hospital

Our 2026 garden progress, surprise worms, and home!

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I must have been way more exhausted than I thought.

The night before was one of those nights were I just didn’t sleep. Not restless or busy brain or pain, just… awake. Until about 4am.

Last night, I decided to try going to be early. I was in bed and messaged my daughter in the hospital, asking how she was doing, shortly after 8:30pm.

I fell asleep before she answered me.

When I woke later, needing to de-cat myself so I could go to the washroom, I checked the time, expecting it to be 3 or 4am.

It was barely past midnight.

I figured for sure I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep again – and then I was awakened by cats crashing around in my room. Sure enough, it was about 5:30am, which is about when Ghosty goes into desctructo mode to wake me up and feed them.

So I did.

It was starting to get light out, but I went back to bed, expecting to not be able to fall asleep again, but I tried anyhow.

I opened my eyes and three hours had passed.

So I quickly got up and got ready to do my outside routine, which I always get done before I have breakfast. Especially when I end up going out later like this, because I know the outside cats would be quite hungry.

After feeding the cats I did my morning rounds, which includes checking all the garden beds. We had a “wintery mix” all night, and it was still raining. The sump pump has been going off, so the garden bed in the old kitchen with the vinyl cover, were I’d added the soaker hose, was being watered from below. The hose from the sump pump drains into a hole under the raised bed wall closest to the house, but it doesn’t go far, so it usually overflows into a path as well, but enough gets under the bed that it makes a difference.

When I got to the poly covered bed in the main garden area, I saw that water had collected in pools at the sides, where it’s weighted down by boards wrapped in the excess poly, again. Enough that, at one end, the weight was pushing the supportive hoop deeper into the ground and pooling more. So I was going to fiddle with the corner so that the water could rain into the bed when I noticed something odd.

A worm.

Two worms…

Ten?

Handfuls????

For some reason, all along the boards, on both sides, there were masses of earthworms in the water. In some places, I could see worms that had somehow managed to squeeze up the outside of the boards, under the poly. There were so many of them, I gave up trying to just drain the water. I unrolled all the boards and straightened out the poly, draining all the water away and taking out every stray would I could find. Amazingly, most of them looks like they were still alive, too!

Unrolling the poly required loosening the secured ends and removing the clips. When I rolled the boards up in the excess ploy again, I did it from below (which is much more awkward!) and in such a way that the poly now wraps completely around the outside of the raised bed’s log frame.

I was just finishing securing the second end when my daughter came out, asking if I could hear my phone or not.

I could hear nothing over the sounds of the poly as I fussed with it.

My older daughter has messaged us. She was free. Knowing it would take a while for us to get there, they told her to let us know first, and they would start the discharge paperwork and go over her prescriptions.

We had already prepped a back seat in the truck yesterday, and I decided to bring my walker along, just in case, which meant securing it in the box of the truck with some Bungee cords, so it would slide around as we drove, and we were soon on the road. Neither of us had eaten yet and it was past 10am by then, so we stopped at the next town to get a bit of gas, some beef jerky to tide us over, and a couple of energy drinks.

As we were driving in, I saw a gas station we would pass on the way out with gas at $1.729. We had gotten gas at $1.849, but most places in the city were $1.809. I decided it was worth getting more gas on the way back.

One of the things we asked my daughter was to find out where the pick up zone was, as I figured there was no way it was at the doors we’d gone in through when we visited.

It was those doors.

With my younger daughter to rubber neck for me while I was driving, she spotted the curb cut that passed as the entrance. Once we pulled in, I still couldn’t figure out where to park; at the doors was a fire lane, so no stopping at all. My daughter spotted some parking spots that looked like part of the patio, but the signs on the back wall said “permit only”. There was a truck sitting in what looked like the middle of the patio area, surrounded by several large, kidney shaped raised flower beds. That turned out to be where only 3 drop-off zone parking spots were, which I had to back into, because there was no room for me the truck to turn in. Thankfully, the “permit only” parking spaces were empty, because I had to pull into one of those to have room to back up.

Half hour only, paid parking only.

At least this time, I could use a machine in the lobby to pay for parking, rather than use a frickin’ website.

My daughter went ahead to get her sister while I took care of paying the parking, then waited in the lobby area for them. My older daughter was looking so much better! She was walking normally again, and she looked so happy to be leaving. She’s been stuck either sitting or lying down for the past week, with tubes and wires hanging off of her, so just being upright and moving made her feel better, too.

Once we had her settled into the truck, we headed out of the city, stopping to fill the tank at the one gas station with the lower price that I’d seen. Our next stop was going to be the pharmacy in town, so she could get a file set up and fill her prescriptions. Most of it will be vitamins.

I forgot, though.

Today is not Sunday. Today is a holiday Monday.

It wasn’t until I saw the empty parking lot at the pharmacy that I realized that. They were closed.

Which means my daughter won’t get her meds for the rest of the day.

We’re going to have to get back tomorrow, as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, my daughter was absolutely craving a meaty burger. The hospital food was good, but had no seasonings. Especially lacking in salt – and we don’t normally use a lot of salt in our cooking at home!

So we stopped at the DQ and got her a triple burger. Red meat, fat and salt – all the things she needs right now! 🍖🥩🧂🥓🍔

Actually, we all got triple burger meals to bring home. Can’t leave my husband out of the treat!

Once everything we settled and done, and it was time to feed the outside cats again, I stayed out to check on things and see what I could get done. Which is when I realized we had completely forgotten to turn on the shop lights over the seedlings (to make up for where the LED lights can’t reach), so I headed down to the basement, where I found a lovely surprise.

Our very first bi-colour pear gourd has emerged!

The second picture is the early White Vienna kohlrabi I started, just in case the ones outside don’t take. So far, only the chamomile has not sprouted yet.

That done, it was time to head outside.

It had stopped raining, though everything is still very wet, so there was only so much that could be worked on after the cats were fed. I was able to get back to that raised bed at the chain link fence, first securing the vinyl strips protecting the back wall that got pulled up by the winds. Then I started laying out the deadwood I’d stripped of bark along the front wall. It turned out I had enough stripped pieces to cover the bottom from end to end, so I no longer needed to strip any others.

Here is how it looks, as of now.

I actually went into the spruce grove to try and find more long, straight pieces, and found a few poplar that weren’t too wonky. I still have a pile of what we collected in the fall, but they are too short to set between the stakes.

I need more stakes. If I’m going to use skinny, short pieces to fill in the gaps so the soil won’t fall out, I’m going to need a lot more stakes.

They won’t need to be as tall as the ones that will support any hoops or whatever we use to hold protective covers, and I won’t bother charring them. That will have to be a job for another day, though.

I will also need to make stakes for the ends. With how narrow this bed is now, it will be a lot easier to do those, and I can use the shorter, but much more flexible pieces we collected in the fall.

One that’s all done, I can finally return the soil I removed.

Which will need to be sifted, because the cats have been using the pile as a litter box.

*sigh*

Once the soil is returned, that bed it doing to need to be covered with netting immediately, or the cats are going to be all over it. Not just to use as a litter box, but they love to roll around in loose soil.

I’ve actually ordered another hoop kit with fiberglass rods. A different kit from last time. This one doesn’t come with little gardening gloves (well… little for my simian hands), but it does come with ground staples – ground “nails” they call them – with “gaskets”. The fiberglass rods are 16.5inchs long, and this kit has 60 of them, plus the connectors. These connectors are metal instead of plastic, so I’m curious to see which ones last longer.

I had been trying different materials to make hoops, and things like the Pex pipe work well, but for the price, I’m getting a lot more hoops out of these kits than out of the Pex pipe. Plus, the lengths can be adjusted as needed; just use the connectors to add more rods. Whereas once I’ve cut the Pex to size, that’s it. I’d have to get pretty creative if I want more length.

Once I have more of these hoop kits, I will be adding them to the bed along the retaining all in the old kitchen garden that I finished last year, and probably just keep the hoops on the bed, even if any covers are removed. With this bed, I want the supports to be permanent, while also making it easy to work in between them. I’ll try it with these hoop kits first and see how it goes. Since they are fiberglass, they’ll handle weathering well.

As it is right now, that front wall is pretty much the same height at the back wall. Once I accumulate more stakes to better secure it, I might increase the height a bit while also filling in the gaps with thinner material. We’ll see.

I was debating what to plant in this bed. With the chain link fence right there, anything that climbs would be ideal. Maybe some winter squash. Once they are big enough that any protective cover can be removed, I won’t have to worry about the deer eating it, like they do with things like peas and pole beans.

