Today was going to be a lot warmer, though not going above freezing as was being forecast off and on for the past few days.
We were planning to do a much needed dump run, then go into town for errands. With that, and the warmer temperatures, in mind, I scraped the packed snow off the sidewalks and cleared them, so they could warm up faster and melt clear. We had both rain and snow in the forecast, though, so I wasn’t sure just how much good it would do, but at least it got done.
I waited until before noon, when things were still warming up, to bring the truck into the yard and load it for the dump. I left it running, partly to defrost all the windows, but also to keep the cats from going under it.
It didn’t stop a couple from going under the back!
Thankfully, they cleared themselves out before my daughter and I were ready to leave.
Right away, before even getting through the gate, we knew we were going to have issues. Everything was so slippery!
As we drove towards the highway, we started getting hit by the wind. Just turning onto the highway, I knew I wasn’t going to reach full speed! Thankfully, the dump isn’t that far, but we were getting hit with a cross wind and sudden gusts. I’ve got good all weather tires, but they are just all weathers, not winter tires, and I could feel that wind trying to blow us off the road.
The dump run done, we headed back towards our little hamlet and, by then, conditions were getting worse. We drove through our hamlet towards town, which was more shelters, so instead of blowing snow, we were getting accumulated snow. On top of ice.
Once we cleared town, the wind was even worse than on the highway to the dump. The closer we got to town – and the lake beyond it – the worse things got. The snow was heavier and the visibility kept dropping. I was doing well below the speed limit and wasn’t even being passed, which says a lot for our area!
Once in town, our first stop was the pharmacy. Since it was past lunch by this time, I originally planned for us to grab a bite after the pharmacy, but the weather changed that plan! Instead, we went straight to the grocery store. We had four of our 18.9L/5 gallon water jugs to refill on this trip, so we needed two carts. I only needed to pick up some bread and eggs, but my daughter picked up a few things as well.
As we got out of the store, I thought things looked like they were clearing up a bit.
My daughter got this shot out her window. She tried to get a shot of the road ahead of us but the camera frustratingly clears up the shots so much, you could actually read the signs – something we couldn’t do while driving!
At least we were driving out of the worst of it, but I was still driving even slower than we did on the drive in.
Once at home, we pulled in front of the house to unload. Thankfully, we’re pretty well shelters from the north, though not so much from the west, and the winds were coming from the northwest. After unloading, my daughter was going to park the truck in the garage while I went to go the outside cat feeding early, and my other daughter put everything away.
As I came out, I found my daughter still in the driveway, stuck!
I went over to try and give her a hand when I realized something.
The truck was set to rear wheel drive. One back tire was spinning like it was elevated and floating on air! I got her attention and she switched it to 4 wheel drive – and got out easily after that!
Gotta remember. When we take the truck to the garage, they switch it from auto, to 2 wheel drive.
So that was all taken care of.
My mother had called while I was in town, though, so as soon as I could, I called her back, thinking she was calling because she wasn’t feeling well.
She was calling to check on the cards she asked me to mail. Especially the card for our vandal.
*sigh*
So I reassured her about the mail, then asked how she was feeling.
Terrible.
She then spent some time talking about how bed she felt, like she felt before going to the hospital, it’s worse in the mornings, much of which I was able to get out of her while there yesterday.
I encouraged her to use the Lifeline and have them get her to a hospital. If she has water in her lungs, she needs to go to a hospital. Only she can make that decision.
She then went on about various other things and even went so far as to say, she doesn’t want to bother anybody.
…
I told her, you do it all the time. And that’s okay. Sometimes, you need to do that. This is one of those times.
After several more minutes of encouraging her to use the Lifeline and get herself to a hospital, and reassuring her that we would take care of all her stuff that she’s worries about, I told her I would let her get off the phone, so she could use her Lifeline (which is through the phone line).
I don’t think she’s going to do it.
*sigh*
If she’s going to do it, I really hope she does it today. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to get 7.5cm/3″ of snow, with another 10cm/4″ of snow overnight into Thursday morning, then on Friday, another 4cm/1.5″ of snow.
Right now, my brother and SIL and I are tentatively planning to visit my mother on the weekend, as they will be spending Christmas with their grandsons in another province. Obviously, if she goes to the hospital, those plans will change.
Yes, it was warmer than yesterday. As I write this, we’re still at -9C/16F. Wind chill is -22C/-8, though.
It was a good day to break out the crochet. I haven’t been doing that a lot, as yard tends to catch on the rough spots on my skin and get yanked right off the hook. My daughter, however, got me a skein of blanket yarn, yesterday.
Turned out, blanket yarn doesn’t catch on my fingers!
So I whipped up a hat, here modelled by Ferdinand, my beat up display head.
The ear flaps can be folded up for extra thickness. Which is something I need, because wind in my ears causes ear aches very quickly.
I even got to test it out while doing my evening rounds.
It was snowing again, by then – it’s been snowing lightly, off and on, all day, even though the weather apps were saying we had no snow, but to expect some tonight. Uh huh.
Adam came out for food today, on her favorite perch to eat, on the cat house roof. It took several attempts, but she did allow me to finally skritch her neck and ears. She’s more friendly when she has kittens around. Once they were weaned, she got standoffish again. *sigh*
On of the things I had on my to-do list today was to call Visa. My first credit card that I got to re-establish my credit rating, so we could finance the truck, is expiring at the end of this month. Weeks ago, when using my phone’s bank app, I started seeing a notice saying that, if I have my new card, I could activate it right there.
Except, I didn’t have my new card.
What we did have was a postal strike.
I still don’t have my new card, so I called up Visa. He looked it up and the new card had been sent out in the middle of September. Three months ago.
The post office isn’t on strike anymore, but I have no reason to believe my replacement card will come in before the current one expires.
I had two options. One was to simply wait until the end of the month and, if it hadn’t come in by then, call them back. The other was to list my card as lost, and he could send me a new card, with a new number, immediately, and expedite it. It would arrive within 3 or 4 business days.
In the end, that was the option I chose. He got me a new card set up and it’ll be sent out tomorrow. He even waived the fee for expediting it. It was all done so quickly, I probably spent more time going through the automated options and waiting before I got to talk to a human.
It does mean my current card is cancelled and no longer useable, since it’s now considered “lost”, but that’s okay. The new one should arrive before I need to use it for anything. Oh, I just remembered… that’s what the pharmacy charges our prescriptions to, when we have refills delivered. I don’t know if my husband has anything coming in that isn’t fully covered by insurance right now. I have to call them anyhow. I’m hoping to be able to get more than 30 days of our prescriptions before Christmas, so that we won’t need to get refills, pick ups or deliveries through the harshest winter months. They may need to contact our doctors to get updated prescriptions to fill 3 months worth. There might be some issues with one of my husband’s meds, and one of my daughter’s, as these are “controlled substances” and we’re not allowed to refill them until within 3 days of running out completely.
If all goes well, I won’t have to drive anywhere until Friday, when I’m potentially heading to my mother’s to do her laundry and Christmas housekeeping.
On a completely different now, looking ahead to the spring, I’ve already asked my brother if we could work out a day that I could borrow him, one of his tractors and some chain. We have so many fallen dead spruce trees in the spruce grove, with many of them stuck on other trees. They are a fire hazard, of course, but I would also like to clear them out so that we can eventually transplant more spruces into the spruce grove. We’re also talking about cutting down the big spruce closer to the house that finally died a couple of years after we moved out here. The risk with that one is that it’ll fall on the house. I did make sure to debark it at the base, so no ants will get at it. A lot of the fallen spruces fell because their bases were weakened by carpenter ants. Then there’s the tree in front of the kitchen, with that one branch stretching over the roof that we can’t get down on our own that we talked about.
So that’s something that will hopefully get done next year. My brother needs to work on one of his tractors to get it going first, though; they are all rather vintage and need some TLC to be useable.
Life is going to be so different with my brother and SIL being able to come out here more often, and with all his equipment here. They’re looking to set up an office in the trailer home they moved out here, so he could work “from home”, then work on stuff around the property in the evenings during the week, rather than trying to rush to get things done on a weekend. I look forward to helping him out and learning from him! No living person knows and understands this place more than he does.
Today was set aside for me to go to my mother’s to do her shopping and errands and household stuff. I’ll start off by saying, she was actually on really good behaviour today, comparatively speaking. Things did go well.
The morning started off with the feeding of yard cats and doing my morning rounds. I tried for a head count this morning, and got 30. Last time, it was 35, including a cat I didn’t recognize. I haven’t seen it, since.
I moved both heat lamps lower, but this one is a 150watt ceramic heat bulb. The other is 200watt. I thought it was 250w, forgetting that I wasn’t able to find the ceramic heat bulbs at 250w. The lamp is rated to 250w, and there’s an incandescent 250w heat bulb in a matching lamp in the isolation shelter.
Speaking of which, that’s going to be used for its original purpose soon!
This morning, I got a message from the rescue. We have two dates to spay two cats each. I was sent a screen cap of a texted confirmation with two dates, one of which was for 3 cats. I was told I had two slots and someone else had the third, so I thought that was my date. I didn’t think the earlier date was also for me until I got a call while I was at my mother’s from the vet clinic to confirm the earlier date! It is straightened out now, though I did tell the woman who called me that, while we have two females we know we can catch for the first one, with the second one, we might have to just catch what we can, and see what they turn out to be! This isn’t very uncommon when it comes to strays and colony cats. I’ve brought in cats without even knowing for sure what gender they were, and they were fine with it.
But that got worked out much later.
I was able to head out a bit early to my mother’s bringing along my stock pot and a good knife, along with the prepped vegetables and herds, for the chicken stock was would be making for her. When I got there, my mother was back in bed, after her morning med assist. I noticed she had a garbage bag ready for the bin by the door, so I quickly dropped the stuff off, grabbed the garbage and headed out. Which turned out to be excellent timing. I passed one of her neighbours in the hall; someone who’s window faces the street. We ended up chatting for a while, and he told me he seeds me out his window quite often. He was very sweet. He mentioned that my mother clearly needs more help, and that he’d told her, if she ever needs anything, to just knock on his door.
When I got back, I told my mother about this, but she had no memory of him saying this to her! When I told her which apartment he was in, she even struggled to remember who lived there. She would recognize him to see him, but not necessarily connect him to any particular apartment.
It’s good to know she has some good neighbours.
