me to let me know there was a parcel to pick up. The post office was almost closed for 2 1/2 hours over the lunch period. Which meant I had time to do all my mother’s dishes, make room in her fridge, and prep containers of food to cool down before they would go into the fridge.

I did remember to go through my mother’s lock box. I knew there would be one bubble pack with her Sunday bedtime meds still in it. Those turned out to be the only ones in the pack. Another pack had only a Monday morning bubble with meds in it. I took both out and set them into a pill organizer she has, so the packs could be thrown away, and left a note in the lock box for the next med assist person. My mother will be getting her refills soon (which the pharmacy will no longer deliver to her, at my request; I will pick them up), so the lock box was going to need the space.

For some reason, the home care aids keep locking more and more of my mother’s pens into the lock box. They have a form to fill out, with each med assist. There should be one pen with their folder. Instead, it seems they use a pen from her table, then lock it up into the box. I’m guessing the pens fall to the bottom while the next care aid moves it to unlock it, so they don’t see it and grab another one… which gets locked into the lock box. There was one time I wanted to make my mother’s shopping list, but couldn’t find any of my mother’s pens in the container she has for them on her table. On a hunch, I went into the lock box. I found six pens in there!

While doing my mother’s shopping, I noticed some very good sales at the grocery store, so after I was finished at my mother’s, I went back to do a bit of shopping of my own. I actually bought beef today! They had a sale on tri tip that was at $6.99 a pound. That’s lower than ground beef is right now. I got a few other things, as well.

I did NOT get chocolate chips, though.

*gasp*

Good grief!!!

I was at Costco, yesterday, and their Kirkland brand chocolate chips were over $30 for a 2kg/4.4lbs bag. What gets me is not only how much more expensive the Kirkland branch chocolate chips are here, but that they are more expensive than the name brand chocolate chips – both are semi-sweet – in a 2.4kg/5.3lb bag.

I recall, two or three years ago, that there were predictions of the price of chocolate going up, due to things like weather damage, pests and disease. Add in everything else involved in production and processing going up and adding to the price, it’s really gotten insane. It takes a few years for the increase in prices of cocoa beans (they tripled) to affect retail prices, but now I’m seeing that there is a recovery and supply is increasing. Prices might start to ease a few months from now, though probably not by much. The beans may not be as expensive, but all the other costs are still going up.

That done, I still had time before the post office reopened, even with how long the drive it, so I ended up going to the local Chinese restaurant for a late lunch.

The store the post office is in is an old style general store that includes a liquor section, right next to the post office window. As I was waiting for my parcel, I started looking at the nearest display and spotted a new wine, with the label stating it was from our province. The postal clerk saw me looking and told me that the wine is actually produced locally. As in, just off the highway that runs through our little hamlet! There was a semi-sweet and a ginger and lemon, both sparkling white wines.

I ended up getting a bottle of ginger and lemon. It only cost $20. Technically, my mother bought it, since she gave me $20 in cash for gas. 😂😂 (It costs almost $30 a trip to go to her place, with the current local prices.)

I’m now debating: do we taste test it now, or save it for Christmas? 😁

With the extra stuff, I sent a message home and my younger daughter was sweet enough to come out and open the gate for me, then help bring the bags to the house. It was a bit early but, once everything was in and I still had my boots on, I took care of feeding and watering the outside cats, and doing my evening rounds, while my daughter put stuff away.

Then, opened up our parcel and go it set up, but I will write a review on that in my next post!

See you there…

The Re-Farmer

New Costco shop: this is what $563 looks like

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Today, my daughter and I made it into the city for our Costco shop, where we checked out a new location.

First bonus about this location is that we don’t need to drive through the city to get to it. It’s actually outside the bypass highway around the city. No city traffic, no frequent stops at lights, etc.

First down side: it’s near some pretty major event infrastructure, as well as some new apartments that weren’t there the last time we drove by here, years ago, so it shares entry lanes. Which includes two roundabouts.

I really dislike roundabouts. Yes, I understand efficiency of the design. I just have no faith at all in other drivers. The city we lived in before moving here had several roundabouts we had to go through regularly, much larger than the ones we had to use today, and they sucked when traffic was high.

Thankfully, traffic was not high.

When we first drove in, the parking lot looked really full. Our first stop was the gas station, which had more pumps than the other locations we’ve gone to. That went really fast.

Also, gas there was $1.139/L, instead of the $1.299 everywhere else. It cost me “only” $46.47 to fill my tank from a little over half.

As for the crowded parking lot, that turned out to be just the area closest to the entry. Once we got past a certain point and could see the rest, we found there was plenty of space to park.

The location is somewhat bigger than the others we’ve been to and, while they matched the layout of other locations pretty well, a few things were changed up. One of them was where the cat supplies were set up! We finally found it, pretty much opposite of where they are typically kept.

The shop itself was… well… okay, I have to admit. I hate shopping and I hate crowds, not that it was particularly crowded today.

I really hate it when people with half empty carts expect me, with my flat cart, to stop on a time to avoid hitting them as they wander and weave, not paying any attention to what’s around them.

Having said that, I was ready to abandon my flat cart only twice this trip.

My daughter is a sanity saver.

One of the things they have that’s different is their sushi bar, which was added on to where they have their in store made heat and eats, like Shepard’s Pie and chicken pie. I wasn’t able to check it out too thoroughly, though, because there was a lot of cart traffic and looky-loos. When pushing a flat cart, I’m just not flexible enough to get around everyone, though I still couldn’t see much even when I left the cart with my daughter and tried looking again.

Their food court menu was also different. They had sushi on the menu, but they also had their Montreal Smokes Meat sandwiches, too. The other locations dropped those from their menu, years ago. I was really looking forward to doing lunch after we finished our shopping.

It didn’t happen.

This is what $563.72 looks like.

That really isn’t much on there at all.

So, this is what we got today, starting with the non-food (at least, not for humans) items. There’s two 9kg bags of kibble – we have a good supply, but this should ensure we don’t run short at the end of the month – one case of wet cat food, a case of puppy pads, toilet paper and a dish detergent refill jug.

For drinks, there’s a case of Monster – yay! Finally in stock again! – a case of Coke Zero and a 3 pack of Oat Milk.

For meats, I got two rotisserie chickens, because it was cheaper than buying any of the uncooked chicken options. The fresh made sausage section was bigger and had new varieties, so we picked up a pack of Greek sausage, and one of Gouda and Cranberry. I also got two panini packs for sandwiches. That was it for meat. Beef prices were heart stopping. I should know better than to even look!

For dairy, we got a 4 pack of cream cheese, sour cream, 5 pounds of butter and a 2 pack of goat cheese. My daughter also grabbed some grated Parmesan, which I’ll be paid back for. We normally get blocks of cooking cheeses, but we still have plenty. I was sorely tempted to try new cheeses, though, as their cheese selection in much larger and more varied! Not in today’s budget.

