Almost…

Okay, main goal of the day: getting the truck to the garage for our afternoon appointment.

As usual, we planned on leaving early. My daughter was really struggling this morning, unfortunately. She’d had a bad night. We’ve had more outings than usual that she came along with to help me out, and it’s starting to wear on her.

I spotted this guy, on the way to the garage.

This time, it was Gouda, parked on one of the inside out cat beds under the canopy tent. So adorable!

I was having a good day, when it comes to pain levels, and started off driving but right away realized I was feeling unusually sleeping. A down side of having to take painkillers every 6 hours. I never get more than a few hours of sleep at a time, if I manage to fall sleep at all.

We got to the garage about half an hour early and settled in the waiting room chairs. We could hear the owner working on something in the back and he didn’t see us, which was fine. We were in no hurry. I actually started to fall asleep in the chair.

Then he walked by the door to the office, focused on his phone, stopped and did a double take when he realized we were already there and waiting. He greeted us then continued outside, going back to his phone.

Shortly after, he came back and apologetically asked us if we wanted to go into town for lunch or something; he needed to go home to take care of something. We were okay with that and he said he would text me when he was back.

I got my daughter to drive and we ended up going to the Dairy Queen, because I had some coupons. My daughter was a sweetheart and insisted on paying for it, too.

We took our time about it, though I wasn’t that hungry and ended up saving my burger for home. I just snacked on some fries. I don’t really like fries all that much, and gave the last of them to my daughter, since she hadn’t eaten before we left. After a while, we decided that we could just as easily go back to the garage and stay in the truck, where I’m sure I would have fallen asleep. We were getting ready to head out when I got a text.

The thing he had to take care of at home was taking longer than it should have, and he had no idea how long it would be. Rather than have us wait, he asked if we were willing to come back tomorrow.

I answered yes, then asked if he wanted us back for the same time. By that point, I don’t think he was able to keep checking his work phone. I’ll just assume the same time if he doesn’t respond.

So we headed home, instead, stopping only to pick up some gas.

$1.899/L

Ouch.

At least I got my 3¢/L CAA discount, so we paid $1.869/L instead. Every little bit helps.

Once at home, I sat at my computer for a while, but was still so sleepy, I couldn’t actually accomplish anything useful. My husband came over to talk and the first thing he said was that I looked really horrible! 😄😂 I did consider just going to bed but, by this time, it was past 3 and I knew that would screw up my night.

After a while, though, I started feeling better. Well enough to go outside to do the evening cat feeding. The singleton kitten, I noticed, is no longer a junk pile cat. She is now and under the cat house cat! The sun room trays are all outside right now, as we’ve made very little progress on clearing and cleaning the sun room, and spread out on the ground near the cat shelters. As I was topping them up, the little one was peeking out from under the cat house, meowing at me. I could see she wanted to come out so badly, but was also too scared to actually do it!

She did come out eventually, though. Especially after I started to add cat milk to some of the trays, too.

I was still feeling good, so I decided to do some yard stuff and garden watering in between topping up the cats’ water bowls a bit at a time, so as not to scare them away from the food. I checked the drying cat beds and stuff, and they were finally all dry, so I tucked those into the wagon and under the screen for now. I’ve got other pieces soaking with detergent in the tub, so I agitated them for awhile. That water got quite brown in the process! They are still soaking, as I wasn’t up to scrubbing them today. Then I started watering the garden.

Yes, the garden is still worth watering! Not all of the beds, but some of them. The strawberries, squash and sunflowers at the chain link fence all got a watering. I’m really impressed that the squash – winter and summer – is still surviving and blooming.

The old kitchen garden got watered and I found a surprise. In the beets and parsnip bed, the parsnip greens have gotten so tall, their leaves were sticking through the wire of the cover. Some of the beets are also quite tall and the only reason they aren’t going through the wire is because they’re in the middle of the bed, under the highest part of the curve.

About a third of them were gone.

Not completely, but at one end, there was a substantial empty spot that had been full of leaves.

My first thought was deer, but that seems so unlikely. The deer don’t typically go through that garden; too many paths and obstacles. Plus, my daughter added more wood chips to the paths yesterday, and that’s not a surface a deer would want to walk on. The alternative is skunks or racoons, and they would have cause more damage than just a bunch of leaves eaten. So it must be from a deer.

The wire cover did protect the plants at least somewhat, as they were not completely eaten down to the ground, like the Swiss Chard all was. So frustrating!

The tomato bed in the east yard got watered, but I didn’t bother with the other two beds. Since our single Arikara squash has been harvested, I cut away the vine, so that bed is now just bush beans. The leaves do have some minor frost damage, but I could see there are still beans developing. I probably could have harvested some, but didn’t have a container for them and didn’t want to push my limits.

In the main garden area, I did some more selective watering. I was doing the very last bed when my older daughter came out. I asked how her sister was doing, and she said not very good. She’s dealing with with increased pain levels now, so she’s settled down in the cat free zone to have some movies playing while she continues knitting my ankle socks for me.

While I finished watering the last bed, my daughter told me her plans for roasting the Arikara squash and to use half of it to make a squash soup. Personally, I look forward to having straight up roasted squash. I want to get a good taste of it to see if this is something we want to keep growing in the future, other than to keep collecting seeds for a rare squash variety.

I started telling my daughter how surprised I was with how little frost damage there was, and that I could probably harvest some things – then asked if she wanted some peppers. We had two California Bell peppers that are fully red now, plus a couple of Sweet Chocolate peppers that were ripe. She happily took them and will be using them in her soup. There are still some green peppers on the plants that will hopefully do all right. With peppers, though, we can also harvest them early and let them ripen in the house.

I did remember to look up what colour the California Bell peppers get, since they are bright red and, for some reason, I thought they would be yellow. I found images of both red and yellow peppers. 😕 I got them from MI Gardener and looked at their page, and their image is of green peppers!

So… red it is.

I headed inside soon after, as I didn’t want to push myself. At this point, I might head into town tomorrow on my own, rather than dragging my daughter out with me again. This time, I want to remember to grab a couple of 5 gallon water jugs to refill in town, after the oil change and whatever else needs to be done.

For now, I’m coming up on my schedule evening painkillers time, and I think I’ll try to go to bed after that and get a few hours of sleep before the next set. I tried that last night and it didn’t work. I ended up awake until somewhere past 4am. That might actually help me finally get some sleep tonight, though!