When I got back to my mother’s, she was up and at her table. She joked about her being wrapped in a robe and wearing a regular shirt, because it’s been so long since her laundry was done, she ran out of nightgowns!
She was rather amused when I started unpacking my supplies and pre-prepared ingredients to work on her chicken stock. I just had to prep the chicken legs and thighs. My mother insisted I wash the pieces really, really well, to wash off the “chemicals”, then started telling me how the stores all spray meat with chemicals to make meat last longer. I told her that’s not quite what they do, and she got instant angry with me – but I was still washing her chicken for her, so she turned off the angry. I’m not sure if she was thinking of the CO that’s used to keep beef red in packaging, or she she was thinking of the chlorine rinse they used to do, to kill off bacteria like salmonella, though that hasn’t been done in years. No doubt, it was something she saw on daytime TV or read in a paper, many, many years ago.
After the chicken was in the pot, I started adding the mirepoix ingredients, then showed her the rest. I don’t think she has ever used ginger before, except maybe in power form. I know she was aware of turmeric, as she had bought a whole bunch for herself because she’d read about how healthy it was, but didn’t know how to use it. She ended up giving it to us! Apple cider vinegar is something she was completely unaware of.
She was oddly surprised by how many garlic cloves I brought – an entire head, so about 6 or 7 cloves. That was probably the last thing I would have expected her to be surprised about. “Polish penicillin” was always a staple ingredient when I was growing up, and she often brings up about how we should plant lots and lots of garlic. I remember how my parents would sometimes eat it. They’d pour some salt onto the table, then dip their cloves of garlic into the salt as they ate it raw!
Once the chicken stock was at the point where I could turn it down to a simmer, I got the first two loads of my mother’s laundry going, then we went over her shopping list. She had added a few things to it since I started it for her a few couple of days ago – including wine! The pharmacy has a liquor section, but the wine she likes isn’t available anymore. In our province, the government controls liquor sales (which is one of the reasons our booze is so expensive; it’s mostly taxes). When Trump started talking tariffs, our premier ordered all US booze to be pulled from the shelves. This was already bought and paid for by the government, of course, and hardly anyone was demanding US booze get pulled. It was just an childish tantrum on the part of our premier. Canada has one Western province where alcohol sales are private. Some places did try to remove US booze from the shelves, but the customers complained so much, they put them back. People in our province have no such say in the matter. The irony of this childish display is that we’ve had tariffs on US products for decades.
Which means the wine my mother usually gets – a super sweet kosher wine my parents bought for as long as I can remember – is no longer available. She asked me to try and find something I thought would be close. 😄
The pharmacy was my first stop and I had to ask one of the staff for help. I don’t know wines. Nothing against them. There just aren’t a lot of alcoholic drinks that I enjoy. In the end, I had two staff members looking things up, trying to find something my mother might like to replace what she normally would have gotten. It came down to just one thing – without US products, their shelves were pretty empty – and there was only one bottle of it left. On sale, too, which was nice.
That done, I picked up a few other things on her list, then got her bubble packs. I got another nice surprise at the checkout. My mother has the loyalty card, which is on her file at the pharmacy. She had lost track of the card for a while, but because it’s on her file, any times she got her prescriptions, she was still collecting points. Only at the store counter does the card need to be shown to collect points.
My mother was able to get $40 off her stuff! Plus, she collected enough new points through her prescription refills that, next time, she’ll be able to get another $20 off. !!!
When I told her that later one, her response was, why didn’t they use that $20 right then?
*sigh*
That done, the next stop was the grocery store for a somewhat larger shop than usual for her. She even requested I picked up some of the deli chicken I would get for her for sandwiches. She didn’t want slices, though. She asked for a chunk about an inch thick. That certainly made it easier for the deli person!
By the time I was done the shopping and back at my mother’s, her Meals on Wheels had arrived and the empty tray was waiting on her walker, outside her door. Those get left in the common room for pick up, on the next delivery day. So I took care of that for her before heading in. I was quite surprised she was done so quickly, and commented on it. I did notice the container with vegetable soup was on the counter, though. Once a week, they do a “use whatcha got” soup using leftovers. My mother says it tastes like dishwater. !!! So that ended up getting tossed. Another moment where she suddenly got angry at me, this time because I couldn’t read her mind over just how she wanted it tossed. *sigh*
Once her things were put away, the rest of the time was spent tending the stock, her laundry and general clean up. I did stop for some tea and a bun as a lunch, before getting back at it. Once the stock was done, I took out the meat to set aside for a bit, then the large sticks of celery and carrots, because I knew my mother would want to include them in a soup or something. I found a little strainer that I used to get most of the big stuff out for the stock before salting it and letting it cook longer, while I deboned the chicken. That all fit into one of the freezer bags that I’d brought along with everything else. The vegetables went into a handy take out container my mother had.
The stock was a different issue. I should have brought jars! I could find only two suitable empty jars and started ladling the stock into them, through the strainer. My mother kept telling me to leave everything out to cool down, first. It took me a bit to understand that she didn’t like the containers being used, and especially when I put the lids loosely on the jars. She thought they would take longer to cool down than if they were just left out. The idea of covering them at least to keep dust out apparently never occurred to her!
I find myself wondering if she was expecting to leave my stock pot behind?
By this point, I was finishing off and starting to pack things up to leave, as soon as her last load of laundry was dry. I had mentioned to my mother earlier that I needed to swing by the garage before going home (she wouldn’t understand what getting a tire torqued means). When she started complaining that I was getting ready to leave, I told her, I still need to go to the garage on the way home.
Which is when she started getting mad at me again. Why was I leaving so soon? I told her, I’d been there for almost 5 hours. Didn’t she finish her Meals on Wheels first? Yes – before I came back with her groceries. She actually tried to claim I’d been there for barely 2 hours, instead of almost 5 hours!
One of the things she wanted me to do was cut her toenails, which I really didn’t want to do on top of everything else. It would have been good for her to soak her feet to soften them, first, too, which hadn’t happened. She basically started having a tantrum. It was as if I hadn’t done anything else for her at all, because her toenails hadn’t been done.
Then she started berating me, asking why I booked to go to the garage on a day I was going to be at her place. I told her, I didn’t; I brought the truck in yesterday. This is a safety thing to make sure my tire doesn’t go flying.
Some time ago, I’d brought over a good set of toenail clippers, because she only had fingernail clippers, and a micro-pedi grinder thing. She told me to take those home, and was angry about it for some reason. I told her, no. She has toenail fungus. If I take them home and use them, I would get her toenail fungus. Only she can use them, now. That made her mad, too.
In the end, I agreed to take a look at her feet. It turned out her nails were really broken up, and only a few had anything to be trimmed. I started using the clippers and she got angry again, demanding I use scissors, because the clippers didn’t work.
They worked find.
I think she may have tried to clip her own toenails and couldn’t manage it, because then she told me one toe had gotten so bad, she grabbed scissors and cut as much as she could, herself.
While I was doing her toes, I pointed out which one had the fungal infection. That lead her to complain about how she spent so much money on medication for it, yet never used it. So I asked her were it was and went looking. At first, the only box I found that was the size I remembered it came in turned out to be eye drops. My mother got angry again, saying she’s never bought eye drops before, so why was it there? She forgot that we did get eye drops for her, when she started getting treated for her macular degeneration.
I finally found the box, hidden way in the back of her cupboard, and applied the medication, but this is not something she can do herself, and it’s not on her care list with home care. I’m not sure if we can even add it to the list or not, partly because I don’t know that my mother would be willing to let them do it.
Ironically, for someone who complains about all the medications she’s taking, she once again brought up about how she thinks she should be using the inhaler – a prescription that was cancelled. I had to explain to her, getting this was a test to see if she had asthma. The alternative would have been to get on a waiting list to get tested, and it could take a year or more before she got to the top of the list. It was simply faster to have her try the prescription to see if it worked or not.
My mother doesn’t understand. She has trouble breathing at night, and she’s gone from complaining about “having” to take it, to now wanting to have it, even though it made no difference at all. Her mind has just latched onto it, now that the prescription has been cancelled. She’d been wanting to stop using it for a long time, too.
Anyhow.
I finally managed to head out, though my mother was still quite angry that I was leaving “so early”. I did manage to get to the garage in good time. I just had to wait until someone was available to do it. Then, since I was there, I popped into the grocery store across the street to pick up some bread, after my daughter told me she hadn’t had a chance to do any baking today.
By the time I left, it was starting to rain! We had reached our high of 10C/50F, too. Happily, I managed to get home before it was getting too dark. That half-light at the end of the day makes it so hard to spot deer getting ready to run across the road.
While things ended on a fairly negative note, I got a lot done at my mother’s. Her fridge is stocked up again, she has her meds, I got her chicken stock made and she has cooked chicken to last her a while.
It just took a really long time, and unfortunately, spending that much time with my mother, even on a good day, is pretty draining.
Good grief, I can’t wait until the days start getting longer again. I keep thinking it’s closer to midnight, but it’s barely past 5:30 as I start this!
This morning was the first morning where I could actually say it was cold. We even had some snow on the ground, though not enough to cover much. For the past while, I’ve been giving the yard cats their morning feeding after softening it with some really thin, warm “cat soup”, but it’s been freezing faster than they can eat it, so I did just dry kibble this morning. They very clearly were expecting different and weren’t too happy not to get it!
I was heading out soon after to do my mother’s morning med assist, after being called yesterday about a cancellation. She now has 20 minutes scheduled, so they have time to do a meal assist and, if she’s willing, to help her get washed up or dressed on top of her regular assist.
When I got there, she was still in bed and really struggled to get up. I encouraged her to stay in bed while I made her breakfast, but she made her way out and did her morning washing up routine. Once she was settled with her meds and food, I took care of her commode, etc.
Since she has a lunch assist now, I asked her what she wanted, in case there was something I could leave out or set up for the worker that came for her lunch assist. In the end, I just brought out a can of chicken noodle soup, because the rest of what she wanted had to stay in the fridge.
Overall, things went well, though my mother seemed quite down and a bit depressed about how she was feeling. She said she thought she was going to the hospital today, but did acknowledge that she tends to feel better after getting up and moving about, and is usually feeling pretty good by the end of the day. What did catch my attention and showed me how much worse she was feeling than usual is that she did NOT do her usual complaining, with the whole “I’m dying!” thing, then launching into what she wants us to do for her before she dies. She was quiet about it, and that’s way more of a red flag.
