I really don’t need this now

Not the day that was planned

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First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends in the US! I hope you have a wonderful day filled with family, friends and food!

As for our day…

Oooh, boy.

Things went pretty normal this morning, plus I had some errands to run this afternoon. The pain I was feeling yesterday has subsided, so I was able to do my morning rounds, as usual. As always, they start with bringing out kibble and warm water for the outside cats.

I did a couple of head counts and reached 34 and 35. Including this battered beast.

Sad Face was looking sadder, with a fresh wound on his nose. He may be much less aggressive with the other cats these days, but at least one of our own males is not happy with him around and regularly growls at him. I suspect that cat is responsible, but there’s really no way of knowing. Ironically, perhaps, it’s one of the white and greys from last year’s kittens, which means Sad Face here is almost certainly his daddy!

There’s a fluffy smaller kitten that looks a lot like Pom Pom I’ve been trying to get a better look at. There’s something weird about one eye, but every time I come near, the kitten runs off. Today it was in the kibble house while I was refilling the big heated water bowl right next to it, and I got the best look at its face so far. That one eye appears to be clouded. I don’t think it’s blind in that eye, but I do think it’s partially blind.

Unfortunately, so many of the cats just will not let us socialize them. Unlike this handsome boy.

Syndol quite enjoys being held and cuddled.

Hypotenose in the background is not quite there, yet. He did let me place a hand on his back, as I was petting Syndol, but only for a moment, before he moved away.

One of the goals of the day was to make a dump run. The landfill is open only 3 days a week. I’d gone there on Tuesday, only to find it was closed. That’s when I realized I was looking at the Thursday winter hours, not the Tuesday winter hours. On Tuesdays, they are open from late morning to early afternoon. With winter hours, they closed at 1pm. I thought they opened at 2pm, which is when they open in the winter on Thursdays, so I got there an hour after they’d closed. *sigh*

One down side of having a box cover on the truck instead of a cab. We couldn’t leave the garbage in the back, because the racoons could easily tear through the cover to get at it. So, back into the Old Kitchen the bags went.

Today is Thursday, so I was planning to do the dump run, then head to Walmart for a couple things, including more cat kibble. *sigh* I can’t even blame the racoons for that one. I didn’t realize how low we were on kibble for the inside cats, when I made the last Walmart run, on Monday. If we refilled the inside cat bin from the outside cat bin, there wouldn’t be enough left to last the rest of the month for the outside cats.

With the dump opening at 2, I headed out shortly after 1 to back the truck up to the house and load the garbage bags. Then I headed inside for a bit before it was time to head out. My younger daughter was going to come along, as she needed to go to the Walmart as well. Sweetheart that she is, she also went ahead to unlock the gate. With the warm weather we had recently, the driveway is mostly ice. Especially under the gate, where water tends to pool! She had to be so careful just walking to the gate, never mind opening it.

Meanwhile, I went to start the truck and…

Nothing happened.

Crud.

It started without any problem when I took it out of the garage! I even considered leaving the engine running while loading the back but decided against it, since I wasn’t sure how long I would be inside before we headed out.

Now, we’ve been talking to the garage about that battery. When we were first looking to buy that truck, he thought he’d replaced the battery, but when he checked his files, it said the previous owner had changed the battery. When we realized there was a problem with it, he looked it up and the battery was from 2019, so past warranty. The other thing that has been odd is the tire monitoring system, which keeps telling me my tires are low when they’re fine. That is most likely the battery dying in the module. I told him we probably wouldn’t be able to get them fixed until December, and may only be able to do one, not both, depending on the cost. He told me that, if I could only do one, he recommended I put a priority on the battery. He got prices for me; a new battery would be $200, while the tire monitoring system module would be only $60, though replacing that requires removing a tire, so there’d be more labour costs on top of that one, compared to just switching out a battery.

Anyhow.

When the truck wouldn’t start, I went and got our battery charger and waved my daughter over. She got an extension cord ready for the charger while I set it up, and we got that going.

While the charger was doing its job, I remembered to look for the plug for the block heater. I found the cord, which was neatly wound and secured around the engine compartment, and followed it along. The plug end turned out to be neatly tucked into an opening in the frame, right at the front. I pulled it out and found…

Oh, dear.

Clearly, no one thought to look at the block heater cord, even during the safety inspection. Why would they?

I was able to text the above photo to our mechanic to let him know it’s something else we’re going to have to eventually fix! Thankfully, there is no hurry on that. In fact, if the forecasts for this El Niño winter are at all accurate, we may not need to use it at all this winter. I’ll get an price on what it’ll cost to get it fixed, then take care of it when the budget allows.

Unfortunately, we’ve discovered that the outside cats are incredibly curious about the truck – and the higher clearance on this truck means more places they can get into, under it! We saw them climbing onto the tires and up into the undercarriage, as well as just loafing under it. I ended up having to put a bit of kibble out, just to get them away from the truck while we tried to start it.

We got it clear of cats and I went to start the truck.

Nothing happened.

We waited a while longer.

The charger stopped charging, and an error message popped up.