An odd thing about taking the painkillers every 6 hours. I’m not entirely sure how much it’s making a difference. I still get hit with the lower abdominal pain, enough that I’ve used the topical painkiller to help with that. Yet even when I’m not feeling the abdominal pain, I’m still feeling other pain. Particularly that left shoulder’s rotator cuff. The painkillers don’t seem to be touching that at all. Which makes me wonder; if they’re not helping with something as relatively minor as the shoulder pain, how much can it be helping with the abdominal pain? Granted, my shoulder has never hurt badly enough to warrant a trip to the ER, but you’d think a dose as strong as what I’m taking now, 6 times a day, would reduce the shoulder pain too, wouldn’t you??

Ah, well. It is what it is. At least I’m not getting side effects like that violent dizziness I was getting with the Percocet.

So… that’s how the day went today. We almost got the truck done! Our mechanic had told us what he’d needed to go home for, and I really hope it all worked out for him and his family.

If all goes well, the truck will finally be done tomorrow, and it’ll be ready for the winter, as well as all the trips to the city we’ll be needing to do over the next couple of months!

The Re-Farmer

A really excellent day – except for Damocles being weird again

This morning, after taking my scheduled meds and supplements, I was feeling well enough to do the morning cat feeding. Which meant, of course, I stayed out to check on the garden.

There is definitely cold damage on a lot of things, but most might actually have survived. The winter squash on the chain link fence was my biggest surprise.

The first one is what should be a Black Futsu. It had been protected by a large leaf. The other images, save the very last one, are of the butterneck squash – and they are still producing female flowers! Even the summer squash, which could not be covered, seems to have had minimal damage. The last image above is of some lemon squash developing in the plant in the wattle weave bed that was a thinning by transplanting location. It’s smaller, but further ahead in maturity, than the plants in the retaining wall bed that were direct sown and never moved!

It will be another day or two before we really see how much the cold damaged things, though.

Yesterday had been quite damp and chilly, so we never did take the frost covers off. I did that this morning. The chocolate stripe tomatoes look like they didn’t handle the cold too well, but it’s still too early to be sure. The peppers and our single developing eggplant seem okay. We had rain yesterday and the frost covers were quite wet, so those went on the clothes line. The mock orange my mother had planted at the laundry platform has grown a lot this summer and was very much in the way.

My daughter and I headed out to our appointment at the garage at noon. The plan was to basically just hang out in their waiting area while the oil change was being done. My daughter even brought along her knitting. She has finished the socks she was making for herself and has started a pair of ankle socks for me with the glitter yarn.

We got there about half an hour early, even after being stuck behind a slow moving vehicle. The garage owner was there when we came into the office – me with my walker, my daughter with her cane. What a pair we make! For me, though, the walker was more of a “just in case”. I was actually feeling really good still. Usually, the pain levels start to creep up in the afternoon.

I asked him if he’d received the screenshots of the OBDII scan I sent him yesterday and he had. He spent some time going over the readings and noted that replacing the oil sensor had come up as a fix again. We talked about the other things, and they did not concern him. One of them is the gas cap sensor, which I didn’t realize until then. I’d look the part up on Amazon, following the link from the app, but didn’t look any further into it – I was pretty distracted by other things at the time. I described to him the changes I saw with the oil pressure gauge readings over the months since it last got replaced, and that I thought the oil change might help with. He said, only a little bit. Maybe. I should not be getting those readings. He asked more questions and spent some time looking things up on his computer.

In the end, he asked if I could bring the truck back on Monday and leave it with him for the day. He wants to set up an oil pressure tester and drive it around. This would tell him if it’s the sensor acting up again, or if there’s something else going on. I told him the only problem with that is, we have no other transportation. We talked for a while and, in the end, he asked me to bring the truck back on Monday morning. They’ll drive us into town, so we’re not stuck in his waiting room while he tests it out. He does not want to do the oil change until he’s had a chance to run the test.

So we booked that and headed home. We actually got home at almost exactly our appointment time. 😄 We didn’t even stop to get the mail because the post office wasn’t going to open again for another hour, and we have a parcel to pick up.

While we were gone, our prescription delivery came in, which included my new painkillers. My doctor is quite serious about pain management! I went from Tramadol/hydrochloride, 50mg, up to 3 times a day, as needed, to Tramadol/acetaminophen, 325mg, 4 times a day for two weeks. In two weeks, I should be in the city getting more tests done, so if I need more or something else, that’ll be taken care of, then.

Which means that when my afternoon alarm went off for my next painkiller dose, I had my new Tramadol to take, instead of the T3s I had in my purse I expected to take while the oil change was being done. I read the paperwork that came with it and noted that the potential side effects include dizziness and nausea, which is what I started getting about a week into the Percocet trial. Something to watch out for.

I was still feeling really good. So good, in fact, I was decidedly suspicious. At this point, not feeling pain is downright weird. (Even stranger is, the bleeding seems to have stopped, too!) After taking the meds, though, I got incredibly sleepy, falling asleep at my computer. That passed, though, and I was feeling good enough, I decided to take a chance and headed outside.

I didn’t push myself with anything too “manual labour”-ish. The outside cats got fed and I was going to finish washing and rinsing the cat beds and blankets from the sun room, but my presence was keeping the singleton kitten from going to the food bowls, so I switched gears.

I got the weed trimmer out. My brother had fixed the cracked handle on the larger one and brought it back, but I noticed there was only 2 batteries instead of 3 for that. Which was probably good, as it made sure I didn’t push myself too much. The lawn needs to be mowed, so the first thing I did was trim around the low rocks in the yard, so no one will hit them with the lawn mower, then moved to the old kitchen garden. The paths there have not been trimmed for quite a while, and some areas were getting pretty thickly overgrown. So much so that I needed to rake it all up before doing a bit more trimming around the garden edge and the nearby cat shelters. Now that we have a lovely, huge pile of wood chips, I want to lay down a thick layer on the paths in the old kitchen garden.

But not today.

Instead, I went back to the cat beds and blankets. They’ve had several soaks in the old tub with detergent, but for the past few days, they’ve been sitting on the grass, getting rained on. I got the wheelbarrow to wash individual pieces, having to use a scrub brush on some of them, to get the mats of cat hair and burrs off, then set them in the old tub for rinsing.