Looking at the forecast, we’ve got one more cooler day, with a couple more nights of frost, then thing things will warm up substantially – but we are now getting rain forecasts starting the day after tomorrow and continuing for the next 5 days! At least, that’s what the weather app on my phone says. Not so much the one on my desktop. Hopefully, it’ll be nice enough that I can get the last beds prepped that weren’t done in the fall. I don’t mind the combination of heat and rain. Better than the usual drought!

Meanwhile, I’m hoping to get our seed potatoes into one of the main garden beds that were prepped last fall. They could have already gone in by now, but it can still wait for a while longer. At this point, other than things like other varieties of peas I’d like to try, and seeing if I can get some onions transplanted, most things can’t get done until possibly the second week of June!

Weather willing.

Little by little, it’s getting done – and this year, we really need to have a good gardening year, because the grocery prices just keep getting worse.

The Re-Farmer

Yes, more snow, plus updates and moving the chicken coop

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*sigh*

Woke up this morning to falling snow.

It didn’t take long for things to warm up enough that the snow on the ground melted away, but it was a bit longer before the snow turned into a light rain. Yes, we need the moisture, but we also need warmer temperatures! Especially overnight.

We were able to message with our older daughter, who is still in the Women’s Hospital in the city. There was a possibility that she might come home today. They were asking her how far away she lived, so they knew she needed some advance notice before the discharged her. They were waiting on some test results, first, though.

They didn’t get the results until about mid afternoon.

She didn’t come home today.

They’re changing her meds a bit, and are saying she might come home tomorrow.

She is just itching to get out of there!

It wasn’t until late afternoon that things warmed up enough to make working outside more pleasant. As a bonus, my brother and SIL came out to work on their set up. My younger daughter and I went over to their caravan to say hello and visit for a bit, and I got to show off my new wheels.

Before my daughter went inside, I got her to help me with a couple of things. One was to take off the vinyl covered garden bed cover in the old kitchen garden, and move it completely aside. I’ll do a separate post on garden progress, next. Then I showed her a location I thought would work out for the chicken coop that looked the most level. It’s where I’ve been trying to get wildflower mixes growing, but the cats keep using the loose soil as a litter box, or to roll in, killing off anything that might have germinated. She agreed that it looked like a good spot, so I gave it a through raking while she set the ramp up in the coop, so it wouldn’t drag sideways on the ground while we moved it.

Moving the coop was a real pain. Aside from both of us being rather broken, we can only pick it up by our fingertips. Once we’re more settled with it, I’m going to find some way to modify it, so we can move it around more easily.

We set it almost where I wanted it to be, and I worked on the rest. I wanted to set the coop on top of the bricks that used to line one side of the low raised bed I’ve been slowly redoing, but I wasn’t sure if I had enough. I loaded the wheelbarrow and started by laying them out along the back of the coop, just to see how many were needed for the length of it.

It turned out to be 10, with the last brick turned at a right angle.

Once I worked that out, I set the bricks out as straight and even and tight against each other as I could, before very carefully lifting the coop, one end at a time, on top. Then I immediately set bricks under the front corners, just to level it.

It turned out I had another 10 bricks in the wheelbarrow, so a prepped those before getting another load for the sides. I don’t know where these bricks were re-purposed from, but I made sure to use the ones with no, or almost no, mortar still stuck to them. There was more raking and leveling and careful placement, but I finally got it done – and had extra bricks.

The first image above was taken after the coop was moved. I didn’t open the door to let the ramp down until all the bricks were in place.

The next pictures show how the bricks were laid out, including the extras I set along the back and sides. I wanted it on bricks so the wooden frame wasn’t touching the ground. Yes, it’s painted, but it would still end up damaged by moisture and rotting faster.

What I’m not sure of is if anything would burrow under it to get at the chickens. Raccoons and skunks are both known to kill chickens. Ideally, we would set wire mesh around the outside edges by about 2 feet. Which is something that would have been done before setting the coop on bricks. We still need to figure out about securing it. With the wind storm we just had over the past couple of days, it was fine, and that location was more exposed than this one. It might be fine as it is.

Something to consider, still.

I’m glad we finally got it moved and set up on bricks, though. We can figure out the rest later.

Meanwhile, here is a beautiful Lady Adam, and I am rather perplexed by her.

I know Adam has had kittens, but she has been staying around the house a LOT for a mama that just gave birth. She has allowed me to feel her belly, while she’s on the cat house roof, eating. At first, it seemed I was feeling at least three active nips. Maybe more. Then, I was able to feel two, full and swollen with milk. The last time she allowed me to feel her belly, they weren’t swollen anymore. That could mean that she’d nursed her babies before coming to the house for food, but she is always around the house. Even more than usual. Does this mean she lost her litter? Or has she abandoned them? We have no way to know, without knowing where her “nest” is.

I don’t know what to make of it.

As for the cats in the isolation shelter, we are having zero success in socializing them. When we open the windows to give them their cat soup and fresh water, Bug is the only one that tolerates contact. Furriosa glares at me before moving out of reach. The other two just run away, as soon as I open a window. They aren’t even tempted by squeeze treats!

I did change out their litter box today – since I have to open the ramp door to do it, it has to be done quickly, so none of them escape, so I quickly remove the dirty litter pan and immediately replace it with a freshly prepared on, then quickly close up the ramp door. I’ve been able to add more toys for them as well, though I’ve yet to see them actively playing with any of them.

When it comes time to get them to the clinic – Furriosa is to be done first – I honestly don’t know how we’re going to manage it. We might be able to get Bug into a carrier, but the others will not allow us to touch them. How are we supposed to get them into a carrier, if we can’t reach them? Especially if they go into the lower level.

*sigh*

And these are among the friendliest, most gettable females.

We have got to figure something out.

Anyhow.

After I was done with the chicken coop, I worked in the garden for several hours and got good progress done.

Which will be in my next post.

See you there!

The Re-Farmer

Wind storm, and an update

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We are getting one heck of a windstorm right now.

Thankfully, though, we are far enough north that we are not getting the brunt of it. We’re “only” getting winds of around 35-45kph. The bulk of the system is passing to the south of us, crossing across the prairies from the north west. The weather group I’m on posted a satellite image, where you can actually see a mass of brown – dust – moving across Saskatchewan in into North Dakota.

Saskatchewan is looking a lot of top soil right now.

Even here, everything is looking like there is a brownish grey fog. We did get a slight amount of rain early in the day, but not enough to make any difference.

We drove in this.

I must have been quite wasted last night, because I slept hard all night. Well. The remains of the night after I went to bed.

Both my younger daughter and husband were up all night, so they were awake to get the messages my older daughter sent, over the span of about 6 hours. She was transferred from the ER of the main hospital, to the ER of the Women’s Hospital, which is just across the street. There is a pedestrian overpass joining the two buildings.

My daughter described the trip through the halls of the old hospital as “creepy”. It’s the sort of place that you would find being used as the set in a horror movie.

Then they crossed the overpass and suddenly everything was open and bright, quiet and modern!

Once there, they admitted her and she got a room.

I was planning to go into the city to visit her but checked to make sure she was up to it.

She was.

There were a few things that she didn’t have with her – like her glasses, and her phone charger – that we brought along, plus a proper travel bag to put the stuff we’d quickly packed when I first took her to the local hospital into. I knew my younger daughter had been up all night, but I also knew she would want to visit her sister, so I asked if she was up to coming along as my Nav O.

She happily agreed.

As expected the drive in and the city route to the hospital was very straightforward. The problem was what to do once we got there. I’d already been forewarned against using the parkades. It may have kept the truck out of the weather, but they are so tight, we would have had trouble getting in and out.

Once we reached the Women’s Hospital, we went looking for outdoor parking, but all the lots we saw were private parking for other buildings. We drove up and down some streets, which were just as broken up as I was expecting, navigating the poorly marked one way streets, looking for street parking. All we saw where signs saying “permit required”. Block after block, it was all “permit required”.

Finally, I saw a spot that I could pull into, near one of those signs, got out and took a closer look.

They didn’t say “permit” required. They said “payment” required.

The city has taken out all the parking meters.

There were three options. One was to use an app, which I didn’t have and was not going to get. The other was to pay through a website. The third was to phone and 888 number.

That was the one I wanted to use.

I couldn’t connect. Several times, I’d try the number and it would just say “calling…” but never called. After a while, the call would get dropped.

Finally, I tried the website, which required registering, which I did not want to do, but had not choice.

It was so frustrating. Basically, the city has made it so you can’t park on the street unless you have a Smart phone (which I have been very tempted to get rid of, in favour of a dumb phone), and no cash payment allowed.