Yes, I did send an email to the home care office when I got home, as this is something they need to know. The care aides also pass on things like that, as they observe them.
The only time things started to go south was near time for me to leave. She remembered something she wanted to tell me, then started going on about how she didn’t want us using her pension to pay for things here at the farm.
…
Yes, she paid for the door, and I told her again (when I had the chance) that I appreciated it, but I had never asked her to. It was my brother that talked to her about it because, for the past while, she’s been talking about how she wants to help me and my family out more. She’s also been hinting about helping with the door before, too. So something has changed.
Before I could figure out, she started talking about how, she doesn’t live here any more, it’s not her responsibility, then started complaining about how much doing the roof cost. She is convinced we were cheated, because it shouldn’t have cost $14,000. I told her, that was just how much things cost at the time. If it had been done three years earlier, it would have cost $9000. I didn’t get a chance to remind her that I’d gotten estimates from three different companies then, and they were all pretty much the same cost. She had said no.
She started telling me, I should have gone to other companies to find a better price, and I told her, I went to 5 different companies (3 responded, but I didn’t even try to bring that up). Then she started complaining that they charged for clean up. We shouldn’t have paid for that. We should have done it ourselves. I said to her, do you know just how much there is to clean up from a roof?
She was talking about the door.
It seems that when my brother talked to her about it, he’d brought printouts, including the original estimate with details on what was included in the cost. Clean up was part of it. My mother said that we could have “saved some pennies” by doing it ourselves.
*facepalm*
I just did not want to go there. Instead, I started getting ready to leave, because I still had to go to our own pharmacy to pick up some refills. I double checked his message about how they’d be ready for pick up today, to see if there was a time I had to wait for, as it was still early in the day for that sort of thing. As we were talking, I read out “pick up injections”, and my mom was all “injections!” then going on about my poooor husband that he has to take injections, and oh, we have it so hard, we suffer so much…
…
I told her, he’s been on two injections for years. (She knows that; she reacts the same way, every time) Doing injections is not a big deal these days. She still tried to play the pity game, and how she feels so sorry for us. I told her, yeah, we have problems, but so does everyone, and a lot of people have things a lot worse than we do. We have a lot to be thankful for.
Even with this stuff, I’d say it was a good visit when it comes to my mother.
From there, it was off to our pharmacy, where I was also able to get my vitamins that I didn’t get at Costco. Different budget. Then it was just getting some gas and going home. I wrote off my planned trip to the dump today. I want to avoid extra driving as much as possible until we can get that leaking seal fixed, next week, and we’ve got a trip for a doctor’s appointment in between.
By the time I got home, it wasn’t too much longer before I was heading outside to take care of the outside cats and switch out the trail cam cards, before it got dark.
The cats were very happy to have the softened kibble again!
After I put the food out, I was topping up water bowls with warm water when I spotted one of the older grey tabbies eating at the feeding station under the shrine.
Then I realized that cat I thought it was, was by the house – and this one was much bigger!
Also, shier. I didn’t try to get any closer, as he was clearly ready to take off if I did, but he also watched me from behind the shrine’s pedestal base, rather than running away.
Just in case, I did a head count and got 35. Which means we have several more than my last highest count.
So it looks like we have a newcomer. This was the only one that seemed a stranger. I think the other “extras” were cats that didn’t usually show up at the same time as others at feeding time. With the colder temperatures, more are coming closer to the house instead of waiting until later.
Later on, I headed outside to check on some noises the girls were hearing through their windows (they can hear a lot more than I can!). I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but I did spot this crowd.
There are four cats in that cat bed! You can barely see the little tabby.
Frank is the one looking right at me, and the little white and grey draped over her back end is the one that has been sick for the last while. It has discovered the heat lamp and spends most of its time in the isolation shelter lately, and it looking much stronger.
They’re going to have to get used to it being closed up, soon.
Thanks to a generous donation, the rescue we’re now connected to is going to book us for for spays and/or neuters. The goal is for four cats, two at a time. With keeping the isolation closed up while females recover from surgery for two weeks, two adult cats is the limit. Though if we are able to get Frank and Pinky in there, I’d probably keep that little white and grey in with them, too.
I’ll have the dates sent to me later, but they will be booked some time after the 16th. I would hope we can get other females after that, but they’ll do neuters are well, if that’s what we can catch. I would love to get Adam, Slick, Sprout, Sprig or that white one with the grey tabby patches, but that would involve trapping.
I should maybe talk to them about the possibility of taking the friendliest outside cats for adoption, some of whom are already fixed. More than a few times, I’ve almost been able to touch one of the more feral cats, only to have a super socialized cat or three, push their way in, demanding attention and scaring off the more feral ones.
We’ll work it out.
So, that’s how things have been today. Tomorrow is Sunday, and it looks like it will actually be a day of rest for a change. We’re expected to have some snow in the wee hours of the night, but tomorrow’s high is supposed to be just below freezing. After that, we’re supposed to warm up again, with highs above freezing for almost two weeks. More time to get as much done outside as I can, while the weather is good.
Well, no surprise that the forecast changed overnight. Instead of rain all day on Friday, the rain started here last night, and continued off and on throughout the day.
Thankfully, it was a light rain.
As usual, I started out the day with feeding the outside cats. Before starting on softening the bowl of kibble, I quickly tossed a scoop full through the screenless storm door window to tide them over and distract them, first. I still have gelled turkey stock and meaty bits to mix into to their morning kibble with hot water and some canned cat food, too. Once I got it all mixed up, I left it to soak for a few minutes.
I’d seen on the critter cam that they’d somehow knocked the big cat carrier off its shelf, and it was in the middle of the floor, so I knew it would be in the way as I stepped out of the old kitchen. I snagged a daughter for cat herding duty, then tried to get through the doors as quickly as possible.
There were cats and kittens trying to get in, while others were milling around and eating the kibble I’d tossed in earlier.
Including a strange new ca….
Not a cat.
There, in the crowd of cats and kittens munching away, was a skunk! It and the cats were completely indifferent to each other!
As I got through and added softened kibble to several trays, I paused to pick up the carrier while my daughter dealt with the cats that managed to get through the doors before she could close the storm door. The skunk did leave while I was doing that, as did some of the more feral cats. It seemed unbothered by me as well as the cats!
Not a good thing, but there isn’t much we can do about it.
Once the feeding and watering was done (I’m bringing warm water to top up their bowls now, instead of using the hose, which will soon be put away for the winter), I did my morning rounds. My weather app said it was raining, but it seems our climate bubble was doing its thing again.
With the trellis netting and other stakes and supports done, the deer could access the sunflowers. I’d already grabbed the seed heads that looked like they might have viable seeds in them, so the remaining ones had immature seed heads on them. A couple of the tallest ones were untouched, but the shorter ones were either broken with the seed heads eaten, or the entire stalks were munched down to just a couple of feet in height.
Cheeky buggers!
After the morning rounds were done, I popped inside long enough to have breakfast, then headed out to work on the next garden bed.
I decided to work on the log framed low raised bed. I hoped it would not be as bad as the last two beds I worked on. This one had the failed melons, the successful, if stunted, Spoon tomatoes and the failed purple beans and Swiss chard.
The first picture is how it looked after the grass clipping mulch was removed. There were very few weeds and most of those were crab grass.
The question was, how bad were the tree roots?
Since I would be dealing with rhizomes, I started by loosening the soil of the entire bed before I started clean up at the south end of the bed. This is the end furthest from those trees we need to get rid of, being the source of so many of our problems.
I started finding roots right away. The bed is 18 feet long, plus it’s another dozen feet or so to the nearest trees on the north side.
This bed turned out to not only have fewer normal weeds than the other beds, but fewer rocks, too. As for the roots, the closer to the middle of the bed that I got, the harder it was to get the tree roots out. With some of them, it was because the roots were running under the log wall. I could also feel that there was a large root, somewhere deeper below the bed, because I was finding roots that were basically growing vertically from something deeper than I was going with my garden fork, not horizontal, as usual. By the time I got to the middle, though, even with the pre-loosened soil, there were too many roots I couldn’t pull out of the soil, so I went to the north end to work my way back to the middle.
I promptly hit a larger root.
After fighting around it with my garden fork, I went and got a spade to dig around it, plus the loppers. I was able to cut away one larger root that I found in the process, but it was not the one causing me the most problems.
That’s the one you can see in the second picture of the slide show above.
This was not the root that was causing an issue further down the bed, though. This one ran diagonally across the bed, so I was able to use the loppers to cut it close to where it went under the log frame.
In the next picture, you can see where I’d made my way closer to the middle, and some of the other roots I was having issues with. Some would have to be dealt with when working the other side of the bed.
In the last picture of the above slide show, I had finished clearing one side. At the middle, I’d pretty much dug a pit to try and get the roots out.
In the end, though, there weren’t as many roots to fight with as in previous beds. There wasn’t even as many rocks to remove. The amount I had in the bucket after getting the first half done was about what I’d picked from a third of one side on the other two beds I cleared!
It had started to rain while I was working on this. A light and gentle rain, so I kept working, but I was getting pretty damp by the time I finished the one side. It was well past noon by then, so I headed in for sustenance and hydration.
I took my time with my late lunch, which turned out to be a good thing.
I got a phone call from home care, just as I was wrapping up and getting ready to head out again.
They were unable to find someone to do my mother’s evening med assist for Friday evening. They were still working on finding someone, but it was possible I might have to cover for Saturday and Sunday evenings, too.
!!!
Then they told me, they did actually have someone available, but this home care worker was male, and my mother had said she didn’t want men doing her med assist, so they were stuck.
?????
I hadn’t heard about this at all. My mother hadn’t had anything negative to say about the male home care workers, either, other than to mention that they were “from other places” (meaning, recent immigrants that weren’t white). But for her to say no men at all?
We talked about it for a bit, and I told them I could call my mother to find out what was going on. They told me that, if anything changed, to call the number for the home care coordinator (it was the scheduler and a new trainee that had called me) to talk about it.
After the call, I quickly updated my family, as well as my siblings in our group chat, then called my mother. There was no answer so I left a message. I puttered around on my computer while waiting, staying close to the phone, but I didn’t have a lot of time before the home care office would close for the day, plus I was going to start losing daylight to work outside. After a few minutes, I tried again.