The first things I worked on were flat things I could hang on the line, so after the first few were done, I headed over and took the dry frost protector sheets off the clothes line.

Then I pruned the mock orange back, so the laundry would no longer catch on it. What a difference that made! I left the branches for a daughter to clear away tomorrow, though.

That was what I worked on for the next while; scrubbing a few pieces in the wheelbarrow, rinsing them in the tub, hanging them on the line, then doing another batch. Both the wash water and rinse water had to be changed several times. An entire winter and spring, plus part of a summer, of cats, skunks and raccoons make a serious mess! The last items could not be hung on the line. Some because of their shape, like two cat caves. Others because they were just too thick and heavy to be able to hang on a line. Some of those ended up on the water bowl house, which has a metal roof, to drain and dry. They’ll need to be flipped a couple of times, I’m sure. The last ones got draped over the upturned wheelbarrow to drain. Once they’ve had a chance to drain most of the water they soaked up, they’ll get moved onto one of the cat shelter roofs to dry in the sun. We are expecting rain tomorrow, but not until the evening, so we’ll have to keep an eye on things. The thicker items will probably take several days to dry.

I’m happy to say that I still felt really great, even after all this. I don’t know how much I can attribute to the new pain meds and how much to it just starting out a good day and staying a good day!

So the main thing we needed to get done today – get Damocles an oil change, at least – didn’t happen, but today still worked out to be a productive day.

That makes me happy!

Gosh, I miss being able to work outside more! That’s the part of all the health issues that bothers me the most. I really enjoy the work, and not being able to do it is so very frustrating. I’ve gone over the things that need to be done over the next while with the girls, to prepare the yard and garden for winter. Getting the sun room emptied and cleaned out is a priority right now. Nights are starting to get cold, and the cats will need their winter shelter. My older daughter has her commissions to work on, so there’s not as much that she can do, but my younger daughter is planning out her days based on the to-do list, now that we expect to be able to stay home for a few days, other than a much needed dump run on Saturday.

Time to catch up on things while the weather holds!

The Re-Farmer

*sigh* Didn’t make it…

Can anything else go wrong?

Don’t answer that.

The girls and I headed out at 9 this morning. I even headed to the truck ahead of time to check the tires and secure my walker in the truck box. Everything was going as expected.

One of the things that I’ve been noticing on the truck is that the oil pressure has been slowly dropping over the past while. Still within normal levels, though, and I figured an oil change would address that. Yesterday, my husband had called the garage to book one for me, because I would remember while driving, then forget once I got home. In the last few days, however, it was starting to drop even while at highway speeds and, when stopped at traffic lights, the needle had started to drop just under the “normal” line. Again, not enough to be too concerned yet, but definitely something to look into.

Two things happened once we got on the highway.

The check engine light turned on, and the pressure gauge started to slowly drop while I was still at highway speeds. Still within “normal”, but it hasn’t dropped like that, while maintaining a speed, since we got the oil pressure sensor changed again.

My daughter messaged my husband for me to call the garage again (he’d left a message, yesterday) about the oil change appointment, and to mention the check engine light was now on. I’d texted them last night to ask them to do a general check on things during the oil change, because we were going to have a lot of medical appointments to drive to. So when my husband called, they were ready with an appointment time for me, tomorrow afternoon. They squeezed me in. Normally, it’s at least a few days before they can book me. Mind you, that was at their old location. They have more bays available in their new locations.

I was taking the highway into the city with no construction on it, rather than the one that went straight into the city almost directly to the hospital my daughter’s appointment was at. That meant we had a town to drive through, with gas stations and plenty of parking space. Since we’d left so early, I pulled over any my younger daughter checked the oil for me. Oil level was fine, but the engine was still hot, so it would not have been completely accurate, but with where my daughter could see the line (something I have a very hard time seeing), we didn’t see any need to add more oil.

My older daughter made the executive decision to cancel her appointment (which, to be honest, she’s been wanting to do for at least a couple of weeks now), and we headed home.

As soon as I parked the truck, I linked the OBDII scanner while my daughters headed inside to call and cancel the appointment. A couple of codes came up. This was one of them.

Top reported fix (the only reported fix, actually): replaced EVAP Canister Vent Solenoid Valve Assembly.

The other code was for the oil pressure sensor performance. That one listed 4 top reported fixes. Replacing the oil filter, which would have been done with an oil change, was the first. Second was replacing the oil pressure sensor, which has already been done, and is finally working. Next is to replace the engine valve lifter oil filter, followed by cleaning said filter.

It also doesn’t look like it’s going to be a very expensive fix, though I have only the link to Amazon parts to compare to. The price will likely be higher, locally.

On the plus side, after this fix, our mileage should improve. When we stopped at our usual gas station’s parking lot to check the oil, they were at $1.699, down 10¢ from yesterday. The other gas station, across the highway and just up the block, had gone UP 10¢ to $1.899 !!!! Yesterday, I’d pre-paid enough gas that the needle was just barely touching the full line, and we’re already down a quarter tank since then.

I screen capped the scanner’s readings and texted them to the garage once I got inside. My older daughter had called the hospital and left a message telling them we had vehicle troubles. My younger daughter remembered to call prescription refills to the pharmacy for delivery tomorrow. The doctor called back not long after. I had a chance to talk to her for a bit and said we’d turned around and come home because of the truck. She was understanding. She spoke to my daughter for a bit, and they will call back with a new appointment time later.

Ah, that reminds me. While we were out yesterday, my husband answered a call from the eye clinic. My 6 month eye tests are in the middle of next month, and they were needing to reschedule. That came in before I reached my own doctor’s appointment. Since I’m now expected to have my surgery in about 4 weeks, that actually works out, since I would probably have had to reschedule, anyhow! I want to book an appointment for my older daughter at the same time. It’s been years since she had her eyes tested, and she needs new glasses badly. Once she has them, she can finally take her written test for her driver’s license. She knows how to drive – we taught her how when we were living not for from here before, and she was just big enough to reach the pedals. Since moving out here, she just hasn’t been able to get it done. She doesn’t even have photo ID for this province.

Now that my younger daughter has her current medications, she wants to do her road test, but she needs to do 2 hours with an instructor, and get access to a loaner vehicle, since our truck wouldn’t be accepted for a road test. They don’t care that the light on the dash is just tire sensors needing replacement. We don’t know how much a road test and loaner vehicle will cost, but with all the extra bills we’ve been having, we don’t have anything “extra” to cover it anyhow, even with the girls helping out as they are able. Now there’s going to be another truck bill.