In the frozen stuff, we got a box of perogies and a bag of mixed vegetables.

In breads, we got two 2 packs of rye bread and two 2 packs of tortilla wraps.

In the odds and sots, we got two large containers of mayo, a box of mixed instant oatmeal, a double flat of eggs (60 eggs) and a sushi platter to be supper for the girls. I meant to get something for my husband and I as a quick, heat and eat supper but I couldn’t find anything that both my husband and I can eat. More and more foods make him feel sick after eating, as if he were having a lactose intolerance reaction, even if there’s no dairy in the food. So I ended up not getting anything. It’s getting much harder to get food for him.

I was still thinking of going to the food court but by the time we were heading for the check out line, not only did I not want to have refrigerator/freezer items sitting out so long while we ate, I had basically lost all patience with being around people. In fact, we didn’t even finish going through all the food aisles. Aside from the usual cart traffic issues, I kept getting stuck behind one older couple that kept weaving back and forth in the middle of the aisles, stop suddenly, or split up and be doing the same thing in two aisles at the same time. We even ended up blocked by them again, while trying to get the the checkouts. At least I was able to get past them, though someone else was blocking the aisle from the other direction that I had to get around. We weren’t any any hurry, but I get really tired of trying so hard to not be in the way with my big flat cart, only to have to deal with people who are oblivious about being in the way. Even as lightly loaded as ours was today, flat carts are not easy to maneuver!

So… yeah. That’s all we got today. A whole 35 items.

Once we were loaded up and heading out, things went smoothly. The only down side was my not eating yet. On the way out, we’d stopped to pick up some energy drinks and I got a bag of beef jerky. That was all I’d eaten all day, and it was about 1pm as we were leaving the city. On the way home, my daughter insisted we stop for food. I was thinking a quick stop at the gas station in my mother’s town that we had to pass through; the one that has the best fried chicken, but she was thinking an actual sit down restaurant. There’s a restaurant right on the highway that is under new ownership and completely redone that she hasn’t been to yet, so we ended up stopping there and she treated me to breakfa… lunc… an early supper?

By the time we were done, it was late enough for the post office to have reopened for the afternoon, so we made a quick stop there (my expected items have not arrived, including something that got mailed more than a month ago. Thanks, striking Canada Post.) before finally getting home. Just in time to feed the outside cats after unloading the truck!

No more softening the kibble. It’s just too cold. Some of the trays still had frozen kibble from yesterday stuck to them!

Today, we reached a high of -12C/10F. Which isn’t too bad, except even the slightest breeze made it feel much colder. Tomorrow is supposed to be slightly warmer, which is good, because I’m going to my mother’s do to her grocery shopping. Overnight lows over the next while are expected to drop below -20C/-4F Looking at the long range forecast for December is just an exercise in crazy. This morning, I was seeing some pretty nasty drops in temperature over the next couple of weeks – but then seeing expected highs of up to 5C/41F before Christmas! Looking at it again now, those days are now forecast as being below freezing, but warmer than -10C/14F Around and just after Christmas, they’re now saying we’re suppose to reach highs of -1C/30F

I highly doubt that will happen.

Anyhow. That is our Costco stock up shop for today!

Now it’s time to go through and look at what got missed, because we never finished going through the store, and what we’ll need to get locally.

For now, though, I just want to stay home and not be around people.

I’m people’d out.

The Re-Farmer

First stock up shop: this is what $382 looks like

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Before I start, I just want to say (an early) Happy Thanksgiving to all my visitors from the US. I hope you have a wonderful day of family, friends and lots of food!

Today’s stock up shop was intended to be a run on several stores conveniently down one major street in the city. Usually, it’s Walmart, Canadian Tire, the international grocery store or maybe a Superstore.

My first stop at Canadian Tire, I didn’t bother taking pictures of. I got our usual bags of stove pellets for the litter boxes, but today I was also looking for a kettle. Our glass kettle had started to leak. Knowing that kettle wasn’t going to last much longer (it actually lasted far longer than I expected), I took advantage of a clearance sale and picked up a spare glass kettle. The girls dug that out and set it up, but we immediately had issues.

It kept shutting itself off.

At first, they thought it was a wattage issue. We’d gone from a 1200w kettle to a 1500w kettle. With our old wiring, we already couldn’t, say, have the AC running in the summer, and boil a kettle of water, without tripping the breaker. Even the range hood, if it was on, would slow down while the kettle was on, then go back to normal speed when it shut itself off.

After a few days of this, though, I concluded it was not the wattage. It was the switch. The kettle itself had a temperamental switch. Once it got going and stayed going, it was fine. It was just that initial start that was a problem. Last night, my daughter tried to make herself some tea while she was working, and just couldn’t get the kettle to say on.

We do have a stove top kettle, but that’s a whistling kettle. Not something to use in the wee hours of the night, when everyone else is asleep!

While looking at the kettles available at Canadian Tire, I was blown away by some of the prices. Particularly for one kettle. A retro style Smeg brand kettle, for $280. !!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, it was a 2400w kettle, but that’s not worth paying almost $300 for! Crazier still was that it was sold out; there was only a display model on the shelf. Who is buying these things??

I’ll stick with my glass kettles, thanks.

It came down to two brands for what we wanted, and we ended up going with the exact same make and model as the one with the malfunctioning switch. At $45, it was the more expensive brand, but the design and the filter in the lid are easier to clean.

Since it’s not on clearance, we’re hanging on to the receipt, just in case it needs to be returned!

That done, my next stop was Walmart, with a brief side trip to a Domo gas station. Today is Thursday, which is when they have discounted prices. Prices had done down a bit, from $1.339/L to $1.279/L. With today’s discount, gas was $1.239/L, so my $40 almost filled the tank. I’ll do a fill at Costco and reset my trip meter for the month, later on.

I had been thinking of just getting some cat supplies at Walmart, then going to Superstore. I didn’t have any specific reason to go to the international grocery store on this trip. My Costco trip would normally be this Friday, but we’re taking cats to the vet on Friday, and I’ll be hanging around the area until they call me for pick up. I’m thinking of checking out a newly opened Costco location, but not on a weekend. So I figured I’d get more than usual at the Superstore.

I never made it.

I ended up doing a much larger shop at the Walmart, instead.

Though, really, it wasn’t that large.

It was almost noon when I got there, though, so I did stop for lunch before shopping. That cost about $15 or so.

This is what $382.00 (with a small donation rounding it up to the nearest dollar) looks like.

Yes, stuff is hidden underneath, but still… that’s not even a full cart.

The bulk of it was cat supplies.