This time, my mom answered just as the answering machine picked up. She’d been in the common room and was just coming back when the phone started ringing, so she’d never heard my earlier message.
I told her about the call from home care, that they didn’t have anyone to cover for Friday night’s med assists, and possibly Saturday and Sunday, too. Before she could start going on about how terrible they were, I told her that they actually did have someone available, but it was a male, and they told me she’d said told them, no male.
My mother confirmed this. She had called the home care office and told the home care coordinator, she didn’t want any med doing her med assists.
I asked more questions, and she said she didn’t want a man rubbing the Voltaren onto her bad and seeing her partially naked body. Which, as far as I knew, was something only done in the mornings, as they have extra time booked for stuff like that. She admitted, she had never asked one of the guys (it turns out there are three different male home care workers that have been visiting her) to do it, but eventually said that, if they had been women, she would have asked them to. She also admitted that they have never been unkind to her, and had never caused problems – unlike for example, one of the female home care workers recently not bothering to count my mother’s meds from the bubble pack, and one was missing. It turned out to have fallen to the floor. Or another that always leaves without making sure my mother took her meds, first.
The conversation got very intense as she tried to blame home care for not having enough people, etc. She was all over the place with it, and I kept having to bring it back to it just being about her getting her med assists. Eventually, though, we got to the heart of the issue.
My mother didn’t want brown people doing her med assists.
I had no patience with this and pointed out that, because of her not liking brown people, I might have to do her evening med assists, three nights in a row. She tried to make it their fault, saying “they” (the home care office) did this to me but I told her, no SHE is doing this to me.
In the end, I got her to agree to have a male med assist only to do her meds. No rubbing the Voltaren onto her back. If they were doing a morning assist, they could still do her commode, but no back rubs. If she’s uncomfortable with being touched like that, fair enough, but at least they could do her pills.
Once we got that decided on, I told her I had to call the home care office back quickly, as the office wasn’t going to be open for very much longer. She kept going on and on, keeping me on the phone, even after I told her I had to get the call done as quickly as possible. She did, however, finally talk about getting extra home care services, though in a way that had me rather confused, but I didn’t care at that point. We’ve been trying to get her to accept more home care services for quite some time now, and she’s been refusing, even though she really needs more help. I told her I would bring it up with the coordinator when I called her, and they would probably need to make an appointment with her to discuss it, but I needed to get off the phone to call the office. She STILL tried to keep me on the phone and I finally had to cut her off so I could hang up and make the call.
Thankfully, the home care coordinator was in her office at the time, so I was able to talk to her and not just leave a message. I told her about the situation and that I’d talked to my mother about it. I said that my mother had agreed that, as long as it didn’t involve rubbing the medication onto her back, she was willing to accept male home care aids. The coordinator filled me in on the call from my mother and, apparently, one of the men did offer to rub the medication onto her back for her, and she’d said no. I told her that, if the workers visiting her were women, she would be asking them to do her back, but not the men. Which would have been an understandable restriction, but the home care coordinator knows my mother by now, and she already figured out it was really about race.
So that was taken care of. They would be able to schedule men for my mother’s med assists, with the one restriction regarding applying the medication onto my mother’s back.
I then brought up about my mother bringing up her need for more care, and the first question she asked was, is my mother willing to accept more care? Which has been the biggest problem. My mother simply refusing it. I told her that yes, she is willing to do it.
My mother was due for her annual re-assessment anyhow, so we quickly made an appointment for next weed. Along with the care assessment, the coordinator wanted to go over the panel for a nursing home again, as that needed to be updated, too. I told her about how my mother can barely get around her apartment of later, needing to hang on to furniture or the walls to move around, and how I’d actually heard her crying out in pain at times, when I was last at her place to help out with things.
That done, I called my mother back with the appointment time and updated my family.
Grommet was very determined to “help”. Usually by being directly in front of me while I worked, trying to give my hands kisses, or even trying to climb up my legs for attention!
The second side was done a lot faster, thankfully. Here is the finished bed!
The bed actually seems fuller, now that the soil is all fluffy again, instead of compacted. I’m out of stuff to cover it to protect if from the cats, though. When it comes time to do winter sowing in there, I’ll have to watch out for “presents” from the cats!
While working on the bed, I did find three frogs! One had come out of the mulch on its own. I was able to catch it and release it in and area where it would be able to burrow down for the winter. While picking rocks and roots, I uncovered two more frogs! I’m so glad I didn’t accidentally stab them with the garden fork. I was able to catch and move them to a safe place, too.
It was still pretty light out when I was finished, but not for long enough to start another bed. Instead, I did my evening rounds. While I was at it, I cleared up the pile of regrown maples my brother had cut away from the back of the pump shack for me. I set aside the straightest pieces for use in the garden, and the rest went onto the burn pile. Later on, I’ll trim the trigs and side shoots off the straight pieces, then bring the useable pieces to the old kitchen garden. They will made good stakes for the bed that still needs the wall on the inside to be finished.
Now that I have written this, I realize I’ve not switched out the trial cam memory cards yet, and it’s full dark right now. That’s the down side of changing from switching them in the mornings! Ah, well. I’ll survive.
Time to shoe up, grab a flash light, and go take care of that!
One more bed is done. Three more in the main garden area to go!
Wow, were the outside cats ever determined this morning!
When mixing up their softened morning kibble, I made sure to include the turkey stock I made for them, along with some of the meaty bits that fell off the bones. Maybe they could smell it because, even though I’d tossed out a scoop of kibble to distract them before I started mixing, I could hear them clamoring at the door. I got a daughter to stand by for cat herding duty while I tried to get out the door, and she was completely overwhelmed by the stampede before I could even get through!
As much of a crowd as there was in the sun room, some prefer to eat outside, and the ferals hover around, waiting for their chance.
By the time I got all the kibble divvied up around the yard, and topped up their water bowls with warm water (the unheated ones had a layer of ice on them), the kibble was almost all gone already!
Even on the cat house roof, there were just crumbs left.
You can tell the heat bulb inside is working – no frost on the roof above it!
I ended up giving them another light feeding later on, just to make sure the shier and less assertive cats had a chance to eat their fill, too.
I tried for a head count and got 40. Then I tried to count only the kittens, including the teenagers. I think I got 18 or 19, and I’m sure I missed some.
I sent pictures to the chat group I have with the new rescue. They are pretty taken aback by the numbers!
With the temperatures, I didn’t try to get anything done outside after my morning rounds. Instead, I headed out in the late morning to pick up prescriptions for both myself and my husband. We were almost out of kibble for the indoor cats, though, so I made a side trip to the feed store in my mother’s town. They were out of the brand of kibble I usually get, so I had to pick up the more expensive brand. It was still cheaper to get that, then either buy smaller bags locally elsewhere, or drive all the way to a Walmart to get some.
I then headed to our pharmacy, where I was able to pick up my husband’s refill, but not mine. They checked the system and it turned out my doctor hadn’t responded to their fax yet. In the end, I asked them to put it on their delivery schedule in a couple of days. Hopefully, that will be long enough for the updated prescription to come in.
I did remember to pick up some more potassium supplements. I’d run out a while ago and hadn’t bothered to get more. I think that was a mistake. I was wondering why I started to get leg cramps again. Not Charlie Horses, though those were threatening last night. Just weird leg cramps. They would happen any time my legs or feet got uncovered during the night. I’m guessing the temperature change triggered them, but it was very unusual for me. It was usually my calves that would start cramping, but my feet would, too, pulling at my toes, of all things. All of them. It’s the strangest sensation! The cramping would start, I’d pull my feet back under the covers, and they would soon stop.
I haven’t been doing any level of physical exertion that normally would trigger these, so I was at a loss as to why this was happening, until I remembered I’d run out of potassium a while ago. Adding the potassium to my vitamin regimen seemed to be the last thing to finally stop my Charlie Horses. That the cramping started up like this is enough confirmation of that for me!
Once done at the pharmacy, I remembered to stop at the grocery store at my husband’s request, then headed home. By then, it was about time for the outside cats evening feeding. After refilling the bin for the inside cats, the rest of the kibble went to the outside cats. Most of them aren’t old enough to have had this brand of kibble before, and they really seemed to like it!
Through all this, I was messaging with the cat rescue group, including the woman that’s going to be taking six cats from us. She’s going to be in the town nearest us to drop a cat off on Saturday, so we’ll be meeting her there, instead of further out on Sunday. We still have to work out a time, as she’s not sure what her schedule will be. As long as we have enough time to get the six cats and kittens into carriers, we can make it work.
Just a little while longer, and six cats and kittens will get their first step to finding forever homes indoors!
Once all the running around was done, I actually did get some work done outside, but that will be in my next post.
I woke up late this morning which, unfortunately, meant we had a lot of very hungry cats outside! I asked one of my daughters to simply pour a scoop of kibble onto the sun room floor to tide them over before I could do a proper feeding. Which helped, I suppose, but they were really eager for their morning food. That is when I mix up a small bowl of “cat soup” with just one can of wet cat food, and use that to soften the bowl if kibble, first. I also prep a smaller bowl of kitten soup that I leave on top of the freezer until later. I could hear so much commotion at the door, I ended up taking the bowl of softened kibble and going out the main doors, instead. Even if I had someone ready to herd cats out the door as I went through, I just didn’t want to risk stepping on a kitten!
Which means I filled their food trays and bowls in reverse, doing the furthest ones first and making my way to the sun room. I didn’t take long for them to hear me and come running. Which worked out so well, I’m thinking I might start doing this regularly!
After I finished putting the last of the softened kibble in the sun room trays, I grabbed Frank’s two remaining littles and brought them into the old kitchen to have their own kitten soup without having to fight off other cats. That also gave me time to wash their eyes open again. That done, I quickly popped into the sun room and back again. Frank wanted into the old kitchen and I let her, so she could have the special food along with her kittens.
It didn’t quite work out that way.
She was too nervous and went hiding and exploring around the old kitchen. I let her be and went to get the squeeze treats I bought a while back but never got to using, yet. I gave some to the kittens in their food bowl, then just squeezed the last of it onto the freezer near them, hoping Frank would be tempted. At one point, I was able to reach her and pick her up, but as I moved towards the freezer, she got more and more nervous. Before I could put her down beside her kittens, she panicked, scrambled when her feet touched the top of the freezer, sending food – and kittens! – flying. One of the kittens ended up falling behind the freezer, while Frank ran and hid under a couch.