*sigh*

Well, it is what it is. We just need to deal with things as they come.

It would be nice to get a break, once it a while, though!!

The Re-Farmer

Got the news

Today was my doctor’s appointment to get my test results.

My daughter and I left very early, so we could pick up some parcels at the post office, as we knew it would be closed by the time we got back. I made sure to pick up another 40 pound bag of kibble for the outside cats, too.

I tried a route that I knew would avoid most of the road construction on our usual route. We still had to go through a couple of constructions zones, then an unexpected third zone as we crossed from one highway to the next. With how early we left, we were okay with the delays, though driving along an area where there was a knee deep drop where the shoulder used to be was a bit nerve wracking.

Our first stop in town was the Walmart, where my daughter and I had lunch at the McRaunchies, then we did some shopping. My husband had his own shopping list this time, too. We took our time about it, and I had my walker while my daughter took care of the shopping cart. She brought her new cane along, too. We were both starting to hurt by the end of it, though.

After we got what we needed and put them away in the truck (with plenty of ice packs we remembered to bring, for the frozen stuff), we still had lots of time, so we walked over to the dollar store across the parking lot. We got a few small things, but ended up cutting that a bit short because I was starting to hurt worse. I’d even taken my painkillers on schedule, before going into the dollar store.

With that done, we went to the clinic, where I even found an actual public parking lot we could use this time. We were there an hour early, but we were okay with that. Both of us really needed to sit for a while by then.

We ended up being called in late though, to be honest, it didn’t feel like we’d waited more than an hour at all.

The first thing we noticed in the room we were taken to was the sky light.

We both found that quite funny! It looks almost like a projection, but I’m guessing it’s a coating on the back of the light cover.

When the doctor came in, she was quite apologetic about being late.

She asked a few questions about what tests my regular doctor had done before, and we went through the time line again, and I mentioned again that I had been referred to a specialist in the city, but ended up seeing her first, after my first ER trip.

She then apologized and told me it was bad news. It’s endometrial cancer. Not what I was expecting, to be honest, but the “cure” is the same. A hysterectomy. The only thing is that she now has to refer me to the city, where they can do tests she can’t, to see what stage I’m at. I should get a call either Thursday or Friday, and I should have a time to go in for further testing in a couple of weeks. The surgery should be done in about a month. What happens beyond that depends on what the tests show.

Which is really fast. Unusually fast. I commented on how I wished it would be that fast for my older daughter, and she was actually quite concerned and asked specific questions. My daughter’s condition, however, is currently controlled with medication. Mine isn’t.

We talked about painkillers a bit since, even after taking mine about an hour and a half before my appointment time, my pain kept increasing to the point I was having difficulty sitting up straight. The T3s don’t seem to be doing well. I forgot completely to tell her what the Percocet was doing to me. I did mention that I sometimes took the Tramadol I had left and that seemed to be doing better, so she said she would send out a new prescription for me so I can get more, instead of the T3s.

The doctor apologized again for the bad news but really, it doesn’t bother me at all. She had mentioned there’s a possibility of chemo, if it turns out to be later stage (she doesn’t think so, based on what she saw) and I told her I would probably turn that down. That’s a case of the cure being worse than the disease, in my view.

As she was telling me about having to send me to the city and likely won’t be going back to her again, she said she was going to miss me and my sparkly hats. 😄 I was wearing a blue sequined one, this time. It is possible, depending on how things work out, that I might be able to go back to her. I told her, I would prefer that. Not that I have anything against the doctors in the city – I haven’t even seen them yet – but because I just like her. Plus, I don’t like going to the city. She started talking herself about how bad it’s been getting; not enough parking, expensive parking, road conditions getting worse, etc. I told her I used to live in pretty much the down town area some 30 years ago (it’s actually closer to 40, now that I think about it), and it has gotten so much worse over the years. Endless construction, and nothing gets fixed!

So we shall see how that works out. I’ll know, either way, within the next month.

That done, we headed out and my daughter started messaging the family to update them. Which is when I realized my daughter was looking really upset and trying not to cry. Maybe I’m weird, but that kind of surprised me. I don’t see anything to be upset about. It is what it is. Later on, I told her we need to come up with a name for it, though. We named the cyst I had removed years ago George, so that’s taken. My daughter suggested “B***” 🤣😂

Our next stop was the gas station, which was just up the block from the clinic. I’m glad we did it there. Gas prices were $1.649/L and my CAA card got me 3¢/L off. I had to pre-pay, so I put in $40 and that just barely filled the tank. On the drive home, everywhere else was $174.9 or $1799 !!! At my husband’s request (and his budget), we stopped at the Walmart again and got some McRaunchies to bring home for supper, then my daughter took over the driving. By that time, the pain was starting to recede – interestingly, having an energy drink actually seemed to help quite a lot! ??? When we got home, I was feeling well enough to get out and open the gate, then walk to the house without a walker or a cane.

Which seems to be the pattern. Hopefully, the Tramadol will make things different, but I seem to usually start out okay in the morning, slowly get worse through the afternoon, regardless of painkillers, then it fades on its own. Some days are worse, of course, but that’s become the general pattern.

I did manage to get some stuff done outside, after supper, though, and that did more to make me feel better – psychologically, at least – than anything else!

But that will be in my next post.

See you there!

The Re-Farmer

Future socks and future crafty plans

Check out one of the parcels that we picked up today.

This is the “surprise bag” of yarn that I’d ordered. It’s supposed to be enough for 3 pairs of socks. I had also ordered two skeins of “festive feet” Christmas coloured sparkle yarn. The one in this bag just happened to be the same as what I got separately. I had ordered two in this same colourway, thinking one skein per sock. Seeing that this package is meant to give 3 pairs of socks and has only one skein of this yarn, that means the one skein is enough for one basic pair of socks. Altogether, that means I got enough yarn for 5 pairs. Probably more, because I am asking my daughter to knit me some ankle socks, not tall socks.

Yes, these are for my daughter to knit socks for me. I don’t knit. I crochet. Socks can be made in crochet, and I’ve made custom socks for people in the past, but nothing using actual sock yarn. My daughter has been making herself socks in 100% wool and having a blast. They work great for her needs, but will wear out and get holes faster than sock yarn. Sock yarn contains a minimum percentage of manmade fibres specifically to combat wear and tear, so they last longer.