I got two 32 packs of canned cat food; one for the inside cats, one for the outside cats. I’ll be more for the inside cats at Costco. I also got a package of XXL puppy pads and two larger bags of dry cat food. The item labelled “brown cat” is actually a Christmas stocking of cat toys – much cheaper than buying them individually! – plus I got a couple of $2 cat toys, one of them for the isolation shelter.

There’s a bottle of Murphy’s wood cleaning spray. We have the oil that needs to be diluted, but my daughter requested the pre-diluted spray for spot clean ups. I picked up a 2 pack of lavender scented spray, as we’re running low, and lavender is supposed to be calming, even for cats.

I found a 4 pack of Monster energy drinks that was on sale, but only one flavour, so I just got one box. I hope that Costco has the flats in stock again.

Next, there’s 4 loaves of rye bread. I’ll get more of that at Costco, too.

There’s a box of 3 cheese Pizza Pops in there. I had a request for heat and eats, so there’s also 4 bags of frozen chicken nuggets and fingers.

I picked up some toilet paper on sale, even though I’ll be getting more at Costco. Not something to run out of! There’s a 2L carton of Homo (3%) milk, and some dark coffee that was on sale, for my daughters. I can’t believe how expensive coffee has become! It’s cheap turkey season, though, so I picked up a medium frozen turkey. There’s also some Havarti cheese. I recently picked up some lactose free cheese for the family, so that’s mostly for me.

My husband requested turkey breast sandwich meat, but I was aghast at the price for that. I got a larger package of it, but for almost $12, it’s good for maybe 4 sandwiches, in total, and that’s if we skimp on the meat a bit. The Pepitas are pumpkin seeds, to powder as a supplement for the cats. Good for the digestive system.

I did splurge on a mug for myself. Sadly, one of my favourite mugs cracked in the sink. The kitchen isn’t heated and the stainless steel sink gets cold enough that glasses, jars and mugs sometimes crack when, say, a spoon gets dropped into the container. At least it was just a crack and not a shatter, this time. So now I have another larger mug, and this one has line drawings of cats all over it.

Because I really am a crazy cat lady, these days!

I also found some Aurora brand bouillon cubes. I like that brand – plus, it’s a better price! I do miss all the interesting flavours they used to have. There was a European grocery store in the city we last lived in that carried them all, but now they’re not even available from their website.

Last of all, I got an energy drink for the road.

By the time I got everything, my back and hips were giving out, so there was no way I was going to another store after this. Especially not for another largish shop. I was more than happy to go straight home after loading up the truck!

So there we have it. Just a Walmart trip this time. A whole 34 items. It was $356.80 before taxes. $166 of that was for cats, including the pumpkin seeds.

Counting the stuff at Canadian Tire, gas and lunch, today cost about $475 altogether.

Oh! I just heard from my daughter. The new kettle is working flawlessly!

At least there’s that!

Next trip will be the Costco run. We’ve got Christmas dinner to think about with this month’s stock up shopping. We will be having our own dinner on Christmas Eve, and I expect to be going to my mother’s with turkey dinners already made up, on Christmas Day, weather willing. December is an odd month for when my husband’s disability pay comes in. CPP Disability, which normally comes in on the third last business day of the month, always comes in before Christmas and, with all the holidays at the end of the month, his private insurance (the one that actually pays the bills), might come in before Christmas, too. That one normally comes in on the last business day of the month. New Year’s falls on a Wednesday, so it might show up the day before. Either way, it messes up my stock up shopping schedule! 😄

It’s going to be another quiet Christmas. No gift giving. At least nothing purchased. Who can afford that anymore, when on a fixed income? Just a special dinner, and time together. Which is the most important thing, in the end.

November sure is blowing by fast. I expect December is going to fly by, too!

The Re-Farmer

Truck is done and mid-month top up. This is what $155 looks like

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Today’s main thing was getting the truck to the garage to get that leaking seal replaced, along with the tire sensor, which would also replace the valve with the slow leak that was getting worse. I didn’t need to get there until 10, so there wasn’t too much of a hurry.

I still left early, of course. I always try to leave early! I’d rather be half an hour early, than 5 minutes late, for anything.

When dropping off the keys and talking about the work that was scheduled to be done, I asked if they could give all the tires a check, too. I freely admit, I’m paranoid about tires! There is one more that has a slow leak in the valve, but both rear tires will need their sensors replaced. Even the one tire that has been rock solid the whole time. The last time I got a sensor replaced, they checked the other tires and couldn’t get any readings off them, which meant the batteries were likely dead, and it’s repair by replacement for that. They were fine with checking the rest, too.

After that, I headed across town (all 6 blocks or so), with a plan of stopping at various places on the way back to look for things. I did have to stop for breakfast first, though. I forgot to eat before I left and was starting to get dizzy.

My first stop after breakfast was not productive; I didn’t find anything I was hoping to. I had some things I wanted to pick up for my husband that I wasn’t able to get yesterday, while in my mother’s town. I found some of those at the next stop. My last stop was a hardware store, were I was able to find a couple more things I needed.

By then, it was almost an hour past my appointment time, so I headed to the garage. I could see the truck hadn’t been moved, though. They had a vehicle stuck on a lift, waiting for parts, so they weren’t able to get to it yet.

At that point, I needed to just sit down, as my hip was starting to give out on my. Which was good, because I got to talk to the mechanic that was working on my truck. He knew he was from our area, and that he knew my brother, and really felt I should have know who he was. I finally had a chance to ask his name.

Well, no wonder he seemed familiar! He was the guy that helped us out on the road, when the truck started screaming at us and we discovered all the problems we were having with the oil system! That was two years ago! After having to replace the MAF sensor – twice! – it took this long to find where and why we were slowly losing oil.

They were able to get the truck in soon after I got there. The seal was replaced, then they worked on the tire sensor. Once that was back on, they ran the truck for a bit, then raised it back up on the lift to make sure nothing was leaking anymore, and everything was nice and dry!

Once it was at floor level again, they started checking the other tires. I could see them through the office window as they went around with their device, checking each tire.

Then doing it again.

Then they topped up all the tires for me, and went around again!

When they came back to the office and I was settling the bill ($226 and change, after taxes), we chatted about the tires. The new sensor was programmed, but they were not able to connect properly to the back tires. I was told that, after driving about 15km at speed, the new sensor should get recognized by the onboard computer and it would reset itself. The “service tire monitoring system” notice should go away, along with that one dashboard light for the tires, by the time I got home. If it doesn’t go away, they’ll need to check the back tire sensors again.

I told him I didn’t expect the light and warning to go away, and fully expect to have to replace both sensors on the back tires. When it’s in budget again. The tires are fine. That’s the main thing.

The warnings were still there when I got home. We’ll see if they’re still there when I leave for my mother’s tomorrow. I expect they will be.