The other kitten was still on the freezer and done eating, so I let it out through the screenless storm door window. Then I tried to get the kitten that was behind the freezer. It was sitting on the floor, just out of reach. I thought I could use something to push it from behind and get it to move out from behind the freezer.
Instead, it disappeared. It took me a moment to realize it had gone into the opening where the freezer’s guts are! After several attempts, to reach it, it finally came close enough that I could grab it and lift it out without getting tangled in things I could feel, but not see, in there!
The kitten got to enjoy a bit more food and squeeze treat, but Frank wouldn’t come out. I finally went out with the kitten, hoping that Frank would go onto the freezer and eat, while I wasn’t in there.
The kitten joined the cuddle puddle – and was nuzzling Sir Robin, trying to nurse!
I spent some time refilling water bowls, then opened the doors to the old kitchen, where I found Frank just inside, waiting. She never ate what was on top of the freezer, and was very eager to just leave the old kitchen! That gave me a chance to take the bowl of kitten soup and leave it out for other kittens to finish. There was still the glob of squeeze treat on the freezer, though. I ended up picking it up with my fingers, trying to hold it in my hand. It was messy, but I got most of it. I then went to the cats and kittens at the kitten soup bowl.
Two kittens I’ve never been able to get close to before where there. Both of them happily licked the squeeze treat off my fingers instead of running away!
Then they ran away. 😄
Meanwhile, I started getting messages from people with the rescue. This continued throughout the morning, and while I was in the city. Long story short, we might be bringing as many kittens over on Sunday as we can get into carriers! I’ll have to get some clarification, first, though. There seemed to be some communication issues. Tomorrow is Saturday, so I need to get that cleared up fairly quickly!
When I was done my morning rounds, it wasn’t much longer before my daughter and I started for the city. We left insanely early, to give ourselves time to get lost. 😄 I did look the place up on the map last night, plus I had Google Maps up on my phone to give directions. The route looked pretty straightforward, though what it was showing in the app did not match was I saw on my desktop last night. The address was the address, though, and I did remember the area fairly well, from my days when I used to work around there, and lived just across the river. I was not looking forward to trying to find the address, then finding parking. The area is mostly narrow, one way streets.
We did make a stop at my mother’s down along the way, though, to pick up a couple of energy drinks and some chicken and wedges for breakfast. From there, I got the app going to give me directions while I drove. My daughter was a sweetheart and passed potato wedges to me while I drove. I couldn’t eat my chicken while driving, but my daughter could eat hers, and I was more concerns that she got some food in her. She has a terrible habit of not eating, because eating most foods makes her sick. We have not been able to track down exactly why.
As we got into the city, I had the app up on the dashboard holder, but for some reason, it wasn’t giving voice directions. So my daughter took the phone so she could see the map and gave me the directions as we went along. I did remember the route from checking the map last night, but it’s been so long, I preferred having a navigation officer!
When we got to where the area, one of the first problems I noticed was not being able to find street numbers, anywhere. We got to where the app said the address was at, but couldn’t see anything to show where the clinic was. Specifically, a building tall enough, as the endocrinologist clinic was on the 9th floor.
With the one way streets, we drove around the block a couple of times, made slower because of construction, before finally spotting a parkade that didn’t have a “lot full” sign and headed in. We figured we could find the place more easily on foot. It couldn’t be far.
We then had the fun time of trying to find a place to park with enough room for our truck. The first four levels were all reserved parking. We finally got to a level that wasn’t all reserved, but the first side of that level was half roped off, apparently reserved for “game day”. We finally got to where it no longer was all reserved, and nothing was roped off, but the only open spots we saw were “small car only”.
Then I spotted two accessible parking spots.
My daughter and I don’t have our own accessible parking placards, but we do have my husband’s. We used it and finally parked.
My daughter actually forgot her cane at home, but we had three spares in the truck. After she grabbed one for herself, I decided to grab another for myself, just in case.
I am so glad I did. My left hip may be better after the steroid injection, but that lasts for only so long, when pounding concrete!
We had to back track to the street the clinic was on (with a gorgeous, castle-like cathedral as a landmark; I once had the opportunity to go there for mass, when I lived in the area, and can attest it’s as beautiful on the inside as the outside), then tried to find someplace with a street number. We found one, but didn’t know which direction we needed to go for the clinic. We were in the 300’s, and the address was in the 200’s.
We were about to wing it when I spotted a guy in a suit about to cross a street, so I quickly asked him if he knew where the clinic was, and which direction we’d need to go. He was an absolute sweetheart, quickly found the place on his phone (his app got it right, where ours clearly didn’t!) and pointed us in the first direction. We had about 3 blocks to walk, though part way along, the sidewalk was blocked off for construction (which was happening all over the place), so we’d have to cross the street, then cross back again, along the way.
The guy was so wonderful and happy about giving directions, he really made our day!
So, off we went, picking our way through construction at an intersection across from the area blocked off for construction (!!!) before finally making it to the final stretch. That’s when we could see a big billboard sign for a clinic. We couldn’t actually read all of it, because there was a tree growing right in front of it, but we could make out enough that it looked right. The entrance wasn’t on the street the address was on, though, and as we walked past the corner and could see the other side of the billboard, which wasn’t blocked by a tree, we realized it wasn’t the right clinic. We still popped in to ask for directions.
The lady pointed out the window to another high rise building across a parking lot.
A building with a huge painted on sign on the side.
With the name of the clinic at the bottom, in white paint on a pale blue background, barely readable.
We were very appreciative for the help.
Thank God we left as early as we did! My daughter’s appointment was at 1pm. We reached the front doors at about 12:40!
When we got to the 9th floor, the elevators opened up to a reception desk.
With things roped off in front, as if under construction. I think it was actually just to keep people from waking up to the counter, though.
There was no one at the counter.
We tried reading the sign, all it really had was arrows for endocrinology in both directions, and some doctor’s names. My daughter didn’t have a name for the doctor she was booked at, so we didn’t know which way we had to go. I spotted a cleaning lady, so I asked her which way to the endocrinologists. She asked which doctor we needed to say, and I told her we didn’t know. She said the staff (meaning the receptionists) were on lunch and would be back soon, so they’d be able to tell us.
We thanked her and went to a nearby waiting room. We couldn’t see the reception desk from where we were but, thankfully, could hear when someone was at the counter. My daughter and I – and several more people in the waiting room – promptly headed over to check in!
… and ask where a bathroom was. It was a long drive!
Of course, it was while my daughter was still in the bathroom that someone came out and called her name! I let them know. 😄
Even with all that, my daughter ended up at her appointment almost 10 minutes early!
She was out much faster than I expected for a first time appointment. She had requisitions for blood work, one to be done right away, the other to be done later. She had been told there was a lab on the ground floor, and she could get her first blook work done there, so that was her first stop.
When we got there and she was checked in, I asked about how long it would be, since the waiting room was quite full.
About 40 minutes was the answer.
!!!
It turned out they were short staffed today, and falling behind.
With time ticking on our parking spot, we decided it would be faster if we head out and stopped at a lab on the way home.
So, off we went to get the truck and head home, this time taking a route I was much more familiar with. It wasn’t until we got home that I had a chance to check why we were sent to a completely wrong area.
It turned out the address in my calendar for the clinic had two numbers reversed. The bizarre thing is, when I was looking at the address and directions on the website last night, I saw the address that was in my phone. Yet, when I looked up the clinic last night, I used the street address that was on my phone, and found it.
So weird!
As we were leaving the clinic, my daughter made a comment about how much she appreciated our new doctor, but she was going to wait until we were out of the city, and I didn’t have to focus on traffic so much (dancing around more construction) before telling me how it went.
We did make one stop along the way. Gas prices in my mother’s down had dropped to $1.269/L, but I planned to get gas in the city. I’d seen a station on the way in that had gas at $1.239/L and was planning to go there – until we passed a station with gas at $1.199/L !! I was just over a half tank and put $40 in, which filled my tank! I can’t remember the last time I was able to fill my tank from half for only $40!
Once we were out of the city, I remembered to ask my daughter how the appointment went.
Not well.
It was a very short appointment and I won’t go into detail, but the doctor was very rude and “just an old b***”, as my daughter described her. Long story short, though, by the time she told me some of the things the doctor did, my jaw was dropping. She needs to make a formal complaint. The doctor apparently made it clear she was disgusted by my daughter’s body. My daughter has hirsutism. She was there because of her PCOS. How does an endocrinologist not encounter a PCOS patient with hirsutism before? Or maybe she has, and just treats all her hairy female patients with hormonal disorders with disgust?
As if that weren’t bad enough, my daughter was manhandled, without explanation nor consent, in a way that is considered sexual assault. Sure it was a physical exam, but NO doctor is supposed to touch a patient like that without first explaining what they were examining for, and getting consent.
She also tried to test my daughter’s reflexes, but kept missing the tendon, then getting ticked off because there was no reaction to her hammering on my daughter’s ankle.
I really hope my daughter files a formal complaint, because… damn!
Along the way, we stopped in the town our doctor’s clinic is in, to do her first blood tests at the lab in the hospital. My daughter went in to get her tests done, while I stayed in the truck to finally eat the rest of my breakfast!
I’m glad we chose to go to a lab on the way home. My daughter was out so quickly – with two people called in ahead of her – that I was just finishing eating when she came back to the truck! Had we stayed at the lab in the city, we would have been just getting out and heading to the truck, unless they fell behind even more.
Her second set of blood tests can be done whenever she is able, but for this one, she is supposed to take a medication at 11pm, then get her blood tested at 8am.
I don’t even know if the local labs are open at 8am. I think they open at 9am. We’ll have to figure that out. Either way, she has a prescription to pick up before she can do the second test.
After the results are in, she hopes to get a telephone appointment only, or pay extra to get the results emailed to her. She does NOT want to go back to this doctor. I told her that she needs to let her regular doctor know about what happened so that, if necessary, she can get referred to another endocrinologist. Apparently, there’s a new clinic being built and there’s already a long waiting list for it, but she’s more than willing to wait, rather than go back!
For the most part, my daughter is just angry, but she realizes that a patient with, for example, a history of sexual abuse, a visit like this would have been very traumatic.
So glad that appointment is over with!
By the time we got home, it was late enough that the first thing I did was get the outside cats fed. No crowd trying to break through the old kitchen door during the evening feedings! Then I got changed and head outside, focusing on getting all the now-dry stuff from the sun room packed up and put away in bins with lids.
