As a family, we’re not really dedicated to birthdays. As in, the actual date. Before my husband went on disability and he was still working, we would celebrated birthdays on the weekend before or after the actual date, depending on which was after pay day. The entire week, however, tended to be when the birthday person would get little gifts, or extra special treatment. The day itself was recognized, of course, but we liked to spread it out.
Now that my husband is on disability, his payments come in at the end of the month, so we budget accordingly. Which means we tend to have more birthday months than birthday weeks!
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My older daughter’s birthday is this month. She is really hard to get things for! One regular thing we would do is have the birthday person choose a special celebration dinner. When our income was higher, this was a time when we might go to a specific restaurant that we normally wouldn’t, but dining out for four people hasn’t been something we could afford for a long time. Now that we are out in the boonies, we generally don’t bother and will order takeout from somewhere.
I had already done a birthday take home meal earlier this month, but my older daughter wanted Pizza Hut – and she was paying. Yeah. She insists on paying for her own birthday meal!
It’s still early, but today was when we decided to do pizza day. The birthday girl placed the order online with a pick up time late enough that other stuff could be done first. My younger daughter came along to help out. After a quick stop at the post office to pick up one more package, we headed to the town our doctor’s clinic is in. We got there about an hour early, but there’s a grocery store in the same area, so we could just park and go there, first.
The only thing I needed for general groceries was milk and eggs, plus my daughter spotted some dark coffee; they’ve been running out. The rest was birthday related. I ended up choosing two cakes; a tiramisu cake and a Pina Colada angel food cake trifle. We picked up some ranch and blue cheese dressing to use as dips for the pizza. We got drinks, some Cotton Candy Ice Cream, and their last box of mango Melona bars. As an extra, I decided to try some frozen finger foods for later on. Breaded pickle spears, Italian Mozza Bites and Tempura Yams.
I was going to treat my daughter for her birthday, no matter how much she balked! 😄
By the time we were done and the truck loaded up, we still had almost half an hour before the time set for our order. The location is take out only, but I figured they’d have seating for people waiting for their orders, so we made our way over anyhow. Which worked out, as they were almost done with our order!
Good grief, pizza has gotten expensive. Four large pizzas and three chicken bites bowls, and the total was just under $200 – before tip! A few years back, it was almost half that, and we were getting extra large sized pizzas.
Well, we only do this once a year. Plus, it will feed us for a couple of days, at least. Still… *choke*
Since it is a special occasion, I’ve taken a break from my Lenten fast of sugar and simple carbs.
In other things, I had a chance to chat with the Cat Lady earlier today. She sent me a post made by the woman who was able to provide us with so much donated cat food. It was very generous and much appreciated – we still have wet cat food left from that! The Cat Lady did warn me, though, not to share to much. As the Cat Lady put it, her heart is in the right place, but she causes problems. A few months back, she was “helping” someone caring for a colony, got the province involved, and most of the cats ended up being euthanized. Sadly, it seems to be happening again. There’s a call out for various supplies, fosters, donations for spays and neuters, and so on, for a colony that sounds about the same size as ours, though the number of cats we have showing up can change considerably from day to day, and even feeding to feeding. All great stuff being called for, except for on thing.
She got the province involved again.
The post had mentioned that the cats have winter suitable shelters, but not much else. Well, the Cat Lady knows of this colony. She says the cats are well cared for, and they have lots of excellent shelters. While help would certainly be appreciated – especially with spays and neuters – with the province involved, the person that’s been caring for them is going to get pressured a lot before the province finally steps in and simply wipes them out.
I know that in our municipality, their procedure to “help” people caring for colonies is to simply shoot the cats. It’s pretty much the main reason we don’t try to do any local fundraising drives for spays and neuters. We don’t want it to be generally known, how many cats have been showing up (I’ve seen another tabby that looks like a stranger recently. He has a distinctive Nicky the Nose face; that old tom hasn’t been around for years, but this cat looks like it could be one of his decedents). I want to adopt them out. Not kill them off.
Speaking of spays and neuters, the Cat Lady hopes to book us for three cats, as soon as she gets a chance to call the clinic we’ve been going to. She’s been spending a lot of time at another clinic in the city. The vet that saved Cabbages sold his clinic and went back to India for a while. He has since returned and opened a new clinic, and she’s happily been going to him again. She’s currently dealing with a rescue case that is quite severe. I was quite surprised when she said for three cats. The last we talked about it, she was hoping to be able to get two done. Hopefully, that means donations to her rescue have started to go back up again. Otherwise, it means she’s paying for it out of pocket, which they have done before. They are so amazing!
Meanwhile, I also got a note from my brother. He plans to come out here tomorrow morning. Along with needing to do some stuff among their stored items, he plans to set up “that bypass valve” on the septic diverter. He must have thought he had already talked to me about it, but I had no idea about this. He said that we’ll be able to test out the ejector to see if it’s frozen and, if it is, can switch back to the emergency bypass. Which is an awesome idea! I don’t think the ejector is frozen, though. I think there’s something stuck in the venturi valve. Either that, or there’s a clog somewhere in the pipe to the house. To be able to switch from the ejector to the emergency by pass through a bypass valve instead of having to attach and detach hoses is a brilliant idea! I look forward to seeing what he’s come up with to do this. With all the issues we’ve had with the septic in the 7+ years we’ve been living here, having that bypass is a godsend.
Aside from that, I’m planning to make a dump run tomorrow. Time to finally get rid of that broken microwave! I’m glad we replaced it with the multi-function toaster oven. The girls have been using it more than they’ve been using the oven! Very handy! Tomorrow we’re expecting to have a high of only -8C/18F. Not bad, but quite a drop from today, where we ended up hitting 4C/39F, which was higher than was forecast. Things were melting all over the place! It’s expected to be almost a week before we see highs above freezing again. Nothing to complain about, though.
I look forward to seeing my brother tomorrow. 😊
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.’Â
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!
I wasn’t expecting to do another post today – and certainly not another garden post – but I just had to! I’ve had two awesome things happen since my last post.
One is that I got an email confirming our back ordered seeds from Veseys has just been shipped! It’s only two packets of seeds; the cherry and grape tomato medley, and the third variety of bush beans we had ordered. Now, the only things left outstanding are the items that will be shipped in time for planting in our zone. I’m really glad I ordered all these back in December. Quite a few of the varieties we ordered have since gone out of stock.
Then there is the other exciting bit.
Have I mentioned I have an awesome brother?
Have I also mentioned he has an equally awesome wife?
I got a call from her this evening, asking me to check my email. She had sent me this photo.
You see, I had asked them to keep an eye out for a pressure canner for me and this evening, while on their way to a romantic dinner out, they stopped at a Canadian Tire. Because who can turn down a quick run into Canadian Tire?
They found a pressure canner (yes, I know; it says cooker, but it’s the same tool) in stock!
It’s even one that was on some of the “top 10” lists I’d been looking at. Plus, it’s on sale!
Did I want her to pick it up for me?
Yes. Yes, I did!
Then, just moments after we hung up the phone, she called back. Since she was there, in the canning supplies section anyhow, was there anything else I wanted?
She found a couple of boxes of wide mouth snap lids to pick up for me as well.
We are now all set for both hot water bath and pressure canning, this fall.
My sister in law is awesome!
The Re-Farmer
Update: So… about that pressure canner…
As Carolee pointed out in the comments, this is a pressure cooker. I have read about them being used as canners, found instructions for them, etc. It was in the canning section, being sold as a pressure canner. It should be good. At least for small jars, like we would be using. At that size, I knew we’d never fit quart jars in there, but we aren’t planning on pressure canning anything in that size.
However, I asked my sister in law to go through the instructions to see, and apparently there is NOTHING about using this model as a canner in the instructions. Which is a bit irritating, since that’s what it was being sold as.
In the end, we’re going to keep it, rather than ask them to return it. That was a really good sale price, and we will make use of it in other ways.
We’ve been looking online for pressure canners around the province. I found one in the city, selling for $450. Well beyond our budget. I found another in a closer hardware store that was smaller and more affordable, but it’s not in stock. I am trying to avoid using Amazon, so I tried looking at more direct sources and manufacturers. They’re all in the US which means that, with the dollar difference, shipping costs and hidden expenses, I just assume it will cost double what the listed price is. Some are still affordable, but… out of stock, of course.
We will keep looking, but if how things are now is anything to go by, it looks like we will be freezing, dehydrating and pickling vegetables, rather than canning them! I do want to can things like meat, chili, soups and stews, too, and for that, we will need a pressure canner. We’ve canned chili before, but that was to keep them in the fridge for quick meals. Which was really handy. I’ve also canned soup stock but, again, it had to be refrigerated and used fairly quickly. In the long term, I want to have shelf-stable produce, and there is no getting around needing a pressure canner to ensure the food stays safe. Ultimately, we can do without. We have alternatives.
Today, I got to meet a couple of people in person, finally!
The first was the owner of the cows. :-D
I had expected him to come earlier, so I was a bit surprised when I saw the cows still in the outer yard. They had gotten into the burn barrel again, so I went out with a big garbage back to pick up the mess and put the burn barrel pieces into a pile again. I decided to put the bag into the garage and headed that way, only do see the door was more open than I left it (with no handle, I didn’t close it all the way), and stuff was scattered around. When I came over, I found a cow inside, standing by the van! Continue reading →
I have learned many things from my daughters. They have very eclectic interests, and happily share them with me.
Sometimes, I get treated like a princess because of it, too.
Somewhere on the vastness of the internet (I have not been able to find a link), they read about a bog mummy that had an intricate twisted hair style. Basically, it was the oldest known hair style in the world. Those studying her apparently couldn’t figure it out. Then photos were released and stylists said, “oh, this is how it was done.”
Since I am the only person with long enough hair in the household, I then got to be experimented on.
When heading into the city today to visit their grandpapa, my younger daughter was sweet enough to do my hair up like she read about, adding in a lovely peacock hair/shawl pin to make it look really special.
I doubt the bog mummy was a princess, but I sure felt like one. :-)
It’s a good thing we didn’t have much planned for the day, other than my daughter’s shift!
After dropping my daughter off at work, I was going to take advantage of being in town to play a bit of Pokemon Go and visit the beach before it got hot and the crowds came out.
Just as I was about to park, I got a call from my older brother.
My mother had had a problem with a tire yesterday, and he was worried it was going to be a problem today, when she had plans to drive to our sister’s. He was willing to drive all the way out from his place (1 1/2 hours!) to check on it, but was I able to do it for him?
Of course!
After double checking that I had a tire gauge in my emergency kit (otherwise, I would have tried to buy one somewhere, first), I headed out. I checked her tire, which was good, then stopped by to let her know. Normally, I always call before visiting, so I was prepared to just let her know and go, but I ended up being able to visit for a bit before she headed to church. She wouldn’t have gone to check her car (visually, only) until she left for church – or after church, since it’s just across the street, and she wouldn’t have gone by her car on the way – so it was much less stressful for my brother and I to do it this way, early! :-D
Once back home, I called my brother and his wife to let them know how it went, and as we were talking, they asked if we could use various things for the farm. They were going through my SIL’s late mother’s stuff, and wouldn’t be able to keep them. I happily said yes.
We ended up meeting in town after I picked up my daughter. I expected a box or two.
Nope.
Five boxes. Including a size large one!
I gotta say, it was like Christmas in July!
A collection of saws, a circular saw (yay!!!) a drill kit, gardening supplies and more!
There were even LED Christmas lights – with a timer – that we can put outside. I can use them to replace the old ones at the gate. :-D
I’d already unpacked one of the boxes before I took that photo. It included…
Two beautiful jewelry boxes!
I’ve long pined over a really well organized jewelry box, but could never justify the expense. Now we have two!
My younger daughter took the darker one, as it matches something she already has, and I will finally be able to take what jewelry I have (which isn’t much, really, but still) out of the slide lock baggies that I’ve been keeping them in! LOL
And when we use these, I will always think of my SIL and her late mother, and appreciate them even more.
Yesterday, after picking my daughter up from work, the girls and I went straight to visit my awesome, amazing older brother and his wife for the evening.
The storm warnings had returned, but the skies were clear at the time, if incredibly windy all day. The winds died down enough that we were able to eat outside, then have a fire going to toast marshmallows. It was so wonderful to just sit outside together, talking and enjoying each others’ company. I just wish my husband had been able to come out, too, but if he had, he would never have been able to handle the length of the visit.
Chronic pain really sucks.
While we were outside, we did see some pretty dramatic skies!
The clouds were moving fast, so we saw all sorts of interesting shapes passing by. When it first started to rain, though, the sky above us was clear! :-D After a while, though, it started to come down a bit harder, so we packed up and went in. By then it was late enough to start heading home, which was about an hour and a half’s drive.
While we were away, my husband sent us some updates to let us know it was coming down pretty hard at home. It was all done by the time we made the drive, but as soon as we turned off the highway onto the gravel road, we drove through a bit patch where the road was covered with twigs and branches from someone’s willow. Some smaller trees along the road were downed. (Interestingly, I later found out the my husband’s dead CPAP machine, which he has left plugged in, actually flickered to life during the storm. Just a flicker. Odd.)
When we got home, we decided to park in the yard by the house, instead of the garage. As I drove in, the first thing I saw in my headlights was a branch on the ground. So while the girls brought things into the house, I grabbed a flashlight and did a circuit around the house. Nothing major, but it was clear it was going to be another day needing a wheelbarrow to clear up everything that came down.
Then this morning, as I glance out the north facing bedroom window, I see this.
One of the apple trees had come down, too.
I don’t think this one was doing very well this year.  It never really bloomed, and I couldn’t see any apples on it when I checked it out. Most of it had already been pruned away, before we moved out here. I’m not surprised that this one came down. I’m more surprised it was the only one.
Thanks to my brother, though, I have chain oil for my birthday gift – summer and winter oil, even, and enough to last a very long time! – so later today I will break it down and haul away the pieces. When making plans to visit, I’d asked about what stores were near their place, after entertaining them about why I needed more oil so quickly (see link above), and my brother was sweet enough to pick some up before we got out there. :-) That meant we didn’t have to rush to any stores before they closed, and could go straight to visiting.
I have awesome family!
Since it’s an apple tree, I will keep the pieces separate, so I can use the wood for crafting purposes. :-)
I will be sticking to just the necessary clean up for today, though, since I do try to keep Sunday as a day of rest, even if we haven’t found a church yet out here. There will be more than enough to catch up on, later! Things are supposed to cool down for the next week, so I’m hoping to be able to continue clearing out the rest of the maple grove and not risk heat stroke! :-D
My older brother unexpectedly came by today, and while I was outside with him, my daughter popped out to warn me that we cannot close the kitchen window right now.
We have a guest.
It’s been sitting there for several hours, now!
It is so CUTE! I love my little green friend. :-D
A nice little surprise to add to a day with a much larger, amazing surprise.
One of the things that has been put on hold until the power is restored to the garage and barn is some work my older brother and his wife want to do in the barn so they can paint it. So when my brother started talking about bringing over a compressor, I just assumed it was so they could use it in the barn somehow. There used to be a compressor in one of the side sheds of our garage, and another in the barn, but both are gone – along with many other things, large and small. Things have been disappearing for years, so even while my dad was still living here, my brother got into the habit of bringing everything he needed to fix things out here, because he couldn’t assume the tools and equipment he would need would still be around.
My brother ended up coming out to help our mom with something and, since he was so close and the compressor was already loaded in the truck, he came by to drop it off.
To my surprise, he didn’t want to unload it in the barn, but in the side shed of the garage. This meant we had to move out the riding mower and a bunch of other things to clear the corner where the old compressor used to be, then he managed to back his truck in part way. The space is just barely wide enough for the truck box, and my brother to still squeeze in. I had intended to help at least somewhat, but I couldn’t fit. I’m a fair bit wider than my marathon running brother! LOL Which turned out to be handy, because I ended up being able to grab things for him from my side and pass it through.
Getting that thing unloaded was a huge job. This thing is incredibly heavy! But he got it in the corner and set it up. Once he was able to, he moved the truck so I could come in, and he showed me various things about it, hooked up the hose and the new nozzle, with he had tested to ensure they worked (since we can’t test it here, until the power is hooked up). He even drilled a hole through the wall so the plug could be passed through and plugged in in the main garage area, because it uses more power than is wired to the outlets in the shed.
At one point, we had to move things from the garage side of the wall, for access. I have not done anything when it comes to cleaning and sorting the garage right now; we will probably work on that next spring. So there is a lot there that I’ve never seen.
Including this strange thing with a hand grip, a long nozzle, and a hose. I had to ask my brother, as I moved it out of the way; what is it? Looking at it briefly, he said it was likely a torch. Of the sort that was used to singe the hair off pig carcasses during butchering, though it could also be used for other things. Very dangerous. (At least it would be, if it were attached to a gas canister.)
So… It’s a flame thrower.
We have a flame thrower in our garage. !!
Too funny!
As this was all getting done and he was showing me all these things about the compressor, I finally commented that I was surprised it wasn’t taken to the barn, since I though they were going to use it somehow when they cleaned and painted.
Oh, no, he tells me. This is for me, in case we ever need to pump our tires.
!!!
I was totally stunned. All that work to fix up the compressor, much of which was done after it was loaded into the back of the truck (it’s so heavy, it was easier that way), getting it out here, unloading it and setting it up, just so we could have a compressor, if we ever needed one!
I have the most awesome brother.
As we were talking about compressor, and how pleased he was with how little it ended up costing him to fix, I had to ask what a new one would cost. One like this, he estimated about $1100, but the one that used to be there, he figured was worth about $2500.
!!!
On the one hand, I am so grateful for his generosity and amazed that he did this for us.
On the other, I am dismayed once again over the things that have grown legs and walked away over the years.
But now we have a heavy duty, industrial compressor, with working hose and nozzle (there are still hoses hanging on the wall, but some are missing their tips, and we’d have to test others to see if they were any good anymore; the good one that was being used, of course, is gone with the old compressor).
They came over for a visit today, and brought me an “early birthday gift.”
AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I actually started crying, when I saw them pull up with the trailer, and this was on the back.
They bought us a riding mower. Fully refurbished, heavy duty enough to handle the work we’ll be making it do AND it is fully maintainable. It can even tow a small trailer!
I am thrilled beyond belief.
Of course, we had to start it up and test it out, and before I knew it, I’d mowed an entire section of the lawn.
Apparently, I had a huge grin on my face the entire time.
They have been beyond generous, since even before we moved out here. I am so incredibly happy and grateful!
I can’t wait until I can finish mowing the lawn. Which might not be until Monday, as we’re expecting rain off and on.
When they left, they even took the push mower that needs a new carburetor, to fix. And a gas powered weed trimmer to check over and hopefully get going.
I am so incredibly happy right now!
During their visit, we went around the yard to check things out (getting our feet completely soaked in the process, so we didn’t go beyond the yard). While seeing what was done in the flower garden, my SIL spotted a lovely little surprise.
One, lonely little asparagus spear. LOL There was a second one, about a foot away. Who knows? Maybe more will show up, eventually.
Nice to know they’ve survived.
We also went looking around to see if we could find the cherry trees my mother says are in the spruce grove. It’s so overgrown with trees in that area, all about the same size, we never did find anything we could be sure was cherry.
There were a couple of other trees I’d noticed blooming a couple of weeks back, and I now know what they are.
Saskatoon berries!
Yum!
These were on the list of food trees we want to have. We might some day transplant them to a better location, but for now, I’m just happy that we have them.
So we know now for sure that we have chokecherries, Saskatoon berries, some raspberries (still need to clean that area up), gooseberries and chokecherries. Hopefully, we’ll also have cherries. Then there’s the rhubarb, horseradish and struggling little asparagus.
Which is pretty darn good, all things considered.
Me, I’m still grinning from ear to ear, over the riding mower. :-D
The Re-Farmer 