She is finishing off a pair of socks for herself right now, and then she will start making me some sparkly ankle socks.

She’s going to be a pro at turning a heel by the time she’s done making me several pairs! I don’t expect her to make 5 pairs right away, though!

I’m going to have sparkly socks to go along with my sparkly hat collection.

I also got some mirrors and reflective embroider thread. I plan to be making Christmas decorations with shisha mirrors. It’s been a long time since I’ve done sisha embroidery. Long before things like YouTube tutorials were available!

The mirrors I got are round craft mirrors, not thinner, hand cut mirrors typically sold for shisha embroidery.

If I’m going to be stuck inside with enforced low activity levels, I figure it’s a good time to break out my crafting materials and start making things again. If I can make enough (not just shisha embroidery) to sell at the local annual Christmas craft market in November, I’ll give that a try, too.

Speaking of enforced low activity levels, today was an odd day. It wasn’t a bad pain day, and the bleeding was not any worse. I took my morning pain killers along with my regular meds and supplements, at the 6 hour scheduled time as usual, then went back to bed. Before long, I started feeling bizarrely dizzy. Just turning my head a bit while lying down was enough to trigger dizziness strong enough to make me feel nauseous! This is a known side effect with the Percocet, but I’d never had anything like this before. I suspected it might have been because I took them on an empty stomach, and I was feeling quite hungry. It took a while, but I managed to get up and reheat some food my daughters had made for breakfast, and I did feel better afterwards.

When it came time to take my afternoon scheduled Percocet, I took a half dose and not on an empty stomach.

I still got really dizzy.

I was at my computer when my daughter came by to talk to me before going to get the mail. It had been more than half an hour since I took my half dose of afternoon painkillers, and the dizziness was hitting me hard. Hard enough that I actually had to get my daughter to help me get into bed and lie down!

Thankfully, it did fade away and I was eventually able to get outside for some fresh air, though the girls had to do the evening outside cat feeding. Oddly, it’s now been almost 2 hours since I took my evening dose, along with my regular evening meds and supplements and, as I write this, I’m feeling increasingly dizzy.

So… maybe it’s not the Percocet? I don’t know what else it would be, though.

Well, I’ve got only one dose left in this trial prescription. Then I’m back on the T3s. We’ll see if that makes a difference, over the next few days.

Meanwhile, I would like to start planning out some embroidered Christmas ornaments with shisha embroidery!

Oh, on a completely different note, I was rather impressed with Amazon. We had made a claim to get a refund on that office chair my husband ordered back in July, just yesterday evening. This morning I checked, and it listed the claim and refund was done! That was really fast. I’m rathe impressed.

Now we need to figure out where and how to get my husband another chair that will meet his needs!

The Re-Farmer

A rough day

I have no idea what was different about today.

Pain levels kept increasing earlier than usual, with no physical activity that typically triggers it. I ended up spending most of the day in bed, which was incredibly frustrating.

A couple of things of note, though. First, the good stuff.

I did head out not long ago to do the evening cat feeding outside. More because I just couldn’t handle the inactivity anymore. Of course, I walked around a bit and checked on the garden beds.

The Black Russian sunflowers at the chain link fence bed are mostly blooming, and very busy with bumblebees!

I was only able to get a picture of one.

The Mammoth sunflowers seed heads are still very small, but some of the plants are now easily 7′ tall. Hard to say if we’ll get anything out of them.

Checking the tomato bed, there are plenty of Orange Currant tomatoes to pick, but I did not have a container for them. Same with the beans. I’ve asked my daughters to do those later. I checked on the Blueberry tomatoes, which are supposed to stay a dark colour with light blossom ends. Some of them felt soft and ripe, so I picked them.

I won’t be taste testing them myself – I’m willing to try with something tiny like the Orange Currant tomatoes or Spoon tomatoes, but just thinking of eating a normal sized, fresh tomato – even smaller ones like this – makes my stomach churn. Odd, that.

I didn’t take a photo, but I pulled the Gigenthemum poppy plants with their fully dry pods and set them on the curing frame near the tomatoes I picked yesterday.

By that point, I needed to get indoor and sit down again.

*sigh*

On another note…

Back in July, my husband ordered himself a new office chair through Amazon. A bariatric chair that can double as a sleep chair, if necessary. Only after placing the order did it tell us that tracking wasn’t supported by the delivery company. It did have a delivery date in August. A long time, but okay. We’ve had that before, and things would still show up at the general store the post office is in. Frustrating, but not something we were too concerned about. Once things arrived, we’d at least see it chance to having been delivered.

What we didn’t know is that the seller had tried to contact us. My husband never got the messages (the system should have sent him emails about them). After the delivery date passed, my husband was going to get a refund, but never got a verification on that.

Which is when I looked around and found the messages from the seller. One saying there was a problem and asking for an alternate address. Basically, they could not deliver to a post office (so why was the PO box address accepted? That happens pretty often) and needed a physical address. So I answered on behalf of my husband.

There were some messages back and forth and we finally got a Purolator tracking number. That lead to “shipping label created”, and never changed. After a while, I sent another message to the seller telling them that, according to Purolator, they don’t have the parcel. I told them that if there was a problem with the address (Purolator delivers to the general store but not to our physical address), they could use the physical address for the general store.

I got a message back saying they would contact the delivery company with the new info. Not long after, I got another tracking number, saying the package was in transit, and an apology for the delay. I responded to that, and then we waited some more.

And waited.

Purolator tracking still said “shipping label created” and never changed.

This morning, I tried to contact Purolator about it but all the system could tell me was there was only a shipping label created. They don’t have the package.

So I messaged the seller again, telling them this and saying that, at this point, we want a refund.

Some time later, my husband forwarded an email to me from Amazon.

My message could not be delivered, as “The seller associated with your order or inquiry has left the Amazon store or is no longer able to receive any further email communications.” Then it gave a link to request an A-Z Claim.

Which is when I gave up on being bedridden and went looking.

According to the Amazon listing, the seller is still there, the chair is still available, and even on sale now.

I went through the claim process, copy and pasting the email from Amazon about the seller no longer receiving messages, and saying we wanted a refund. My husband has already gotten a response from Amazon, and they are looking into it.