As seems to be the usual around here, it took longer than I expected, but I finally got it done!
The storage area is now organized and packed. Before winter, more things will be added for storage but, over all, it is done. On the cat side of the room (second picture) I still need to figure out where to set the second heat lamp, which has a lower wattage heat bulb, but that’s pretty much it. That cats really, really like the new set up! More and more of them seem to have figured out the litter boxes, too.
Finishing the sun room meant I could finally move the cat isolation shelter under the canopy tent.
That took some doing. The wheels kept sinking into the soil! That thing is heavy. What I would like to do, once I have the spare funds for it, is replace the wheels with something larger. For now, I put scraps of cardboard under the wheels to keep them from sinking into the dirt. I also have some handles I want to add to the front and the back, so it’ll be easier to move around.
Meanwhile, the cats can still use it where it is now.
Or that one skunk I have been finding, napping in the cat bed!
The box to go over the ramp door during the winter needs a bit of work. The overlapping plastic cracked when I set it on its side to attach the legs. I did try to set it where it could overhang the edge of the well cap, but it kept moving while I tried to work on it. Nothing some duct tape can’t fix. 😜 The panel in front, with a smaller opening for the cats to get through, was broken by cats panicking and hitting the edges while running out, so that needs to be trimmed. I also want to add a couple of pieces of the same material used for the legs to the sides, as handles to make moving it around easier. Right now, it’s hard to get a grip on it without damaging that roof panel even more.
It might be a couple of days before I can do the painting. Saturday would be perfect for it – a warmer day and, more importantly, a warmer night in the forecast. I might be able to get just one coat on before it starts getting too cold for wet paint to cure, but even that is better than nothing.
I’m going to be out and about a lot over the next while. Tomorrow, I’ll be at my mother’s for longer than usual. Along with her grocery shopping, I will be cooking up some of the chicken she was so angry at me for buying for her. I even remembered to ask her to take it out of the freezer tonight, so it’ll be thawed out before I get there. She’s also asked me to trim her toenails for her. I want to take a good look at her feet, as she apparently is getting an ingrown toenail, and that might need to be checked by a doctor. Of course, I’ll be doing some housework for her, changing her bedding, probably doing her laundry. Some of this stuff, my sister would normally come out on Fridays (my mother’s scheduled laundry time with the shared machines) and do for her. Since my mother gets her Meals on Wheels at noon on Fridays, I don’t plan to be there until about 1pm, so she has a chance to eat, first, and I can take the tray out to the common room for pick up, later in the week.
Saturday, I’ll be out again for a dump run, but that shouldn’t take long.
Sunday afternoon, I will be meeting to drop off cats near a Walmart, so if there’s any last things we need before Thanksgiving on Monday, that would be my time to get it.
Then I get to stay home for a while! The only appointment I have next week is a telephone follow up about the injection to my hip. I’ve got lots to do to prepare beds for winter sowing, as both day time highs and overnight lows will soon be cool enough to sow seeds but not have them germinate until spring.
Today was my day to get into the city for my appointment with the sports injury clinic about my hip.
I had a really rough and sleepless night. Not because of my hip this time, but I kept waking up and just generally couldn’t settle in. As dawn approached, I messaged my daughters, who both ended up awake all night, and asked them to take care of the morning routine for me, so I could try and get more sleep. I didn’t want to be driving to the city feeling the way I did.
They were sweethearts and took care of the entire morning routine for me, from feeding the cats to switching out the memory cards on the trail cams, to all the yard and garden checks.
My appointment was for 1pm, and I made sure to check the maps for the address. It turned out to be well within the area we normally do our not-Costco shopping. My landmark was a Shell gas station that seemed to share a driveway with the clinic, from what I could see on the satellite map.
Still, I ended up leaving about 2 hours before the appointment, even though it would take only a little more than an hour to drive there.
I am so glad I did!
As I was heading out and reached the first highway, there was an ambulance, lights on but no siren, that turned towards the north of us. A short distance away, I could see the vehicles of volunteer fire fighters at the fire station, and the fire truck was gone. On the other side of town, there were a couple of police vehicle, sirens and lights going, rushing through.
When I got to the next highway, I paused at a case station to pick up an energy drink and a sandwich (made by the restaurant in our little hamlet) for “breakfast”, and messaged my family. They kept tabs on the news, but nothing came up. Hopefully, whatever happened, no one was seriously harmed.
The highway I took into the city turned into the street that went past the clinic I needed to go to, so no turning or side trips needed.
Almost.
When I reached the Shell station, I went past and turned at the next entry, trying to find a street number, somewhere. I ended up driving around a building and, on the side facing the gas station, finally saw a sign over a door, saying “medical clinic and mall entrance”. That entire side of the building was all grey concrete, with a few service doors along the way. You really needed to want to find this place to get there!
I went in and the inside was just as bleak. Nothing but narrow hallways with lots of doors. The doors all had signs for different businesses, with some saying “employees only”. Eventually, I reached a door that actually had the street address on it.
It was a different address.
???
I headed back out and went into the Shell station, and asked the guy behind the counter. I gave the address I was after, and the name of the clinic, but all he could tell me is what his own address was and point vaguely further down the street.
*sigh*
So, off I went again and continued down the street until…
I passed another Shell station.
I’ve gone down this street so many times, but only really paid attention to where I needed to go. I had no idea there were two Shell stations so close together.
This one, however, had a very new looking building with a big sign and the name of the clinic. I swear, it wasn’t there the last time I drove this far.
I also drove right past it. Missed the entrance completely.
I was able to turn around and go back fairly easily but, again, you really had to want to find this place! The building may have been well marked, but the entry and exit lanes were very hard to see.
Then, there was finding the right door. It turns out this place has several related clinics in it, plus a pharmacy with a drive through (very unusual in our neck of the woods).
By the time I got to the right place, I was only 10 or so minutes early.
They did take me in a bit late, but not by much. The first person to see me was not the main doctor. He introduced me to himself with his first name only, telling me he was an orthopedic surgeon from China. Since he had just given me a very English name to us, I’m guessing his real name is hard for English speakers to pronounce! Much like my previous doctor who used his initials as his name.
This doctor started off by asking all sorts of questions to try and get a bead on why I was there.
By the time he was done, he seemed a bit perplexed. The thing that seemed to make it more difficult to figure out is that the hip troubles I’m having only really happen when I lie down to try and sleep. The more I try to relax, the worse the pain. It’s actually been a lot better lately, but it’s not gone away.
After a lot of questions and discussion, and looking at my file (for some reason, my most recent X-rays didn’t come up; just the report), he left to consult with the doctor my appointment was with. Then he came back with more questions before leaving again to consult with the doctor.
The doctor I was booked with swung by a short time later, apologizing for the wait (which I really didn’t notice as a problem) and said he just had to finish with another patient, and then he would be back to talk with me.
When he came back and we started talking, he was able to give me a diagnosis. GTPS. Greater Trochanteric Pain Syndrome. In looking it up, I can see why there was some confusion. My pain is really, really localized, and it happens only at certain times. My thought is that the anti-inflammatories I’m on, as low a dose as it is, helps with most of the symptoms that I would normally be feeling, or feeling more acutely, and now it’s just that hip joint that the anti-inflammatories aren’t enough to help with.
The other doctor had already given the area a physical exam, plus he also had me doing a number of range of motion tests. I had no issues with range of motion at all. During the physical exam at one point, he had me lying on my back, got me to lift one leg at a time, while he pressed down on my thigh. I was to resist his pushing my leg down as much as I could. He wasn’t able to push my leg down. When I got up from that, he commented that I had a lot of muscle.
The primary doctor got me on the table again, too, but he focused on finding the exact area in my hip to work on. That location would be the site for an injection. At first, as he poked and prodded, it was no big deal, but then he found THE spot. WOW did that ever hurt! Worse, he kept having to poke and prod around the area to find where the pain was the most acute.
Ouch.
That done, he explained the situation and that they could try a steroid injection. Which is exactly what my regular doctor and I were expecting. He wanted to know if I could come back tomorrow, or if I was okay to wait to get it done today. I told him, it’s a long drive, so I’m more than willing to wait to get it done today!
That decided, he had another patient to see before he could come back. While I was waiting, the first doctor came back to check on me and make sure everything was all right.
I didn’t have all that long to wait, really, and I was able to update my family on things. When the doctor came back, he made sure to go through all the usual disclaimers, then got me up on the table again. More poking and prodding to find the right location. He actually inserted the needle at one point, without doing the injection, and I didn’t even feel it compared to how much the poking and prodding hurt, when he hit that “sweet spot”. He ended up moving the needle to a different location before finally giving the injection. He told me it would take a while for the anesthetic to kick in, but there still might be pain in the injection location later on. I was also warned that there might be a “rebound” affect, where the area might actually hurt more before it starts feeling better.
He wanted to do a follow up with me in two weeks. Looking at my calendar, I asked if 4 weeks would be okay. In the end, he said he didn’t need me to actually come in, in person, and we could do a phone appointment in 2 weeks, instead. Which was just fine by me!
All in all, I was really happy with how things went. I now have a name for what’s going on with my hip and, hopefully, the steroid injection will make the difference. For some people, it doesn’t help at all, for others, it helps, but by how much is really an individual thing.
That done, I made the telephone appointment and headed out. I had a couple more places to go to.
My first stop was a Canadian Tire. I remembered to bring a paint sample for the colour of the isolation shelter. The exposed wood on it needs to be painted before winter, plus I want to pain the wind/snow break box that fits in front of the door when it’s open at its winter location.
Unfortunately, the piece of painted wood I brought as a sample wasn’t smooth enough. The colour matching machine “saw” it as a grey. So the paint person and I went looking at the colour samples and found one that was pretty close, and she tinted a gallon for me.
When she opened it up afterwards, though, we were both pretty surprised. The purple was a LOT darker than it should have been. She checked and double checked, and she had all the inputs and base paint correct. Yet the result was a darker purple than any of their samples!
After talking about it, we decided on another shade that we had been choosing between. It’s lighter, but not by much. When she tinted another gallon of paint, this one worked out and matched the colour sample. It’ll look a bit darker when dry, but will still be lighter than the original. It’s just for the cat isolation shelter, though, so it’s not like it’s meant for anything fancy. It’ll be close enough!
That done, I also picked up a large bag of kibble for the inside cats, some wood screws I needed, and a quick release hose connector repair kit. I also went looking and found a “calming” spray for the cats. We’ve got a lot of problems with some of them pissing outside of the litter boxes and other places – that’s why we go through so many puppy pads – which is likely stress related. I’ve been looking at pheromone diffusers, too, but all they had here was the spray. I decided it was worth a try.
I was able to pay for all this with my Canadian Tire dollars, so nothing at all came out of budget.
My next stop was the Walmart nearby. My husband gave me his card, a budget and a shopping list that included another bag of kibble for the inside cats. We should be set for the month for both inside and outside cats now. Along with a few grocery items, I ended up getting another box of moon cakes, very different from the last ones I got. The Autumn Festival is over now, so they were on clearance. I snagged a package of chestnuts, too, because they were also on clearance. I love chestnuts, but I seem to be the only one in the household that likes them!
With all this walking around, I did have some issues with my left hip after a while. Not pain, but it did feel… unstable. I used shopping cards as if they were walkers and was limping but, overall, the hip and injection site were feeling pretty good.
The shopping done, I was soon on my way home. By then, it was late enough that I asked my daughters to do the evening outside cat feeding, too.
When I got home, I was going to pull up to the house to unload, forgetting the vehicle gate to the inner yard was still closed. I don’t think we need to worry about that heifer getting through the outer yard fence again, and if he does, I really don’t think he’d wander into the inner yard, all by himself. Too far from the rest of the herd. I’ve left the gate open with that in mind. Hopefully, we won’t find ourselves with cows in the inner yard tomorrow! 😄
After everything was put away and I had my supper, I decided to head outside to walk around before it got dark. I brought out the hose repair kit and cut off the leaking and of a hose at the tap, only to discover…
I bought a quick release connector kit. Not a repair and quick release kit. I ended up having to switch hoses so I could still reach to water the winter and summer squash, until I can get the proper kit to replace the hose end I’d cut off! At least I was able to water what needed to be watered.
While I was outside still, my phone gave me a notification for a voice mail message.
It didn’t ring, of course.
Yes, it was home care again.
This time, it wasn’t to let me know about a cancellation, though! The person who was to see my mother for her bed time med assist was having vehicle troubles, and would my mother be okay if she came in almost an hour early, instead?
This time, the scheduler actually left a phone number, so I went in to use the land line to call back. I tried to listen to the message again to get the number, but I couldn’t access voice mail. Apparently, my number isn’t “registered” (I’m having no end of troubles with wi-fi calling!) and I had to go back outside to get enough data signal to listen to the message again and get the number. I had the land line handset with me and tried to call.
It failed. Twice.
Finally, on the third try, I got through.
It rang, then went straight to voice mail. The voice mail with the message saying no one would be checking the messages outside of office hours.
Why ask me to call back, if I can’t get through to a person, and any message I leave wouldn’t be listened to until the next day?
Still, I left a quick message confirming early visits to my mother was okay, then I called my mother.
After how terrible the call went the last time I talked to her, this one was actually almost pleasant! I had interrupted her evening prayers and was going to make it short, but she was talkative and kept me on the phone. I finally was able to end the call because the med assist was supposed to arrive.
That done, I was finally able to go back outside to finish my walkabout – this time with a flashlight, because it was full dark!
I heard some strange noises as soon as I came out. Noises from the shrive feeding station.
I chased away the skunk, then saw something moving in the isolation shelter.
Yup. That’s a raccoon in the cat bed! It had been at the empty food bowl when I first came over, then went to “hide” in the cat bed.
What cheek!
I did get it out, but it was really a moot point by then. There was no kibble left, anyhow.
Then I went and chased the skunk out of the sun room.
Once I was done my walkabout and settled at my computer, I got the live feed to the critter cam open. Since then, I’ve had to chase both skunks and raccoons out of the sun room, several times!
Greedy buggers.
It’s been getting really, really hard to get in and out through the old kitchen door into the sun room, lately. Frank’s three littles, plus a couple other really tiny kittens, all make a mad rush for the old kitchen door. They want in, so badly!! I really hope there’s a rescue out there than can take Frank and her babies. The new rescue we’re working with is putting feelers out, I’m told, so we’ll see.
Anyhow. That’s how the day went today. As I write this, I can say that my hip is feeling a lot better now. Tonight will be the first litmus test, though.
I might even be able to sleep on my left side and not wake up in massive pain for a change!
Well, I did get some more stuff done in the garden, even remembered to upload a couple of photos – then completely forgot about the post I meant to write! 😄
Anyhow…
I decided to harvest most of the eggplant, just pruning the entire plants at their base so I could reach the fruit better.
In the end, I left three plants. In the next photo, you can see the green eggplants on one plant. On another plant, I did find a few tiny green eggplants, and on the third, I couldn’t find anything at all – that’s the one that was the most damaged by cold – but I left it anyhow. After removing the extra cages and doing a bit more clean up, I moved the jugs of water in between the remaining three plants to act as heat sinks on nights they’ll need to be covered. I did a bit of clean up in the rectangular bed as well, then gave everything a watering from the rain barrel.
Today was supposed to reach a high of 24C/75F, but we ended up hitting 26C/79F. The over night low is supposed to be around 12C/54F, so I didn’t cover the winter squash, but I did give them and the summer squash a thorough watering, too. It was starting to get pretty dark by then, which is when both my daughters came out, looking for me. They’d messaged me, but I never heard the notification, so they were coming out to make sure I was okay! That was sweet of them. :-)
The end of the day was a lot calmer than the start.
This morning was my telephone appointment with my mother’s doctor, so I did short rounds so that I could be close to the phone during the 1 1/2 hour time frame I was given for her to call. Thankfully, she called closer to 8am than 9:30!
We talked about my mother’s inhaler being out, and about her refusal to spend to much money on the refills (the one inhaler cost almost as much as her bubble packs). We also talked about how it really wasn’t helping her breathing, anyhow, and I suggested it get dropped from her med list. The doctor asked about my mother’s breathing issues, and I told her she does still have problems, particularly at night, and described her situation.
In the end, she agreed to drop the inhaler from my mother’s meds, which would require a letter to home care. I could hear her typing it as we spoke, so she was right on that.
After that call was done, I called the home care coordinator. It’s actually a different one, in another region, as the one for our area is on holidays. When I told her about the call with the doctor, and that she could expect the letter, she told me she’d sent a note to the doctor, yesterday, asking for her letter to be sent to her office in another town, since there’s no one to check emails at our local office. I don’t think the doctor had seen it before she called me.
It will take some time for the change to my mother’s med assist instructions to go through. Once the home care coordinator gets the letter from the doctor, it gets sent to a nurse. Only a nurse is allowed to make the actual med assist instructions. Once that is updated, the revised instructions will go into my mother’s file that the home care aids have with them, when they do her assists.
Until then, the coordinator can let the home care aids know the change is in the works. Since my mother is out of that inhaler, anyhow, it will be as if it’s gone through, already.
That done, I updated my siblings in our group chat, then phoned my mother. By this time, it was past 9am and I knew her med assist should have come and gone for the morning.
When I mentioned to my other that I spoke to the doctor, she told me that doctor had already called her! She must have called right after talking to me. She had asked my mother, what can I do for you? My mother wasn’t expecting the call, so she told her that she was having her breakfast just then – and then the home care worker arrived to give her her meds, so they finished off the call. Then my mother asked me, what should she tell the doctor?
???
I told her that we’d been talking about her inhaler not helping, getting it off her med list, and that I had told the doctor she was still having breathing issues. My mother knew I was doing this for her, but I guess she forgot all about it.
As for having the inhaler removed from her med list, you’d think she would have been happy, as she’s always complaining that she is taking soooooo many medications and keeps wanting to drop them. Nope. She just told me that the home care aid that had come in this morning – her favourite one – had actually used one of the other brand inhalers in my mother’s lock box. Which, technically, she should not have done, but it’s what the hospital has been using with her and given her a prescription for. She had prescriptions for two different types of inhalers at the same time, for a while.
After I explained to her that it might take a while before the home care aids officially have a change in her med assist instructions, they will be told the inhaler is being dropped, so they don’t have to fuss about her not having the one on their list anymore.
We were just finishing what had been a pleasant conversation when she remembered the Pepto.
The eight bottles of Pepto my brother had bought for her so she wouldn’t have to worry about running out. It’s one of the few things she takes where she can actually notice she feels better.
She started off saying, she never asked him to get it for him. As if this was somehow his “fault”. I was eventually able to say that I was the one that mentioned to him and my sister that I hadn’t been able to get any for her, so she didn’t need to ask him.
Then she started ranting and railing. It’s too many, it’s up high in her cupboard, and it’s such a terrible thing that he got her so many bottles. I told her, this is a good thing. This is a helpful thing. She should have enough to last her a year! It’s something she takes regularly.
Oh, no, she told me. She only takes it when she needs it.
…
I told her, I didn’t mean that she was taking it every day, several times a day. Just… regularly.
What I was eventually able to figure out is that my mother thinks that they will go back. Because they’re medicine. They’re liquid. She’s not stupid.
…
I told her, they are fine. This is not like a prescription medication. They’re not like food. They last for years.
It does explain why she insists on keeping her open bottle in the fridge, though.
After I told her, several times, that they will be fine and won’t go bad, telling her that we keep ours in the bathroom cupboard with no issues, she said that she would see; she would ask a “professional” about it. A doctor even. They will tell her.
I told her, she’ll just be told the same thing I was telling her. Then I told her to call the pharmacy. Talk to the pharmacist. He’ll tell her.
Which got her to asking where my brother got them from, the pharmacy? (meaning the one in her town). I told her no, he got them at Costco (which turned out to be wrong; I later found out they were out at Costco, and he found them at Superstore).
Her response?
Oh, from China, then.
?????
I told her, it’s the exact same brand that I get for her a her pharmacy. It’s the same.
Oh, you know there are so many scams out there, she tells me.
…
I told her to stop making problems up where there are none.
She kept on ranting that my brother should not have gotten her so many. I told her, he was being kind to her. “It was “too much” kindness”, she retorted. Like she was being sarcastic, except meaner.
During this, it occurred to me that I might just take the bottles and bring them here to the farm to store until she starts running out again. I wasn’t going to bring that up at the time, though.
I did remind her to use the little cup to take a full dose. She usually just throws them away and uses a teaspoon. As in, a spoon for tea, not a measuring spoon, so the actual amount she’s taking is probably less than a third of what the dose is supposed to be. Apparently, that’s all it takes to help.
By the time I got off the phone with her, my brain was pretty fried. It can get so very hard to follow what she’s saying, to get to what she actually means. I completely forgot to ask her how things went with the mental health assessor, yesterday!
I did make sure to update my siblings again before I started forgetting details. Which happens very quickly, with how convoluted conversations with my mother can get.
My poor brother. Every time he tries to do something nice for her, she gets weird about it in some way. I think it bothers me more because if it were our vandal getting something for her, she would be singing his praised for years. Which she actually does. No matter how horribly he treats her, she makes him out to be a saint because he did something nice for her, 20 years ago. But my brother has been taking care of her and her affairs, diligently and with great care for her, often seeing what she needs long before she sees it herself, and he just can’t do anything right by her. Something as simple as getting her a supply of something she has made a big deal over how much better it makes her feel has been blown out of proportion into this huge drama as if he’d done something nasty to her.
My heart aches so much for my brother. He deserves so much better. And she still doesn’t understand just how badly she stabbed him in the back, some time ago. She’s fortunate he’s a good man and a good son, and hasn’t simply cut her out of his life entirely.
*sigh*
Once I was done with the calls, I needed to take some time to wind down and decompress. I had to go into my mother’s town – something I did NOT mention to her at all – to hit the feed store for more kibble, which my daughter generously paid for. The bag of donated kibble was a 7kg bag, so it didn’t last long, and we were down to dregs by this morning..
A forty pound bag of the brand we get, which is more expensive (not even the outside cats will eat the cheaper brand if they can avoid it), comes out to $62 and change, after taxes. Forty pounds is just over 18kg. That works out to about $3.44/kg after taxes.
Locally, a 9kg bag costs $45 and change (or more), before taxes, which is about $5/kg. At Walmart, a 9kg bag costs about $35, before taxes, or about $3.88/kg. The Costco Kirkland brand of kibble is a better price, but not by much. There is the other feed store, to the north of us, that has a brand that cats like that has a slightly better price, but the drive is longer. Worth it, if I’m getting more than one bag.
All of that, including a trip into my mother’s town, and it was barely noon when I got home.
It felt like it should have been several hours later!
Speaking of later, I just realized what time it is! It’s past 1am! When did that happen?
😄😂
Time to get to bed! There’s lots of work to do outside, while the weather is good!
First, a quick update with the home care crazy from yesterday. The plan was, if the guy didn’t come back to do my mother’s bed time med assist, as he said he would, by 9pm, I would drive over to do it.
My mother called me at 8:50 (the actual scheduled time) so say, no one arrived. I wasn’t 100% sure she was scheduled for 8:50, and sometimes they come late, which is why I asked her to call me if no one showed up at 9. I asked her to wait a bit longer and if he still didn’t come, let me know and I’d go over.
My other told me to not bother. She would just take some Tylenol and go to bed. She would be okay.
*sigh*
I hated to do that, but I also really didn’t want to drive to her town, in the dark, in the rain.
This morning, after I did my rounds (it was still raining), I gave her a call.
In which I will pause to share the cuteness! The first picture was taken last night, the second this morning.
Seeing Colby on top of his sister like that is adorable!
She needs a name.
Anyhow… back to calling my mother!
My mother told me she’d had a great night.
Then started going on about how the Tylenol helped so much more than her medications did.
Red flag time! My mother has done this before. Basically, she’s convincing herself that the medications aren’t doing her any good, because she has these other problems. How can she be taking all these medications, but still feel have all these other things? This time, because Tylenol did such a great job with her pains, to her that meant it was working better than her medications.
I have explained this to her before, but I did it again. NONE of her medications are for pain. They are all for different things, and I mentioned a few of them. Unfortunately, I could hear in the tone of her response that she was basically not believing me.
It’s a good thing she gets home care med assists, or she would start skipping her meds regularly, or picking and choosing which ones to take. Again.
To distract, I then asked her about her grocery shopping. She said she was only out of milk and hadn’t started a list. She was in her night gown and didn’t feel like getting dressed. I told her, don’t bother getting dressed, and I’ll help with the list. She was quite happy with that arrangement!
Since I was going to be dropping Eyelet off in the early evening, I wanted to get to my mothers a little bit earlier than usual. Once there, I first focused on her meds. I found a pill organizer and took the meds out of her “orphan” bubbles; last night’s bed time meds and a Monday morning bubble that’s been carried over to new packs for a couple of months now. I made sure to write down which meds they were and tucked the note in one of the organizer spots and tucked the whole thing away. My mother has strict instructions to leave them, unless there’s an “emergency”. I also prepared her bed time meds for tonight – I brought another of the tiny tagine sauce bowls to keep them in – and set up another note with it, setting it aside with the note facing where my mother sits at her table.
That done, we started working on her shopping list. It was mostly her usual items, but we did remember to include things we’d forgotten last time, like the instant oatmeal that makes things so much easier for her. Some things were just “see what looks good” type stuff. When she gave me cash for the trip, she included a bit extra, asking me to keep an eye out for anything else I might spot and know she would like.
Which worked out well. I was able to get her extra fruit that she likes but normally wouldn’t get. Today, they happened to be on sale. Her favourite bread was on sale, so I got extra for her freezer. That sort of thing. As I put things away, I always go over what I got and what changes I made, and she was very happy with the selections. Before putting the milk carton in the fridge, I made sure to open it for her, and I’m glad I did. For some reason, every now and then, they just don’t want to open. If it’s difficult for me to open, that would make it almost impossible for my mother to open! I do wish her grocery store still had their 2L milk in jugs as well as cartons, as jugs are so much better for people with mobility issues in their hands.
That done, I made sure to give her floor a sweep before heading out. One of her neighbours that has a garden plot has been sharing their bounty of tomatoes by leaving them in the common room for anyone to take. My mother keeps taking some, even though she already has, and is supposed to avoid acidic foods like tomatoes. So she gave me an ice cream bucket full to take home! We still haven’t finished off the last bunch she gave us!
Once I was in the truck, I started messaging my family to let them know the status of things. Which is when I started getting messages from the woman I was to bring Eyelet to. She was wondering if I could bring him to a different address, as she’d forgotten she was supposed to go there after her work this evening. It wasn’t far from her own address, so that worked out okay.
We continued our conversation as I got home when she asked when I was planning to head out with Eyelet. I told her, but mentioned that I was flexible, now that I was done with my mother’s grocery shopping. She asked if I could bring him in right away. The new address is for a foster that already had a room ready for him and was home.
!!!
I was back on the road with Eyelet within 10 minutes. My daughter went looking for him as I got a carrier prepared. Finding him was easy. He was napping in the sun room.
He did not appreciate being awakened, then stuck into a carrier!
I grabbed a donated carrier that is triangle shaped and opens on one side, which makes it easy to take cats in and out. It is, however, not our largest carrier.
Eyelet was not happy!
So not happy, he stress pooped in the carrier during the drive out.
*sigh*
He went back and forth between trying to claw his way out of the carrier, to just lying down calmly, and back again, which meant he got messy in the process.
When I got to the address and the woman came out to greet me, I made sure to let her know! I then followed her in to Eyelet’s new home for the next few days.
What a set up! An entire little bedroom, all to himself, with several beds, including one at a window, a cat tree, toys and, of course, a litter pan and food and water. He was enough of a mess that she brought a cloth to wipe him off a bit before taking him out of the carrier.
He did, however, start purring as soon as she touched him! He was very open to pets in general.
I’ve since gotten an update that he has settled into his new digs very well. I’m not at all surprised. The set up is pure luxury compared to the yard cat life!
The best part is that this was all done well before I was originally scheduled to deliver Eyelet. It even stopped raining shortly after I got home.
It was an awesome rain, too. Almost 24 hours of constant rain. Nothing too heavy, either. The sort of rain we could have used so much of over the summer!
Meanwhile, my brother came out today. I didn’t even realize he was here until I left for my mother’s and saw his car. He’s been busy preparing their trailer for the winter, including driving it out to where the tanks can be emptied. When I got back from delivering Eyelet, he was able to come over and tell me what he’d been able to do for my mother’s car. There’s still more to be done, but it can wait. The priority was to deal with that tire that keeps going flat. He just used the spray stuff in it, then made sure to drive it around, and even put it up on a jack to just spin the tire, so it wouldn’t cure in a puddle inside the tire.
Tomorrow afternoon, he and I will be going to my mother’s tomorrow, and her car is one of the main things she wants to talk about. She says she wants him to get it all fixed up, and that she would pay for it, so that we have a second vehicle, and one that she can get in and out of. It might be better off to sell it, or maybe trade it in for a newer vehicle. My brother is in a better position to make recommendations on that than I am.
So we’ll see how that works out.
Weather wise, next week is looking to be warmer again, and dry. That will be when we seriously need to get the sun room cleaned out. That requires basically emptying it, so we can wash the concrete floor. The cat cage can’t fit through the door without being dismantled, so the room has to be done one half at a time. It’s going to be a big, messy job. I’m going to have to stop storing most of my tools and garden supplies in there. The cats, skunks and raccoons get into it all and make such a mess – and make messes on top of things!
With the rain, I’ve made little additional progress in cleaning up the garden, but tomorrow is the 21st, which is when I’ve been typically doing my garden tour videos. It also happens to be the first day of our new average frost date range. Instead of one day, they now have a range of days. Which isn’t how an average works, but whatever. They now say our average first frost days is between Sept 21 and 30, from the previous Sept. 10. Of course, this year, we had two frosts before Sept. 10! Well, it’ll be another 30 years before they do the math again. I’m still sticking with Sept. 10, when I work out when to do things in the garden, and what the length of our growing season is. It was 99 days before. Now it’s supposedly 125-150 days, since the last frost date has changed, too.
Yeah… I don’t think so. Not a chance, where we are.
Gosh, though… having a 125 day growing season would be amazing. 150 days would be heavenly! There’s so much more we could grow with a season that long!
Ah, well. A girl can dream but, in the end, we have to deal with what we’ve got in our local climate, not what a map of averages says.
Time for me to head outside for my evening rounds before it gets dark, and see examples of that along the way!
The Re-Farmer 