Well, Canadian Thanksgiving has blown in like a tempest. Northern parts of the province have had snow and conditions severe enough to shut down a highway.
I can’t complain. I think it was our first Thanksgiving here, when we got hit by a blizzard.
The high winds, at least, as supposed to go away this afternoon. We’re supposed to warm up a bit over the next while but, depending on which weather app I look at, on the warmest days we’re expecting rain. I’m just hoping the weather holds so I can get more beds ready for winter sowing. Aside from a pharmacy trip tomorrow, and a telephone appointment to follow up on my hip injection, I should be able to stay home enough to get things done. Weather willing!
When I headed out to feed the cats outside this morning, they were absolutely bonkers. I used our turkey carcass to make a stock for them in the slow cooker last night, and that’s what I used to soften their kibble this morning.
They inhaled it so quickly, I mixed up a bit more so the less dominant cats could get a chance to eat!
I also had to pick up the catio, which had been knocked over by the wind (I left the vinyl wrapped around it for last winter, specifically to cut the wind and provide passive solar warmth in there. We will need to re-wrap it!). I had removed the weights on the roof to use them while painting. A couple to left the plant stand above the grass, and a couple more to weight down corners of the isolation shelter roof, where I’d used some wood glue under a support. I hadn’t put the weights back. Last night was windy, and the catio seemed fine, but the wind picked up so much since I did my evening walkabout!
Once the cats were fed and the catio secured as best I could, I moved the isolation shelter’s ramp door box in front, to reduce at least some of the wind. The upper level is enclosed, but the lower level is all wire mesh walls. We’ll be wrapping it in vinyl for the winter again, but not quite yet. The wind from below has been enough to actually blow one of the corners of the hammock loose from its hook.
I then did a thorough walk about, looking for wind damage. In the outer yard, I only found this.
The door on that rotting old … storage shed? … finally fell.
It’ll be good when we can clean up that garbage in there and get that away. It’s a shame it was allowed to fall apart like that. It’s got several shelves in there and looks like it used to be pretty sturdy. Once the roof was allowed to fall apart, that was it. I have no idea when this was built, but I expect it was built by my late brother, probably about 20-30 years ago.
For now, all I could do was lean the door back and find an old tire still on its rim as a weight to hold it in place.
While going through the inner yard, I found quite a few fallen branches. Not enough to need a wheel barrow or anything. This was the largest one I found.
There were 11 kittens on that shelf, but Sir Robin jumped out while I was taking the picture.
Seeing Smokey in there is encouraging. She’s starting to enjoy being around other cats. The only concern is, she’s getting old enough to go into heat. I don’t expect her to, as they tend not to when the weather starts getting cold. Thankfully, she will be going to the rescue, next weekend.
Meanwhile, I’ll be heading to my mother’s this afternoon, with a couple of turkey dinners for her. My brother and SIL are actually coming here to the farm today, to do some more winterizing around their stuff. I’ll have a chance to see them before I head out to my mothers, but they’ll probably be gone before I get back.
It already looks like the wind is dying down, and the sun is shining! Our expected high for the day is still only 6C/43F, and we’re at only 4C/39F. We’re supposed to go below freezing overnight, too.
I did plug in the cat house, so they should be getting heat in there when the light sensor turns on the bulb as it gets dark enough. The heated water bowls are plugged in now, too, except the one in the isolation shelter. That one is nowhere near an outlet, yet.
We’re fortunate, really, so have temperatures as nice as they are right now. More time to get things done before the snow flies!
For me, it was a break. A necessary one. By the end of yesterday, I realized I’d be having issues today, so I asked the girls to take over making Thanksgiving dinner completely. I got up to feed the outside cats, and that was it. No morning rounds.
I did get quite a chuckle with a stinky visitor this morning, though! Before mixing up some cat soup to use to soften their morning kibble, with a cacophony of cats in the sun room, I quickly opened the inner door and carefully tossed a small scoop of kibble onto the floor near the trays. Something to tide them over, so it would be easier to get out with their softened food, later.
After giving the kibble time to soak, I grabbed the bowl and quickly went through the doors into the sun room – with Sir Robin getting a ride in the screenless window of the outer door! – managing to shut the inner door behind me before any cats or kittens managed to get through.
Only then did I notice that there was a small skunk, surrounded by cats and kittens, munching away at the kibble I’d tossed in earlier! It was acting like just another cat. It did leave as I was adding softened kibble to the trays in the sun room, but then, so did some of the more feral cats.
It turned out to be windy and rainy, so it wasn’t a day to get much done outside, anyhow! I did the feeding and watering, then went back to bed while the girls started prepping the turkey and getting it into the oven.
I passed out for about 4 hours.
I did end up going out briefly to give the outside cats a light feeding (I’m trying to feed less kibble, more often, so the cats can finish it off before the skunks and raccoons come over). The girls were in between things, so I did a whole lot of dishes for them before they continued. The turkey was done by then, and they just needed to do the side dishes.
I wanted to make sure to get a couple of containers of turkey dinner to bring to my mother, tomorrow. My daughters used the last of our potatoes, cooked and mashed together with a whole much of carrots from the garden, and entire bulb of garlic. With the potatoes and carrots mixed together like that, the containers for my mother looked a little sparse. At the last minute, I made a small pot of rice, because my husband likes rice more than potatoes. Then I grabbed some rhubarb from the freezer and cooked it up with some crab apples we still have, adding some brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice (it seems we are all out of ground cloves!), and just a bit of water, for a dessert. The frozen rhubarb cooked down to a mush very quickly, but there were still visible chunks of cooked apple. Then I got my mother’s containers, one with potatoes, one with rice, plus dessert, ready and set aside to cool down.
We’ve rather lost use of the dining table because, cats, so we each grabbed out own plates individually.
My husband mistook the apple and rhubarb as a gravy. 😂😂
Apparently, it was still quite good!
After we’d eaten, I headed back outside again to do another light feeding of the outside cats, switch out the trail cam memory cards and then, because it was no longer raining, decided to walk up and down the driveway to get my steps in.
At first, I counted a dozen, but more showed up and I counted about 20 cats and kittens. Mostly kittens.
Including one tiny white and grey tabby that is so friendly. This one is very much like the one Frank adopted than ended up passing. Thankfully, while way too smol, s/he seems to be healthier. (I’m pretty sure this one’s a she, but haven’t been able to confirm 100%.) She actually comes running when she sees me, and was doing that while I was out there. This tiny little ball of fluff, trying to keep up with me while I walked!
I picked her up and tried carrying her for a bit, but she didn’t like it much and wanted down. When I came back for another lap, though, she came running again. This time, I made a pouch in my t-shirt and tucker her in.
She comfortably snuggled into my shirt, warm and cozy, for about 2000+ steps. 😄 Eventually, though, she wanted down.
I didn’t get very far when I saw Smokey’s brother loafed in the grass.
So I picked him up.
He settled in with his chin in my elbow, and stayed. At point point, I put him down so I could look at my phone and see how many steps I had left. He sat there, looking up at me, until I picked him up again and carried him some more! It wasn’t until was heading back to the house that I finally put him down. I’ve never carried him around like this before! He would have stayed longer, but I needed both hands to bring the painted plant table back into the sun room.
Those two are going to be amazing inside cats.
The little white and grey tabby I carried in my shirt will be going to the rescue next weekend, for sure. There’s a friendly little mostly white and grey, plus one of the tuxedos, that we can not only pet, but pick up and hold. They are very adoptable!
This weekend, I am giving thanks for the new rescue, which has more people and more resources, and one person willing and able to take 6 cats at once!
Today is a holiday. It’s Victoria Day. I completely forgot it was a long weekend.
On the one hand, that means I will NOT be picking up our plum and haskap in the mail. The package is still in the city and should arrive and be processed locally by tomorrow afternoon.
It also means that no one will be looking at my insurance claim for the truck until tomorrow, either.
On the plus side, however, my brother is planning to come over today and dig their push mower out of storage so that we can use it. So my plans for the day now involve going around the yards with the wagon, picking up all the smaller twigs and branches, then start using the weed trimmer around the edges and expose the rocks and roots I want to NOT hit while mowing!
It’s still pretty cool out there, so the manual labour should actually be pleasant.
Meanwhile, I got to enjoy the company of kitties this morning.
Kale and Sir Robin are the only kittens that still regularly come to the sun room at feeding time now. The others stay in or around the cat house. A lot of the adult cats have clued in that the babies are getting extra special tasty stuff, and they want in on it. This morning, I ended up catching Kale and Sir Robin and feeding them on the chest freezer in the old kitchen, just so they could fill their bellies rather than getting driven off by the adult cats. I even had a tray of leftover cat soup I could add to the bowls for the kittens and their mama. I left enough on the tray itself to set outside and distract the adult cats away, but some were not so easily tricked! After a while, I had to message a daughter to come supervise, so I could get some other stuff done. Once the babies had eaten their fill, they were returned to the sun room, and their food bowl set out for other cats to finish off. Usually, it’s The Grink. which we don’t mind too much. She’s remarkably tiny and skinny for an adult cat, and easily mistaken as a bigger kitten!
While my daughter was still handy, to checked on Poirot’s kittens. I had noticed Japp had a sticky eye, so I held him (her?) while my daughter washed it gently until it could be opened.
As I set him back, I noticed the mostly white kitten has an eye stuck closed, too, so we washed that one, too.
Which is when I discovered I have made an error with the names. I’d thought this one was Miss Lemon, but my daughter informed me that no, the mostly white one is Captain Hastings – because of Hasting’s habit of wearing light coloured summer suits. Miss Lemon, however, was very fashionable and sometimes wore spots, so the white and grey is Miss Lemon.
That makes the only confirmed female, Miss Lemon. The other two need to grow and develop a bit more before we can be completely sure of what we’re seeing.
Hastings is completely white, except for the ears and the tail.
I’ve just been messaged that my brother is on his way, so I’ll be heading outside soon. May long weekend is when a lot of people traditionally put their gardens in. Looking at our overnight temperatures for the next while, I won’t be doing that! Just a few more cold hardy things, maybe, and only with protection. According to what I’m finding online, our average last frost date is now about May 28 instead of June 2, but the long range forecasts are showing lows below freezing at the end of May and into the beginning of June, along with both rain and snow. Based on what I’m seeing, the earliest I’d be able to finish putting the garden in, is around June 7.
So, I’m going to focus a bit more on cleaning up the yard so it can be mowed today, then getting more beds prepared and ready for planting. The winter squash are getting to the point where they really need to be set out!
It’s going to be pretty busy out there, for the next while.
Here’s hoping my body is up to it. I suspect I’m going to be maxing out on my prescription pain killers for the next while!
Today started out early, as it has been of late. Between how early it gets bright out, and the inside cats deciding it’s feeding time, “sleeping in” is a bit of a pipe dream! 😁
With a daughter on kitten catching duty, feeding the outside cats went rather smoothly. I did notice that Caramel’s three were still together.
That orange kitten is so much bigger than the other two!
While doing the rest of my morning rounds, I made sure to water the covered beds thoroughly, so the moisture would help moderate the temperatures under the plastic somewhat, as the day got hotter.
The “Mr” haskap (the label actually says “Mr. Honeyberry”) is blooming quite nicely.
I looked up the Berry Blue variety that this is, and most pollinator charts don’t include it. However, I found sellers that gave useful information in their descriptions. This variety is apparently a good cross pollinator for all other varieties, and is also self pollinating. It blooms in April-May.
Since the other two look like they won’t even start getting buds until June, this is a really bad combination!
At least we’ll get berries from the one, later in the season!
Once the outside stuff was done, I headed in for a light breakfast, with plans to visit my mother with my brother for Mother’s Day.
After some back and forthing, I ended up leaving later, as the restaurant he planned to pick dinners up from didn’t open until 11. He had to drive past my mother’s place first – and spotted my sister’s car! So that was a surprise. She works late shifts at Walmart and doesn’t typically get home and to bed until about 2am, so we weren’t expecting to see her in the morning.
So plans changed a bit and I met up with both of them at my mother’s, and we had a chance to visit before my brother quickly left to pick up the food he’d ordered. Someone at the restaurant answered the phone before they opened, so it was going to be ready for pick up right when the doors unlocked!
My mother was feeling up to going to church, and services started at 11:30. I had time to quickly go to a bank machine and get some cash, so I had something for the donation basket. My sister belongs to another church, so she left when it was time to walk across the street to my mother’s church. It was slow going for my mother, and she had to stop and rest along the way. With my brother staying close to her, I had a chance to show my sister the damage visible on the truck – I hadn’t realized this was the first time she’s seen our truck! We’ve had it for about 1 1/2 years now.
It was a special Mother’s Day service, so there were some extra prayers for mothers added, and the priest went around and sprinkled holy water on us.
I had to clean my glasses after that! Got “blessed”, right in the face. 😂
My mother was… being my mother. I won’t go into that! She did have a hard time with the new priest, though. He’s from India, has a very strong accent, and speaks faster than she can keep up. Not faster than typical; just too fast for her. Which is unfortunate, because he had a really excellent sermon, talking about his own childhood, and what a hard time he gave his mother! She passed away when he was very young, and that was a struggle for him. With his rather rambunctious youth, he never imagined he would become a priest, but credited where he is today to his mother. He calls her his angel. It was interesting to hear him mention his brother, later in the service, who is also a priest!
After a while, my mother started getting antsy, and even leaned over with her watch, telling me he was really dragging the service on. Which seemed strange to me, because I’m used to services being an hour and, according to her watch, it was only 45 minutes at the time. When the service was winding down, my mother stood up like she was about to leave, then took off as soon as he make the closing blessing, before the final hymn even started. Which meant my brother and I had to rush after her to help with the doors and get her home.
Not being able to hear much of what he was saying didn’t help, I’m sure, but to be completely honest, given some of the things she’d already said to me about this new priest, and some of her other behaviour, it really came down to my mother’s own racism. It’s getting worse as she gets older, unfortunately, as her mental health and cognitive thinking declines. At her age, we really can’t expect any positive changes.
Once we got her home and settled into her favourite chair, my brother went into the kitchen to get the take-out dinners ready. My mother started ordering me to get plates and stuff, but my brother told her, no. There’s simply no room in her 2-step kitchen! He could pass things to me, but anything more then that would just slow things down.
She seemed to get it, but then started ordering us around again, as if the conversation never happened! 😄
We did have a nice lunch together, though, and some time to chat about a few things. My brother had brought brought batteries from home and ended up changing the batteries in her remotes, just in case, so none of the ones I picked up for her yesterday were needed yet.
After everything was cleaned up and we had a good visit, my brother had to head out. I stayed a bit longer, to rub the topical pain reliever on my mother’s back and hips – this time with her sitting in her chair and leaning against the table, rather than lying on her side in bed, making it much easier to get the areas that bother her the most. She told me that, after I’d applied it to her back yesterday, it helped her so much and she slept really well. She also has her hot water bottle, which she finds helps a lot, too. So she was more than happy with getting another “treatment”! Her home care aids do have applying this on her care sheet now, but my mother has been doing it herself before she gets dressed, so it’s done before they get there. She can’t do her whole lower back, though. She doesn’t like the idea of the home care workers touching, though. Hopefully, she’ll have at least some home care workers she trusts enough to do it, because it really does help her a lot!
By the time I got home, it was getting close to feeding time for the outside cats. I started doing for the cat house to get the container from inside the entry, when I disturbed a domestic scene!
This mama was nursing both Eyelet and Grommet, but Grommet ran off (you can see him in the next image above). I tried to not come too close, but it was still too much for him. I had to go where he was to get the food container, though, so he went hiding under the cat house, instead.
Poirot, meanwhile, had left the sun room, so I could see her babies while setting her own food dish in front of the carrier.
Seeing the adult cats splayed all over the yard in the heat is funny enough. Seeing Poirot’s babies splayed out is just adorable!
Once the food was out, I wanted to top up the water bowls, and cool down the portable greenhouse – the thermometer needle was as far as it could go, even with the doorway tied wide open. If the numbers on the dial went that far, it would have read above 60C/140F!
The water in the hose was scalding hot, so I used that to refill the garbage can heat sink until it was cold again. Then I misted all the plant containers, and even the roof and walls. By the time I was done, the thermometer was down to 50C/122F
As I went to refill the bowl in the water bowl shelter, I spotted two little faces peeking at me through the cat house entry.
This little tabby stayed and watched me, and I was even able to pick it up and snuggle it!
Grommet, meanwhile, was in the gap under the entry watching me, and started hissing and spitting before ducking further under.
Caramel’s babies need names. There’s the tortie, the tabby and the ginger. Since we already have Butterscotch inside (and is probably a great-great-grandma to them!), and Caramel is their mom, maybe these ones will stay on the sweets theme?
Something to think about.
Tonight’s low is supposed to be 13C/55F, so I’m going to be leaving the door to the portable greenhouse tied open for the night. Meanwhile, Friday’s low has changed again, and is now expected to drop to -1C/30F – this after a heat wave over the next few days with highs reaching above 30C/86F! So no chance of transplanting anything quite yet. Any transplants would just get baked, then frozen, within a week! Tomorrow morning, though, I’m hoping to get some beds ready and planted with things that can handle both the heat and the cold. The summer squash bed looks like a total loss and, since it already has netting over it, I figure that’s a good place to plant potatoes.
For the rest of today, though, I’m taking a Sunday – and Mother’s Day – break.
This year, the bread is a sourdough loaf. We have a dry sausage and a small ham. The cheese this year is a brie. The olives are stuffed with cheese. There’s pink salt and honey mustard, and tiny jars with balsamic vinegar and truffle infused olive oil. The butter was whipped with parsley and a bit of the truffle infused olive oil. We also have two types of pickled eggs, one with beet juice. Then there’s all the little chocolate eggs all over.
I did have prosciutto as well, but at the last minute decided not to include it. I think we had enough in there.
After blessing, what needed to go in the fridge got put back in the fridge, and we will enjoy the contents for our Easter breakfast tomorrow.
While doing my morning rounds, I checked on the netting over the winter sown beds.
The first thing I saw was tracks in the soil of the summer squash bed. Something had gotten in! Looking around, I found that the netting at one end of the bed had been pulled up and even torn in one spot that I could see. Whatever got in must have panicked in trying to get out, because the excess netting on the sides were disturbed, and I found another area where the ground staples had been pulled up.
I’ve got the netting pulled fairly tight along the sides, but it is rather hard to see, so I used old bricks to weigh it down more along the sides and ends. Hopefully, that will make it a bit more visible.
The other bed seemed fine, but some of the twine was looking rather loose. I think something jumped on top of the netting, pulling the supports inward a bit.
My daughter and I made an unexpected trip to the nearest Walmart area today. While we were there, we also hit the Dollarama, and I bought a bunch more ground staples. Those things are very handy.
On another note…
Magda got out of the isolation shelter again. She came over when I was going the feeding, letting me put her back in to get her share of the wet cat food. I got Kohl in there and she seems to be staying this time. I added more weight to the roof, which I still think is the only place they could have gotten out through. That may have been enough to keep Kohl in, but I would have expected it to have been more likely to keep Magda in, since she’s so much lighter. Magda was out even before my daughter and I started to head out! We let her be, at the time.
After my daughter and I got home, it was late enough to do the evening feeding, plus we wanted to dose their ears. I think tonight might be the last dose, as the bottle seems pretty empty. Once her ears were done, we put Magda back into the isolation shelter with Kohl while we did The Grink’s ears, and then gave them the wet cat food right away, to distract them from trying to get out. I’m still holding out hope that we can shave those mats off of Kohl!
Meanwhile, Brussel’s babies are increasingly active. The black and white has been climbing out of the cat cave and calling to us, regularly, and now the calico is starting to as well.
We try to handle them as much as possible, without freaking Brussel out too much. As for Caramel’s babies in the cat house, I haven’t been able to see them. Any time I’ve tried looking through the window I am either seeing Caramel in the cat bed, or there’s too much reflection to see inside.
From what I can see from the other cats, Slick and Sprout have both had their babies somewhere in the outer yard. I’m pretty sure the dead kitten I found was Adam’s. She doesn’t seem to be pregnant, there’s no sign that she’s nursing, and she’s hanging around the house a lot more than she would, if she had a litter somewhere in the outer yard. There’s a talkative white and grey that no longer looks round. That’s pretty much it for cats I could say for sure were pregnant. After Easter, we’ll set the trap up for reals and see if we can start bringing in more ladies, before they start showing. We’ll have to pace things, though. With three small cats in the isolation shelter right now, we could put in one larger cat without too much issue, but we wouldn’t want to put in another until after Magda and The Grink are done their isolation period. The Cat Lady was talking about getting us in for more spays in May, so that will work out.
Meanwhile, we will continue working on Brussel, Caramel and Slick for socialization, so we can hopefully get them in when their milk has dried up without having to trap.
On the plus side, things have warmed up again, though it’s still pretty windy. We’re even expected to hit 18C/64F tomorrow. It’s supposed to cool down again after that. We might even get rain in a few days! That would be good. Things are pretty dry out there, and a fire ban for open fires and grass burning is already in effect for our municipality. Which isn’t unusual for April, really. Contained fires and burn barrels are still okay.
Overall, it’s looking to be a nice weekend for Easter.
Once again, I found a top corner of the sliding window by the food bowl out of its track again. That corner can be reached if a cat is on the shelf above the food bowl. That Kohl fit through there too was a bit of a surprise, though!
I spotted her while I was feeding the cats and got her back into the isolation shelter, where she promptly discovered the wet cat food I’d put in for her and The Grink. That gave me time to grab some wood lathe and nails to reinforce that corner.
So this window now has a piece of wood lathe on both sides of the opening, to keep the window in its track. For now, I’ve added a strip of clear duct tape to one side of the panel for something to pull it with, since there is no longer an exposed edge to use to slide it.
Problem solved.
Almost.
Advance polls opened today and my younger daughter and I headed out to vote. On my way to the truck, I checked the isolation shelter and found The Grink, all alone again! Both sliding windows were still in place. That left only one way she could have gotten out.
Through the roof.
After we got back, I found Magda and put her back into the isolation shelter. I then took the bricks that the box we put over the entrance to shelter from the wind were sitting on top of, and put them on the roof to weight it down. You can see that in the next image in the above slide show. These bricks are salvaged from the chimney to the wood burning furnace that was removed when the new roof was installed.
Hopefully, that will keep Magda Houdini in the shelter! (You can just see her in the last picture; those windows need to be cleaned, inside and out!) It is not good for her at all to be squeezing through things and jumping down from such a height, when she is so fresh from surgery. Plus, we still need to dose her ears until we’re out of that medication.
Once we are able to move the shelter away from the house and give it a thorough cleaning, I hope to do a few minor modifications to it. One of them is to figure out a way to latch the roof so it can’t be pushed open from the inside. I also want to find some strong handles to attach to it – the ones I have on hand are not heavy duty enough for the job – to make is easier to maneuver. Eventually, I want to replace the wheels with larger ones, as well. We got the best that we could afford, and they’re good, but the shelter is heavy enough that the wheels want to sink into the ground when it’s being wheeled across the lawn. All in all, though, there is very little that needs to be modified. I’m quite pleased with how it turned out.
Today has been a surprisingly cold day. When we were out and about earlier, it was around -2C/28F, but the wind chill put it at -9C/16F We’re supposed to reach a high of 2C/36F today, but it will still be very windy.
A good day to stay indoors and get ready for Easter.
We’ve got a turkey thawing out for Sunday, and the sourdough loaf for our basket is also thawing out. After a bit of organizing and cleaning up, we’re going to select a basket from our collection and start assembling it to be blessed tomorrow, and then we will enjoy the contents on Easter morning. Today being Good Friday, it is also a day of quiet and contemplation.
On that, note, my daughter has been working on things while I write this, and it’s time for me to go help her out!
I lost track of things and forgot that today was Valentine’s Day!
This morning, I had a 8am telephone appointment with my mother’s doctor. Normally, I would be outside, giving the cats their food and warm water. We were still under an ongoing extreme cold warning (which is now finally over), so I would have basically just taken care of the cats and skipped most of my morning rounds!
With the phone appointment, however, I messaged my daughters, asking if they could take care of the outside cats. I was pretty sure my older daughter had gone to bed after a night’s work, but I wasn’t sure if my younger daughter was available.
She was, and she took care of the outside cats for me, while I waited for the call.
Which was about half an hour late, of course. My daughter was back inside, updating me, when the phone rang. With the cats’ food trays and bowls so full of frozen kibble, we’re figuring out ways to make it so they can actually eat it. With the isolation shelter open again, I’m thinking of taking some of kibble from the kibble shelter and putting it in the isolation shelter. When there was just two cats, there was excess kibble, but once the other cats started going in there again, the bowl was empty, and even the kibble scattered about was eaten up!
As for the phone call, it wasn’t my mother’s doctor that called, but another doctor working with her. I explained about my mother having been in the hospital for a couple of weeks, and how we were told she needs to see a doctor every month to monitor her kidney function, now that she’s back on the water pills. They didn’t actually have everything in my mother’s file yet, and the doctor had to ask me when she had been discharged!
They did have the results of her last bloodwork done while she was in the hospital, though, and he could tell me her kidneys are doing just fine.
The problem, of course, is making a 93 yr old who struggles to walk, climb into the truck and drive to the clinic, over and over, because there are no local doctors available.
The hospital in her town does have a lab, though.
My mother won’t need to physically go to the clinic every month.
They will mail bloodwork requisition forms to my mother every month. The local hospital will not accept these forms being faxed to them. It would have been better if I could physically pick it up, to eliminate any risk of the form being lost in the mail, but that’s just not an option.
I will, however, be in that town next week, and will be stopping at the clinic to get my own medical files to take to my new doctor, before my daughter and I have our appointments. So he got a form printed out and it will be waiting for me when I get there. As my mother had bloodwork done this month, already, she won’t need to get it done again until next month.
Aside from that, she can have telephone appointments to go over the results, though they do that only if there is a problem. She won’t need to physically come in for an appointment unless there is a need. We will have to continue to monitor her for swelling and breathing issues, which the doctor at the hospital already explained to us, and my mother is to go to the ER right away, if problems start up again.
That done, I updated my siblings in our group chat, as much to make sure I wrote down the details while it was still fresh in my mind as to share it with family. Then I phoned my mother to update her.
As I started talking to her about the monthly appointments the hospital doctor said she needed, and that I called the clinic about them, my mother got somewhat agitated. It took a bit to figure it out, but she was under the impression she had a physical appointment with her doctor. I had told her I had made a phone appointment to talk about her case, but since then, she got it in her mind that this was an appointment with her, not about her. I clarified and told her, I’d made a phone appointment with me, that I had just gotten off the phone, and I was calling to let her know how it went.
She stayed very quiet as I went through the call which, in itself, is unusual. Normally, she interrupts and starts taking the conversation in other directions. I’m not completely sure how much she understood, but when I got to the part about going to the local hospital for monthly blood work, she said that we would have to keep track of that for her.
Which, of course, was already the plan!
She then started talking about her medications and the lock box. To make is short, my mother was very angry about having the lock box, the home care aids cant get into it, she doesn’t need this big box and can manage her own medications.
I was alarmed when she said the home care aids can’t get into it. She said she didn’t get her medications this morning. At first, she made it sound like it was because the aide couldn’t open it, but if that were true, I would have gotten a phone call. Or my brother would have. This happened only once, with one person, though. My mother had 2 other visits the day before, after the new lock box was brought over, and got her medications. Now she was saying the aids can’t get into the box at all?
I asked if she got her morning medications, and she said no.
No one showed up.
????
Again, if they were short staffed, I would have got a phone call, because I would have had to drive to my mother’s to give her her medications.
Then I noticed the time.
It wasn’t even 9am yet.
They are supposed to give her her medications before 7 an 9am.
I mentioned the time and said, they probably just haven’t made it yet.
Well, my mother was still quite angry. She can manage her own medications. They don’t always come at the same time. She doesn’t need this big box.
We talked for awhile and I reminded her, this was doctor’s orders. It was for her own safety.
Oh, so my children don’t trust me?
I brought up that she herself has noticed she is not remembering things. Then I brought up the pill boxes full of loose pills I’d found when I got her old bubble packs to take the the pharmacy, and that the pharmacist had to dispose of them. She has a history of messing with her medications, and things like that were why she needed a lock box and med assist from home care. This is for her safety.
I didn’t bring it up with my mother, but in the group chat with my siblings later, I mentioned that all these pills she had in there were pills she did not take when she should have. Plus, she ignored the days and times on the bubble packs, just staring from the top, and taking them whenever she had her breakfast, because she is supposed to take them with food (except I don’t think any of them actually specify to take with food). And by “with food”, she means with a couple of crackers or cookies or a piece of toast and, before we got the home care med assist, she would take them at 5am and 5pm and before bed, instead of the times on the bubble pack. As a result, she often had a couple of active bubble packs going at once, and really made things harder for the home care aids.
But all of that would have been too much to talk to her about. We basically just have to bring it down to “doctor’s orders” and “it’s for your safety.”
Our call got interrupted, though, by a knock at the door.
The home care aid had arrived to give her her morning medications.
My mother has no understanding of how much she is messing herself up.
After I got off the phone with my mother, I updated my siblings again. My mother’s behavior is a strong demonstration of just why having that lock box, and home care visits for her med assist, is so important. We were able to chat for a bit, wondering about how my mother will handle having a Life Line, once that gets set up.
It can be really hard to help my mother when she keeps trying to sabotage our efforts. These group chats and updates are extra important, because my mother will say one thing to me, then something different to each of my siblings, then tries to play us against each other. This is something she has done for pretty much as long as I can remember though, of course, as a child, I had no understanding of what she was doing.
Aside from the group chat, I got a Valentine’s Day message from my SIL, which is when I was reminded that that’s what today it.
Which got me to thinking about the whole theme of Valentine’s Day being about love, and about what it means to love someone. Years ago, I read a point someone very wise said.
Love is a verb.
Most of us think of love as a feeling. Something you “fall into”. An emotion.
Which all can be part of love but, in the end, love is not how we feel, but what we do.
The English language rather fails when it comes to the word love. There are too many definitions for one word. The Ancient Greeks had different words for love that I think we could not go wrong, bringing back. They also viewed their words for love on a sort of scale. There are nine modern and ancient words for love. Here are four ancient ones.
The first type of love – the basest form – is eros. Eros is physical love, and the root of our word, erotica. Eros is about sex, really. In English, it would probably be better translated as “lust”. Eros was considered the lowest form of love.
The next type of love is philia. This is platonic love. Yes, there is a physical aspect to it – hugs and kisses between friends that have zero sexual connotations – but philia is brotherly love. The love of deep friendship. Philia is used in many ways in our language. Philadelphia is known as the “city of brotherly love” based on the Greek definition. It is also found in the suffix -phile. One example being bibliophile, a lover of books.
The next type of love, higher on the scale, is storgê. This is what might be called, family love. It is particularly used to described married couples raising their children together.
The highest form of love, however is ágape. This is unconditional love. Sacrificial love. Agape is independent of any external factors. It is given wholly, and expects nothing in return. Agape is the foundation of Christianity; that Jesus set aside His godhood to live fully human; a sinless life we could not hope to achieve, take on the punishment for our sins we all deserve – all of us, throughout humanity, throughout time. An execution so horrific, a new word was invented to describe the pain. Excruciating. Ex crucio. From the cross. To die in our place, so that He could conquer death, that we may live. All we have to do is fully accept this gift of His, yet we have no obligation to do so. That is the height of agape love.
So what is love, in our daily lives?
Love is what we do.
Love is to be friends with someone, be apart for years, yet when reunited, it’s as if those years apart never happened.
Love is seeing each other at our best and at our worst, and still being there for each other.
Love is a couple growing old together, facing the world together, long after the tingles have faded.
Love is a parent denying a child something they want, in favour of something they need, even when the child has a blowout and says they hate us for it.
In one of my recent devotions, these verses from Luke 11 were included.
5Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity e he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.
While the devotion was about persistence in prayer, as both a parent and someone with a lifelong interest in how people lived in the past, this line stands out to me.
‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’
In context for the time period, most likely the family was sleeping together on a mat woven of reeds or grasses. Even overnight visitors would join the pile. Can you just picture it? Husband and wife, lying on the floor, their kids snuggled up around or even on them. Dad there with a toddler on his chest and another child on each side, while Mom lies next to them with a babe at her breast… and then there’s a knock at the door! No wonder the response is “don’t bother me… I can’t get up…” !!
For most of human history, that’s how we slept. That’s how we lived. We had almost constant physical contact with each other. It wasn’t until the Victorian era that houses started to have rooms set aside just for sleeping, and that children got separate rooms to sleep in. Even now, in many places around the world, separate bedrooms (and sometimes just having beds) are a luxury, and the idea of children sleeping apart from their parents would be unheard of.
Sadly, we live in a world hungry for love. Real love.
We even hunger for the platonic physical aspects of love that used to be just part of our everything living, before cradles and cribs and separate beds and bedrooms became the norm, among other changes. Our culture has become so hungry for philia and storge, many turn to eros to fill the emptiness. We have reached a point when many cannot view any sort of physical affection as being anything but eros. A parent can’t even kiss their own child on the lips, or a mother breastfeed her baby, without people viewing it as something sexual in nature.
Our current culture, at least in our Western nations, has redefined love in other ways. To far too many, love means to always go along with what a person wants. To validate and enable anything they do, even if they are self harming in the process. It means to agree with anything they say, no matter how wrong they are. If you do not do this, you get accused of hate – another word that has been redefined dramatically!
Which brings me back to today.
Today, my mother was very angry about her medications being in a lock box. When told the reason why, she tried to turn it around and accuse us of not trusting her.
For some people, the “loving” thing would be to do what she wants. To make her “happy” by giving in. Take away the lock box, and let her take her meds whenever she thinks she should, or only the ones she thinks she should, even though she can’t remember what all of them are anymore, and certainly doesn’t know what the new ones are.
That would, of course, be wrong and even harmful. So the loving thing to do is NOT what she wants, but what is good for her, even if she can’t understand it and has hairy fits about it.
When it comes to my mother, I don’t “feel” love for her. I don’t know if I ever have. Years of confusing and abusive behaviour made that impossible. But she is my mother, and I still “do” love for her. She can get mad at me and yell at me and say cruel things to me, but I will still “do” love. Or she can flip like a switch and suddenly become oddly generous or kind, and I don’t know if it’s real, or if she’s trying to mess with me. It doesn’t matter. I will still “do” love. That doesn’t mean I’ll put up with the behavior, and I will call her out on it – which is also a way to “do” love.
I can make similar parallels to our home life, where my husband has to sleep in a hospital bed in another room. We may not be able to share a bed, but we can still “do” love.
Or where our daughters gave up so much to move out with us, turned the poorly insulated upstairs into their own apartment, and put up with freezing winters and boiling summers up there.
Or my younger daughter crawling out of a warm bed this morning, to go outside in freezing temperatures, to feed and water the cats while I wait for a phone call.
There are so many ways to “do” love.
This Valentine’s Day, I wish you much philia. I wish you storge and agape and even, if appropriate, a little bit of eros!
Today is January 6 which, in our family, is our official last day of Christmas.
Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, also known as Three Kings Day. When the girls were little, they would have put their shoes out last night, filled with “hay” for the three kings’ camels, which would be replaced with a few treats and small toys for them to find in the morning.
The Bible doesn’t actually say there were three kings. Rather, it speaks of the Magi – wise men – from the East, who came bearing gifts for the newborn king of the Jews, and doesn’t say how many there were. It mentions three gifts – gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Matthew 2:9-11
And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them,
until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.
They were overjoyed at seeing the star,
and on entering the house
they saw the child with Mary his mother.
They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
Then they opened their treasures
and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
While nativity scenes often have the wise men at the stable with a newborn Jesus in the manger (the “inn” referred to in English translations would more accurately have been translated as “upper room”, and the stable would have been in the lower room of an extended family household, overcrowded by other family members come to Bethlehem for the census). By the time the magi arrived, Joseph and Mary would have been properly married and, as described in the verses above, living in their own house. By the time Herod realized the magi were not returning, enough time had passed that he ordered all males under 2 yrs old in Bethlehem slaughtered. I’ve read estimates, based on what is know of the region and likely population of Bethlehem at the time, that the number of children killed might have been about 17, though of course, no one really knows.
Joseph, Mary and Jesus were safely in Egypt by then. Egypt was also under Roman rule, so this was akin to moving to another province or state.
At this, we have a close to our Christmas season. I hope you and yours have had a blessed time, and that the new year will be one of peace and good health, and may all your needs be met.
The Re-Farmer 