I checked the connections and one seemed to have slipped off. I reset them, plugged the charger back in and it started charging.

After a while, we tried to start the truck again.

Nothing. It just clicked.

We left the charger going for longer. I decided it was time to call the garage.

As I was talking to our mechanic, he asked for readings on the charger, so I went back outside. Unfortunately, the writing on the charger is so small, I can barely read it, but I did spot the button to change the display from current to voltage.

7.4

I read that to him and got a “That’s not good!”

I switched it to battery percentage, and it only said “Lo”

Not only that but, as I was talking to him, the voltage went from 7.4 to 7.3

It wasn’t charging.

So, we talked options. He suggested we take the battery out and bring it to him, using my mother’s car, and he’d sell us a new one. Unfortunately, while I know it’s a simple thing to do, I’ve never taken a battery out of a vehicle before, nor have I even seen it done. Plus, we still had our errands to run, though going to the dump was no longer an option.

I told him I wouldn’t be able to do it today, but would call him ahead when I do.

As we were putting things away, there were a couple of odd things. The hazard lights were on. I couldn’t even remember where the button for that was on this vehicle. It was behind the steering wheel, at the top of the column – not a place where it could have been turned on by accident, unless my daughter somehow hit it while she tried starting the truck. She may have tried looking through the computer display which, unfortunately, does not include a display for the battery.

As I was putting the charger back in the garage, my daughter went to close the hood, but it wouldn’t close for her. Unlike very other vehicle we’ve owned, this hood holds itself up, without a metal bar to support it, so closing it should have been just a matter of pulling it down. For some reason, she wasn’t able to get it.

Which is when she heard the ticking sound.

As I returned from the garage, she told me about it, and it was coming out of the fuse box. I tried to open the cover, which had an arrow indicating an “unlock” position… but we couldn’t get it off. I’m sure there’s something simple we’re missing, but we just weren’t in a position to fiddle with it.

This time, when my daughter went to close the hood, it closed just fine. Because of course it would work when I was there to see! 😄

We could still hear the ticking noise.

The next thing we had to do was get my mother’s car out of the garage.

Well, that couldn’t be an easy thing to do, now could it?

Of course not.

One of the things we’ve been doing is collecting aluminum separately from the regular recycling. Before we moved out here, we kept all our pop cans and bottles to take to the bottle depot and get our enviro fees back. This province doesn’t have that, so all that just goes into general recycling at the dump. Only glass gets a separate bin. However, aluminum can get a good price at the scrap yards, so we’ve been keeping that. My brother collected aluminum to help raise funds to build a local church. We don’t typically have a lot of canned food, but we do drink canned drinks, and then we started buying canned cat food, regularly.

We now have about 6 years of aluminum stored in bags the garage, in the space in front of my mother’s car.

We meant to take it in this summer, but we lost use of the van, and then got rid of the van itself. Now that we have the truck, I was going to find out from my brother where he’d gone with the aluminum, but we’ve had other stuff that needed doing, first.

Well, just a little while ago, I came into the garage to find the entire area in front, and under, my mother’s car, filled with cans. Critters – could be cats, could be racoons – had knocked several bags down from the stack and torn them apart, and we hadn’t had a chance to clean it up, yet.

I filled three bags of loose cans. And that was just the ones immediately around my mother’s car, so it could be accessed.

After we were sure the tires were clear, my daughter backed the car out, and I could reach the cans that were under it.

Once that was done, we could FINALLY start heading out.

Of course, this is my mother’s car, and I’m always trepidatious about driving it. I found out today that my daughters have been referring to it as the Car of Damocles. Which is so appropriate, given the troubles it’s had since my mother bought it, never mind just in the years we’ve been keeping it insured for her!

The drive itself went well, though our driveway was not the only area that was sheer ice. The highways may be beautifully clear, but the gravel roads near our place are shaded by trees, so the snow never fully melted away when we had those wonderfully warm days. Instead, they turned into skating rinks.

Yeah. We took it slow! Especially on the way home. Even on the highway. It was past 5pm and fully dark by the time we were heading home, and there are a lot of deer in the area! I was glad to have my daughter as an extra pair of eyes to watch the ditches for me.

As for the truck, after we unloaded, I gave it a listen, and the ticking sound had stopped.

I’ve decided that I will use our CAA and have the truck towed. The ticking from the fuse box is likely caused by the defective battery; the circuits aren’t getting the charge they need. Just to be on the safe side, though, I’d like to have those checked out, too – BEFORE we start trying to drive it after replacing the battery.

So I will arrange, probably tonight, to have a tow truck come by tomorrow. I just hope there’s enough room in front of the truck for the tow truck to access it properly!

Plus, we’ll have to really make sure there are no cats up under there!

Hopefully, once the truck is no longer a “new” thing for them, they will stop being so curious about it.

So… That’s how are day ended up. Not at all as planned!

Ah, well. Such is life!

The Re-Farmer

Well, so much for new glasses… again

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Would you look at this round, round mama!

She looks ready to have a litter any day now! Way, way too early!

Meanwhile…

Looks like my tax return is not going to be used as planned.

We had some issues with the toilet being partially clogged yesterday, but I was going to fight with it after my older daughter had her “morning” shower (she works at night). I did decide to go into the old basement and check the well pump and pipes, just in case.

The first thing I saw was a bit of damp near the sump pump reservoir.

There shouldn’t be any moisture there, this time of year.

Then I heard the dripping.

We have water dripping from under the bathtub.

Pretty much since we’ve moved here, the hot water tap in the tub has leaked while in use. It has gotten worse over the years. When we had the plumber here to auger the drain pipe to the septic tank, he also took a look at it for us. He thought he could fix the taps, but I’d like to replace them, so we got an estimate of about $400 for that – and that’s with us buying the replacement faucet set. He mentioned replacing it with the kind that is one lever rather than two taps to control the temperature. None of us like those things, and I’d want to replace it with basically the same style that’s already there. I told him we’d likely buy the faucet set ourselves, so the estimate did not include that. This was a couple years ago, so I would expect it to be higher, now.

The problem is that he’d have to take off the tub surround to access it – it can’t be reached from the other side of the wall, and the last time they were replaced, it would have been done from the front. The tub surround is one of those inexpensive 5 pc surrounds, where there are three flat pieces, then the corner pieces with moulded shelves. With our incredibly hard and iron rich water, it all looks like crap. No amount of scrubbing can get these clean, just like we can’t get the iron stains from the leaking tap completely off. So I have no problem with replacing those completely.

But if water is getting through enough to leak into the basement, the problem is not just the tap. It is likely the degrading caulking, too.

Which leads us to another issue.

When we finally got an indoor bathroom, my dad choose to cover the walls with bathroom panelling that was made to look like tiles. This was in the early 70’s, and there are areas of it, like behind the sink, where the panelling has been water damaged. The tub surround is mounted on top of the old panelling, which means there is caulking behind the caulking around the tub.

Chances are, the old caulking is also degrading, and the paneling under it may be molding or rotting. We won’t know until we take the surround off.

If we do end up having to replace the panelling behind it, we have another question.

What’s behind it?

Two of the walls are the original log walls; one is still exterior, while the other now has the sun room on the other side of it. The third side is the interior wall between the bathroom and my husband’s bedroom.

What we don’t know is of the panelling has something behind it, or if it was nailed directly to the log walls and joists. I know in the “new” part of the house, the panelling was nailed directly to the one long wall, and I’m pretty sure they were nailed directly to the joists on the other walls, with nothing between them and the insulation. But I’m just guessing on that, based on what little I can see from the places where the panelling has started to warp.

Talking about it with my daughters, they are suggesting not going with another tub surround at all, but to tile it, instead. Which would indeed be preferable! But is that even an option?

So right now, we’re looking at, I’m guessing, $500 for the plumber. Inexpensive tub surrounds like what we have now cost from $250 – $275 – or we could get just the flat panels for about $67 each (we’d likely need three). I have no idea at all how much it would cost if we tiled, instead. Depending on the size, they can be a couple of bucks each, or are sold by the square foot. Plus the backing material that would replace the current wall panels, plus the grout…

Then there’s the cost of the taps and faucet set (even the faucet is so encrusted in minerals, it’s affecting the seal on the shower diverter). I’ve looked around and did find a set that’s like what we have, at only $100 – and that includes a shower head. We just got a new shower head for our hand held shower, but having a spare is never a bad thing.

So…

I guess I’m not getting glasses again this year. We should, at least, still be able to get my younger daughter her glasses, since she can’t wear hers at all anymore, and her sister has offered to help with the costs as much as she can. She needs to do her taxes, too. Last year, she did them and ended up owing money – only to have it paid back, plus a return, a month or so later!

And no. We are NOT going into the funds being set aside for the replacement vehicle. That’s just not an option.

*sigh*

Well, at least this is happening at a time when we will have the funds to pay for it. The main thing is to get it fixed before water damage gets worse. The last thing we need is for the tub to fall through the floor into the basement! It would land right on the well and sump pumps.

Must. Not. Imagine. Worst. Case. Scenarios.

Too late.

The Re-Farmer

Really? What now?

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But first, some adorableness. I had a parade following me this morning!

I had three others behind me as I headed back to the house. When I stopped to take this picture, Pointy Baby actually started running towards me! He is one of the few that lets me carry him while I walk. The others prefer to get underfoot on the path! It’s hard packed snow, but if my foot slides off while trying to not step on a fur ball, I sink a good 6 inches or more.

I so look forward to the snow being gone.

I so look forward to being done with other things, too.

Like car trouble.

Yesterday, I left early to go meet our beef supplier and pick up a BBQ freezer pack; three kinds of steak, burger patties, and two different types of farmer’s sausage.

It’s a good thing I left early, because I intended to use my mother’s car. I haven’t driven it in almost a week, and it was running just fine.

I didn’t notice anything wrong while on the gravel road, since everything shakes anyhow, but once I got on the highway, the whole car was still shuddering. When I got to highway speeds, I didn’t even get a mile before I pulled over. It felt like the wheels were about to fall off! I walked around and kicked the tires, but there wasn’t much I could do on the side of the road. I decided to go home and take the van.

The van hasn’t been driven for a couple of days, and it did NOT want to start! Once it did start, it ran fine, and started without problems after that.

*sigh*

After looking up the different possible causes for the shuddering in my mother’s car, I ruled out most of them. It didn’t have the right “symptoms”. I ended up emailing my brother about it, and we later talked on the phone. He suspects a U joint or the drive shaft.

Whatever it is, we can’t do anything about it right now. Our “unallocated funds” have already gone to replacing the tire on the van, and a few other things. Unless we go into the replacement vehicle fund, which I really don’t want to do!

I’ll talk to our mechanic later. If nothing else, I can get it towed to the garage, later in the month, and he can check it. We certainly won’t be driving it again until we have some idea of what’s going on. I also want to stick my phone under the car and try to get some pictures. I forgot to do that while doing my rounds this morning, but I’m going out again this afternoon, so I’ll do it later.

Speaking of other things funds went to, I ended up buying two different brands of tax software, and I am so incredibly frustrated. I got TurboTax again, after having problems with Ufile.

Our tax returns are simple. At least they should be. My husband has a T4A for his private insurance disability payments, and a T4A(P) for his CPP Disability. He qualifies for the Disability Tax Credit. I have zero income, and can get the Caregivers Tax Credit. Besides that, we can claim medical expenses. That’s it.

Well, with Ufile, I first had to find where the T4A and T4A(P) even was. Their category names didn’t match what was in them very well. It was very confusing, and when I did find the right form, it was missing lines. For the T4A, there was the line for what taxes are taken off, but none for the income. I went looking through the help section, where it to told me where I could input the income line from the T4A instead… and those lines didn’t come up anywhere, either! I could find nowhere to claim the Disability Tax Credit, nor my Caregivers Tax Credit.

So I got TurboTax and discovered it’s completely changed in format, but I did figure out most of it. Enough to “finish” our taxes – but while it apparently did claim my husband’s Disability Tax Credit, it wasn’t calculated into the return. For the past few years, he would come up as owing money until the credit was factored in, so he’d get the credit, minus what he would have owed. This time, he came up as getting a return… but no credit. As for mine, there was no option to apply for the Caregivers Tax Credit, so mine came to nothing at all. I went to the Canada Revenue Agency website and found the exact line numbers to apply for the credits, finally found them by going through the forms in the advanced sections – but it wouldn’t let me input anything, because our returns were already calculated, therefore it was finished. No, I had not filed them. I just saved them.

We’re looking at a difference of several thousand dollars in our favour, here.

After bashing my head against it, I finally threw in the towel.

Today, I’m going in to a tax preparer to get it done. If she can straighten this out, it’ll be well worth the fees! Especially since, according to the CRA website, there are two different amounts I can claim for under the Caregiver’s Tax Credit.

It shouldn’t be this difficult to do such basic tax returns.

I had other plans for today, but they will have to wait.

Meanwhile, I’m going to be driving around with the van again, when I really want to be using it as little as possible, all because something has suddenly gone wrong with my mother’s car!

*grumble*

The Re-Farmer

Still not in the clear

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As I write this, it’s coming up on 2pm, and the septic guy has not made it out yet.

I’m happy to say that we did not get any additional flooding in the basement during the night. So far, we can get away with flushing the toilet now and then, and washing our hands, but showers, laundry and doing the dishes are all out. If we do use water, that drain opening in the basement floor does fill a bit, but it’s not overflowing and slowly drains back into the tank again. The septic pump continues to run as usual.

We had a cold night, and the winds were bitterly cold this morning.

It was cold enough to freeze the mud from when the front end loader went through the softer areas. Solid enough that, when I had to drive over it later on, the van didn’t break through the ice at all.

My husband, sweetheart that his is, offered to cover the costs of getting prepared food. His tax return came in yesterday, thankfully. So this morning, I headed into town to pick up a bucket of chicken or something like that, only to find the chicken place wasn’t open yet. In fact, none of the restaurants with take out were open yet. So I went to the grocery store and picked up a bunch of prepared and quick heat foods for the day. The problem right now not being able to do the dishes. We do still have pots and pans to cook with, but nowhere to put dirty dishes anymore.

Note for future: not only do we need an outdoor bathroom in a different location – one that doesn’t collect a lake of meltwater in front of it – but when we build our outdoor kitchen, we need to make sure to have the supplies needed to wash up, then collect and dispose of the dirty water. We do have a few things we can use, if we really get desperate, but they would be quite awkward to work with. Hopefully, it won’t come to that!

After I got back, my daughters took over putting things away and preparing the food while I headed back to the septic tank. I wanted to get the insulated tarp loose, so when the septic guy arrived, he would just need to pull it back and go.

That, of course, turned out to be a much bigger job than anticipated.

We were really, really thorough about making sure that tarp couldn’t get blown away.

I ended up having to dig out the far corner as well, which still had a drift of hard packed snow on top.

I forgot we’d used old fence posts across the fold, to weigh it down.

I finally got it so that the tarp can be pulled back to access the cover. Then I returned it and weighed it down with one of the fence posts, until we need to lift it, since we do still need to keep this area insulated!

It would have been much better if it could have been lifted from the other end, away from the house, but it was easier get the tarp out from under the things weighing it down along the house, and breaking up the snow on it, than trying to chip through that layer of ice.

There is a downspout at the corner of the sun room that we put the rain barrel under. The barrel blocks access into the garden quite a bit, so I’ve been thinking of turning the down spout towards the garden, so that the rain barrel can be put around the corner, instead of on the sidewalk in front of the sun room. If we put a high enough platform under it, we’ll also have room for a tap to fill watering cans from the bottom, too. The diverter we use when the barrel is full currently drains near a rose bush in front of the steps to the laundry platform at the clothes line. If we redirect the down spout, it will instead drain into the old kitchen garden. What I want to do is attach a collapsible overflow pipe to the rain barrel, instead, so we don’t have to worry about using the diverter at all. The whole set up will still be in the way of traffic zones, but not as much as it is now.

Now I’m thinking we need to do the same thing with the downspout on the opposite corner, by the septic tank. The ground slopes downwards to the west, but the downspout runs to the north. If we turn it, yes, it’ll be in the way, since it’ll be running across the path we’ve made along the side of the house, but I’m sure we can work around that. Another rain barrel certainly wouldn’t be a bad idea, either. In fact, we could use three more, just for around the house. We will have to make sure they all have overflow drains. I’d like to have a couple more rain barrels at the garage, too, since we have garden beds that way already, and there will be trees and shrubs planted beyond the garage, too. So we’re looking at at least 5 rain barrels, though if we could get a couple of those big water tanks instead, that would be even better.

One of these days, I need to snag my brother and his trailer, and make a trip to the salvage yard in the city. Along with rain barrels, we want to pick up bricks, blocks and pavers, too.

But that’s something to do in the summer, perhaps. Right now, I just want to be able to take a shower and not flood our basement.

The Re-Farmer

Well, that was disgusting

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It’s just past 2 am as I start to write this. Normally, I would be going to bed around this time, but I actually went to bed before midnight, for a change.

Before I did, I checked the old basement. Not only was there no increased flooding, but things had actually started to dry up. A good sign. I covered the drain with the plastic sheet that keeps the gases out and went to bed.

Not long ago, I woke to go to the bathroom and heard a strange, quiet rumbling from the basement. It didn’t sound like the well pump, nor the septic pump, neither of which should have been on, anyhow.

It was the sump pump.

The basement was flooded even more than before, the reservoir had filled, the pump was running so long, it was sounding wrong, but the reservoir wasn’t draining.

I threw on some boots and a coat and ran outside with the flashlight. There was nothing coming out of the sump pump hose in the old kitchen garden. I yanked it out from along the house, and it was flexible the entire length. I finally found the blockage, right by where it attached to the pipe from the basement.

I was able to flex the hose and could hear ice breaking up inside, but that did nothing for the rigid bit of pipe through the wall.

So back to the basement I ran, this time with a couple of large buckets. I had to unplug the sump pump, which had been running so long, it was hot.

By this time, my noise had awakened the rest of the family. Even my husband could hear me over the sound of his CPAP.

The girls came down to help. I used the small bucket with a wire on its handle that we used the last time this happened, and a broom handle it sink it, and started bailing water into a large bucket. That went to one daughter, who took it up the stairs. My other daughter took that outside to empty it, while I filled the next bucket.

That reservoir holds a remarkable amount of water.

After many trips, we got the reservoir bailed out as much as could be done with the small bucket.

Once that was clear, I checked the drain in the floor. It had disintegrating toilet paper in it, but not more than before, from what I could tell. I was going to hose that away after the septic tank was done.

The first time we had septic problems in the basement, that my brother and I worked on, we hooked an old hose to what used to be the cold water tap for the washing machine and used it to try and clear the pipes. The last time, when the plumber came with his drain auger, it came in very handy, so I’ve just left it there, with most of the hose rolled up and hanging. I pushed the end of it through the drain, and could get quite far. There is no blockage, that I could feel.

Once the drain cover was off, I could see water from the floor starting to slowly drain away.

Grabbing a long handled scrub brush, I tried to clear the drain opening, and it didn’t seem to make much difference in how quickly things drained.

What concerned me was that I started pulling up thin tree roots. That’s what the plumber had cleared out if there, not that many months ago.

After the tank is emptied, I should be able to run water through the drain in the floor and be able to see better. I’ll also open up the access pipe, near the septic pump, and take a better look, but that requires tools.

The drain cover has been left off. The sump pump remains unplugged. We will have to keep checking the basement more often, and if it starts filling again, start bailing it out again.

My daughter’s and I, meanwhile, have scrubbed up, though we still feel really gross. It’s not like we can take showers right now, though at least we can flush the toilet and wash up.

Now we have to get some more sleep while we can.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to fall asleep anytime soon, which is why I am sitting here, tapping out a blog post on my phone.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Can I just win the lottery, now?

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Oy. What a morning!

Things went south before I even woke up this morning. Or, should I say, things going south was what woke me up!

I still had a litter box in my office/bedroom, so our post surgical kitties wouldn’t have far to go, if they needed to.

I was awakened by the sound of Beep Beep vigorously trying to spread the litter all over my carpet.

And we still don’t have the replacement belts for our new vacuum, yet.

*sigh*

Then I went into the sun room to start my morning rounds, and found water on the floor.

Under the spare cat food bag.

Despite things cooling down, yesterday’s warmth has lead to water leaking in the sun room again, and it’s making its way through now.

And we still don’t know where the water is getting in, so we couldn’t patch it.

So I had to spend some time taking care of the bag of cat food which, thankfully, has an inner lining that kept the kibble from getting wet, and setting out a bucket to catch the drips.

Butterscotch and Nosencrantz were doing very well, and enjoyed their wet cat food treat. They are getting so spoiled these days! :-D

The kibble bowls outside had been picked clean of even the kibble from the brands they don’t like. I am pretty sure I know who ate it. Last night, on the security camera live feed, I saw a very large skunk, running back and forth on the driveway, and too and from one of the sheds. Skunks don’t fully hibernate in winter, and it can be pretty safe to assume a very hungry skunk visited the kibble house last night.

When I came outside, I “caught” a deer in the path to the compost pile, half way between the pile and the house. It froze and stared at me for a while, before walking away, then into the spruces. Even as I brought out the seeds to the feeding station, it stayed and watched me until I was almost clear of the lilac bushes. By the time I was heading to the garage, to take the van to the mechanic, two deer were at the feeding station. They watched me, but didn’t run away.

The van started well enough, and no warning light or message from the onboard computer about the brakes. I left it running to warm up while I went to unlock the gate.

The lock was frozen.

We don’t have lock de-icer.

It took me about 10 minutes to finally be able to get the key in and open the lock.

Which is when I discovered the slide bar that holds the two sides of the gate together, was also frozen.

This thing is about 2 feet long, and the ice had formed between the metal of the bar, and the metal of the gate it slides on.

After fighting with it for a while, I went to the garage, shut off the van, and grabbed a tool kit. I ended up having to remove one of the bolts that holds it in place, but also stops it from sliding too far over the other half of the gate. It allowed me to pull the slider upwards, pivoting on the opposite bolt, enough to break free of the ice. Much sliding back and forth was required to scrape the ice off. The ice had filled almost the entire length where the two pieces of metal where in contact.

That took another 20 minutes or so.

The gate is being left open, now.

Then it was back to the van and off to town, with a brief stop at the post office, along the way.

We’ve got high winds from the north right now, blowing across the road the entire trip. It wasn’t too bad at first, but the closer I drove towards the lake, the more snow there was, the more drifting, and worse visibility. When I reached the stop sign to cross the next highway, it was sheer ice and hadn’t been sanded!

Which is when a new warning light came on. The battery light, while my onboard computer flashed with “charging system failure.”

Seriously???

Thankfully, I was less than 5 minutes from the garage.

When I got there, his parking lot was full, so I pulled in behind his own vehicle and went in.

But not until after I shut off the van, then restarted it. The warning light did not come back on.

Once inside, I saw that not only did he have all three lifts full, but he managed to squeeze in another car in the middle, and a utility vehicle between a vehicle on a lift, and the bay door behind it.

At least he had another mechanic with him this time!

Clearly, he wasn’t going to be able to check the van, anytime soon. I did bring in the printout to show him and we talked about what was going on, as well as the road conditions. He thought I was going to be dropping the van off and coming back later, but that wasn’t an option. My daughter still has a limited license, so someone with a full license has to be with her, and my husband no longer has a valid licence, since they wanted him to do a legal name change when he tried to switch to this province’s license. And she can’t take the road test to get her full license, because of all the restrictions and mandates against organic humans.

I would have been willing to wait, or he could have called me later in the afternoon, when he could fit the van in, but with the road conditions, I didn’t want to chance it.

I’m now booked to come back at 10am on Friday.

It’s a good thing we did that, as conditions had worsened even in the short time I was in with him. It was slow going in places, and more than a few spots were down to almost zero visibility.

About half way home, that “charging system failure” warning came back on.

I was just coming up on the turn towards our driveway when the van kicked into battery saving mode and shutting things off.

After pulling into the garage, I checked, and the battery was down to 8.4 volts. It is normally at 14 volts.

Thankfully, we have a good charger.

Unfortunately, the battery is really hard to get at. The fuse box and a piece of frame support is basically on top of it.

But, it is charging, and I should at least be able to get it to the mechanic in a couple of days.

One of the things on the list of stuff to check that I got after changing the oil, was corrosion on the battery connectors. It was something I’d noticed myself. But would that be enough to prevent the batter from charging? The mechanic suggested it might be the alternator, but until he actually gets under the hood to check, it’s just guesswork.

So, there’s something wonky with the brakes. The battery is losing its charge. We have a loose wire in our manual headlights knob, so that if I want to turn them on manually (auto still works fine), I sometimes have to wiggle it just right for it to work. The ABS needs to be fixed, and on and on.

This van has done well by us, considering the problems we had when we first bought it, but it’s mileage is right up there; I’m actually hoping to catch the odometer at 456,789.0 km, but I might have missed it on the way home. It’s old and little things are giving out, all over. We’re keeping up on them as much as we can, but the budget is just not there to get it all done.

Meanwhile, there is basic maintenance needed on my mother’s car, we have other equipment that needs to be fixed, the roof is leaking, we’re on borrowed time for our well, and the whole house needs a top to bottom renovation.

A lottery win would really come in handy right now. Not even a particularly big win. Just enough to replace and fix the things that need to be done!

The Re-Farmer

Nooo!!! These critters have got to go!

/ Re-Farmer / 24 Comments

Okay, I am not a happy camper right now.

My daughter and I had started to do the evening watering, and she was at the tomatoes when she saw something on the concrete steps outside our dining room door. We currently have our umbrella tree sitting there, and she saw something go behind the pot.

The mock orange here has been recovering nicely from cold damage.

As I to check on what my daughter saw, I could see movement through the mock orange leaves. The kittens have been enjoying playing on these steps. In the past, we’ve had cats move their litters under here. There is a gap between the stairs and the basement wall that even the skinnier adult cats can fit through, and I believe the stairs are hollow underneath. In fact, this is where we caught David and Keith, mostly because their eyes were so infected, they couldn’t see us to run away. Their sibling managed to keep going under the stairs and we were never able to get her. Rosencrantz then moved her out of there completely, and into the junk pile, hence Junk Pile’s name.

So, was it a kitten? Or…

When I got to the steps, there was nothing there, so I moved the branches of the mock orange to see if there were any kittens behind the steps.

Instead, I found a large hole!

Yup. A woodchuck had made a den here.

There wasn’t even the telltale pile of dirt, like the one in the garden.

Not. Impressed.

I grabbed our jug of critter repellent, which was almost empty, and simply dumped it into the opening. Then I refilled the jug with water. As I came back, as saw one of the little woodchucks running away and around the back of the house.

Because this is right up against the house, we can’t just flood the opening, but I did pour a couple of jugs of water down the hole. I also blocked it as much as I could with some scrap pieces of wood, for now.

For this one, once it’s clear, I think we will be gathering as many small rocks as we can to dump into the opening, then top it off with soil. It’s going to be difficult, with the mock orange in the way.

And we’re all out of strong smelling soap and hot spicy things.

While watering near the old kitchen garden, I could smell the soap from a distance. Checking the beds with the soap shavings, they seemed to have no new damage.

However, the end of the beet bed neared the house, where we had never had critter damage before, was now kibbled on. Not much. This area did get black pepper, so maybe that discouraged more damage.

Before heading into the house, I checked some other stuff, including the potatoes my daughter had just watered.

I found this.

Four potato bags against the fence were damaged.

I at first thought it could be that kittens had started rolling in the bags or something, but …

… no kitten would be eating potato leaves!

Off everything we’ve been trying to grow this year, nothing has been thriving as much as the potatoes, so this is particularly frustrating!

Since taking this photo, I went back and unrolled the bags to their full height. They are tall enough that it should keep the critters out.

I am not a happy camper!!!

The Re-Farmer

This is why.

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

You see this?

This is why I’m paranoid about tires.

Actually, I’m paranoid about vehicle break downs and troubles in general, but especially about tires.

My mother’s car got all new tires after we didn’t hit a deer, a couple of winters ago, and drove through a ditch, instead. With how infrequently my mother’s car is used, they are still in very new condition. In fact, the coloured markings on them haven’t worn off yet!

I have no idea what I could have hit that caused this! I hadn’t reached even 5 miles from home when it blew.

This is my best guess.

Every winter, as the snows melt off the gravel roads, the surface gravel is mostly gone, and a lot of rocks start protruding. These tend to be very rounded rocks, not angular ones, but sometimes they end up sticking out quite far. Because of the direction I was going, I took a different route to get to the highway. It added an extra mile of gravel road, and the final two miles are a smaller road than the one we usually take to get to the highway. (This route has the added bonus of us not having to drive past our vandal’s place.) It was a rough ride, and though I drove slower and tried to avoid the rocks, I did hit some. My mother’s car is very light in the back, so I was feeling every bump more than with our van, as it was.

However, it was about a mile and a half on the highway when it happened, and there was nothing on the highway for me to hit. I just suddenly started hearing the noise in the back, and immediately pulled over. I didn’t even feel anything different in how the car handled. At least, not with how quickly I pulled over.

After quickly messaging the family to let them know what happened, I called up CAA to get a tire change. I then spent the next 10-15 minutes, trying to explain to the person I was talking to, where I was. CAA, of course, wants an address. I had none. There was nothing but trees around me. I finally got out to see if what may have been a driveway up ahead had a marker number (I couldn’t actually see one, and they are supposed to be highly visible, which means the driveway was likely to an unoccupied piece of land). As I got out, I was able to see there was actually a road behind me. It took a couple of minutes to walk close enough to be able to read the road number.

The poor woman on the phone just could not find me. She couldn’t find our little hamlet. She couldn’t find the provincial route number it’s on. She was using Google Maps, so I tried giving her the names of larger towns in the area. Every now and then, she’s say, “near [suburb near the city, an hour’s drive away]?” or “near [small town I know the name of, couldn’t tell anyone where it us, other than “somewhere north of us”]?” The road number I gave her did not come up for her at all, as if it didn’t exist.

I swear, it was like trying to explain to a delivery company, how to find the farm!

Eventually, she had enough information to give to a driver and told me it would take about an hour for them to arrive.

An hour???

That done, I messaged my family, asking someone to come with the van. My younger daughter has her license, but with all the crap going on right now, she has not been able to book the 2 hours of driver’s training she needs to do, before she can take her a road test for her full license. Which meant my husband had to accompany her for the drive.

My husband, who has been having extremely bad pain days for the past couple of weeks.

My husband, whose walker is now kept in the sun room, where it is easier for him to get in and out through the doors. Where Ginger is camped out right now.

He didn’t even bring a cane! Not that it mattered. We keep several canes in the van, and there’s at least one in my mother’s car. We collect canes! :-D

While I was waiting, I got a call from the driver, much sooner than expected. He asked some more questions about where I was. Since he’s actually from the area, I could tell him some land marks (you know that radio tower? I’m looking at it right now.) that he knew. He arrived not long after my husband and daughter did.

I would really like to invest in the tools he had! Especially the jack. The tire was changed in almost no time at all. The little jack that came with the car would have taken three times as long, just to lift the car.

Once he had the tire off, we could see the damage, and I was just amazed!! I was half expecting to see a piece of glass or something (I’d seen some on the shoulder as I walked to read the road sign for CAA).

My daughter and I were talking about how these were quite new tires, so wear and tear can’t be blamed. He took a closer look and said he thought the tire might have been defective.

The spare tire is the little donut, not a full size tire, so I drove home at almost half speed, with the flashers on, with my husband and daughter following behind.

Because at this point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the spare tire went flat or something. :-/

Once we got home, I still wanted to run my errands, but I decided to go to town, rather than the small city I was originally planning to. That allowed me to swing by the garage and talk about bringing my mother’s car in.

I’m bringing it in tomorrow afternoon.

*sigh*

First the cat, now my mother’s car? What more can go wrong?

Never mind. I don’t want to know. The list would be too long! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Really?!?!?

/ Re-Farmer / 10 Comments

I took my mother’s car out to run some errands. This just happened.

I am now on the side of the road, waiting for CAA.

It was very difficult to explain to the person how to find me. She couldn’t even find out little hamlet on Google maps.

I have no idea what I hit to cause a flat.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Are you kidding me??

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

It’s past 1 am as I write this, but I just had to.

I went down into the old basement to treat the hot water tank with hydrogen peroxide before going to bed. This is what I found.

It’s leaking!

(That ring of minerals on the concrete is not new; it’s been there since the last time we had issues.)

We don’t go into the old basement often (and with the cats, we’ve put all the most breakable stuff into the old basement and blocked off the opening between the two basements, so there was no chance of kittens falling into the sump pump reservoir or otherwise hurting themselves). The last time anyone went down there, that I can remember, was my daughter, the last time the tank was treated. I called her over to see, and confirmed it wasn’t leaking the last time she was down there.

In trying to see where it was leaking it appeared to be coming from the bottom access panel, too. So we opened it up.

Yup. It’s been reaching that high!!

We’ve left the panel off. Tomorrow, I will call the number on the tank to talk about getting a replacement under warranty.

Again.

For those who are new to the blog, when we first moved here, this place still had the tank that was installed when my dad got the well dug near the house and installed running water. He got the tank second hand. When cleaning up the basements, I found the old warranty certificate and bill of sale for it, dated 1963, if I remember correctly.

It died shortly after we moved in.

Long story short, we went without hot water until we could afford to get a plumber to replace the tank for us.

That worked out well for a while, until the water started to get hotter and hotter, all on its own. We called the plumber and he changed the thermostat, but that’s when we discovered that it had started leaking at the bottom. When he opened the bottom panel, he found the insulation saturated with water.

Not long after that, we lost hot water completely.

We then had issues with discovering the local hardware store it was purchased at, not doing warranty replacements. I tried working with the company directly before finally finding a branch someplace else that had would honor the warranty. We then had to get the plumber back to install it for us, and it’s been working fine ever since. The only issue is one we’ve had since replacing the original tank; the hot water would start to get a sulfur smell. Every month or so, we would drain the tank a bit, then use the vacuum created to suction hydrogen peroxide through a hot water tap in what used to be the laundry sink. It needs to sit for at least 4 hours, so we would do it before bed, so the water could be used in the morning.

It’s been about 1 1/2 years since that tank was replaced under warranty. And not it’s happening again.

What the heck is going on? How does a second hand tank last for nearly 40 years, but new tanks aren’t even making it 2 years?

But at least we still have hot water. I guess it’s a good thing it started visibly leaking this time, before we started having problems. We don’t have the water getting super hot, like the tank started having issues last time. It’s “just” leaking.

This is ridiculous!

The Re-Farmer