Hopefully, that means he’ll soon get his refund and we can look into buying a chair from somewhere else. With his current chair, he got some extra life out of it by replacing the wheels, but it’s still breaking down. He can’t sit normally on a chair, so he really need something that can handle extra wear and tear.

The problem is, finding something that works for him off line is almost impossible. Mobility aid places don’t carry office chairs, and office supply places don’t tend to keep specialty bariatric chairs in stock. You can only order them online – and they can be mind bogglingly expensive. An actual sleep chair is a completely different design unsuitable for his space and needs.

Well… we’ll figure it out.

After he gets his refund!

The Re-Farmer

Cautious

Well, I am not sure just how things are going, right now!

Last night, as I was going to be, I started feeling very ill.  Nausea is s potential side effect with the new painkillers, so that might have been it. 

Or it could have been the piece of birthday cake I’d had not long before.  I may have been sighted out.

Or it could gave been both.

Either way, I had to message my daughter to help me just to get to the bathroom, which waz an extremely slow and careful walk.  She got dome Pepto into me first, which seemed to work.

After I was finally stable enough to lie down, I took only 1 tablet instead of 2, for the next two doses.  That didn’t quite cut the pain, but there was only mild dizziness.  By the afternoon dose, I was back to 2 tablets, they kay riwn right away. 

That seemed to work, because I felt well enough to get things done outside.  I changed out the water in the tub all the cat beds, etc. were soaking in.  That was really gross.  I expect to be changing the water out at least one more time before I start using the wheelbarrow as a tub to wash individual pieces.

The kittens were looking for food around the shrine bowls, so while the tub was draining, I decided it was time to move the catio back to the inner yard.  It topped up all the other kibble bowls to distract the adult cats away, then cleared and emptied the catio, including the weights on the roof to keep it from blowing over, into the wagon.  The catio itself could then be walked over and got set uo where it was before.

Once everything was put back, eith fresh food and water, I went back to working at the tub nearby.

I then had to keep chasing away adult cats and skunks that were stealing the kittens’ food. 

Which scared away the kittens.

*sigh*

While I was doing that, my younger daughter was doing some pruning of the lilacs by the house.  We had talked about propagating the Korean Dwarf Lilac, so she went ahead and planted sone near where the sea buckthorn is, to fill gaps in the hedge.  They may not take, but lilacs are much like willow or birch.  You can just stick a branch in the ground, and it can grow.   It’s really sun baked and dry out there, though, so they will need frequent watering for them to have any chance at all.

My daughter is dealing with a lot of her own pain, and walking with a cane again, so dhe headed in once the pruning and planting was done.  After I finished refilling the soaking tub – and chasing off more skunks – I was feeling well enough to stay out and water the garden beds.

I didn’t get any pictures, but I’m seeing some Chocolate Stripe tomatoes starting to ripen.  There is a single white Caspar eggplant developing.  I even spotted some tiny melons developing, and one of the winter squash climbing the chain link fence is showing several female flowers, and even a few squash developing.  With no season left to mature, unless that Super El Nino keeps things mild for a long time.l.

The pain killers were starting to wear off by then, so I headed back inside for a while.  Just as I was sitting down with supper, my mother phoned.  It was actually a pretty good call.  She mostly just wanted to chat. 

While we were talking about her health, my mother suddenly declared that she has a round belly, too, so maybe she has what I have.

…

I tried to explain how this could not be true.  I don’t think she believed me.

*sigh*

I ended up having to cut the call short so I could have my supper, and my evening meds time was coming up.  While I was eating, I updated my brother and SIL on the call … then they showed up!  I wasn’t sure if they woukd make it out this weekend.

When I finished eating, I headed out to give the kittens a top up, since the cats and skunks steal their food donations quickly.  I found the two bravest ones on a shelf in the catio.  They ran off as I added some cat milk to the remains of kibble in the bowl, but they were soon back.

I still had to chase away Sweetie and two other adult cats, so the kittens could eat.

My brother passed by on the way to the garage, so we got to say a quick hello.  He wanted to get their zero turn mower out and cutting the grass in the outer yard whike it was still light out.

I headed back inside just in time for my alarm to go off gir my evening meds.  Including a full dose of the new painkillers.

I’m now in bed, in an over abundance of caution.  I don’t want a repeat of last night!  I’d forgotten my daily post, though, so I am doing this on my phone.

I much prefer my desktop!! 😁

I hope the night goes well. 

Tomorrow, the main goals are a dump run, then a trip into town to get a birthday card and a visit with my mother.  She’s turning 95 this weekend.

She is doing amazing for her age!  Even with all her aches and pains, and declarations that she is dying. 😁

I did not tell her I was planning to visit while on phone with her, just in case I’m not physically up to it.

We shall see how things go, when the time comes.

The Re-Farmer

Productive – finally!

Okay, still limited, but productive!

Morning was quiet overall. My poor daughter has been caning it today; the last while of taking on a lot of what I normally do during the day has not been easy on her.

Still, she was well enough to do the morning routine and, when our prescription delivery came in, to meet the driver.

I got my new meds. Just in time for my afternoon painkiller dose. I got to take new new generic Percocet instead of the T3s. I have enough to take them at the same schedule, every 6 hours, for 7 days.

So far, it seems to be working! I’m not holding my breath as other painkillers I’ve tried did work for the first while, then gradually stopped working. However, it meant I did not get that gradual pain building up and lasting for several hours.

I took advantage of that, while trying to still maintain light activity levels.

I decided it was a good time to start the very, very last “spring cleaning” of the sun room!

I moved things around to make space under the canopy tent, then brought out the cat carriers. They got dismantled and scrubbed down. Some of them have bolts with wing nuts on them that were getting rusted, so I set them in a bowl with some CLR.

Then my daughter and I went to the general store to pick up a couple of 40 pound bags of kibble, which my daughter was able to carry for me (I felt perfectly able to do it, but I’m banned) and the mail. Which included an unexpected, long thin parcel for my husband.

After we got home and unloaded, my husband presented my daughter with a new cane he’d got for her! She has a fantastic “tactical” cane that she doesn’t use because it’s too top heavy.

Hmmm… I wonder why… 😄

Also in the mail, finally, was our ambulance bill. Since they only came and treated my husband, but did not transport him anywhere, the bill was only $100, and we’ll be able to submit the receipt to my husband’s insurance for partial reimbursement. Not too shabby!