Everything went well, otherwise, and the truck was good to go. My next stop was across the street to the grocery store. I still had one more thing on my husband’s list, plus I wanted to get ingredients for the chicken stock I’ll be making for my mother, tomorrow. I want to get it started before I leave to get her groceries, and planned to do the prep tonight, first.

I ended up making a much larger shopping trip than planned! Normally, I wouldn’t do a mid month top up like this, so soon after doing a Costco trip, but there were some really good sales I wanted to take advantage of.

This is what $155.69 looks like.

Which is actually quite a bit more for the money that usual!

Here is what I got – sorry for the poor photo quality. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I uploaded the image!

From the top: there’s a case of Fresca, which was the one thing left my husband had requested. On sale, but that just put it back to the regular price it was a couple of months ago.

The large bag of cornmeal was not on sale. When we first started buying these large bags, they were under $4. Now, they’re over $7! But, we were running low, and I’d like to bake some cornbread.

I remembered to get some white wine vinegar, as we were out. We were also running low on pancake syrup and it was on sale, so I got a bottle. The tea I got is something new to try. It has chicory root in it and is “coffee inspired”. We have chicory seeds, so I figured trying some in a tea would be a good idea.

The Monster was for the drive home. We were out of apple cider vinegar, and I wanted to use some in my mother’s stock, so I picked some up. I also got freezer bags that were on sale. One of them will go to my mother’s, so I can pack up the cooked chicken in smaller bags to make it easier for home care to prep her meals.

Lactose free cheese, mostly for my husband. The digestive enzymes I got at Costco don’t seem to be helping him, he tells me.

We did not need more eggs, but the 18s were on sale, so I got a couple. We’ll be hard boiling a bunch of them to keep handy for snacks, or to make egg salad with, now that we have so many eggs on hand.

The cabbage is for ourselves, but the onions are for ourselves as well as to prep for my mother, tomorrow. Same with the ginger root, carrots and celery. The 3 pound bag of apples was for home, though – and a really good sale! Apples have been insanely expensive lately. I look forward to having our own, but it’ll be a few years yet!

The salad mixes where the big savings. I’d already picked up some at my mother’s town yesterday at an excellent sale price, but these were even better. These salad mixes are usually over $7 a bag, but with the sale, they were under $4 a bag! Plus, extra points. If I didn’t know we wouldn’t have the room in our fridge, I would have gotten more.

Another good sale was on whole chicken, so I got a larger one. Normally, it would have cost almost $20, instead of just under $12. The pork sirloin roast was Buy One Get One Free, so I picked up a couple of the largest ones that were left. There was bacon on sale, too, so I picked up a package. Last on the receipt was a chicken salad sandwich to eat during the drive home. It was well past lunch time by then.

Then, when it came time to pay, I had enough points on my loyalty card to get $10 off – but got enough points with all the promos that I once again have enough points to get $10 off the next time I use it!

So with all the sales and discounts, not counting the sales on items priced by weight, since that’s applied before they get to the checkout, I had a total of $54.34 off. Add on the loyalty points discount, I got a total of $64.34 taken off my bill.

Not too shabby.

After one more stop at a gas station, I finally headed home. After my daughter helped me unload the truck, it was late enough to feed the cats outside. I even remembered to call my mother to remind her to take the chicken out of her freezer for the stock I will be making her tomorrow. I made sure to tell her not to get her own little pot and frying pan out again, as I was going to be bringing a bigger pot to use this time.

I was out again, about an hour later, to do my evening rounds, cutting some fresh herbs to use in my mother’s stock, before commandeering the kitchen. I now have a bag ready with our smaller stock pot, a good, sharp kitchen knife, and various ingredients that don’t need to be refrigerated, set aside. In the morning, I just need to grab some prepped ingredients from the fridge and that’s it.

Normally, my mother doesn’t do much when she makes her chicken stock. Last time, I included carrots, celery and onion, and she told me she only just used onion. I know she normally would not be too keen on trying new and different ingredients, like the apple cider vinegar, ginger and turmeric I’m bringing. She can get very angry over the idea of trying new things. She has been talking about problems with her digestion, though, and I specifically looked up a recipe for “gut healthy” chicken stock. I think it might help her be willing to try something new, if I explain it that way.

Meanwhile, I found we still had two last packages of meaty beef bones hiding in the chest freezer, from our last beef share purchase. I’ve got those thawing out with plans to make bone broth in the slow cooker.

All in all, it turned out to be a more productive day than I originally expected!

Tomorrow, we’re expecting a high of 10C/50F, but I won’t be home to take advantage of it to get stuff done outside. The next couple of days will have highs of only 2C/36F, which is when I’m planning to do some final mulching and covering the septic tank for the winter. After that, our highs will stay below freezing for a few days, and then we’re supposed to warm up again, possibly reaching a high of 5C/41F by next weekend. Which means there’s still a possibility of getting more progress outside.

Once we get past the first week of December, the long range forecast is now predicting quite a drop in temperatures, including overnight lows of -28C/-18C, so the more I can get done before then, the better! It’s been harder to keep things stocked up, but I really want to have at least a month’s worth of supplies on hand, before the deep freeze hits. The hard part will be stocking up on cat food.

Oh, I just got a message from the renter. They do have a straw bale they can spare, and will hopefully be able to bring it over on the weekend. Perfect timing! We’ll have straw to cover the septic tank, instead of the insulated tarp, and it’ll be much better for mulch in the garden, too.

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

Costco shop: this is what $791 looks like

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Well, I finally made it to Costco!

With some side trips, first.

My first stop was at the post office to pick up my daughter’s new office chair that we couldn’t pick up yesterday, because I forgot they closed at noon on Wednesdays. I had another surprise package, but I’ll cover that in another post. I dropped those off at home, then headed out right away and stopped at my mother’s. She had a letter from the regional health authority she wasn’t understanding. I confirmed that it was indeed an appointment for an MRI she was on the waiting list for, for more than a year. There was a form with it I helped her fill out as well.

We talked about her new home care schedule and I asked if she was letting them help her with meals. There is one home care worker that she has a lot of issues with. When my mother asked if she could put water in the electric kettle my brother got for her, because she has a hard time doing it herself, she balked, saying she was only supposed to do her pills, nothing else. Mom told her, this is new stuff (the worker should have known). She did put the water in for my mother, but didn’t close the lid nor start the kettle. My mom pointed out that she didn’t finish. The worker said that my mother is the only person she has a problem with – and that she didn’t do it because my mother didn’t say please or thank you.

Now, my mother has her issues, but right now, with her cognitive decline, she has trouble finding the words to ask for help. Expecting her to remember to say please and thank you under her circumstances sounds awfully strange. They had what my mother called a bit of a disagreement. The worker then apparently took the little container her pills had been counted out into, which my mother had not taken yet, into the lock box, saying she would make a call about my mother, and left.

???

She locked my mother’s pills away.

After a while, she came back and my mother did get her pills. She also had a different attitude. My mother said she did apologize and they ended up hugging before the worker left.

So very strange.

I asked and apparently this one worker never looks at her sheets, never fills out the form inside the lock box and, unlike all the other workers, never asks if there is anything else she can do for my mother.

I think I need to send an email to the case coordinator about this. I’m sure she’s already heard the other side of the story by now.

I also need to let them know what day my mother’s MRI is. It’s an evening appointment, so she won’t be home for the bed time assist. My problem is, I don’t know if Mom can even get into my truck anymore! I’ll have to talk to my siblings about that.

Once done at my mother’s I could finally head into the city.

When I got to the Costco, I didn’t even try to get gas first, like I usually do. The parking lot was shockingly full. I lucked out, though. As I decided to cut through one of the lanes to go back to the overflow area, someone started backing out. There was another car waiting and I was going to let them have the spot, but then another vehicle backed out, right next to them! So we both got spots. 😊

The store, however, was much less crowded than expected.

I didn’t find everything I had on my list, but I did end up spending almost $800

*sigh*

This is what $791.01 looks like.

*double sigh*

Because it’s been so long, I did get more than had been on my original list, when I tried to do the shop last week and ended up getting new spark plugs on the truck, instead.

The reciept was long enough I ended up taking two pictures.

On this part of the receipt, for the meats, I got a 3 pack of dry sausages, a large pack of drumsticks and two pork loins. I also got 2 panini packs for sandwiches, and a pack of farmer’s sausages. The Kirkland canned chicken was on sale, so I grabbed two. It’s been a long time since we’ve picked those up! We used to get them regularly.

There is also a couple of packs of wraps, 5 pounds of butter, a block of mozza and a block of Old cheddar cheeses, and a bag of Basmati rice.

On the flat cart, there was a flat of Coke Zero for my husband and I, and a flat of cranberry and blackberry Ginger Ale for the girls. They didn’t have any Monster, so I got a case of Celsius energy drinks. There’s a 9 pack of pasta, two cases of canned cat food, toilet paper, two bags of kibble and a box of puppy pads.

On the rest of the receipt…

There is a 4 pack of Pronamel toothpaste and a bottle of Ibuprofen (for the girls; I can’t take them because they are contraindicated with my anti-inflammatories) and lactase digestive enzymes, plus AAA batteries among the non-food things.

Then there is a container of dehydrated onion, popcorn, a 3 pack of Spam for the pantry, peanut butter, a 2 pack of lemon juice, olive oil, a 3 pack of oat milk, a flat of ramen noodles, two 2 packs of rye bread and a double flat of eggs. Nice to see those under $20 again.

So this will last us a while, but there were a few things I didn’t get. My own vitamins didn’t get included. I was supposed to pick up their big 2 packs of Head and Shoulders, as my daughter and husband now both use it as an anti-fungal body wash (which our doctor recommended to my daughter rather than an expensive prescription anti-fungal cream). I couldn’t find them and even asked someone to look it up. According to their inventory, they had over 100 in stock. The guy went looking but couldn’t find them, either. Which means they were probably still on a flat somewhere, waiting to be put on the shelves. So that had to be skipped.

After everything was unloaded, I made sure the pork loins were not put in the freezer, as we usually would. Instead, I cut them up, first.

I split one of them into three roasts. The other was cut into chops about 1″ thick. I filled two bags with 8 chops, and the third had 8 chops, plus two wonky end bits.

Aside from the in store shopping, I did make sure to get gas before I left. Regular was $1.199/L at Costco, and I’m glad I filled my tank there! As I was driving in, I saw gas prices all over were $1.249/L As I was leaving, everywhere had gone up to $1.339/L! So it cost me $65.18 for just over a half a tank of gas, instead of what would have been almost $73.

Thankfully, I won’t need to do much driving around between now and when I’m back at the garage to get that oil seal replaced. A trip to the dump on Saturday is about it, though I’ll probably do a grocery shopping trip for my mother, too. Oh, I forgot. My daughter has a doctor’s appointment on Monday. Not in the city this time, though.

When we lived in the city, I used to drive around a lot more often. I drove my daughters to work most of the time, because there were no buses to where they worked, and it wasn’t unusual for me to be driving somewhere, two or three times a day. Now that we live out here, driving somewhere two or three times a weeks is more than I want to be doing! 😄 I would be such a hermit, if I had the choice! 😂

Stock up trips like this do help reduce how many times I have to head out. Enough to make it worth the trip and putting up with things I would much rather avoid – like being around people for so long! 😁 Of course, it also saves us a pretty penny, as a lot of this stuff is much more expensive locally, if we can even find some of it.

Though that really isn’t much for almost $800, compared to what we could get for the same amount of money, when we first moved out here.

*sigh*

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

Stocking up: this is what $453 looks like

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$453.35 in total, to be exact.

I’m not sure why CPP Disability came in a day early, but I wasn’t about to complain. I just took advantage of it and made a run into the city.

With the work being done on the truck, plus the door replacement (still no word on the new, correct size, door that was ordered), it’s going to be a tight month, and we will be skipping Costco. Instead, I did the usual Walmart and Canadian Tire run, then his a Superstore along the same route.

My first stop was the Walmart. This is what $168.62 looks like.

Yeah. Not much.

The most expensive item was a box of 150 puppy pads. The Costco box is 100, but the pads are the same size.

Then there was the 9kg bag of kibble. I got just the one, for the inside cats, because I was planning to hit the feed store for 40 pounds bags for the outside cats.

Then there were two cases of 32 cans of wet cat food. One is for the outside cats, but I only use one can a day, mixes with hot water and powdered pumpkin seeds, which I then used to soften their morning kibble.

Last of all was a package of toilet paper that was on sale. Oh, and a $2 donation at the till.

So… five times (not counting the donation) was over $150.

*sigh*

My next stop was the Canadian Tire. This is what $0 looks like.

I looked all over but couldn’t find the sump pump hose I was looking for. I finally snagged someone and asked. It turned out they should have been in an empty shelf I’d walked past several times. Because the labels were so low to the ground, I never saw them. After looking it up, the guy said he would get one for me from their warehouse. When he came back, he had three, so he could restock the shelf.

I was just walking away with my one in the cart when I decided I’d better get a second one, just in case.

While going through the checkout, I paid for two bags of litter pellets, where were set up in the exit vestibule, so I picked those up on the way out.

I use my Canadian Tire dollars to pay for the entire thing, so what would have cost $53.72, cost me nothing.

After the Canadian Tire, I hit a Domo to fill the tank. The price of regular was $1.299, but it was Thursday, which was 4¢ off per liter day. Grand total to fill was $76.34

Last of all was the Superstore. This is what $284.73 looks like… sort of!

There’s actually more in there than it appears, as the bread is covering some things.

Under grocery, there’s a large jug of cooking oil, a giant bag of elbow macaroni, some mayo and a packet of rice noodles for the girls. The Monster was for me to drink during the drive home.

Under dairy, there’s a flat of eggs, and large blocks of Old Cheddar and Mozza cheese. We used to be able to get blocks that size at Costco, but they don’t seem to carry them anymore. I got 6 pounds of butter (they were on sale, but with a limit of one, so 5 of them were regular price). In the frozen section, I got two big bags of potato and cheese perogies and a back of mixed vegetables.

The bulk chocolate almonds were to snack on, on the way home. It was a very small bag.

The only produce I got on this trip was two bags of avocadoes that were at a very good price.

In meats and seafood, I got fish fillets for the girls, chicken thighs and drumsticks, a large ham, a frozen pork roast, a package of pork ribs and another of pork tenderloins. I don’t know why it’s under “meal replacement”, but I also got a hot rotisserie chicken.

I also picked up a frozen turkey that was free with a purchase over $300, so I wanted to make sure I reached that $300 mark, even though I tend to round up when I keep a tally in my head.

In the bakery, I got a couple of loaves of light rye bread and a back of torpedo buns. I don’t know what it is about their torpedo buns (labelled as “buns Italian” on the receipt) but the entire family absolutely loves them, and you get a LOT for the $5!

When I got to the till, though, I discovered I had rounded up too much, and the total was under $300! No free turkey. After finding out how much I was short, I went to a display I’d been standing next to while waiting in line and got two different tins of moon cakes; one with double yolks. That put me over, and I got my free turkey – and a rare treat for the family.

I did have things go a bit weird while I was in line, though. Because the lines were so long, I pushed my cart forward in line, then stood beside it, so I wouldn’t be blocking the aisle. I intended to step around when it came time to move forward and unload.

An older woman then got in line behind me, pushing her cart forward and forward and forward, until the end of her cart was under the handle of mine. Strange, but okay. We started chatting at one point, when she commented that she has to watch her cart. She forgets how long it is and has a habit of bumping into people. !! Okay.

Then things moved along and I was able to move my cart forward to the belt and start unloading.

She pushed her cart right up under my cart’s handle again.

Once the cart was empty and the customers ahead of me were done, I moved forward to the cashier, giving her my loyalty card.

I’ve been using that card for years, but it came up as not activated. I’ll have to phone them to find out what’s going on.

Once I had my card back, I pushed my cart to the end and started reloading it (I bag my stuff at my vehicle) as quickly and efficiently as I could, so it wouldn’t build up on the belt. When it came time for the total and to ring in my free turkey, she let me know I hadn’t reached the $300 mark. So I decided to grab the moon cakes.

No one in the line was willing to just pass them over to me, so I had to squeeze my way past the old lady’s cart to get through and get them, then squeeze back again.

She made zero effort to move her cart closer to the till. I’m no skinny minny, but even a thin person would have had a hard time getting by.

Whatever. I got them, the cashier rang them through while I continued to put things in my cart.

The old lady had moved forward and was standing right at where I needed to be to pay.

Both the cashier and I told her I needed to reach the PIN pad. She moved back…

But pushed her cart forward.

In the end, I had to first move my loaded cart forward, then move the old lady’s cart to the end of the belt, where my cart had been, just so I could get back in to use the PIN pad.

The thing that made it seem weirder is that I got no impression that she was someone dealing with cognitive issues or some such, and her comment about running into people showed she was aware. She may have been older than me, but probably not by all that much. Maybe 10 years or so? I don’t like to guess, since I have a mother who’s 94 but could easily pass as being in her 70’s. It just seemed… almost deliberate.

Maybe I’m just too used to dealing with my mother, who absolutely would do stuff like that, deliberately.

Anyhow.

So I got all that, it came to under $300 total, and I got my free turkey!

That cart looks pretty empty for that much, but most of the meat in there is covered, along with all the butters.

Once that was all loaded up, it was time to head home. I took the route that would take me through my mother’s town, instead of my usual route from this location, because I knew I’d have to make a pit stop at a gas station just outside the city. I was well on my way when my cell phone started to ring.

There’s pretty much only one place that calls my cell phone, so I pulled over to answer.

Yup. It was home care.

There was a cancellation and they did have my mother’s med assists covered by someone else, but that someone else wouldn’t be able to get to my mother’s until 9:45pm for her bed time med assist. The scheduler was concerned that would be too late for her.

I felt she was right – and since I was on my way home from the city and would be driving through my mother’s town anyhow, I decided I would stop by. Home care isn’t allowed to do this, but I can get her meds out and set them up for her in advance. Her supper med assist would come as usual, but no one would have to come for the bed time assist.

That worked out and she was able to cancel the super late bed time assist. I then phoned my mother and – making sure she knew I was pulled over on the side of he road and couldn’t talk long – let her know I’d be stopping by soon. I also made sure she knew I had groceries in the truck and couldn’t stay long.

Yeah, I’m really looking forward to having a cover on the truck box again. I had the frozen stuff and all the cold meats in covered insulated bags in the truck box. Heavy enough I had no worried that they’d blow around or slide around, but it would have been very easy for someone walking by to just reach in and grab a bag or two, heavy as they might be.

When I got to my mother’s, I made sure to bring a bag along. After getting her meds ready and we were chatting, I went into her kitchen and started taking down the stockpile of Pepto my brother got for her, that made her so very angry, into the bag I’d brought. She asked what I was doing and I told her, I’m taking them because they are bothering her. She asked if I was taking them here to the farm, and I said yes. She then pointed out the obvious, that it made no difference if they were at her place or our place and I just said, they’re bothering her.

She started going into her spiel about how these are medicine, they don’t last, they need to be kept cool, etc. I looked at the expiry date and told her, these are good for more than two years (it’s actually a best before date, not an expiry date, but I wasn’t about to try and explain the difference to her). They don’t need to go into the fridge, because they’re a mineral. My daughter even has a piece in her collection. That got her curious, so I looked up pictures of bismuth – the only active ingredient listed in Pepto – to show her. They are such gorgeous stones, too. I think that sort of mollified her, but who knows for how long!

She did ask me to leave one bottle in her cupboard; they came packed in pairs, and my brother had one pair unwrapped, with the open one now in her fridge. I took the time to show her that the only difference between what my brother got for her and what I’d picked up for her from the pharmacy (after checking the labels to confirm) is that I had picked up extra strength, and the ones my brother got were regular strength. That gave me the opportunity to remind her to use the cup they come with to get the proper dose, instead of just using a teaspoon, like she usually does. I’m kinda hoping it sunk in, but it’s hard to say.

Then I headed home, with six bottles of Pepto, and my brother no longer has to worry that my mother will follow through with her immediate idea of selling the “extra”.

I just quickly looked it up. The twin packs of Pepto at Superstore, where my brother found some in stock, cost about $25 each, before taxes, and that’s a much better price that buying them in singles. My brother spent over $100 on Pepto for my mother, so she wouldn’t run out. I think, if she knew that, she probably would have gotten even angrier.

*sigh*

Anyhow, that’s our stock up shopping trip for the month. Anything else we need will be smaller trips throughout the month for fresh stuff. It’s a shame the garden had so little production this year, as there’s little to supplement, and nothing to freeze or can. Ah, well. As I finish clearing up the beds, I’ll be harvesting both winter sown and spring sown carrots. It should be interesting to compare!

I’m still holding out hope for at least a couple of winter squash before the cold kills them. My daughter and I headed out to cover them again for the night while I was still writing this. It’s not supposed to get as cold as last night, so we didn’t cover the summer squash, peppers or remaining eggplant this time. We’re actually supposed to warm up again, and even get pretty hot, over the next week, so there’s hope for those winter squash, still!

But I digress.

We didn’t get a whole lot on this trip, compared to a typical Costco trip, but I did find quite a lot of prices seemed to be better at Superstore. They also have more selection and variety.’

Plus, they have torpedo buns. 😄

I wonder if it’s worthwhile to try going to their Wholesale Club location. The last time I went there, the prices didn’t really seem to be any better in general, and some of their meat was looking… questionable… but they do have things there that aren’t in their regular stores. It would mean an extra trip to the city, though, and I just don’t like doing those like I used to! Plus, if we make them too often, the trips are no longer worth the cost of gas to do them.

I do have a trip to the city on Oct. 1, though. That’s my appointment at the sports injury clinic to possibly get an injection for my left hip. Then there’s another trip, the week after, as my daughter finally gets to see an endocrinologist. Ah, well.

I’m really hoping to be able to hibernate as much as possible this winter!

The Re-Farmer

Addendum: I completely forgot! You may have noticed that I got no beef at all on this trip. This is an example of why.

That’s three chunks of Oxtail. OXTAIL. At over $30/kg. They did have other packages that were less per kg, but they had no meat on them. This used to be among the cheapest of cuts. Even cheaper than stew meat or ground beef. Now, it’s right up there with steak. Crazy!

Costco stock up shop: this is what $661 looks like

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*sigh*

We really need to do something about having so many cats.

I headed to the city shortly after 10am, stopping at a gas station at my mother’s town along the way, only to pick up a drink and a road snack to tide me over. I tried a new brand of beef jerky.

I should have gotten the hint when there was no price. In fact, none of the beef jerky, nor most of their snack mixes have prices on display.

It turned out to be almost $21.

Along with the super large Monster energy drink I got, it came to just over $26 after taxes and enviro fees.

It was good jerky, at least, but I won’t be buying it again! I only had a few pieces and the rest is in its sealed bag in the console where we keep things like water bottles, road snacks, extra tissue boxes, extra wet wipes, etc.

When I got to the city, my first stop was at a mall for “breakfast” in the food court. I ended up getting a three item Chinese food meal and a drink – about $16 and change – but only ate half of it. The other half was my supper when I got home.

Before going to the Costco, I swung through the Dollarama that’s right by the food court (I don’t think I’ve ever checked out the rest of the mall) and the doors I parked near. I ended up getting a few things there; four shoe-box sized storage boxes with lids, a refill bottle of liquid soap, and a 4L jug of cleaning vinegar. They have the 10% acidity vinegar that I’d been looking for. The grocery store had only 7% acidity cleaning vinegar. (4% is cooking vinegar and 5% is pickling vinegar) The 10% is noticeably better at descaling our kettle, that’s for sure!

I also picked up a couple more clear vinyl table protectors for the garden. Or for winterizing cat shelters. Either one. I’ll probably pick up more before the snow flies.

I ended up buying another hard sized bag to carry the stuff, and my breakfast leftovers, to the truck. I have lots in the truck but hadn’t expected to get things like the vinegar or soap refills, so I hadn’t brought any with me. Usually, I just take my cart to the truck and pack things up there, but the Dollarama carts can’t leave the store.

That done, I finally drove the couple of blocks over to the Costco, with my first stop being for gas. Their gas was at $1.329 instead of the $1.449 everywhere else in the city, so they were pretty busy! I was just under half a tank, and my fill cost $61.54

Once that was done, I was fortunate enough to find a parking spot right away. Yay! With the long weekend coming up, the lot was pretty full.

Then I grabbed my flat card and loaded up.

This is what $661.10 looks like.

That is not very full at all.

Here is an example of what I did NOT get today.

This is a “family size” package of stew meat. We used to get these all the time. I remember getting this size for under $20. Now, that same size pack costs in the $60 range – and this was NOT the biggest pack in the display.

This is what I DID get.

I got six 9.1kg/20lb bags of kibble. They had the 11kg size, but the Kirkland brand is a better price/gram. I also got a 48 pack of wet cat food and more puppy pads. The cat supplies all together totaled $223.32 before taxes.

*sigh*

The other stuff on the flat cart they scanned included a case of Coke Zero for my husband and I, a case of Monster that my daughter will pay me back for, a 3 pk of oat milk for my daughters, toilet paper, paper towels and a double flat of 60 eggs.

For meats, I got a chub of ground beef and a pork blade roast. I got a pork loin, and plan to try something different with it. I was able to find and get curing salt a couple of weeks ago, so I’m going to try curing it. I also got a couple of 3 pks of Spam (that’s sure gone up in price, too!).

In dairy, I got 4 pounds of butter and Old Cheddar cheese.

For breads, I got two 2pks of rye bread and two packs of wraps. There is also a big case of spaghetti, a big jar of mayonnaise and popcorn. I remembered to get some fabric softener sheets for the drier; that three pack will last use a few years. Last of all, I got a Tuxedo cake. My husband’s birthday is in the beginning of September, so he’ll be getting his cake early!

And… that’s it.

That’s $619.41 before taxes. Of that, $259.94 was actual food for us (not counting beverages).

For the month.

Good grief.

True, we did do an earlier stock up trip at the international grocery store where the only non-food items were some hair accessories, on sale, for my daughter. Costco is also the place were we get the big stuff, like the paper products, along with the cat supplies, and typically bulk sized meats.

Kitten interruption: I went to chase raccoons out of the sun room. The foundling kittens were all crying in distress. No sign of a mama, and the creche mothers weren’t going into the cat cage, though Lady Hypotenose was nursing 5 or 6 older kittens in the middle of the sun room. We don’t have kitten formula, so my daughter and I ended up making “kitten soup” with a can of wet cat food and fed them, one at a time in the bathroom, using a syringe. They were confused by the whole thing, but were very hungry. In my last check on them, they had settled in together in the cat bed and seemed to be calming down with full little bellies.

On the down side, I think there are still four very stupid little raccoons jammed between the counter shelf and the window!

Back to our regular programming…

So this trip did go over our Costco budget, even though we got less than typical. Frustrating. Especially since we’re supposed to be stocking up extra in the pantry to tide us over for the winter, should we get snowed in or something again.

*sigh*

Well, it is what it is. We’ll work things out. We’ve been in tighter spots before.

Excuse me while I go chase some skunks out of the sun room…

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

Mid month stock up: this is what $178 looks like, plus a very long day.

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It may not be mid month on the calendar yet, but it is for our stock up shopping schedule.

It’s been a very long day.

First up, the cuteness. A really bad, cropped critter cam image, but still cute!

That is Lady Hypotenose, in the wee hours of the night, tending her now five kittens! I saw them on the camera earlier, swirling around her like a vortex, except the new baby, who was hunting nip. I look a couple of minute later and there she was with three of her babies (the fourth one ran out of frame), and her newly adopted baby, nursing them all in the middle of the sun room.

What a good mama!

When I went to feed them this morning, they were all over the place, but when I came back after finishing my rounds, they were all gone! Every one of them! I couldn’t see them anywhere in the sun room!

I went out to check the cat house and various other spots, but nothing.

Then I came back to the sun room and found a single kitten, going for the food. I had no idea where it came from.

So I went into the old kitchen and watched through the door with the missing screen, and spotted a kitten squeeze its way out from under the counter shelf.

*phew* What a relief! I was afraid Lady Hypotenose changed her mind about keeping her kittens in the sun room!

After that, I had a bit of time before I needed to head out to my mother’s, to take her for her doctor’s appointment. She really struggled to use the stool and get into the truck but, unfortunately, this was not an appointment that could be done over the phone.

We were able to go through a whole bunch of things during the appointment, from going over the results of her various blood tests (all is fine), talking about her leg swelling with a dosage change and confirming that yes, she has toe fungus, and getting a prescription for that. My mother brought up her frequent complaint about dry mouth, that happens only when she’s sleeping. I’ve been telling her, she’s probably sleeping with her mouth open. I get it, too, sometimes. So when the doctor asked some questions and came to the same conclusion, my mother was right ticked off!

I think the doctor was ticked off, too – or at least shocked – but not at my mother. I brought up the referral for another mental health assessment, since it’s been more than a year, and home care needs it for paneling my mother for a nursing home. The doctor looked up the last penal report and was shocked it wasn’t enough. She wrote a referral for the assessment, but also wrote a letter to the home care coordinator (I’m glad I keep her business card in my phone case, because she needed the contact information!). I brought up that my mother really shouldn’t be living alone, and my mother added that she is having more trouble moving around and has to lean on furniture to get around he apartment.

I think the case coordinator is going to get a rather brusk letter about my mother’s conditions, and that she needs to be in care.

There were a few other things, some of which I had to explain to my mother as I brought her home. Normally, we would have stopped for lunch or something after the appointment, since we were on the road at lunch time, but with the changes in her prescription, I needed to get her bubble packs to the pharmacy.

My mother was so tired, she actually started to fall asleep during the drive!

Once I got her home, I went through the lock box and took some bubble packs out, leaving the new one that just got started today. My mom will stick to the same dose until that pack is done.

I also found a message from my daughter. The pharmacy had already called me on the land line, wanting to talk to me about my mother’s prescriptions! When I got there, I joked with the pharmacist that they are FAST! They were calling before I even got my mother home, yet!

They took the bubble packs to adjust them, but the new prescription for my mother’s toes as another issue. I was warned right away that it was expensive, while she looked up if it was covered by our province’s prescription insurance.

It wasn’t.

My mother had given me cash, and asked me to get some more Voltaren as well, since she’s using it on both her knees and her back now. Between that and the new prescription, it wasn’t enough, so I paid the balance.

When I got back to my mom’s and went over everything with her, and told her I’d covered about $50, she was furious. This little bottle was $50? she said, as she threw it across the table. No, it cost over $120. The $50 or so was what I covered.

Cue much ranting and raving about how it’s just toes, she didn’t need it, she didn’t want it.

She had been quite happy to get the prescription when we left the doctor’s, but I guess she expected it to be free, just like she did with the inhaler when I covered that for her, too.

It took a while to calm her down and give her the instructions on how to use it.

I suspect she will refuse to use it.

After all that, I was more than happy to leave. I still had my own errands to run at Walmart, since I was out, anyhow.

It had been raining off and on all day, and I even got warnings from home that it was pouring buckets. It wasn’t that heavy where I was, though, so the drive to the Walmart wasn’t too bad. I’m just happy to have the rain. We need it so badly!

Once I got to the Walmart, I could finally have my own lunch, too!

I didn’t have a large list, but it was enough to make the drive to Walmart worth it. Especially when it came to the cat food.

This is what $178.63 looks like.

Yeah. Not much there at all.

The most expensive items were the two bags of kibble, plus a case of wet cat food. I also got a box of pet stain/odour remover, to cat supplies alone were in the $100 range.

My husband requested water flavours, but they had only one flavour of his preferred type/brand, so he got three different types. I also grabbed more distilled water for his CPAP humidifier. He still has a good supply, but it’s a lot cheaper at Walmart, so I got extra.

There’s some coffee creamer for the girls, some cleaning vinegar and facial tissues, some powdered chicken bouillon, and some rye bread. They had an excellent price on corn on the cob, so I picked up a bunch.

And that’s it. That was almost $200

Ouch.

By the time I was heading home, it was late enough in the day that I asked my daughter to feed the outside cats. She tells me that all the kittens, except the two garage kittens, came to the house to eat, and she even got to pet some of the new littles! I’m glad because, by the time I was bringing in more cat food through the sun room, they were almost all hiding again.

The system that gave us all that wonderful rain today has passed us by and it seems like the main body of it will go right over where the huge fire across the lake is. Even with the rain, the air was still smoky. We might get a bit more rain tonight, but just barely.

I actually don’t have any appointments or planned errands for the next couple of weeks! I’m amazed. It’s been so long. Of course, there will be the usual unplanned stuff – trips to the dump, any new calls to cover my mother’s med assists for home care, stuff like that – but I’m otherwise actually going to be able to stay home for the next while!

What an amazing thing. I might actually get some progress done on various projects that had to be set aside!

I think I’ll celebrate by going to bed early.

The Re-Farmer