By the time we managed to connect and pay for parking, it was starting to rain a bit harder, but not too bad. The wind was still the main issue.

I had brought my walker along, just in case, and I’m really glad I did. I know I could get away without using it, and using a cane if I had to, but once I started walking along with the walker, it just hit me how much easier it was on my body to use it.

Plus, my daughter would finally get to see it.

Once in the building, we had to go through the reception/security desk, first. Did I mention this hospital is downtown? They had signs saying things “like no knives or guns allowed”.

We were directed to go to the top floor, but were not given a room number. For that, we had to find which doors to go to, and finally just decided “that looks like a reception desk through those locked glass doors” and went for it. There was a collage of signs on the wall, with one of them having an arrow pointing to a button to push to get someone to let us in. It was one of those portable door bell buttons, taped to the wall. My daughter pressed it, and we got a voice on a nearby speaker asking what we were there for. When I told them we were there to visit my daughter, she asked the age. ?? I told her, and she was “oh, and adult” Then let us know we buzzed the children’s ward. Turns out there was another button somewhere. I think on the panel next to the speaker, but I’m not actually sure.

She let us in, anynow.

We then went to the reception where we got wrist bands confirming we were processed, got the room number, and directions.

Of course, she was at the far end of the ward. 😄

We were all very impressed with the room she was in. It was a single room, plenty of space, with an arm chair and a couch with storage under it available. There was also a little round chair with a small round built in tray that my daughter was using. After unpacking and setting up the stuff we brought for her, I repacked her clothes into the travel bag; in our rush to get her to the hospital, we had just grabbed a soft sided grocery bag. I went looking through some doors to see if there was somewhere to put the bag besides a little counter and found all sorts of spare pills, a fridge and even a drawer with a combination lock on it.

We then had a good visit and bit a bit more details on what was going on. There was a possibility she might come home tomorrow, if she improved to a certain point. Happily, she did look a lot better than yesterday.

Overall, we had a very good visit until we had to leave before our parking ran out.

While walking back to the truck, the wind almost blew my walker away!

Since it was along the way home, we stopped at a Domo to get some gas; today is Thursday, so it was their second 4¢ off per liter day of the week, so we paid $1.809 instead of $1.849

Neither of us had had lunch and we were starting to get very hungry, so we stopped at our usual Walmart along the way and had some McRaunchies, before doing a bit of shopping before heading home.

We took a different route as we left the city, crossing over to the highway that goes straight to our little hamlet, so we could stop at a gas station just outside the city and use their washroom before the hour long drive remaining. When we parked, we found messages from my daughter. She’s not where they want her to be and was getting some more treatment, so she is definitely not coming home tomorrow.

Which I’m actually okay with. I really don’t want her coming home too soon and relapsing.

For the last leg of the trip, the sky cleared it was looking quite nice and sunny out – but the winds had not died down.

I drove to the house to unload, which didn’t take long. It was well past when the outside cats are usually fed for the end of the day, so I took care of that while my daughter took care of the rest. I made sure to mix up some cat soup for the isolation cats. They seem to be doing okay in there, though they all run out of reach if I try to pet any of them.

Once the cats were all fed, I could safely drive the truck out of the yard and park it. Then I went around to take care of various things that were blown away. The heavy crochet blanket on top of the kibble house roof had been blown off, along with the fan rake that had come apart and I’d set on top of it until I can fix it. The giant black tarp I’d pegged to the ground until I could fold it up was blown loose and into the West yard, near where the chick coop still sits.

I made sure to look for and remove the metal tent pegs that failed to hold it down, first.

Thankfully, I was able to spread out and fold up the tarp where it was.

Then I watered the pre-sown garden beds and perennials. Which was interesting, with the wind! I don’t know how much rain we got here, but with the wind, everything was already dried up.

As I sit, writing this, there is still enough light out that I can see the big maple branches swaying. Earlier, I’d walked around the spruce grove and actually heard cracking sound. I suspect we might lose one of the dead trees tonight. Thankfully, with the wind direction, any trees that fall will fall away from the house, not towards it. The only real worry is the tree in front of the kitchen window, since part of it overhangs the roof.

We are still under dust storm and high wind alerts over our area, which is expected to continue through to tomorrow morning. While I was working on this post, I went into the kitchen for something and heard a noise I didn’t like. Looking out the window, I found the wind was trying to tear off the roof panels on the isolation shelter! I went and found several bricks and pieces of bricks to weigh down the edges that were catching in the wind. !!!!

Tomorrow, I plan to visit my mother. The last couple of times, I’ve been going on Saturdays, but I want to keep that day open for working around the yard and possibly a dump visit – or possibly bringing my daughter home from the hospital over the weekend?

I will NOT be telling my mother that my daughter is in the hospital. That would just get nasty, and my daughter made it very clear she does not want her grandmother to know. From past experience, we know how my mother would be, and that is the last thing any of us need to deal with on top of everything else.

While I’m in my mother’s town, I’ll have to remember to stop at the feed store and ask about the chick order status. I know they’ve got me down as sharing a minimum order of 24 chicks with two other people. For me, I only have room for 10 chickens in our coop, so 10 or fewer chicks is good. I don’t know how many the other two people are after. We might just split it evenly with 8 chicks each. We’ll see. Meanwhile, I need to pick up supplies for their brooding period. I want to have everything ready well before we pick up the chicks at the end of the month.

Meanwhile, there is lots of garden related stuff that needs to be done, besides finishing that garden bed. As long as I get that done before the elm trees start dropping seeds, it can wait. Other things are starting to become priority.

We’re having a couple of hot days and warm overnight temperatures, but we will soon be dropping, with freezing overnight temperatures for a couple of nights, before slowly warming up again. This weekend is a long weekend and a lot of people finish putting their gardens in on this weekend.

Not us. But there are some things that prefer colder soil that can be direct sown, and I’d like to re-sow some of the winter sown items that look like they didn’t take, or very little seems to have survived. Plus there are the remaining seeds to start indoors.

For now, I think it’s about time for me to crash into bed. It’s just past 9 as I write this, and both my husband and younger daughter passed out, hours ago.

My turn.

The Re-Farmer

Yard cat update, and an ER trip

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First, the regular stuff.

My younger daughter took care of the morning routine for me again. She told me that, while giving the isolation cats their cat soup and fresh water, Bug allowed pets, but was absolutely indifferent to them. She was more focused on that open window.

Today has turned out to be a hot one. We’re at 18C/64F, with a “real feel” of 21C/70F Which is a problem for the isolation cats. I’ve removed the sheets of insulation under the roof, so heat can escape through the edges, but it still gets really hot, and we can’t open the windows while they are in there, awaiting spays.

So this afternoon, after I got home again, I did the outside feeding and brought frozen water bottles for the isolation shelter. One for the water bowl, one for the cat bed and one in a corner they like to lie in. Most of the cats were on the bottom level, though. The floor is mesh over the pallet, so there would be cooler there. Then I got a screwdriver and removed the wood strips holding the vinyl wrapped around the bottom of the shelter, where the walls are all wire mesh. I couldn’t remove the back, because it’s up against the house, but I got three sides uncovered.

I don’t know why Furriosa’s eye is closed like that. I still can’t touch her. Flospy finally came out this morning, so it’s just the 4 awaiting their spay appointments.

The next picture in the slideshow, is Adam.

When I saw her on the cat house roof, awaiting food, she looked different – and her back end looked like it was recently damp.

She allowed me to feel her belly.

She has had babies. Somewhere. I could feel at least 3 active nips, one of which can be clearly seen in the photo. With her history, I’d guess she’s had 4 kittens. Somewhere. I wish I knew where her nest is!

Anyhow, hopefully, the isolation cats will be feeling much better, now that the bottom walls are uncovered and there is more air circulation.

Now to the irregular stuff.

My older daughter has not been feeling well for some time. As in, for years. Recently, though, she’d gotten worse. It took a few times telling her I was willing to drive her to the ER and, this morning, she finally agreed. The nearest ER that would be open is in the town closest to us, where my mother spent several months before going into TCU, and where my husband spent 3 weeks, several years ago. One of the nurses there even recognized me, and the doctor that saw my daughter was the same one that treated my mother. My daughter wouldn’t want me to share her health issues here, but it was bad enough that she got admitted and into triage within 15 minutes. That I borrowed a wheelchair to bring her in, and she looked pale as death probably “helped”. She has now she has been transferred to the city for treatment. By the time they did as much as they could for her here, then the paramedics came to transport her, several hours had gone by. There was no use for me to follow to the city, though, so I came home. They will phone us when they have something they can tell us, and we’ll go from there. We have no idea how long she will be in the hospital for.

Hopefully, they will be able to find a root cause and she will finally get the treatment she needs.

Until then, we just do what we can with what we know.

Which isn’t as much as we would like, with her being in the city now. It’s not like we can casually drive out there. Just getting to where it is a pain. The route is pretty straightforward, but it’s downtown, in a city with way too many one way streets in the area, too little parking, and almost non existent road maintenance.

Ah, well. We’ll figure it out, and do what we can.

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties, updates, and yes, I got more seeds

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First, the cuteness!

The outside cats are certainly running around a lot more, now that things are warming up! It’s going to get quiet pleasant for the rest of February, according to the long range forecast, though the local weather group I follow is monitoring a weather system that might push a Colorado Low into our area.

I never got a call from the hospital yesterday, so I called them before going to bed. I’m glad I did, because my mother called me this morning!

She is still in the hospital, all packed and ready for her transfer. She told me she asked the staff about when she was leaving, and that they told her they didn’t know how she would be transported. Which is strange, since they told me from the start that they are arranging her transport.

The doctor at the hospital was never able to connect with the doctor and the temporary care unit, and that’s why she didn’t get transported yesterday. I explained that to her, and assured her that the hospital would be arranging the transportation. Likely with a HandiVan, rather than an ambulance. My mother didn’t even know where she was going, other than it would be in the smaller, nearer city. I told her, she would be in the old hospital, now converted to temporary long term care, but that we still didn’t know where in the building she would be. She was satisfied with that. She sounded like she was really looking forward to the transfer!

Late this morning, I headed out to the feed store in the town my mother no longer has an apartment in. 😄 We’re heading into the middle of February already (how did that happen so quickly???), and we still had kibble, so I only got three 40 pound bags. I also ordered some lysine, which should be in on Monday. Or Tuesday. Monday is a statutory holiday (it has different names in different provinces) and I think they will be closed.

Since I ordered that chicken coop – which got shipped yesterday already! – I stopped to ask some questions about chickens. The two people that were there at the time got quite enthused in answering them! I’ll need to set up a brooder (I already have the heat lamp, currently being used in the sun room for the cats). They gave me a booklet from the hatchery they get their chicks from that has all the information needed. I know we still have feeders and whatnot in the old log building my parents used as a chicken coop when I was a kid, but I’m not about to go digging those out. They’ve been there for probably 30 or more years by now. I honestly can’t remember when my parents stopped keeping chickens.

I asked them which breed they would recommend for someone just starting out and looking for layers. They both very enthusiastically recommended Browns. They were really impressed with the number and size of the eggs this breed lays, plus they are known to be quiet, friendly and clean.

The chicken coop that’s on its way is big enough for only 10 chickens, which is a bit of a problem. The hatchery’s minimum order is 24 chicks. There is, however, someone else that’s looking for only a few chicks, so they took my name down alongside theirs. If they can find one more person, they can split a shipment, and the shipping costs, after the chicks arrive. It costs a bit more for sexed chicks, but with only 10, I don’t want to have any roosters in there. By the time everything is added together, it should cost me about $75 for 10 chicks. Meanwhile, I can slowly start picking up the other supplies I will need, like feeders and waterers. I can get pine shavings locally.

Over time, as we build bigger coops, we’ll look at getting meat birds, too. If we’re looking to fill the freezer for a year, we’d be looking at at least 100 meat hens, so that would require a much bigger coop! Or multiple smaller ones. It’s a shame the building my parents used can’t be used. We might still be able to fix it up at some point – it’s still in good enough shape for that, at least – but that is very much a long term project.

Once I was done there, I topped up the gas tank ($1.279/L *sigh*), then went to the grocery store. I was mostly looking to get more rye bread, but found a few more things, of course – including some tri-tip beef that was on sale. Beef has become something where local prices tend to be better than Costco prices. At least when the sales are on. Still high, but at least affordable enough to grab the odd package now and then.

I also got sucked in, as soon as I walked in the door.

There was a seed display. The first I’ve seen this year!

Of course, I had to look, and yes, I did get seeds.

The first are some double marigolds. These are something I want to scatter plant all over the various garden beds, wherever there is space. They can be started indoors 4-6 weeks before last frost, so around the middle of April or beginning of May. Marigolds are easy to collect seed from, so I should hopefully be able to collect some for next year.

I also got some yellow zucchini, because I just can’t have too many summer squash! These can be started 3-4 weeks before last frost, so in the beginning of May.

Both can actually be direct sown, too, so I might try a bit of both. It depends on how much room I find myself with.

I seriously had to resist buying more!

So we are set for the next while. I don’t need to head out anywhere again until it’s time to take the truck in to get the differential leak fixed – a 2 hour job. I had intended to visit my mother while the work was being done, but she shouldn’t be there anymore. Depending on when they can start working on the truck, once it’s done, I will likely to head to the city my mother will be in, to hit a Walmart and a Canadian Tire, both of which are quite close to the old hospital building she is being transferred to.

I’m actually surprised I haven’t gotten a call from the hospital yet. That means she hasn’t been transferred yet. I would have hoped the doctors had connected by now!

Ah, well. We shall see. The main thing is, she is safe and care for, either way.

Now… time to start pouring through that hatchery booklet I picked up today!

The Re-Farmer

Addendum: Oh! I just hit publish when a message from my brother came in. The hospital just called him. My mother is transferred, safe and sound!

Good news and not so good news

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For an at home day, quite a bit has been happening!

But first, the cuteness.

Because we must have cuteness.

Now, we get into some medical stuff.

I was originally planning to head out to the feed store today, but I completely forgot about that, because of something that happened last night.

I was having a late snack of brie and pimiento stuffed olives. My first thought, when I felt something hard and immediately stopped biting down, was that I’d found a broken piece of olive pit. I’d already found one earlier.

I immediately discarded that idea, because it felt wrong. In fact, it felt more like a piece of tooth.

Yeah, I’ve had that happen before, too.

After very carefully clearing my mouth, I spit out the hard thing. Sure enough, it was a chunk of tooth. The far side of a molar at the very back of my mouth. One that already had a root canal, done probably close to 35 years ago, so there was no pain.

The weird thing?

I’d been to the dentist a few months ago because I was having pain and thought I had a cavity. There was no cavity there and nothing on the Xrays. Mostly, though, I have been having trouble chewing on that side. I’d bite on something – even something soft – and there would be a sharp pain. The problem was, the tooth that seemed to be where the pain was, had a root canal and should not have been having any pain at all. Which meant it could have been one of the teeth on either side of it. All the tests the dentist did to try and recreate that pain, failed, and he could not work out which tooth was hurting me. So, nothing was done.

That was in the lower jaw. The tooth that broke is in the upper jaw on the same side.

Yet, I no longer have pain in that area of my lower jaw.

So there is no pain in that area at all, upper or lower jaw, but I do have a sharp bit my tongue is catching on where the piece of tooth is missing. There’s now a risk the filling might break off, or more of the tooth will break.

This morning, I called the dentist to see how quickly they could get me in.

After explaining what happened and confirming that I am not in any pain right now, they booked me in as early as possible.

March 27. More than a month from now!

I am, however, on their cancellation list, and they will try to fit me in as quickly as possible. If I do start having problems with the tooth, I’m to call them back and they’ll get me in on an emergency basis.

That particular call for an appointment was unplanned. I did have another planned call. This time to my doctor to book an appointment. Got some womanly stuff at issue. I’ve been happily post-menopausal for more than 20 years. I hit menopause very early, and had zero issues of any kind. Well, now I seem to have started my cycles again. Nothing big, mostly just spotting, but still, it shouldn’t be happening. I’m not overly worried. I’m at the age women typically go into menopause, so who knows. Something to check out, anyhow.

I’m not looking forward to it.

That’s the not so good news.

Now for the good news.

With the calls and appointments made, I settled in to work on my crochet for a while, when I got a call from the hospital.

They have found a temporary care unit bed for my mother! She’s being moved today.

It’s not in her top choice location, but we stressed with her to take anything that comes available. Once she’s in the system, it’ll be much easier to get her transferred to the nursing home she actually wants to be in.

The temporary care unit is in the nearer city. When they built the new hospital we’ve been going to so often, as that’s where they have the diagnostic equipment needed, the old hospital was converted to temporary long term care. Which means they’ll have more activities and such available.

They still had to go through the process of doctors talking to doctors, nurses to nurses, transferring of files, and then they will transport her over. I’m supposed to get a call once they actually move her and give me as much information as they can. Right now, we just know the building she’s going to be in. Nothing about what floor or room or anything like that. I should know that by the end of today, if all goes smoothly.

Once that is done, we will officially be the furthest away from my mother. My sister will be just 15 minutes away, and even my brother will be closer than we are! Casual visits from our end will be far less often. That will change back again when she is eventually transferred to where she wants to be, since that’s only blocks away from the hospital she’s in right now.

I really, really hope my mother behaves. 😉😁

The Re-Farmer

A quiet day

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We were actually able to make today a day of rest! What a novel concept.

I will, of course, start with the cuteness.

That self warming cat shelter is just crushed. 😄 When it’s time to clean out the catio, I’ll have to find a way to add supports inside it. Even under a shelf, that cats still jump on it.

One of the things I’ve been doing in the last few days, as things have been warming up, is removing the snow from the roof of the catio and the isolation shelter. They did their job as insulating in the winter, but now I actually want more light to get inside them.

The isolation shelter is a bit easier. There was a fair bit of ice under the snow that needed to be broken loose; heat from inside was enough to melt the snow, which then froze in sheets. Once that was clear, I just needed to lift the roof and allow the last bits of snow and ice fall off, and anything melted to drain.

The catio, however, is different. Not only does the roof not lift off, but the top under the roof is just wire mesh. There are no supports other than the frame itself. That meant things started to sag in the middle, where I found a sheet of ice almost 2 inches thick in places! I could also only work at clearing it from the front of the catio, since the other three sides are deep with snow. I did have to access the end facing the house to do some repairs. I think, when my brother used the snow blower to clear enough space in front of the storage house to back up his truck, snow was hitting the end of the catio and tore the plastic. Some snow had even gotten inside and onto the cat shelf at that end. I have clear repair tape (looks a lot like packing tape, but is much stronger, with better adhesive) and had to stand in snow above my knees to get at it!

Now that the tears are fixed and the roof is as clear as I could get it, the inside of the catio is brighter, and quite warm. I spotted Fancypants and Larence in there this morning. This afternoon, there was a fluffy kitten in there. It seems to really like the catio and hangs out where quite a bit, but is feral enough to be quite alarmed when I go to add food and water. I didn’t need to add water this afternoon, though. It was warm enough in there that the water I added this morning was still liquid!

Aside for the usual outside stuff, I’ve kept things quiet today. I’ve started working on a crochet project, using some new self-striping yarn I picked up last month. I’m a little ticked, though. I re-wrapped them from skeins into center pull balls. About 3/4 through the first one, I found a knot, with a dark colour tied off to a light colour. Then I found three more knots, within a few feet! So much for graduated colour changes. The other skein didn’t have any knots in it, so I started my project with that one. I’m planning to make a hooded cowl.

I did do something else that was more frustrating than it should have been. I’ve been trying to buy a chicken coop kit. There’s nothing local available that is affordable. My first attempts failed because the designs I found don’t ship to our location. Then I found ones that did and tried to use the “Affirm” payment plan to order one that can hold up to 10 chickens. (The best I could find locally could only house 4 chickens at most, and cost twice as much.) The problem with that is, they couldn’t verify our address. They couldn’t even verify the address for the store the post office is in! Which makes no sense.

After several attempts, I finally just ordered it without the payment plan. A larger chunk on my credit card than I wanted all at once. Well, I know where my tax return will be going… *sigh* Remarkably, it will actually ship to our post office box, and could potentially arrive before the end of the week! If so, I might be able to pick it up on the way home from taking the truck to the garage on Thursday.

Assembly required, of course, and we’ll have to figure out where to store the boxes until spring. This is something that can be placed fairly close to the house, for better shelter from the elements, and will hopefully last us until we can finally build the mobile chicken coop I’ve been wanting to build for years. Until then, little by little, we can pick up the supplies needed to feed and water them, etc., and order chicks in the spring. Or buy adult chickens. The homesteader I used to buy eggs from has been selling off her birds in batches – she went way overboard in chickens! – and she might still have some available in the spring. I’ve already been thinking ahead for growing food for the chickens in the garden, too, so we’re not using only purchased chicken feed. (Which we can buy at the store the post office is in.)

Hopefully, it will be a better growing year this year than last!

It’ll be nice to finally have our own eggs. Plus, I want to make mobile runs for them that will fit over our garden beds, so they can clean up the weeds and seeds and fertilize them, at the end of the season. Chickens are good for the garden!

In other things, I got a strange call from my mother last night. She started out by lamenting about how it’s been soooooo long since I visited her (I had visited her two days before) and no one was calling her, etc. I told her, I was just there! Oh, well, when will you visit next? I told her, the only day I know for sure I’ll be in town is Thursday, when I’m dropping the truck off at the garage for some more work. Oh, but that’s so far away (meaning in time, not distance)!

*sigh*

Then she started on the reason for her call.

She apparently asked the nursing staff and they said that yes, she can do this. She wants to start getting her prescriptions herself, instead of through the hospital.

She is still convinced they are giving her the wrong medications. On purpose.

I told her that I would have to call her doctor to get her prescriptions sent to a pharmacy where she is. I had to explain to her again, they still won’t be the same. They have different suppliers than her pharmacy in the town she lived in had. It would be the same medications, but they would look a bit different. Probably exactly the same as the ones she’s getting in the hospital.

Then it got to the main point.

Her vision is getting “dimmer”. She thinks it’s because they are not giving her the vitamin she was getting in her bubble packs.

After a few more questions to figure out what happening, I had to walk her through her wet and dry macular degeneration again. The vitamins she was taking were for her dry macular degeneration – where she was seeing straight lines as wavy. The “dimming” that she is seeing is from her wet macular degeneration, and that is what she was going to the special clinic in the city to get injections into her eyeball for. A trip she can no longer handle, without proper transportation assistance. There is no where else she can go for that treatment, because no one else does it.

She still wanted to get her meds switched away from the hospital providing them (which would be covered by our province’s pharmacare insurance, either way). She is simply convinced they’re giving her the wrong medications, and nothing will dissuade her.

In the end, we talked about how she’s there temporarily, so maybe we should deal with that after she’s in a permanent location.

After our call, I called the hospital back to talk to someone at the nursing station. I told her about my mother saying her vision is getting worse, but that this would require a trip to the city for testing/treatment, etc.

What we could do is make an appointment, and the hospital would arrange a HandiVan to transport her to it. Even then, we know it would be very hard on my mother to make that trip. She suggested we try getting her an appointment at the one local eye clinic in town. It would be much easier for them to arrange transportation, and the eye doctors there could give us more information on what our next steps could be.

I also explained about my mother wanting to get her own prescriptions and what I explained to her, which was confirmed, and that she agreed to wait until she was placed somewhere more permanently. Any news on that?

Nope. Nothing. In fact, they’ve got others in the hospital that have been waiting for months to get into a personal care home.

*sigh*

Frustrating, to be sure, but my mother doesn’t understand how fortunate she is to be in the hospital right now, rather than back in her apartment. Especially with how unreliable home care has been. She has exactly what she was wanting: to be living where there is someone available, particularly at night, should she need help with things. Unfortunately, now that she’s there, she expects them to “fix” her somehow.

*sigh*

Not much we can do to help her with that.

The Re-Farmer

It’s working! … plus another $180

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These issues with the truck have totally wrecked our grocery budget. Mostly with cat supplies.

Speaking of cats, here’s some cuteness for you!

I got a call from the medical devices people this morning, about picking up the commode from my mother’s. After giving directions to find us, I mentioned that I needed to go into town, so they suggested I leave the commode outside. I warned them that they might have to remove some cats!

The cats were very, very curious!

So that has finally been returned.

Meanwhile, I headed into town to drop off the truck early. After leaving the keys, I had lunch at the nearby Chinese restaurant, then walked over to the hospital to visit my mother. Talking to the owner of the garage before leaving, he told me they would just replace the oil sensor and do the oil change this time. Fixing the leak on the differential is a 2 hour job, and they didn’t have time for that today. The part, at least, is cheap. It just takes a long time to replace it.

When I came got to my mother’s, she was in the wheelchair with her back to the door. I could immediately see she had something in her ears.

Cotton balls.

Because of all the noise.

*sigh*

She says the noise seems to be coming from all over. At one point, she asked me about “the thing with holes” in the wall next to where the call button cord goes into the wall. She said she asked the nurses, but they didn’t know what it was. Meanwhile, I was saying, “you mean the speaker?”

So she thought the speaker was piping in noise from other parts of the hospital, into her room. I explained to her that when she pushes the call button, they hear it at the nursing station, and they can talk to her through it from there, that’s it. It’s not connected to anywhere else.

Clearly, they don’t actually use it, if the nurses didn’t know it was a speaker!

She was also asking about magnets. Are there magnets in there? I said yes. Oh, so that’s what’s magnifying the noise!

I had to explain that magnets have nothing to do with magnifying things.

Then she asked if I knew when she would be out of there, and talked about how her “service” was so much poorer. I told her (again, but she doesn’t remember) that she is not a patient anymore. She is a long term care resident. She would be getting the same level of care now, as she would be getting in a nursing home. She was actually surprised to hear this. I think it just finally clicked.

She then started telling me about how she was feeling so poorly and had called for help. They hooked her up to “all the wires” (an EKG), but that was it. No one has said anything to her. I asked her if this happened yesterday, but she couldn’t remember. Finally, she just said yes, yesterday. I told her that someone would need to look at the results, but if there is nothing wrong, they won’t have anything to tell her.

By the time I left, I completely forgot to stop at the nursing station to ask.

It was a pretty quiet visit, overall. My mother was having one of her good days, as far as her mood and attitude goes. Of course, she complained that my brother never calls or visits, but she always does that. I told her, he has been very busy taking care of her affairs. At the very least, he’s going to have to stop by to pick up the keys my sister dropped off.

After a while, it was time to head out again. It was getting so warm (we hit 4C/39F today!), I wanted to enjoy it as much as possible, too.

On the way back to the garage, I pass a couple of gas stations. Prices went up 5¢/L since I walked past them earlier!

The truck was still in one of the bays when I came in, but I knew it wouldn’t be much longer, so I just went into the office to wait. The owner was working on our truck himself, though he was frequently interrupted by phone calls and messages! They are a very busy garage. People know a good thing when it’s there!

It was maybe 5 or 10 minutes later when he backed the truck out, then we had a chance to talk.

He had done some research, trying to figure out why our sensor, which was replaced maybe a year ago, was having issues again. Based on what he found, he told me he removed a screen from inside the sensor. It’s there to prevent blockages. However, in our make and model, it actually causes blockages. With our winter conditions, moisture eventually gets into the system. The sensor is located off to the side, instead of next to the air filter, so it ends up with ice on the screen, causing a blockage, and faulty readings.

In the end, it cost me $230.86 in total, for the sensor, the oil change and a new oil filter. The sensor cost only a dollar less than the oil change!

He did not charge me for labour.

Meanwhile, I am now booked for next week, this time with an early morning drop off. He’s got a 2 hour slot to get that differential leak fixed. That’s going to cost another $300 or so, after taxes. Only $50 of that is for the part itself.

*sigh*

I had been thinking of doing the Walmart run after getting the truck back, but I just didn’t have the energy left for it. Instead, I went across the street to the grocery store again. I had a couple of requests from my husband, and asked the family if where was anything else we needed. Of course, when I did saw some good sales, I took advantage of it.

I didn’t take a picture of the cart again, but here is the receipt for $179.20

Once again, the most painful price was the dry kibble. This time, I got a bag for the outside cats, since I haven’t been able to get to a feed store to get any 40 pound bags. We aren’t out, but getting low, and I didn’t want to take a chance of running out completely, in case I don’t make it to the feed store soon enough.

The canned cat food was on sale, so I got enough to last us for a few more days of cat soup.

My husband requested nacho fixings, without the cheese. 😄 The chips were on sale, so I got four bags for him – but forgot to get olives. Oops. I did grab some more of the sour candies for him, though. I also got a giant bag of potato chips for the girls.

There was a good sale on BBQ sauces, so I got a couple of bottles. Flats of 30 eggs were also on sale, so I got one of those instead of the 18’s I got last time, which were no longer on sale. The girls requested some oat milk.

They had bagged avocados on sale, so I got two of them. We really enjoy avocados, but they have gotten so insanely expensive. There are 5 to a bag, which worked out to 60¢ each. These days, they are usually more than $2.50 each.

They also had hoagies on sale, so I got a couple of packages, along with another locally produced sausage ring. As a treat, I also picked up some smoked Gouda.

Last of all, I could a couple of loaves of rye bread that was also on sale, plus a package of “imperfect” chocolate pieces as a treat for myself.

All of that, except for the bag of dry kibble and the flat of eggs, easily fit into only two hard sided bags. Twenty nine items in total.

I could have had $30 taken off with my loyalty points, but I’m saving that for another time.

As I was loading things into the back of the truck, it started to rain! I’m glad I didn’t try for a Walmart trip. The roads would have been icing over by the time I was driving home.

After we unloaded the truck, I emptied the bag of kibble into the bin for the outside cats, then fed them before trying to move the truck out of the yard. They went absolutely nuts over the kibble! I think they were getting pretty tired of the feed store kibble.

We almost got an extra indoor cat again. While bringing things to the door for my daughter to grab, I stopped to tell her something and left the door open for a split second too long. Sir Robin made a run for it! We got him out quickly, but that cat wants to be an indoor cat, so badly!

Once all unloaded and the cats fed and watered, I could safely move the truck out of the yard. The cats were far more interested in the new food than going under the truck!

At this point, I will need to decide what sort of trip to the city I’ll be making at all. We still need to do a proper stock up trip of bulk items. So at least a Costco trip.

I don’t know if I’ll be doing that tomorrow, or on the weekend. It depend on whether my husband is physically up to getting to the lab tomorrow morning, for his blood work. Tomorrow is Friday. If I go on Saturday, it will be after we do a much needed dump run. We can’t even get rid of my mother’s mattress and box spring yet; there’s no room for those, plus our regular garbage and recycling, in the back of the truck. Plus, the mattress and box spring are longer than the truck box, so they’ll need to be strapped down with the tail gate open. That will need to be done on another day.

The main thing is, I no longer have to worry about the truck starting to scream at me because of a faulty oil sensor!

Ah, well. Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

So frustrated! An update

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Okay, first things first.

Before heading to the garage, I backed the truck up to check the oil levels. They were fine, but there was fresh oil drops in the dirt floor under where it was parked for the night. During the drive in, it was the same as yesterday. The pressure gauge started off in the normal range, then slowly dropped during the drive in.

I dropped the truck off at the garage, then walked over to the hospital to visit with my mother. She was doing better today, thankfully. She was able to move around without the screaming and yelling in pain.

The irony of this is that she complained about the noise the other patients and staff were making. Hospitals should be quiet, because sick people need quiet.

I talked to her about making sure to accept painkillers regularly, BEFORE the pain gets bad. She can ask for more and, if it’s an issue, they might schedule her for painkillers more often or something.

I think she would prefer to yell and scream, to be honest. I don’t want to make light of her pain. Lord knows, I can empathize with it a great deal. It’s more about her behaviour over it, and refusal to actually do what she should be doing for it, while expecting some doctor (not a black one) to fix what can’t be fixed.

I got there just as her lunch tray was about to be delivered. My mother was in her favourite corner chair, with the bedside table already in front of her, ready and waiting. As the woman dropped off the tray, she asked conversationally, your daughter is visiting? My mother, however, was just staring up at her, and didn’t seem to hear. I acknowledged that I was her daughter, but said I didn’t think my mother heard her. She went on to put a tea bag in the hot water for my mother, then asked if she needed help with the sugar packet. My mother was still just staring at her. Glaring, really.

The woman looked to be Vietnamese, which would be why my mother was staring and not answering.

I told her I would help if my mother needed it, and made sure to thank her as she left.

Once she was gone, my mother started behaving normally.

*sigh*

The lunch looked delicious. She had a slice of mushroom and pepperoni pizza, Caesar salad, vegetable soup with a packet of crackers and a bowl of canned fruit salad for desert, along with her tea. My mom said it was the first time she got pizza. It smelled awesome, and my mother polished it all off. The quality of the food is one thing my mother does not quite complain about, though she did say something about how they never give her bread (pizza crust doesn’t count). To my mother, bread should be part of every meal! 😁 She is happy with the food, though.

We had a pretty good talk. No really weird stuff. I got some messages from my sister, who was still at my mother’s place, it turned out. Then I got a message from my brother saying that my sister should keep the keys she has and lock up the apartment, rather than leaving them there, so I passed that message on.

That turned out to be a really good thing.

One of the things I’d left in case my sister wanted them was a set of dishes she had bought for my mother, but she said I could take them, as she won’t use them. We have so many dishes of our own, but they can join the other items we now have stored in a shelf in the root cellar, until we can figure out what to do with them.

I told my mother I planned to go to her apartment after I got the truck back, and she asked, to finish taking everything? I just had to laugh. I told her, you have no idea how much you have! I certainly can’t move her furniture by myself.

Some of the conversation was typically odd with my mother. She was wondering why I was back to visit, two days in a row, and I explained about the truck, and how our mechanic was going to get it done in between other appointments. Somehow, that got around to her talking about how garages take advantage of women (because, apparently, only women take their vehicles to a garage, and men all fix their vehicles themselves. She truly believes men are born knowing how to fix cares. She literally has said that to me!), and how it’s all moneymoneymoney.

I told her, people do need to be paid for their work! She seems to think everyone should be doing things for free – except her, of course. She wants to be paid back $10 for the extra keys she had copied, before turning them over to public housing when her rental agreement is done.

When I told her I wasn’t going to be charged for the work being done today, because it’s under warranty, she changed the subject.

I refilled the thermos travel cup I’d brought for her, and she said she was very happy to have that hot water. She isn’t even doing her half water, half milk thing. She just prefers to drink warm water, and adds it to the water from the pitcher they leave with her. As I was setting up the cup, plus a few other things for her, like refilling her crackers bowl, she started saying how I couldn’t understand the troubles she’s having, with her mobility. When I’m 90, I’ll understand!

I told her, I do understand. I have many of the same problems. She said this as I was reaching to set her bowl of crackers back on the window sill within her reach, and could barely do it because my elbow was giving out. I ended up telling her about falling and hurting myself, twice, last year, and how I still can’t put weight on my right knee, because that’s the one that landed on concrete. She asked what happened, and I told her about coming in from shoveling and my glasses frosting over while I hung the snow shovel up in the sun room, so I couldn’t see and tripped over something.

Her immediate response?

Why was I the one shoveling snow?

…

So… It’s my fault I got hurt, because the girls should have been shoveling snow, not me.

Got it.

I told her, I LIKE shoveling snow, but the girls do it, too, if I can’t. I just happened to be the one doing it that day.

The other odd thing was something I later called the nursing station back to warn them about.

My mother needed to go to the washroom, and was able to get herself there on her own, using the walker – I offered to help her with the hospital’s wheelchair, and she said no. Then she asked me to get a second garbage can set up with a bag. I was setting it under the bathroom sink, when I found out what she wanted to for.

To pee in.

There’s a commode, but it’s being stored in the washroom right now. She said, they want her to get up and walk around to use the toilet (I explained about the necessity of movement to help with her OA, which got a glare), but she didn’t want to use the commode. It had been beside her bed, but she claimed they forget about it and didn’t change it after it gets used. So instead, if she needs to go during the night, she planned to use the garbage can.

Well… at least it isn’t an ice cream pail, like she had been doing at home, until we got a commode for her!

I told her, don’t do that! Her response was, do you want me to pee on the floor?

*sigh*

Even with the odd stuff, it was a good and fairly quiet visit. When someone came for her food tray – a white person, so my mother was willing to talk to her – my mother started complaining about the noise. The nurse was good at deflecting!

My mother was soon ready to lie down for a nap – rejecting my offer to help her get into bed – and I headed out. After the wonderful smells of my mother’s lunch, I was really hungry! My husband had messaged me that he needed more needles at the pharmacy, so I headed in that direction and ended up stopping at the Dairy Queen for lunch this time. I had a store to stop in as well, but that was directly across the street from the pharmacy, which was handy. Once done at the pharmacy, I headed back to the garage, figuring they might be done by then.

When I got to the parking lot, I saw the truck in the lot, with the engine running. They had just finished it, and was running it to check on things. Outdoors, rather than the closed garage!

When the mechanic was free, he told me it was looking good. The leak was fixed with the highest quality seal available – he still doesn’t understand why it started leaking again. I got instructions to keep an eye on the gauge, check for fresh leaks under the truck, and check the oil levels. The oil level right now is fine, and everything seems to be running smoothly.

When I got in the truck, though, the needle on the gauge was even lower than before.

It obviously wasn’t something he felt was a concern, but I don’t like it!

My next stop was my mother’s apartment, but I needed to get gas, first. So I drove to a gas station that was on my usual route towards home. I figured, if I shut the engine off for a while, the gauge might reset itself.

It didn’t.

On the plus side, it wasn’t dropping, either. It was really steady. The only time the needle almost reached that first line above zero was when I decided to test things and gunned it to 110kph. As soon as I returned to the speed limit, down it dropped to the same level and stayed there.

With the route I was taking, I could drive to the highway closer to us, then decide if I’d be turning towards my mother’s apartment, or heading home.

Thanks to knowing my mother’s apartment would be safely locked up, I headed home.

As soon as I was stopped, I got the picture to send to our mechanic. I then went into the garage to brush aside the oil stains in the dirt floor, so we could tell if there were any new drips, before parking. Once inside, I sent the picture to our mechanic, describing what I was seeing (and what was different), though I don’t expect to hear from him necessarily today. He was so swamped, even with two other mechanics in today.

I also updated my siblings.

Now, I’ve driven with that oil gauge at zero for quite some time. When we were having MAF issues, the oil sensor also got replaced. So this is still a new sensor. It shouldn’t be misreading. Yet, he could find no other problem that might cause the sensor to be reading low oil pressure. For all I know, the sensor is reading “normal”, but the needle is simply stuck at the wrong spot.

My brother will be out here tomorrow to dig out his own truck, so I will follow them with my truck to my mother’s place, and help bring things here. The truck should be fine. My brain knows that – but I am so bloody paranoid about it, I don’t want to make the drive on my own in case something happens along the way. We depend on it so much!

This is where I remember my mother was promising to buy us a car back in the summer, but apparently my sister talked her out of it. Granted, my mother thought she had enough money to buy a new car, with zero understanding of how expensive new cars are right now. With my mother’s habit of promising things, then backing out at the last minute, none of us expected her to actually do it. Still, it does… frustrate.

Hopefully, all will work out with the truck tomorrow. I’ll be a lot more comfortable driving it with my brother nearby.

The thing is, with all this stuff going on, we still need to go our stock up shopping trips to the city, a trip to the dump, a trip to the feed store, etc. Thankfully, we have enough kibble to last another week, for both indoor and outdoor cats, but we’re almost out of wet cat food for the indoor cats. Even without having to get my mother’s apartment emptied, this is the time of the month when we do most of our driving.

This truck is certainly not the first vehicle we’ve own that’s been like this, but for having it for only 2 years, there has been a lot!

I am so tired of weird vehicle issues.

The Re-Farmer

So glad I got it checked! A double update

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today was my day to bring the truck in to the garage to see what was going on with my oil pressure. I was sure there was a new leak somewhere.

I’m so glad I did.

While unplugging the block heater, I made sure to look under the truck, but could see no soil of oil leaking. That doesn’t mean much, though. When we had major issues before that turned out to be a leaking oil line seal, we never saw any sign of a leak under the truck. I got that fixed and our pre-winter oil change at the same time, so this was just a few months ago. It had been fine since then.

While driving back from my mother’s apartment a couple of days ago, I noted the check engine light had turned off. This morning, it turned back on again, less than a mile from home. The code for that is not something essential, and related to the cold. The more relevant thing was that, in the 20 or so minutes it takes to drive to town, I was watching that oil pressure gauge slowly dropping.

I dropped the truck off a bit early. The owner was there on his own today, and the bays were all full, so I figured it might be a while. I updated him on what I was seeing on the way here, then dropped off the keys.

I’ve been messaging with my sister regarding my mother. Yesterday, after visiting at the hospital, she was able to go to the apartment and take the things she was supposed to grab for her place. We were trying to figure out how to get my mother’s keys back, though. While we were chatting, she mentioned my mother was out of crackers. Since it was warm enough (-21C/-6F), and the grocery store was along the way, I picked a box up for her, then walked to the hospital to visit.

My mother was happy to see me, for the most part. Glad that I brought her crackers. She was in bed and, when I asked how she was doing, she said she was in a lot of pain. Then started saying, since my brother and I are so smart, maybe we could find her a good doctor that knows what to do about it.

*sigh*

I had to explain to her, she has osteoarthritis. There really isn’t anything that can be done, other than taking pain killers. Apparently, a nurse told her that her mother gets injections every three months for her hip pain. I said yes, that works for some people, but that requires a referral to a specialist (like the sports injury clinic I was referred to) in the city, because nowhere else does those injections. That would then require getting her transported for the appointment in the city. I explained about my own OA, and my husband’s back injury and his pain levels. He’s on the strongest painkillers available, and highest doses, and his pain levels are barely affected. In her case, all she can really do is take those painkillers, because there’s no fix to her condition.

Not long after, a nurse came by to check on my mother, asking if she needed help with pain. She told him no, she was okay. I asked if she was sure, since she was just telling me about how much pain she was in, and she said yes. After he was gone (she made sure to wait until her door was closed), she told me she’d just taken 12 pills that morning, and she didn’t want to take more. Her painkillers were scheduled for 2:00, so she would wait.

It was 10:20. I asked again, was she sure? It would be almost 4 hours of a wait. She insisted. She wanted to give all those other pills time to work.

She gets her meds at 9am.

Okay. If she didn’t want to take them, we can’t force her.

The rest of the visit was a mix of good and strange and, is it time for me to leave now? I was able to distract her away from her usual rants, for the most part, at least. She asked about what was being done with her apartment (and why doesn’t my brother phone her? never mind they visited, not that long ago), and I filled her in. Then she started giving instructions on what to do for things, even though she had no idea about the process, like how to get the commode returned. She also insisted that we not give public housing the extra keys she had cut for my brother and I, unless they are willing to pay her “back” her $10. I pointed out that we would have no use for keys for an apartment she doesn’t live in. Oh, we can label them and hang them somewhere. Why? Well, maybe if someone moves into her apartment. How would we even know about that? She had no answer, but she really didn’t want us to turn over those keys unless she got paid back for them.

She also went on a rant about how the hospital staff just doesn’t care. The doctor never comes to see her (she is officially no longer a patient, but a long term care resident, now that she’s been approved for a personal care home), etc. Also, people are in the hallways, talking and laughing, and they shouldn’t be doing that.

*sigh*

After visiting for quite a while, as I was getting ready to leave, about to put my coat on, she finally mentioned she got another visit from our vandal. So I went back and sat down, asking her questions about how that went. She said he was behaving, at least, but when I asked when he visited, she couldn’t remember. I asked if it was the same day as my sister’s visit (yesterday) and she looked confused and said she couldn’t remember. So I don’t know if this was actually a new visit, or if she was referring to the same visit from our vandal she told me about, the last time I visited her. At least now the hospital has a picture of him on file, so they can recognize him as someone to watch out for. They can’t stop him from visiting, but they can make sure he doesn’t have a chance to start verbally abusing her again.

By this time in the visit, my mother had moved from lying in bed to sitting at the side of her bed. She then wanted to get up and move to her favourite chair. As soon as she started trying to stand up, though, she started yelling and screaming in pain! I tried to help her and she was able to stand up to the walker the hospital provided. She said she needed to go to the washroom, but only managed to transfer herself to the chair I’d just vacated. I kept asking her if she wanted me to get a nurse to help, but she wouldn’t answer. Finally, once she was seated, but couldn’t stand up again, I told her I was getting help.

I found the nurse that had come by earlier, just finishing up with a patient in another room nearby, so I asked him for help, telling him about my mother’s pain and that she was wanting to get to the bathroom. I added that, while my mother had just refused painkillers not long ago, she will probably need some, and he agreed. He started following me, as I rushed ahead to let my mother know help was coming.

As I got to her, she started telling me, she thinks the hospital is giving her medications to cause this pain.

Which is when the nurse came in behind me. He started bringing the wheelchair over so he could help her get to the washroom, when she started taking to him that she thinks they are giving her the wrong medications, and that’s why she is in so much pain. From the resigned body language, I get the impression he’s had issues with my mother. Being both a male nurse (to my mother, nurses should be female, doctors should be male) and Asian, it’s likely she has been less than kind to him! He told her, they can’t give her the wrong medications because, if they did, they would lose their license.

I don’t know if she really heard that, though I know it would have made no difference if she did, but she went back to screaming and yelling in pain, trying to transfer to the wheelchair. They’re going to have to get the chair she was in, cleaned. 😢

He wheeled her to the washroom, so I got myself out of the way, grabbing my things and heading out- making sure to thank the nurse for helping my mother as I left! She was already making things hard for him.

*sigh*

Before I left, I took the time to update my family about how things went, then headed out. It was getting close to lunch time by then, and there’s a Chinese restaurant in the motel next to the garage, so I headed for there. I took a quick look at the garage parking lot and couldn’t see the truck anywhere, so it was at least in the garage by then.

After I had my lunch and headed back to the garage, I still couldn’t see the truck, so I was surprised when I didn’t see it in the garage, either.

The owner was on the phone in the office when I got there, so he was soon able to update me.

He found the leak, in exactly the same place as before – except worse! He was really surprised by how much oil had leaked. It even leaked onto the floor of the vehicle bay, which it didn’t do the last time it was worked on.

We talked about it for a bit, and he has no idea why this new seal is leaking. Perhaps a defective part? He ordered me a new one, this time going with a higher end brand, just in case.

It will be covered by warranty, too, so that helps!

When he mentioned that it was leaking enough to drip onto his floor, I told him, I saw no signs of leaked oil under our truck. Which means it got worse, just during the drive in, today! I asked him if it was possible that it got damaged when I tried to start it while it was frozen (thinking of those noises I heard when I did). He was very doubtful. Still, we had had no signs of a problem until after that deep freeze. Granted, with having to pull the truck all the way into the garage so we could close the door, I couldn’t access the front to open the hood and check the oil levels. So I can’t say with 100% certainty that it hadn’t started leaking earlier. The only evidence of there being a problem was that oil pressure gauge suddenly dropping, two days ago, while I was driving to my mother’s apartment.

We are both perplexed.

The part he ordered will arrive tomorrow morning. He told me to text him in the morning about coming in. He is fully booked tomorrow, but he’ll have a couple of other guys in, and he will squeeze my truck somewhere in there. I asked him if he topped up the oil level, and he told me he didn’t have to. It seems that I over filled it with my last addition when I got home from my mother’s apartment! He did instruct me to check the oil level again, before coming back tomorrow, in case I needed to add more. That’s how bad the leak was!

When it was time to go, I had to ask him where the truck was.

He checked his cameras…

… then went out to move the ambulance waiting to be worked on out of the way, so I could back out and leave. 😄 No wonder I couldn’t see it!

Once I was clear, I stopped just long enough to let my family know I was on the way home.

Then watched the oil gauge slowly dropping again during the entire drive.

I am so glad I got that checked before doing any major driving around. Especially before doing our first city stock up shop!!!

Before pulling into the garage, I stopped to double check, confirming that there was zero sign of any oil leak visible on the dirt floor.

Once I was home, I updated the family in more detail, then updated my siblings. In talking keys with my sister, and my hopes of getting to my mother’s apartment tomorrow, she told me she could meet me there in the morning, but only for a short time. Now that I know I’ll be back at the garage tomorrow, I suggested she leave them with my mother tomorrow morning. That is likely the best way to get them to my brother, who is dealing with public housing in regards to my mother’s rental agreement.

At that point, it was only just past 1pm, and the weather was so nice (-18C/0F), I wanted to take advantage of it and headed back outside to do some shoveling. I needed to clear the drifts blocking part of our turnaround space in the yard, as well as a couple of paths that were blocked in places with drifts. I was out there for a couple of hours.

Gosh, did it feel good!

I’ll have to be extra diligent with the meds tonight, though, or I’ll be barely able to walk, tomorrow!

By the time I was finished, it was time to feed the outside cats.

They were enjoying the lovely weather, too! Especially this bunch.

I am so glad we had that old catio roof panel to scavenge as a wall for the shelf shelter! It makes for a lovely greenhouse effect, and they can see out at the same time. There are at least 9 cats in that photo! Plus I think one ran out when I went by to put away the shovel in the sun room.

That done, I finally headed inside for the day – and a lovely supper featuring bacon wrapped pork tenderloin, my daughters made.

Today was quite pleasant, but we are supposed to drop to -30C/-22F tonight. If the long range forecasts are at all accurate, we won’t get that cold again for the rest of the winter. Tomorrow’s high, however, is supposed to be sunny and almost as warm as today, so I expect I will do the walk to the hospital after dropping off the truck and be able to visit my mother again.

I can’t believe we’re at the end of January already.

Hopefully, she will have accepted the offered painkillers and will be doing better. For someone who complains so much about her pain levels, she is so unwilling to actually accept the only thing that can really make a difference. Yet very willing to expect some magical doctor somewhere (a white male, of course) to magically fix something that has no fix, while at the same time convincing herself that the people taking care of her are deliberately causing her pain.

If all goes well, my truck will be worked on and finished early enough that I can still get to my mother’s apartment and bring some things back with me. I especially want to get that wheelchair, as the hospital asked me to bring it in a while ago. Then on Saturday, I plan to be back with my brother and SIL as we take the last of everything out, and try to find somewhere to store them here at the farm.

After all that, I should FINALLY be able to do our stock up shopping in the city!

What a month it has been.

The Re-Farmer