After a very late lunch, I headed back outside.

The carriers could be reassembled by then, and I brought over an old toothbrush to scrub the bolts that had been sitting in CLR. Once those were rinsed and dried off, I treated them with WD40 before using them on their respective carriers again. We now have five clean carriers ready. There’s another in the sun room but the cats knocked it off the shelf so many times, it can no longer be closed. Then there’s the huge donated one that is in the catio, with a cat bed in it, as a trap for the kittens. You can see the before and after for the cat carriers in the first to images of the slide show above.

Once the carriers were done, I got the flat sink stopper I’d picked up not long ago and started filling the old bathtub I dragged out of the junk pile. It still needs more coats of enamel paint sprayed on, but there is enough that it can be used. While I had the hose going in the tub, with some laundry detergent added, I started bringing over various cat beds, blanket and caves from the sun room. Not everything would fit, though.

You can see in the last image of the slide show above, how it is now. I added water until it reached the overflow opening, poking at everything with an old broom handle to get it submerged and soaking, then tried to “stir” it a bit.

The handle broke.

I’ll be using a garden hoe to continue, later on. For now, it’s all left to soak overnight. It’s all pretty disgusting, to be honest. I expected to change out the water and soak it in detergent a couple of times before I start to actually wash the individual pieces. I’ll most likely transfer them into the wheelbarrow individually for the final cleaning. Then I plan to give them a final soak/rinse with the 10% cleaning vinegar.

That old tub is going to be very handy.

While doing all this, I kept an eye on the kittens. They all got their evening cat feeding. The kittens their their kibble softened with cat milk. I also brought out some of the donated cat treats. Some I used by the house to distract the adult cats, while kitten treats went into the catio “trap”.

I am getting quite frustrated. I’m leaving bait for the kittens, but keep having to chase away adult cats and skunks. Which startled the kittens, so they stay away instead of coming for their treats.

They have been enjoying their new “home” in the remains of the junk pile, though. Lots to run and jump and play around.

They even found a bed.

There’re some sort of old chair cushions in there; a matching seat and back. The seat cushion was leaning at a steep angle, but several kittens still found it made a cozy bed.

Once the tub was set up and soaking, I tried sitting by the catio to “fish” for kittens. Four of them had zero interest, and they all seemed to be easily startled.

When I was ready to move on, I took the cushions from the junk pile and lay them on the ground inside the catio, opposite the big cat carrier. Hopefully, this will encourage them to sleep in the catio instead of in the junk pile.

Then I got a container and did a garden harvest.

There was a surprising amount of bush beans available to harvest! The ones planted later, around the Arikara Squash, are absolutely prolific right now.

The two red tomatoes in the photo are supposed to be Blueberry tomatoes. The other three plants of that variety all have tomatoes so dark, they’re almost black, but one plant is producing red tomatoes instead, which are ripening faster. The plants are otherwise identical looking.

There were quite a few orange currant tomatoes ready for picking, too. The most I’ve picked at one time, so far!

While in the area, I checked on the one Arikara squash that’s maturing. It’s gotten as big as I think it’s going to get, and the shell is starting to harden. I had set it on top of a brick to get it off the ground, and I picked up the squash to check that the brick wasn’t causing any damage.

It wasn’t, but I found several huge snails!

Thankfully, the squash is big enough and hard enough that they’re not interested in trying to eat it. I still flicked them away. Then I went into my stash of lumber cast offs in the garage and brought back a board to set under the squash, on top of the brick, to give it smoother support – and hopefully, the snails won’t want to climb around it!!

After that, I checked on the grapes (second photo in the slide show above). It’s really hard to find them under all the foliage, but there are a LOT of grape clusters hidden in there. They look quite ready for picking. Not this evening, though. Hopefully, they’ll still be there tomorrow and we can start picking them and maybe make some jelly or something. It’s been a while since we’ve made grape jelly. The last few years, the raccoons got to them before we did.

By then, I could tell I was reaching my limit and didn’t want to push things. Once inside, my older daughter suggested we make up some individual charcuterie platters for ourselves for supper, which was quite enjoyed.

By then, the painkillers were definitely wearing off – just in time for my evening 6 hour alarm to go off and it was time to take some more.

As I write this, it’s still a bit achy, but it does not seem to be getting worse. I’m about ready for bed, though, and it’s not even 8:30 yet!

It looks like we’re going to have some absolutely beautiful weather over the next while, including days with more rain. Daytime highs are expected to mostly be in the low to mid 20’s C/68F, with overnight temperatures staying in the teens. Our average last frost date was September 10. As of right now, the forecast for the 10th is a high of 19C/66F, and the overnight low at 13C/55F. Absolutely no danger of frost at all.

Thank you, El Nińo!

At this point, the long range forecast suggests we’ll see our first frost around the 20th or so. I’m hoping for a repeat of one of our first winters out here, were we didn’t get our first frost until November and almost had a brown Christmas!

I’d rather like to see that again – and just a mild winter, overall.

I’m getting too old for winter, and we have too many things that break down – including ourselves! – when it gets colder. 🤣😂

Now, if I could just get a few cats off my bed, I might be able to call it a night.

I’m so glad I was able to be productive today! Even if it was just a little bit.

The Re-Farmer

Birthday treat and playing with bebbies

Today was quiet, for the most part. We’re all pretty drained, exhausted and fighting different kinds of pain.

I’m incredibly frustrated. The weather and temperatures are absolutely ideal for working outside, and I can do next to none of it.

I never took the hydromorphone my husband gave me, last night. I waited until I was more confident that I had no T3s left in my system and, by then, the pain had subsided on its own. I wasn’t about to take such a high dose without genuine need. When my 6 hour alarm went off during the night, when I would normally have taken more T3s, I wasn’t even dealing with a lot of pain in my hip, so I skipped it. In the morning, there was just a dull ache. This time, I took a tramadol instead.

It made no difference.

Aside from my daughter doing the morning routine outside for me, we mostly just took it easy. We did have a planned outing, though. My husband has a birthday this month and my older daughter treated us to his dinner of choice. Normally, that would be pizza, but he can no longer tolerate dairy, even with Lactase, so he chose Chinese food, instead. With this, we typically order just a lot of meat and seafood, with my husband also getting some chicken fried rice. We order enough to last us a couple of days, at least, which got us some free rice and deep fried wontons, and we prefer to do our own vegetables at home. This time, my older daughter baked the last of the bush beans and summer squash we had in the fridge, which was quite delicious.

My younger daughter and I headed out shortly before 1, to miss the lunch rush and to pick up a 40 pound bag of kibble on the way out. We both were thinking today was Tuesday, though. It’s Wednesday, which means the general store closed at noon. We’ll have to go tomorrow, instead. Which is fine.

When we got to the area around the restaurant, we had to drive around the block a couple of times trying to find parking. There was nothing nearby at all, and we ended up parking closer to the marina. I wasn’t even sure it that area was public parking, or parking for boat owners.

By this point, I was having trouble walking, but still well enough that I turned down a cane when my daughter offered to get one out of our collection in the back of the truck for me. We placed the order and paid for it, then set a pick up time long enough for us to make a side trip to the grocery store. We wanted to pick up drinks for everyone, but ended up getting a Boston Creme cake that was on sale, even though there is still a bit of the Costco slab cake left. I noticed some good sales on grapes and a few other things, so my daughter and I also picked what we needed to have a small charcuterie later on, to go with the new cheeses we got in the city. By the time the groceries were paid for, I was relying on the cart to use as a walker.

When we got back to the restaurant, there still wasn’t any parking nearby, so I dropped my daughter off by the door then pulled over in the lane around the corner. After she got back with the food, I had to ask her to do the driving. My alarm had gone off for my afternoon T3 dose just as we returned to the truck after ordering the food, but it made no difference. The pain just kept getting worse.

It has since subsided again, and I’m down to a dull ache. Tomorrow, my Percocet gets delivered. I’m really hoping that works better than the T3s. If it doesn’t, then I’ll probably end up with my own prescription for hydromorphone – just not as high a dose as what my husband is getting!

After we enjoyed our first day of birthday take out, I felt well enough to go outside and do the cat feeding. I even watered the south garden beds, though I wasn’t up to doing the main garden area, too. After a couple of hours, I went out again to top up the kittens’ bowl of kibble softened with cat milk in the catio, since other critters have been stealing their food. Then I set up the camp chair and started fishing for kittens.

The little black one with the white stripe up the side of its nose is more enthusiastic about it. One of the tabbies got curious and started coming over, but not close. The other kittens were much more interested in playing among the white lilacs.

The Grink wasn’t interested this time, but Sweetie sure was! At one point, she was stalking the lure at the same time as the kitten, but she does not like the kittens at all. Without the distraction of the lure, she growls and spits at them, and I’ve even seen her bat at them.

I did manage to get the little black one close enough that I could reach down and touch its back, but it did not like that, so I didn’t push my luck with it.

Then my alarm went off for my evening meds, so I headed back inside.

Tomorrow and the day after, there are people from the rescue available to meet up with us, so I’ve talked to my daughter about working on getting kittens closed up into the carrier. That will mean heading out fairly often to see if they’ve gone in, and maybe setting some treats out as bait. Hard to do that and keep the other cats away, though. Thankfully, the rescue have us quite a lot of donated treats, including some just for kittens, so we could probably set out some for the bigger cats as a distraction, then put the kitten treats out for the little ones.

I pray for quick success on this! With their mother gone, there’s only so much we can do to protect them. We really need to get them in to the rescue for fostering and adoption! Otherwise, their chances of survival are very low. At this point, it even looks like Sprout and Sprig, the two calicos, are gone! Sprout had Sprig last year, along with two others that disappeared. The older white and grey that we are also trying to catch is Sprout’s from this year, and I am sure she actually had more than one kitten.

We have had so many adult cats disappear this year. We would expect that with some of the males disappearing for the summer, then coming back for the winter, but these are mostly females that have disappeared. At least a couple that I’m sure had a litter somewhere. Among the others, both fixed and intact cats have disappeared. The person at the rescue whose daughter had been fostering Domino is pretty devastated that they brought her back, and now she’s gone.

Such is the reality of yard cats.

I say as I hear the sounds of cats fighting outside my window!!!

Excuse me while I go check on that.

The Re-Farmer

A quiet day at home

My daughter and I didn’t have to go anywhere today, which turned out to be a good thing. We were both pretty wasted.

My daughter had done out to do the morning cat feeding, but was feeling quite terrible, so she ended up going back to bed to try and get some sleep. She told me she’d had nightmares for some reason, and got little sleep. !!!

While my doctor has not officially put me on bed rest, I did try to take it easy.

It didn’t make a difference.

As the day wore on, the pain returned even though I’d done nothing that might trigger it. I tried lying down again and it just kept getting worse.

I did eventually give and and went outside to do the evening cat feeding and switch out the memory cards. I do that every week or two instead of daily, now. As I went by the crab apples to get to the sign came, I made a discovery.

We lost another tree to yesterday’s high winds. Another dead spruce. This one looks like we can actually salvage it to use in raised beds. The last one that fell in this area – falling right on a crab apple tree – the trunk split down its length, so not something I want to use longer lengths of. This one seems pretty intact.

By the time I was done switching out the memory cards and walking through the garden beds, I was at my limit. I ended up setting a camp chair near the catio with the cat toy fishing rod. All the kittens were in the junk pile. I messaged my daughters and let them know the status of things, and they later came out to water the garden for me and take care of a few other things.

I had significant success with one kitten in particular.

The Grink and Sweetie made things difficult, as they were very interested in catching the worm, even if it meant going right through a kitten. After a while, though, they tired out enough that the kittens had a chance. The black one with the white line on the side of its nose came close enough that I was able to pet it and almost picked it up.

The tabby in the last picture of the above slide show is another braver one. My younger daughter sat in the chair to play with them before they came in and that one went under the chair – and she was able to pick it up and put it on her lap!!

None of them were going into the catio, though. The kittens that weren’t interested in the toy were busy playing in the junk pile, along with the older white and grey singleton.

So, no chance of catching them today, but progress on the socialization front.

Meanwhile, my pain levels are still increasing. I think today, I’m gong to skip the evening T3s, wait a couple of hours and try the hydromorphone. I forgot to call the pharmacy to see if the fax with my new Percocet prescription came in. I’ll have to do that tomorrow.

It I weren’t planning to wait to get the T3s completely out of my system first, I’d be going to bed right now, and it’s not even 7pm yet. I’m having difficulty sitting upright in my chair.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer