I am so NOT a morning person

May 14, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Not that I’ve got much choice. If it isn’t the morning light, it’s the cats suddenly going bonkers at 5am, expecting me to top of their kibble. Even if there is still plenty of food!

Of course, today, I had to get my morning rounds done earlier, since I needed to be at my mother’s before 8am.

After a daughter and I fed the cats (Poirot stayed in the carrier with her kittens all night, and did not leave while we were putting food out!), I did my usual garden bed checks while on my way to the trail cams.

Alas. It begins.

The Chinese elms are starting to drop their seeds.

This is while they’re still green, too.

Over the next while, there were be more and, when they get to their dry stage, they’ll be falling by the millions.

The netting on this bed will protect it, to a certain extent. Unfortunately, the cats keep managing to slide the netting on the wire hoops, bending them flat, getting inside and so on. So seeds are still getting inside. It won’t be so bad as to smother everything planted in there, at least.

No, that cats are busy doing that, instead.

I had spotted one pea sprouting a while back, and it’s gone. There are some possible beans sprouting, and I’ve spotted some onions sprouting. Plus weeds, of course. While the netting has stopped the cats from using the bed as a litter box, or just digging around because they like to dig, they still either lie on top of the netting, get under the netting, and generally just crush everything in that bed. They really, really like this garden bed, and I don’t know why!

Speaking of cats…

That tabby has all sorts of attention – including from a cat that ran off when I paused to see what was going on. The tabby had caught a bird, and the others were looking quite eager to steal its breakfast!

I’m seeing a lot fewer cats these days. This morning, I counted “only” 16 or 17 adult cats, and I may have double counted a couple

Once everything was taken care of outside, I headed to my mother’s early enough to stop for gas first. She was up and about, making herself breakfast when I got there. This included some of the instant oatmeal I’d bought for her a while back. I ended up sitting in an armchair, basically behind where she sits at her dining table in her very tiny apartment (my bedroom is probably bigger than her entire apartment), with just a half-wall between us. Mostly because I needed to close my eyes for a while, but I was also in pain, and needed the more comfortable chair. I didn’t take my T3s this morning, which can cause drowsiness and dizziness, since I was going to be driving, and just took some extra strength Tylenol. I was already tired, so taking a pain killer that could cause drowsiness didn’t seem like a good idea.

I was quickly reminded of something. My mother isn’t very good at following instructions.

I’ve shown her how to make the instant oatmeal, but she skipped over an important part. Letting it sit for about 5 minutes to absorb the liquid. She basically just started eating it right away, like it was some kind of soup.

My mother has never been a quiet eater. Now that she has had a tooth pulled, but refuses to have her dentures adjusted to fill the space, it’s gotten even worse. Thankfully, she was behind me and I couldn’t see what she was doing, because the sounds alone were making feel absolutely ill. I’m not normally bothered too much by stuff like that, but it was really bad today!

Thankfully, she was done rather quickly, and had a chance to chat about the upcoming call from her doctor. I knew it would be about the results of her blood tests, and she could ask related questions, but anything else would require a separate appointment. She started saying that she wanted the doctor to get her into a nursing home. I tried to explain to her that the doctor has already done as much as she could; she got the ball rolling, my mother got the Xrays and EKG readings they required, and then it goes to home care. I told her again about how the case coordinator and I went through all the panel questions again, to update information on how much more difficult things are getting for her. My mother thinks that a doctor can basically just order her into a nursing home, but it’s the home care department that makes the decisions but, even if she’s approved, if there’s no space, she basically has to wait until enough people die to free up beds, and even then, the spaces go to those are are considered in the worst condition. We’ve all explained this to her, many times by now. The problem isn’t that she doesn’t understand it. She simply refuses to accept it. I ended up telling her that this is because she’s doing it through the health care system. There are privately run nursing homes that she could go through, but she’d be paying a lot more (even through the system, nursing home residents are charged “rent”, based on their income, just like where she lives now). Then she started complaining that the home care worker wasn’t there yet, even though it was barely past 8am. I commented that she’d told me they come closer to 9am. Oh, sometimes they come at 8… they come at all times.

At which point I realized that the time the “usually come” is the time she notices it is, and that they should be there is when she wants them to be there. Nothing to do with schedules or having to go to other homes.

Which got her talking again about how there should only be the same two people coming to do her med assist, not so many. I told her again, this is how the system works. It’s how they have to do it. Otherwise, she would have to hire a private home care company and pay for it out of pocket.

Which actually caught her attention.

We didn’t get far into the conversation, though, as the phone rang.

It was the clinic, but the doctor’s assistant, not the doctor. We’ve spoken with him before.

I put it on speaker phone so my mother could hear, but the volume was a bit low, and the guy had a strong accent. My mother’s response was basically to start yelling at him to speak louder. I manage to get her to stop, tried to turn the volume up, and explain to the guy that she couldn’t hear him, all at the same time.

There wasn’t a lot for him to tell use. Her test results hover around the same ranges, with minimal fluctuation. My mother really seems to want to be diagnosed diabetic, though. She keeps asking about her blood sugars, which were on the high side of normal this time – barely. He basically just said, eat less carbs. It’s not an issue. Her kidney function was also fine, which is the monthly test she’s been doing since leaving the hospital, back in March.

Before the call ended, I asked if my mother had any questions, and the launched into saying, she wanted the doctor to put her into a nursing home.

*sigh*

We both responded with basically the same thing; the doctor can’t do anything about that. She’s done as much as she can.

After the call ended, I went over my notes with her and explained things. She’s understandably frustrated in that she couldn’t make out much of what he said, but that’s why I’m there for these calls. Then she said, “so… the doctor didn’t even want to talk to me…”

*sigh*

When it came to explaining about reducing carbs – and what carbs are – it got more difficult. My mother makes a big deal about how she avoids sugar, which she doesn’t really. As she understands it, it’s all about avoiding white table sugar, and “sweet things”. I tried to explain to her that bread is “sugar”. Pasta is “sugar”. etc. He’d said something about eating more vegetables that I brought up, and she perked up saying “and fruit!” I had to tell her, no, fruit is basically just sugar.

I finally started looking up lists of low carb vegetables for her, then wrote out the ones that she knows and likes, dropping off the ones she wouldn’t eat (partly because they were unfamiliar to her, or aren’t available locally, but also because she doesn’t know what a lot of them are) and those she shouldn’t eat, because of her acid reflux.

What the doctor doesn’t know when it comes to my mother’s diet is that she has stopped eating meat almost entirely, because she has decided it’s bad for her (the TV told her so…) and the bulk of her diet is bread and milk. So I looked up and made another list of low carb foods aside from the vegetables list.

She wanted me to write out a list of things she should NOT be eating, and I told her it would be too long. Instead, I looked up a list of high carb foods and read it out to her.

Not that is will make much difference. And really, at her age, there are far bigger things to be concerned about!

While talking about meats, though, she suddenly told me to take the whole chicken I’d bought with her groceries, take it home and cook it for ourselves. That chicken was pretty much the only meat she had.

After a few questions, it came down to, she couldn’t cook it. She doesn’t know how to use the oven on her stove, so she can’t just roast the whole thing, and she can’t physically stand to process and cook it on the stove top.

I offered to butcher it for her, which she agreed to.

I started off by clearing and preparing the space to work in, including doing a few dishes, then cleaning the sink itself to wash the chicken in. Of course, my mother started giving me step by step instructions on what I should be doing. She suggested using a stainless steal bowl I didn’t know she had, for washing the chicken. So that worked out – except I was apparently supposed to wash the bird after it was cut up, not before.

Then I discovered my mother does not have a proper knife.

She directed me to her one larger knife to use, and it was some sort of bread knife with different sizes of serration. I did try to use it, but it was just tearing the bird apart, so I looked around some more. She told me she had this really good knife that she got at the second hand store, and that turned out to be a cheap steak knife.

I ended up using a paring knife.

Apparently, I still wasn’t going it right, so my mother came over to the sink, got the water running – hot water! – and started tearing the chicken still in the bowl apart with her bare hands, splashing chicken juices everywhere. After tossing a chunk of tail and spine into a frying pan, she started saying that the wings are small, so they could be quickly cooked right away, and she then tried to tear the chicken apart more. I tried to tell her to sit down – the whole point of me doing this was because she couldn’t stand at the counter for fear of falling! – but she ignored me.

Thankfully, the home care worker for her morning med assist arrived just then!

I had to remind my mother to wash her hands of raw chicken, with soap, before getting her meds, and once she was with the home care worker and getting her medications, I was able to finish butchering the chicken.

That left me with a carcass I didn’t want to waste, so I found a small pot in her oven (she stores her pots and pans in the oven, since she never uses it) and got a stock going, using up some older vegetables I found in her fridge to clear out. I was a bit perplexed when I asked where her salt was, and found a small lidded bowl with salt that had dark flecks in it. It turns out that any take out packets of salt and pepper she found herself with, she would empty them into her salt bowl. So it was a mix of salt and pepper! I found some dry herbs and she directed me to her very last garlic clove, which was stored in a drawer with her larger knives, and spare envelopes.

…

My mother seemed surprised by what I was doing. I don’t think she’s ever made a chicken stock on its own before.

Once that was going, implements washed and the splashed raw chicken mess all cleaned up, I started frying up the pieces of chicken in batches. When those were done, I set them aside in a container to cool, then deglazed the pan and added that to the stock, which was getting close to done by then. I had enough time to clean up again, then take out her garbage, then clean up again…

When the stock was ready and I fished out the large pieces to remove any of the meat that was left on the bones (there was next to none), my mother gave me a hard time for throwing it out instead of taking it home to the cats. I reminded her that onions are bad for cats, but she said they’d be fine.

…

The stock got drained to a smaller pot and set aside with the cooked chicken to cool and everything got cleaned up again before I could finally sit down for a few minutes. My mother actually seemed eager to use the stock – even just to drink straight!

Which was the closest I got to seeing any sort of appreciation, really, but that’s fine. I don’t expect that from her. I could tell she was happy with it because she wasn’t giving me a hard time for doing everything wrong. 😄😂

Once everything was done, I finally got to sit and rest for a bit (my painkillers had worn off for some time by then!) and we got to chat. I mentioned that the store our post office is in closes at noon, so I’d have to leave in a bit, but I did still have some time to visit.

When it was time for me to do, she was looking at the clock and saying “it’s not noon yet!”

I actually had to explain to her that them closing at noon meant I had to be there BEFORE noon – and I had driving time to consider, too!

😄

It’s a good thing I did, too, as my daughter had a parcel to pick up. I also picked up a few packets of flower seeds, since it looks like none of the flowers we planted in the fall have survived the spring.

I still got home before noon!

It was all I could do not to go straight to bed!

Today has been a much more pleasant day outside – feeling almost cold, after the heat of the past two days. We’re apparently having rain and thunderstorms right now, too.

~ looks out the window at the clear sky ~

I don’t think I’ll be able to get anything done in the garden beds today, though. We’ll see what the evening brings. I’m just glad to be home.

The Re-Farmer

Everything is all right

November 20, 2024 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Well, I’m happy to say that my daughter’s visit to the doctor today went well, and it’s nothing serious. The dizziness was caused by her inner ear.

She also had high blood pressure, though once I heard her numbers, I think it is likely to be “white coat syndrome”. She got a prescription, but we won’t be able to fill it for a while. Once we got home, my husband called the pharmacy to ask how much it was, as our daughters are not covered by his insurance. They couldn’t say, exactly, because it’s currently unavailable, and they don’t know when it will be available again. Still, the approximate cost they were able to give us is well within our prescription budget.

Since we were a walk in, my daughter was seen in between appointments, so we ended up waiting about 2 1/2 hours, give or take a few minutes. We did get to see a new doctor we’d heard excellent reviews for, who also happens to be open for new patients. I’d had it suggested that we switch my mother to this new doctor, since she doesn’t like her current one, because she’s black, female and has a strong accent. I’ve advised against switching doctors because she’s in the middle of trying to get into long term care or assisted living, and changing doctors would set things back.

It turns out, my mother wouldn’t like this doctor, anyhow. She’s black, female and has a strong accent. It just happens to be a British accent instead of a Nigerian one. 😄😄

My daughter, however, really likes her. She listened to what my daughter had to say, didn’t jump to conclusions or make assumptions, and actually took her seriously. After examining her to try and find a cause of the dizziness, which involved sitting my daughter on the edge of the examination table, then flinging her down onto her side abruptly, it was determined that it’s an inner ear problem. My daughter was written up for blood work, and there’s a lab just down the hall from the clinic, so that got done as soon as we booked a follow up appointment in two weeks. This will be to both get the test results and for an official “meet and greet”, so that this doctor will officially be my daughter’s doctor.

In two weeks, I’ve got an appointment for another field of vision test. The eye clinic is just a few blocks away from the medical clinic, and my appointment is in the afternoon. My daughter has to come along to drive me home, since my eyes will be dilated – hopefully, her dizziness will not be an issue by then! So we booked for the same morning.

Unfortunately, the only morning appointment they had was at 8:45. Which means we need to be on the road by at least 7:30, if not earlier. It’ll be a long day, but I don’t mind. My daughter and I can hang out together and have a lunch date in between appointments.

The town we had to go to is most of the way to the small city with the Walmart we go to, in between the big city shopping trips. My daughter felt well enough to go there, instead of figuring out where to find cheap kibble in the town we were in. As we were driving, she read from the printouts she got, which was much funnier than they probably intended.

The short version:

What is the cause? It could be this, it could be that, or it could be nothing at all. We don’t know.

What is the treatment? do this exercise that involves sitting on the side of the bed, then flinging yourself bodily down onto your side abruptly, several times. Repeat the process three times a day.

Why does this treatment work? we have no idea. It just does.

We found that incredibly funny. Especially the “exercise” instructions.

When we got to the Walmart, my daughter stayed in the truck while I did the shopping, as she got more dizzy spells along the way. We didn’t need much, so it wasn’t long before we were on our way home again.

During the drive home, though, we got a message from my husband. He found broken glass on the floor in my office/bedroom, where there is food for the cats. It turned out that the cats had knocked over a glass jar I had on my window sill, filled with pretty beach rocks. Thankfully, the glass broke but didn’t shatter into a million pieces, like some types of glass does. Still, the cat food in the tray had to be thrown out, and I’m probably going to be finding beach rocks on my floor for days!

Meanwhile, tomorrow, I am off again to take my mother for her eye treatment. I called and left a message for her, and she just called back. She didn’t try to get out of it at all, which was good.

What was not good was finding out she had visitors. Our vandal and his wife. Apparently, he’s still getting chemo or something. He behaves when his wife is with him, but after hearing the message he left at my brother’s cell number, she seems to finally understand that when there are other people around, it’s the “nice” him, but those phone calls are the real him.

She still can’t bring herself to tell him to not come around anymore. She told me she tried to recommend he was a religious program she enjoys every morning, and talk to him about turning to God. Apparently, he has some pretty nasty things to say about the show she watches, even with his wife there, so she was not happy.

I do hope the process for getting my mother into long term care or assisted living happens soon. The faster she can move out of where she is, the sooner we can make sure he can’t show up at her place anymore. Hopefully, we can even keep him from finding out where she ended up living but, if nothing else, we’d be able to tell the staff that he’s not allowed to see her for security reasons.

I so wish we didn’t have to do this. We used to be so close. The person he used to be, however, is gone.

Mental illness can be very cruel. Especially if it’s a type where a person can hide it and be “normal”, even from their own spouses.

It is what it is, though. We can only work with the hand we’re dealt with.

As for tomorrow, my mother and I have worked out our schedule, and what time we have to be on the road for. The high for tomorrow is supposed to be below freezing, but no rain or snow, so the roads should be clear.

It’s going to be a long day away from home, though.

I’ll have to remind my family to keep checking my office/bedroom to make sure the cats aren’t destroying it while I’m gone!

🫤🫤

The Re-Farmer

Change of plans

November 20, 2024November 20, 2024 / Re-Farmer / 10 Comments

My daughter came to me last night with some concerns over strange and severe dizzy spells.

Of course, my plans got changed.

We are now sitting at the nearest walk in clinic, a 45 minute drive away. We’ve been waiting for almost anout 1 1/2 hours, now.

On the plus side, the doctor she will be seeing is accepting new patients. Depending on how things go, she may later book an official meet and greet appointment. I’ve heard good things about this doctor.

I still need to pick up more kibble and a few groceries. Where we do that will depend on how things go here, and how my daughter is feeling.

I’m just really glad the weather and road conditions are good. Other parts of the province got hit with a storm white out conditions, still ongoing this morning. We are currently clear, and the highways are dry.

We shall see how the day goes!

The Re-Farmer

A pretty good day

October 18, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I didn’t get as much done today as I’d hoped, but I got the important stuff done, and that’s what matters.

As usual, my day started with feeding the outside cats before doing my morning rounds. Since I was going to be helping my mother with errands today, my rounds included making sure things were set up in the truck for the day. By the time I was done my rounds, the cats had polished off all the warm, softened kibble they now get in the mornings, and were starting to settle into their cuddle puddles!

Like this one, near the heat lamp. Not directly under it – I expect to see more of that when things get really cold! – but close.

There is one adult cat in this pile.

That old feed bag, which is stuffed with packing material, had been on the nearby shelf for them to use as a bed while looking out the window, but it kept getting knocked down, so we’ve just left it. They quite like it there. Underneath is mostly bare concrete.

Since my mother was getting her Meals on Wheels delivery today, I didn’t have to leave as early as I usually do, and had my own lunch early.

I still got there early enough for us to have a bit of a visit before her Meals on Wheels was delivered. As we were talking, she showed me this.

If you click through to the next image, you’ll see the other side.

My mother had been going through her things, trying to figure out what to get rid of and what to keep, when she found it.

She told me that when she was in the hospital, in labour with me, there was a nun who visited and prayed with her. After I was born and my mother was ready to go home, she held me while my mother got into the car, then put me in her arms.

No car seats, or even seat belts, back then! 😄

This nun had also given my mother this… Hmmm… I don’t know what it’s called. Not a medallion, of course, but a laminated paper version of a medallion.

Now, she wanted me to have it!

I gratefully accepted it. What a connection to my own birth! I now have it in my wallet, under one of the plastic windows, so I can see it. I’m amazed she managed to hang on to something so small, all these decades!

Soon after, my mother’s Meals on Wheels arrived. She is so very happy with these meals. Today, it was salmon with mushroom rice, cooked broccoli with other vegetables I couldn’t make out, and cream of potato soup. There was a packet of tartar sauce for the salmon and soy sauce for the rice. For desert, there was a cube of bright green Jello, with what I think was pineapple in it. She quite enthusiastically enjoyed her meal!

After she was done and we were having tea together, I asked about her shopping list and got a bit of a surprise.

She didn’t need a grocery shopping trip anymore.

Yesterday was a nice day, and she decided to go ahead an walk to the grocery store. It’s just a couple of blocks, but she insists on taking the “short cut” through the empty lot – almost a field – between her building and the street the grocery store is on. I just shake my head that she insists on doing this, because it’s “shorter”. For starters, it’s not level and doesn’t get mowed regularly, so it would be rough to go over with her walker. She would also have to go around some fences and a building to get to it. In reality, the “shorter” path probably isn’t saving her anything. My concern is that it increases her chances of falling, but she insists that her “helper” (her walker) will prevent that.

Plus, it’s trespassing, but I don’t think anyone cares. As I understand it, the owner lives in the city and doesn’t even come out to mow it. The town does it every now and then, then bills the owner for it.

When she got to the grocery store, who should she run into?

Our vandal and his wife.

*sigh*

At least his wife was with him!

Long story short, they offered to bring her stuff home for her – it was too late in the day for the grocery store to do a delivery – so she was able to do a larger shopping trip. I don’t know which of their many vehicles they had, but when the time came, they didn’t have room for her walker, so our vandal drove her home with the groceries while his wife walked the walker over.

One thing my mother noted: his wife has never, ever, said anything negative about me or my brother. I told my mom, I don’t think his wife has any idea what our vandal is still doing. He certainly wouldn’t have left a voice mail message like the one he recently left on my brother’s phone, if his wife were around to hear him say those horrible things.

So my mother got her grocery shopping done, and didn’t need me to do it today. I only wish she understand that, while his wife may be genuine, our vandal doesn’t do stuff like this out of the kindness of his heart. It seems, no matter how bad he gets, my mother will always make excuses for him. But my brother, who has never been anything but kind and helpful to her, has pulled her butt out of the fire many times out of the years, and takes such good care of, she treats like crap.

How does that make sense?

Anyhow.

She did still need to go to the bank, plus she needed to get her prescriptions and a couple of things at the pharmacy. While she setting up to leave, I went out to get her walker ready; she keeps it parked outside her door, under a tiny corner shelf that all the apartments have. Like most people living there, she has a little display set up on it. Usually, religious in nature.

That’s when I saw something unfortunate.

Part of her display was a small card with a picture of a famous painting of Jesus on it.

It was torn in half.

My first thought was, our vandal did it as he left. One of the things he constantly has said to her, since my late brother died and more so after my father died, is that she will never go to heaven to be with her husband and her son, because she didn’t leave this property to him, like they would have wanted (which they most certainly did NOT want). Knowing she is deeply religious, he would often invoke God in some way in the many abusive messages he left on her answering machine until my brother finally got his number blocked.

When I brought it in to show my mother, though, she told me it was done by one of her neighbours. ??

My mother is not happy with some of the “homeless people” and “aboriginals” that have recently moved into her building. Apparently, one of them has behavioral issues, and tearing up my mother’s picture of Jesus would be something she would do.

My mother didn’t actually see it done, though, so who knows. My mother used to have a card with her name above the peep hole on her door that disappeared, and she thinks the same person did it. Unfortunately, my mother has a bad habit of accusing people of things, with no actual evidence for it, so there’s no way to know what actually happened.

She then asked me to put the pieces back outside her door, so others could see the sort of things this person (or whoever it was) will do.

*sigh*

Anyhow.

We were soon on our way out and on our way. My mother really struggled to get up in the truck but, my goodness, she manages! When we got this truck, I thought for sure she would never be able to get into it, yet there she is!

Even so, she was only up to going into the bank. Once at the pharmacy, she stayed in the truck while I went in to get her prescription and other items. Once I knew, more or less, how much it would be, I went to the truck for her loyalty card and cash, then went back in to pay for her items.

The staff at the pharmacy are quite familiar with my shopping for my mother by now. 😄

That done, I took my mother home. She told me she would have wanted to go somewhere else, like to a restaurant, just for a change of scenery, but didn’t want to be getting in and out of the truck any more than she had to.

She was pretty tired by then, anyhow, so I didn’t stay too much longer.

I remembered to grab the extra plumbing parts and pieces my daughter didn’t need to use when working on the bathroom taps, so after a quick stop at the feed store to get a 40 pound bag of kibble, I headed to the two store we got the parts from to return them. The one in the town nearest us is also near our usual grocery store, so I made a quick stop there. From there, it was a quick stop at the post office, then finally, home.

Where I found this to greet me as I headed to the house.

They were more than eager for their evening feeding, and prowling like ravenous lions! 😄

I took care of that as soon as I could. 😊

One of the things in the mail was something from the hospital my husband is supposed to get a sleep test done in. He is looking to switch from a CPAP to a BiPAP. His CPAP is due to be replaced. It is 90% covered by insurance, but that is done by paying for it first, then submitting the receipt. For the price of a CPAP, we could have hired a plumber to fix the taps and replace the hot water tank with a new one, and still had money left over. Plus, he’s having a hard time getting replacement hoses. Our province covers the cost of a BiPAP, though. To get one, he has to be reassessed, and that’s why he’s been referred to this hospital.

What he got in the mail was their questionnaire about his health history. Which was fine until he got to the end when, as he put it, he almost cried.

They wanted a list of his medications, and doses.

He cheated.

He cut off the list that’s on his bubble packs to put in with the form, and wrote “see attached”. Then he just had to add the “take as needed” medications, and his injections, to the list.

Tomorrow is Saturday and our post office is closed, but I’ll still make sure to get it in the mail box right away.

The next thing he’ll get is a telephone appointment. We’ll see if they need him to actually come in to do a sleep test or not. When he was first diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea, we were living in this province, and there was an actual sleep research lab at the same hospital that now has the provinces cardiac clinic. I don’t think there is a sleep research lab anymore, and it looks like they no longer have people actually spending the night in the lab, hooked up to various monitors, while two technicians observed all night. When my mother was tested for sleep apnea, my SIL picked up the test machine in the city and I met her part way to get it. When my mother was ready to go to bed, I brought it over and helped her put on the hoses and heart monitors. I then came back in the morning to get the machine and delivered it to a Medigas office in the city for data analysis.

Which is more or less what I expect will happen with my husband, this time around.

Hopefully, this will all get processed fairly quickly. I think a BiPAP would be better for my husband. They weren’t available when my husband was first diagnosed.

So I didn’t end up getting anything done outside, like I’d hoped, but that’s okay. The important things got done, so that makes it a good day!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: a morning harvest, plus another long day!

September 27, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I had a long day taking my mother to her specialist appointment in the city yesterday, and now another long day with her today. I did have time to do some of my morning rounds, though, and was able to gather a good sized harvest!

In the giant colander, there are a good number of Chocolate Cherry tomatoes from by the chain link fence. I also picked a few green Seychelle beans from the bed shared with the Crespo squash, and I even found a few on the one plant next to the purple Carminat pole beans. There are even some Royal Burgundy bush beans in there.

I found a melon lying on the ground in the raised bed – it harvested itself! 😄 There are a couple of yellow peppers, plus a Sweet Chocolate. Some of the peppers that are supposed to be more orange are finally starting to turn colour. There’s a single G Star pattypan squash, plus a few San Marzano tomatoes.

When it came time to go into the old kitchen garden, I knew there would be quite a bit, so I grabbed the bin. Those are all Forme de Couer and Black Cherry tomatoes in there.

Including a rude looking tomato! Click over to the next photo to see what I mean. 😄

After that, I left things to my daughters and headed out to my mother’s.

Long story short: her apartment finally got sprayed for bed bugs. There were no sign of any, so they will have to come back only one more time. Her neighbour got sprayed, too. I get the impression that apartment has been the main source of the problem in the building.

My mother then had to stay out of her apartment for 6 hours. Technically, she should stay out for 12 hours, as she has respiratory issues, but she refuses.

The neighbor says they only need to stay out for 4 hours, but I have no idea where she got that from. The notification letter they all get says the same thing. At least 6 hours.

We made sure to take along my mother’s supper time medications, as well as the information sheets the eye clinic gave her, yesterday, to go over. While we were waiting for the exterminator to arrive, I did go through some with her. I took the grid eye test, which is a flat magnetic sheet, and put it on her fridge. The grid has a black dot in the middle that is supposed to be focused on. I spent some time explaining the test to her, how to do it, and that she should be checking her left eye with it, every day. I even held it for her while she did the test, as instructed.

While explaining the grid test to her, how to take the test, what she’s looking for, I was saying, your left eye this, your left eye that, with your left eye…

Yet she still stopped at one point and said, “with my right eye, then…”

…

No. Your right eye can’t even see the dot in the grid. It’s for your left eye.

It’s going to take a while for it to stick, I think!

We had a nice chat with the manager while her apartment was being sprayed – she parker her walker across from her door and would not move until the exterminator left.

Then we had to find something to do or somewhere to go for six hours.

I was going to move the truck into the loading zone in front of the doors, to make it safer for my mother to get in, but the exterminator’s truck was in there, and he was chatting with the manager. When I got there, I did apologize for my mother’s behaviour over all this.

She is still utterly convinced the exterminator rifled through her closet to find and steal 70+ year old passports. In fact, at one point when it came up in conversation, she started saying, “maybe I should call the police?” When I said no, she said I was accusing her of lying. I told her, I didn’t think she was lying, but that she probably just put them somewhere and forgot where. When she moves, she’ll probably find them again. Her response was that I was “against” her.

*sigh*

Anyhow…

It was a good thing I caught up with them, because the manager remembered to ask if my mother’s bed had mattress covers. She doesn’t, and the exterminator said she needs two – one for the mattress, one for the box spring. Then he remembered he might have one and checked in his truck. He did have one and gave it to me for my mother’s mattress. We’ll still need one for the box spring.

Then I mentioned I needed to move my truck so my mother could get in, and we said our goodbyes.

By this time, though, my mother had come out and was sitting in her walker, watching us suspiciously. She called me over before I moved the truck and started asking me questions… why was the exterminator still there? Why was the manager sitting in his truck? etc.

Oh, gosh. I just realized what she was getting at.

She thought they were waiting for her to leave, so the manager could use his master key to get into her apartment, so they could steal things.

*sigh*

Anyhow.

We got her into the truck and then headed out for lunch. There was one place she wanted to go to, because someone new bought it and she wanted to see how it was, now that it wasn’t “browny” people that owned it (it had been owned by a Korean family). *sigh* The place was still being worked on, on the inside, but when she saw the worker’s vehicles in the parking lot, she thought it was open and wanted me to go inside and check. I had to tell her, no, you can’t just walk into a construction zone!

So we went to a chicken and pizza restaurant.

She ended up ordering a vegetable pizza this time, which I normally would not have thought much of, except that my mother is once again deciding that the reason she’s having trouble with her eyes is because of food, and so she needs to eat more vegetables and green things.

There is no known cause for macular degeneration, and there is no food she can eat or not eat that will make any difference. But she heard something somewhere – maybe last week, maybe last month, maybe 30 years ago – and just latches on to things.

We’re going to have to watch her on that, because she’s going to start causing malnutrition in herself if we don’t.

I had something else, so she had a small pizza to herself, with some left over that was packed up for later. We took our time eating, though – we did have 6 hours to kill! – then went across the street to a little department store she wanted to check out, while she was out and about. I helped her get across the street, then moved the truck to park by the store, so she wouldn’t have to cross the street again. The nice thing about that was that I was able to pull up really close to the curb – and that extra height made it downright easy for her to get into the truck when she was done!

We then both went in and did a bit of shopping.

There’s only so long we could drag that out, though.

There was nowhere else she wanted to go, and there is nowhere in this town where one can just hang out. We even tried driving around parts of town we’ve never gone into before, but there wasn’t a whole lot of that, either. 😄

We managed to use up about 2-3 hours before finally just going back to her building and sitting in the common room. No one else was around, so we brought out the information the eye clinic gave her and I went over it with her. Most of it, the doctor had already explained to her really well.

It didn’t take long to go through it all.

I was completely prepared to stay with my mother until 7pm, but she told me that I could go home. She was really tired and was going to just sit and close her eyes for a while. She had her leftovers for supper, and I’d added a bottle of orange juice I’d gotten with her meal on the way home from the city yesterday, that got forgotten in the truck, so she was prepared for taking her medication with her supper while in the common room.

So I headed home.

When I got home, my younger daughter was adding more supports to the tomatoes at the chain link fence that yesterday’s winds had managed to blow partly over. I ended up helping her with that, then she moved on to start breaking down the tree that the winds blow over and onto a crabapple tree.

I had gone to talk to her when our phones both dinged. My husband had sent a message.

My mother had called and left a message on the answering machine. Something about her keys?

I had completely forgotten.

While digging in her purse at one point, my mother gave me her keys to put in my pocket, so they wouldn’t get lost.

They were still in my pocket!!!

I had dashed into the house to get my purse when the phone range again. It was my mother, trying again – from the number on call display, a neighbour had let her use their phone. I told her, I was leaving right then and there!

When I got there, so was so apologetic about having me drive all the way back again. Meanwhile, I was apologizing for forgetting I had her keys! It was pretty funny!

Enough time had passed that she had eaten her supper and taken her medications. It was still early to get into her apartment, but by less than an hour, so we went in anyway.

I had offered to come back to help her put things back and she had said no, so this actually worked out.

I was able to put the mattress cover on her bed – and found out that they’d given her, and others, mattress covers long ago. She didn’t want me to put it on her bed, and basically scoffed at the fact that they had been given them in the first place.

*sigh*

So, somewhere in her closet, she had 2 more of these. Maybe when my sister next visits my mother, she’ll be ablet to find one and get it onto the box spring.

I made up her bed and put a few things away.

If she didn’t have to wait until the health care aid came to help with her nightly medications, she would have gone to bed right then and there!

I did make sure to set out the little miniature tagine bowl and lid I’d brought for her. She thought it was adorable! This will be a handy container for the health care aide to put her pills into, after removing them from the bubble pack, so they can both easily see that the right number are in there. Plus, my mother can more easily pick up the little bowl to take them, rather than trying to use her hands. Some of her fingers are deformed with arthritis.

The extra trip was good for another reason. I had forgotten to hit a bank machine earlier, to take cash out for the septic guy. We’re almost into October. Time to get the tank emptied for the winter.

We’ll need to contact the septic repair company again, too, and hopefully get a date on when they can come and repair the leaking pipes at the expeller!

I really hope we’re not getting ghosted by this company. We’ve had this happen before with other companies, in the first couple of years after we moved here. I have reason to believe it has something to do with our vandal defaming us, though I have no actual proof. Our vandal has a past history of trying to prevent companies from doing things here at the farm, and even on property in the heart of our little hamlet that my parents used to own. Then, when they tried to sell it, he drove off two potential buyers!

Yes, he felt he was entitled to that property, just like he feels he’s entitled to this property, too.

Of course, it could be this company is just really busy, trying to get jobs done before winter. Unfortunately, with past experience, I can’t help but wonder.

Well, if we don’t hear from them after trying to call them back several times, there is another company we can contact again. They are in a completely different town that our vandal doesn’t really go to, that I know of, so the chances of them having any contact with our vandal is very low.

The main thing is that this gets repaired before the ground freezes.

Thankfully, our system has still been working so far, even if the greywater is all just soaking into the ground, as if we had a septic field instead of an expeller. The leak must be pretty close to the surface for the ground to become saturated like that, so if it doesn’t get repaired, the whole thing will freeze, the greywater will have nowhere to go, and the ice will break the pipes even more.

*sigh*

Tomorrow, I will hopefully not have to go anywhere, except maybe the dump. I don’t know if I dare to to the nearest landfill again, with how bad it has gotten lately (I don’t want another flat tire!), but the next nearest one is also open on Saturdays. I just need to find it.

If all goes well, though, I’ll finally be able to catch up with stuff here at home!

Like prep and freeze a whole lot of bell peppers and melons, and either freeze whole tomatoes, or start another sauce in the Crockpot.

I really look forward to just staying home. 😁

I’m so tired!

The Re-Farmer

Kitty status, and shopping for Mom

August 22, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today, we were expecting another hot day. There was a small potential chance for rain in the morning, but not a lot.

It was also my day to help my mother with her groceries, so was outside, watering the garden, earlier than usual.

It was a rather strange thing to start hearing thunder, and find myself hoping I could finish watering the garden before the rain hit!

I did get the main garden area watered, then emptied the last of the rain barrel to water the old kitchen garden. I did have an adorable surprise with that, though!

I’ve got two watering cans that I fill and bring with me to whatever section I’m working on. As I was reaching down to pick the second watering can up, something was looking at me!

There, clutching the opening of the watering can, was a green tree frog – on the inside of the can!!!

I tried to carefully get it out, but it let go and dropped into the water, instead. So I emptied the can on the wattle weave bed as quickly as I could. I ended up having to turn the can upside down and shaking it to get the frog out! Thankfully, it was none the worse for it, and soon hopped away.

Gosh, tree frogs are so adorable!

The girls, meanwhile, took care of eye baby. Now that we are out of eye drops, and the antibiotics are given in the evening, this just making sure she got fed supplemented cat soup with the modified bottle, then an eye washing before setting her outside.

The bottle feeding can get a bit messy.

We’re using a nipple that is cut back for a wider opening, but the cat soup sometimes still has chunky bits just big enough to block the opening. Which means, every now and then, it spontaneously plugs, then unplugs – all over the kitten! On top of that, once she’s done, she just closes her mouth and turns her face away, and ends up with cat soup all over her face.

When it started raining harder and I had to come inside, I discovered one of the other kittens, cleaning eye baby up!

The other kitten was very enthusiastically grooming that cat soup, out of her fur!

She seemed to be quite content with the attention.

In the other slideshow photos, there’s that little fluffy cat. She is, if I remember correctly, one of the late litter of eight kittens from last year. She is also the one that dropped her litter of kittens all over the yard and abandoned them. I’m really working on trying to get her socialized at least a bit. If we can catch her to get her fixed next month, that would be awesome! So far, she has started to allow me to pet her after I’ve set food out in the kibble house. She prefers to eat there over the other areas we scatter kibble. Outside the kibble house and no food around, though, she still won’t let me near her.

As for the others, I tried to do a head count this morning, counting both adults and kittens. I think I counted 31, but when I counted again, I got 29. Broccoli and her two were not there; I saw them later at the old garden shed. There were a couple of regular adults that weren’t there, either, including Brussel. There is at least one kitten that has gone “missing”. The fluffy orange one that showed up with Baby Hypotenose – the two kittens that Sprout finally brought to the house. I have been seeing Baby Hypotenose a fair bit, but its orange sibling just disappeared. If this is another loss, that would be the last of the orange kittens gone. We have one orange tabby and one orange and white among the younger adult males, plus the Grand Old Lady, Rolando Moon, and that’s it for orange cats. Quite the change from when we first moved here, and almost all the outside cats were orange tabbies!

Since I was out so early this morning, I actually had time for breakfast before I had to leave for my mother’s. I timed it so that I could pick up lunch for us. She likes the dinners that the grocery store sometimes has available, but there were none today. Which I didn’t mind. I was really looking forward to some Chinese food.

They were closed.

They weren’t supposed to be closed. All the signs said they should have been open, and I could see lights on inside, but the door was locked. I ended up going around the back of the motel the restaurant is in and went in through the bar. The lights were on in the dining room, but the kitchen and back areas were all dark. I asked the woman working the bar before leaving, and she had no idea why they weren’t open.

I ended up going to the gas station to get some of their fried chicken and wedges, getting there just as they were bringing out the first batch of chicken for the day.

Which was good – theirs is the best fried chicken! – but I really was looking forward to Chinese food! 😄

Then I had the problem of getting into my mother’s building.

It was locked!

This has happened only once before. The main doors are usually never locked, even overnight. These are also the accessible doors, with the automatic door openers; another reason for those doors to never be locked!

I do have keys but, for some reason, the outside door key have never worked. It almost works – the lock did start to turn, but towards the “lock” position, not the “unlock” position. I have no idea why it doesn’t work. My mother’s own key does sometimes stick, too, but nothing like this! I ended up having to phone my mother to let her know I was at the door closer to her apartment, but couldn’t get in.

So my mother had to toodle over with her walker to let me in. These doors have a tiny vestibule between an unlockable inner door and the always locked from the outside outer door. My mother was able to open the inside door, then had to use her walker to block it open so she could push the bar on the outside door top open it for me. (When coming in from the outside, there is barely enough room in the vestibule for her walker, and for the door to swing open. It still ended up hitting one of her wheels, but she prefers it over using the main doors.)

The alternative would have been to make her walk down the hall and through the lobby to reach the main doors, and still have to fight to open two doors. The inside one, at least, would have opened with the push of a button, but the walk would have been harder on my mother than opening the doors closer to her apartment.

What a pain!

Once inside, I set things up and we had our lunch. While moving things aside, I saw she had a notice of inspection for bedbugs again. She told me, it was just slid under her door this morning. It looks like they will be back on the 28th. I looked up the calendar on my phone to confirm what day that falls on, while she quickly tucked the letter away before I could read the rest!

It falls on the day I’ll be making my first stock up shopping trip to the city.

My mother is not happy about them coming by again. The last time they did, she didn’t get up to let them in because she wasn’t feeling well. She did yell out verbal permission for them to come in, but they would not. She doesn’t quite understand that she risks eviction by constantly finding ways to avoid them! She doesn’t appear to have bedbugs, but if her neighbours do, that can change very quickly, and they are required to check a certain number of times since the last time they sprayed.

Once we had our lunch, we went over her shopping list. There were a few things I needed to clear up. She writes her list in a sort of mix of Polish and English, and her English words are spelled phonetically – in Polish! She then makes little drawings of the things she has on the list, but sometimes that doesn’t make it any clearer! I mean, a sour cream container and a yogurt container are basically the same. 😄

This time, she had flour on her list – it was even spelled correctly in English! – but the doodle was quite clearly and ear of corn. Corn flour? My mother doesn’t use corn flour, but that’s what she called it.

She meant corn meal, which she uses all the time.

I did explain to her that corn meal and corn flour are different things. I don’t think she’ll remember, though, as she’s never seen corn flour, so she doesn’t have any sort of connection to make to help her remember. Not that it’s a problem, but I did want to clarify, based on what she had on her list!

Her list was very short, so I asked a few questions and a few more things were added to it. She had the newest flier, too, so we went over some of the sale items, and talked about possibly substitutions. There was no meat on the list, and the only thing that could be considered a protein was the cheese I ended up adding to her list after going through the flier with her. She insisted that she still had plenty. I am suspicious, though, as she has increasingly tried to blame eating meat or “heavy foods” (she has her own definition of what that is!) on her not feeling well.

At one point, she started telling me that she feels like she’s dying, every night, and had considered getting me to take her to the clinic in the nearby hospital. She’s also becoming obsessed with an appointment with the “new doctor” that’s there, because it conflicted with a home visit appointment she had on the same day. I was the one who cancelled the appointment for her, so I knew that it was not with the new doctor. It was with a nurse practitioner. It was my sister that had taken her in to the clinic, but no one was available to see my mother, so they made this appointment – and forgot about the date. Neither of them seemed to realize that the appointment was with whoever was available, not the new doctor.

I suggested that if she wanted to see a doctor, I could make an appointment with her current one for her. She actually yelled angrily at me, NO! I told her, you’ve got a good doctor, and she laughed and made a comment about the doctor talking to the computer instead of to her. I told her, the doctor was reading what she was looking up on her file. Some people tend to think out loud, or read out loud, as they do that. I was with my mother during her last appointment, and could see that’s what she was doing; as she read through my mother’s file, she would sometimes say parts of it out loud, very quickly. It’s entirely possible the doctor doesn’t even notice that she’s doing it.

When I explained that to her, my mother finally just said, “I’m scared of black people.”

*sigh*

With how hard it is to find a doctor these days – especially when living outside the city – it’s aggravating that she’s allowing her racism to deny herself the health care she’s demanding!

As we talked, I brought up again, she needs a hospital bed, so she can sleep upright.

Which is when she started saying it was her stomach – her digestive system (she literally does not understand what is or isn’t part of her digestive system, or where the organs are located in her body) – that she now thinks is the cause of her troubles, then tried to make connections with eating “heavy food”, like the chicken we just ate…

I asked her, what does that have to do with her breathing? She’s been complaining that she can’t breathe at night, and that’s why she feels like she’s dying. Now, she says it’s her stomach?

I tried to ask more questions, but she changed the subject.

*sigh*

It’s frustrating that she is so all over the place with how she feels, and latch onto things as the “cause” of all her problems, usually because of something she heard on TV, or one of the people in her building saying. But when solutions are offered – like having a hospital bed so she can sleep more upright – she refuses.

Other than this, though, things went smoothly. I worked out what she needed on her list, then did the shopping for her.

Once everything was put away, I stayed a bit longer, but was feeling incredibly sleepy. The overcast skies and rainy weather has that effect on me. I still had to go back to the grocery store for a water jug refill – just one, for now – before going home, too.

Once that was done and I got home, I went for a nap almost right away. It seems I really needed that sleep, too!

As for right now, the skies are clear again and it’s sunny out there, so I’m looking forward to my evening rounds. Meanwhile, as I was writing this, my younger daughter came in to let me know that she was able to harvest the last of the garlic for me! They were getting a bit over due!

For now, they’re laid out on the freezer in the old kitchen. Once the dirt has dried out a bit more, we’ll brush them off, trim them and string them up to hang with the others in the garage.

As for the cat isolation shelter build in the garage, I won’t be doing anything on it today. I’ll see what I can do tomorrow. Mostly, though, I think I’ll have to go through the sheds and garage again, so see what materials I can find to continue the build, until I have the budget to buy the materials I need to finish it.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to find what I need and get this finished soon. I will have to double check with the Cat Lady to see what date she has booked for us, for a spay or neuter (depending on what cat we can catch!). If we end up with a male, we won’t need the isolation shelter, but if we can get that fluffy little cat, or one of the other mamas, that would be idea.

We shall see!

The Re-Farmer

Rough night and new kitten mama identified

August 3, 2024August 3, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I was finally able to connect with my mother last night and, as expected, she needed a grocery shopping trip. So we made plans for that, and I headed to bed early.

I even fell asleep!

Then, in the wee hours of the morning, I rolled over and got hit with a Charlie horse. After much pain and difficulty, I finally managed to reach my phone and send a voice to text message to my daughter, asking for help.

I love technology.

She was able to give me a hand, bring me some ibuprofen, etc., until the cramps finally eased off. When I was finally able to walk, she stayed close while I made my way to the bathroom and back, ready to help me get back into bed if I needed it. Thankfully, I did not, but the muscles kept threatening to cramp up again. I finally got up and made myself something to eat. By the time I was done and able to get back into bed, I slept so hard, I never heard the thunderstorm and heavy rains that swept over us! I didn’t know we’d had a downpour at all until morning. My leg was still unstable, so I asked the girls to do the outside stuff and water the garden, but the garden didn’t need it this morning.

My mother and I had plans to go out for lunch before I did her shopping, so I intended to be there on the early side. While the girls did the outside stuff, I still wanted to check on things before I left, which reminded me to take pictures of the garden beds to show my mother.

One of the first things I saw as I headed out from the sun room were the new kittens – and their mama!

It is now confirmed: their mama is Sprout. I knew she must have had a litter somewhere, but this is the first time we’ve seen her with kittens.

The orange kitten looks so fluffy!

Unfortunately, Sprout is one of the more feral of the yard cats. She is even aggressive to the other cats, snarling, growling and hissing at them if they come too close. That might make it harder to socialize those kittens!

Then, as I was heading to the truck to head to my mother’s, I spotted Brussel’s last kitten.

She and her baby still like to hang out in and around the garage, much like Broccoli and her babies prefer to hang out by the garden shed.

The visit with my mother went okay. When I got there, she told me she was not up to going out to eat, so she’d made lunch, instead. I wish I’d known in advance, or I would have brought food. I don’t like eating her groceries! It did give us a chance to talk, and I showed her the photos I took of the garden (those will be in my next post), then we went over her shopping list, which included a stop at the pharmacy.

There were a couple of things I forgot to pick up when I went to the grocery store for ourselves, yesterday, so I did both our shopping at the same time. I even picked up a few extra things for my mother that weren’t on her list, but the prices were good, and I knew she could use them. Other things, I found substitutes, because the prices were too high. Still, she’s now well stocked for the week, and that’s the important part.

The visit did have its down sides. After I’d put everything away, she had the local paper out and open. Our vandal has made his annual “in memory” listing about my late brother, with a colour photo of him with my late father. This impressed my mother greatly, because he does it every year, and it costs extra to include a colour photo. The fact that the content is passive aggressive and misleading – even outright false, in one thing – she is totally impressed by it. I told her I’d already seen the listing online, and she was all “and you didn’t tell me?” My response was, why would I? He does this every year, and it’s not like he’s doing it out of the goodness of his heart. She then launched into making excuses for him and how he’s doing such great things, like volunteering to cut grass at the cemetery. Which I’m sure he made sure she knew about. Well, I visited the cemetery, too, but I don’t tell her about it, or about the flowers I added at the family graves, etc. Coming from me, she would find ways to either tell me how I am doing it wrong, or find a way to turn it around and start saying how great our vandal is.

Then I found out, he’d come by her place recently.

I told her, he shouldn’t be doing that.

She, of course, tried to turn it around on me, because that’s what she does. It took me a while to figure out what she was saying, because she phrased it so oddly, but she essentially said, if my daughters did what our vandal did, would I cut them off entirely? I told her, if they did what he did, yes! I would hold them responsible and accountable. I then called her out on making excuses for him the way she does, pointing out that he’s stolen 10’s of thousands of dollars of stuff from her that was on the farm (heck, his taking stuff was one of the biggest reasons she asked us to move here!), but that’s okay because he put a colour picture in the paper? He does this stuff because people have been letting him get away with is for years. I’m the first person to stand up to him, and he ended up vandalizing the place, we have to keep the gate locked, and worry that he’ll suddenly show up and try to burn the house down or something.

She changed the subject after that.

That was pretty much the only real downside of the visit. Mostly, I think she was just too tired to be as difficult as she usually is.

I didn’t stay too much longer after putting things away, since I did have my own few purchases getting hot in the truck, so I headed home soon after.

Once at home and settled, I gave the outside cats their lysine enhanced kibble. Since it’s the more granular type of lysine, I have been making sure the kibble bowls get some water in them, so it’ll stick to the kibble. With some of the bowls, I add extra water, as the kittens seem to prefer it, and this way they are getting more hydration in this heat, and the lysine will be dissolved in the water. Some of the kittens are getting leaky eyes and noses, including Button, and I want to make sure they get their lysine! It helps strengthen their immune systems.

No sign of the new kittens this time, though.

Then I went into the garden, but I’ll talk about that in my next post.

As for how things are now, my leg is still feeling like it’s about to start cramping up on me. More so as I’m sitting down then while I’m walking around. I’m going to be feeling downright nervous, getting into bed tonight! I’ve been looking into the various possible causes. One was the lawn mowing in the heat, but I didn’t do anywhere near as much as I have in the past. Lack of electrolytes is a possibility. I’m already taking B12 and Magnesium supplements, but it looks like I might be low on potassium and sodium, too. At least, those are the only possible causes I can be proactive about. Others include things like “getting older”. 😄

Well, we’ll see how it works out tonight!

The Re-Farmer

More plans gone awry

June 6, 2024June 6, 2024 / Re-Farmer / 7 Comments

I should be used to this, by now.

With my computer dying before Christmas, we never did our traditional family photo that I email to family and friends every year. With the lilacs in full bloom, we were doing to do it now, posting under the lilac hedge.

The weather did not cooperate.

Then I got an early morning phone call from my mother’s doctor. My mother’s last lab work included a kidney test. The last time she had this done would have been around February, and the results were fine. This time, there was a significant decline. The doctor explained the test results and gave me instructions for my mother; she needs to stop taking her water pills, and work on hydration.

I’ve been trying to get her to increase her hydration for quite a while, now!

Then she needs to be tested again, in a month.

That call done, I knew it was too early to call my mother, so I sent an email update to my siblings, did a short version of my morning rounds and had breakfast.

I did make sure to leave food for Broccoli in the old garden shed. Her kittens were not in the cat bed, but I could hear her growling in the back somewhere, so I left the food and closed the door. As I was leaving, I saw her pop out where the hole in the back of the shed is. Later on, I saw her standing guard near the shed. So I’m guessing her kittens are still in there, but that she’s tucked them somewhere in the back, under a bunch of stuff that’s been in the shed since before we moved here.

After a couple of hours, I tried calling my mother – and she was still in bed! Ah, well. I told her about the call from her doctor, and explained the instructions for her. The problem is, she’s not sure which of her pills is the water pills. I have a photograph of her prescriptions in her bubble packs, but that’s somewhere in the external drive of data saved from my dead computer. I sort my pictures by date, and I have no idea when I would have take the picture. My brother has the list, but won’t be able to get to it until he gets home from work.

After talking to my mother, I called her doctor’s clinic and asked about her requisition. I wanted to know if they could send it to the lab in the hospital that’s just a few blocks from my mother (the clinic there has even more trouble keeping doctors than other towns we’ve tried). It turns out they can’t fax it to that lab. They’d be willing to, but it goes against the rules of the other lab. However, if I were in the area, I could swing by and get it printed out for my mother. Once she has a physical copy, she can go to any lab she wants. So I’ll see if I’ll be able to do that within the next few weeks. Otherwise, I’ll have to drive her to the town her doctor is in, and that’s very tiring for my mother.

I did make arrangements with my mother to help her with grocery shopping tomorrow, so I can go through her prescriptions and verify. She’s on the same water pills my husband is, but when he showed me his, they didn’t look like any of hers, so they must be from a different supplier. The pharmacy we go to is a different franchise.

Speaking of pharmacies…

I was getting ready to head outside, when I found out I was going to need to go to the pharmacy. I was planning to do a dump run when it opened in the evening, then a run into town anyhow, but that would have cut things close to the pharmacy’s closing time, so I left for town right away, instead. By then, the post office was closed over the lunch period and a couple of packages had come in early, so I went to a couple of other places after getting the medications, then did the grocery store last. Once of the things I wanted to do was pick up a new water jug, along with getting a refill. With one of the jugs springing a leak, we were down to three, and that was just not working out. I was rather shocked to discover getting a new 18.9L jug cost just over $26!!! The fill is free when you buy a new jug, but I did have to buy a new cap, since I had to take off the cap it came with, in order to fill it.

All the running around took several hours.

I must have over did myself yesterday, more than I thought, because by the time I got home, I was pretty much wasted. I still feel wasted, and it’s all I can do not to just go to bed right now. It’s not even 6pm yet.

It also rained again. We weren’t supposed to get rain today. Not much. Just smatters of rain, but there’s no chance of anything really drying out right now.

I did make myself go outside, though. I gave the outside cats a light afternoon feeding (the little skunk was back for food, too!). I wanted to at least check all the transplants. The plastic on the box cover around the eggplant and hot peppers was starting to tear loose on one side, so I stapled that back on. The twine I tied around it yesterday did help, but the winds have been just insane for the past while.

All the transplants look just fine, though. None of them look stressed at all in their new locations. I’ve no doubt their protective plastic rings has helped with that, considering the winds we’ve been having. I checked the mulberry, too, but they didn’t look all that healthy when I planted them, so all I can say is, they don’t look any worse!

The largest chokecherry tree, out by the main garden area, has started to bloom. It actually starts blooming later than the ones along the edge of the spruce grove that I haven’t removed. Those ones actually get more sunlight than the one by the garden. The double lilac in the old kitchen garden is starting to pass its peak blooming period, but the honeysuckle are just starting to open. The white lilacs are also well into their blooming period now, while more Cherokee roses, by the sun room door, are starting to open. The pink rose inside the old kitchen garden has buds, but even with the pruning we’ve done, it still doesn’t get as much sunlight because of the ornamental crab apple tree in the corner of the garden bed. Those have bloomed, but not as much as in the past few years, and all of the crab apple trees seem to already be done blooming. They did not stay in flower for very long at all!

All the common lilacs are blooming now and, as you can imagine, the yard smells amazing! At least for a few moments before the wind blows the scent away. The dwarf Korean lilac by the house is still just budding, and then there’s the one I can’t remember the name of, over the be vehicle gate into the yard. That one blooms last of all.

I wonder if it would bloom earlier if we got rid of that big elm tree by the people gate? It does seem to be struggling a bit more this year. That could be because it’s so close to the “moat” that’s formed around the garage, with all the rain we’ve had.

Checking on things and repairing the box cover over the eggplant was about as much as I could manage. Even my ears are burning, from being out in the wind, yesterday and today. That left elbow is still giving me grief. I forget about it, until I try to pick something up, and my arm just fails on me. At least I can still turn doorknobs. 🫤 I took more pain killers and they should have kicked in by now, but it doesn’t seem to be making much difference. Ah, well.

I just want to hang on a bit longer before going to bed. Hopefully, I’ll get an early start tomorrow – and well finally get that family photo that keeps getting delayed, along with everything else!

The Re-Farmer

A quick update

December 3, 2023 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Oh, what a long day.

My mother and I ended up in the ER for just under 6 hours.

She got her scan done – it turned out to be another ultrasound – and we were sent back to the ER waiting room until the results came in.

The problem is, for people waiting for scan results (we weren’t the only ones), they get squeezed in between patients with more urgent needs. Plus, only a doctor can discuss the results, not the nurses, and they were really busy. All 14 ER beds were full.

So what I thought might take a couple of hours, ended up much longer!

On the plus side, the cafeteria was open, so my mother did actually get a chance to eat. It was closed when she was there with my brother, yesterday. It was a real demonstration about just how hungry she was when she agreed to have a quesadilla, the only hot food option available. She had to ask what it was and agreed to have one. My mother will normally flat out refuse to try anything new, so this was a big deal!

I also almost drained the battery on my phone, distracting her with things on Pinterest. We tried watching a few short videos, but that was pushing her attention span to the limit, so I went back to Pinterest.

End result, when they finally called her in?

Nothing.

They found nothing wrong in their scan.

Now, with her symptoms, there is obviously something wrong, but they have no idea what. They took a sample for a culture test, which takes 5 days, so see if there’s a bacterial cause. They will phone my mother only if they find something wrong. Meanwhile, all the data will be sent to her doctor, and I will be booking an appointment for her in the near future – but not too near. We’ll see how it works out, with the Christmas holidays.

As for my mother, it seems she’s ridiculously healthy. Not bad for someone who is 92, very round, with busted up knees, and constantly complaining to us about various health problems, and is convinced the doctors are hiding things from her, like that she has cancer or something (she doesn’t). At one point, as my mother was being taken to an examination room, even the nurse that was supposed to be leading the way, only to have my mother race off ahead of her, commented on just how fast she is!

Anyhow.

Once she sees her regular doctor, she might get referred to a specialist to try and figure out what the heck is going on.

Funny how my mother complains about her health so much, but she’s had these symptoms for months and ever thought much of them. She figured they’d go away on their own.

*sigh*

Meanwhile, tomorrow we have to go to yet another town for my eye appointment, which means I won’t have the time I need to finish any of my 2023 garden analysis drafts. It might be a couple of days before I can get back to those.

This has got to be the busiest December for outings we’ve had since moving out here!

The Re-Farmer

Not what I planned for the day…

July 7, 2023 / Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

First, the cuteness!

Here’s Adam, with a couple of the babies.

These are not her babies. 😄

I actually took this photo yesterday. I haven’t taken any today.

This morning started out pretty normal. There were just a couple of things that had me wondering, as I did my morning rounds. For example, some of the slug trap jars were out of place, by quite a bit. I checked every squash plant for slugs (found only one!), and there were three of the jars knocked off the mulch and into the paths.

Later, while passing through the maple grove, I went to check on the pipe from the tap. I’m thinking we might be able to just patch the hole, rather than dig up the entire line. The bamboo stake I used to mark the location of the pipe and hole was snapped off at ground level.

It wasn’t until I was taking some fallen branches to the pile near the fire pit that I discovered the cause.

There was a cow on the wrong side of the outer yard fence! The entire herd was there, but one was most definitely not on the side was was supposed to be.

I sent a message to the renters to let them know, then closed off the gates to the inner yard. When I came back with a bucket to fill with water for the cow, as there is no open water source in the outer yard, I spotted a couple more cows – and possibly some calves, mostly hidden by the tall grass! A trail of cow patties by the fire pit gate, leading towards the yard, confirmed that at least a couple of cows had gone into the inner yard during the night. Thank goodness, they didn’t eat anything in the garden!

I sent an update to the renter and she said she would be there soon. I was quite relieved that she even looked at my messages, since we are connected through Facebook Messenger, but haven’t use it since before my account got stolen. I wasn’t sure if she knew I’d recovered it or not.

Next, I went to check the “gate” by the barn, where the cows often sometimes get through. The chain across it was still there, but one of the poles supporting the electric fence was down, and the wire was clearly broken somewhere, and was lying on the ground for as far as I could see.

I popped inside for a while and had a quick breakfast. When I could hear cows suddenly mooing, I headed outside again. The renter had come over in their utility vehicle – with her littlest one along for the ride! – and was by the gate in the fence leading towards the gravel pit. It’s a barbed wire gate, and a pain to open, but she had it down by the time I was crossing the outer yard in that area. At that point, I could see there were quite a few cows on the wrong side of the fence, and they were very curious about what was going on. I went around in one direction, so they’d move towards the opening, while she went around the other way. Unfortunately, one of the cows panicked, and that set them all off. The herd outside the fence stampeded off towards the gravel pit, and the ones inside the fence began panicking even more, trying to find their way through. A couple of cows found and went through the open gate, but at least one cow and a couple of calves barreled their way through the barbed wire fence. Then one last cow went and ran in the opposite direction. We got her going back again, but she wouldn’t go for the open gate. She eventually went through an opening in another part of the fence, which normally has the electric wire across it.

We got the gate closed again, but a couple of lines of barbed wire were loose. She brought out a fence tightener she’d grabbed on her way out, but it turned out to be broken. Her husband usually does this stuff, but there was some sort of accident involving a fence on another section of property he was dealing with, and he probably had the working tightener.

Thankfully, we have some. I’ve found at least 3 of them, and 2 of them were in the garage, so I went and got them. The first one we tried worked, and now I know how those things are used! It was the first time I’d seen one in action.

Once that was done, I went to put the tighteners away while she checked the fence line, so see how many fence posts would need to have the barbed wire re-stapled to them, and the status of the electric fence wire.

We continued to check the fence from both sides, though there were some sections I couldn’t get at, as it’s so overgrown. I even commented about how I don’t mind the cows getting through, because they can eat the overgrown grass we can’t mow, and how I wouldn’t mind borrowing a couple of cows for that. I’d said that to her husband, when he was her last, and they actually wouldn’t mind that, except that we have no way of knowing what might be buried in there that a cow might eat or hurt themselves on. Which is completely understandable!

While I was working my way around piles of stuff on our side of the fence, the renter found a broken end of electric fence wire, but there was no side of the other end.

The section of fence that is open is by the septic outflow pipe, which is on the outside of the fence line, near a collapse log building on the inside of the fence line. There used to be fences around the entire area where the outflow pipe and a low section it drains into is, but those fences have fallen down long, long ago. The only think keeping the cows out there is the electric fence. That’s where we found where they got in; the tall grass was all tramples and the electric fence wire had been dragged far into the outer yard. There wasn’t enough slack for her to connect them again, so she was going to have to get more tools and supplies.

I went inside and intended to go back out again to help later on, along with doing a number of other outdoor tasks on my list, now that we’re having such gorgeous weather right now. Unfortunately, that plan went out the window, when I was suddenly hit with a bout of severe intestinal discomfort. For several long, uncomfortable hours, I didn’t dare stray far from the washroom. As if that weren’t bad enough, my husband was hit with the same problem, at the same time! We have no idea why, but we were both fighting for the bathroom, and even our daughter’s had to get rushed out a couple of times. I didn’t even dare drive the 3 miles to the post office to pick up a parcel, and had to get my daughter to do it for me.

We seriously need a second bathroom. Yeah, we have the outhouse, but it’s too far from the house for times such as these! Thankfully, whatever it was, seems to have passed and I’m almost feeling stable again.

So plans for today have been thrown completely out the window. Thankfully, I’m feeling stable again – at least enough to do my evening rounds! I was even able to head out and harvest some more mint for my daughter. She decided to use the mint harvested earlier to make a simple syrup, but the longer she cooked it down, the less it tasted like mint, and the more it tasted like sugar. Once the syrup is strained and cooled, she plans to use it to make mint flavoured panna cotta. I’m quite looking forward to it!

Plus, mint will be good for my digestive tract. I just wish I knew why it went crazy in the first place, so I can make sure to avoid it in the future!

Thank goodness, the weather is supposed to stay good for the next week or more!

The Re-Farmer

The Re-Farmer

Sometimes, you need to go back, to go forward.

health issues

I am so NOT a morning person

Everything is all right

Change of plans

A pretty good day

Our 2024 Garden: a morning harvest, plus another long day!

Kitty status, and shopping for Mom

Rough night and new kitten mama identified

More plans gone awry

A quick update

Not what I planned for the day…

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: