We normally try to keep Sunday as a day of rest, and today, it seemed I really needed it. It’s as if the heat from the past couple of days have sucked the energy right out of me! :-( Thankfully, today has been a much “cooler” 24C/75F. Higher winds made it feel even nicer, though it is a bit disconcerting when I do my rounds, and I can hear branches cracking! This morning, I found a rather large branch that had come down and almost missed it, since it had landed almost right on one of the piles of branches in the maple grove. :-D
One of the things I was doing to take advantage of the quiet time was think ahead of what we’d like to try growing, based on how things have been going so far. I still want to try gourds again, though I now know to start them indoors much earlier, and that it might be worth investing in one of the warming pads available for under seed trays.
I found a couple of very interesting seed sites that I look forward to trying out. I will certainly be ordering more seeds from Vesey’s – I’ve been happy with what we got from them, and their customer service. Any problems we’ve been having have been at our end, and not a problem with the product themselves. Even with the rough start, the sunburst squash are doing remarkably well! They certainly handled things like the seed trays being dumped onto the ground by cats much better than other varieties. Even in the bed that got frost damaged, I am seeing sunburst squash recovering and getting much bigger.
Here are a couple of seed sources I’ve found.
One is Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. They are a US based company and specialize in rare varieties. I am not seeing a lot of information about what can or can’t be grown here in Canada; especially in our zone three, but their site does allow for customer reviews that have been pretty interesting, and useful, to read. Just as one example, I was looking at varieties of carrots. The Kyoto Red carrot caught my eye. The description talks about it being a late summer, fall or winter carrot. Obviously, not something we can grow here, right? In the reviews, there were people complaining about how the carrots would bolt into seed or otherwise fail – they’d planted in the spring. Then I found one reviewer saying, yeah, I planted in the spring, in Canada, zone 3, and they’re doing great!
I think we’ll be trying out that variety! :-D
There is just so much to go through, and so much I’d love to try! If we can create the right growing environment. A long term goal is to be able to grow food plants for at least 3 seasons, and some of the stuff in here would definitely provide incentive!
It was in searching for seed sources for different types of gourds that led me to this site; Seedman – Seeds from Around the World
Sadly, they no longer ship to Canada, nor anywhere else outside the US. They’ve got a huge variety of unusual seeds. One of the things I like is the list they have, right on their main page, that go beyond “vegetables”, “herbs”, etc. Do you have only a patio available to garden in? There’s a list for that. Do you want to grow flowers for crafting purposes? You can find them here. Moon garden? Rainforest? Hanging baskets? There’s even a list for tropical plants, zone 9 or higher.
Alas, I won’t be able to get anything from there, and will have to find a source that is in, or will ship to, Canada.
If you happen to know of any, please do let me know!
As I catch up with things I wasn’t able to post while our internet was down, I figured I’d start with some fun stuff!
(Also, whatever technical problems killed off our secondary account is also affecting our primary account – but at least that one still gets a signal! We will get a call in a day or two about when someone can come by to check the hardware.)
This first photo shows some impressive progress.
That’s Keith, reaching out to touch a napping Leyendecker.
Keith.
Keith, the ball of stress and anxiety that would hiss and run away anytime a kitten came near him.
Now, he will actually curl up with Leyendecker for a nap.
He still doesn’t do much with the kittens overall, but at least he isn’t freaking out anymore.
Which leaves Fenrir as the remaining problem cat. She is more aggressive than Keith was, and will hiss and bat at them. But then, she’ll hiss and bat at some of the adult cats, too.
Then there’s Cheddar. This is him in his usual state.
He has managed to take up half of my king sized bed, with his stretching and splaying!
When he came indoors, almost a year ago, I never imagined he would grow into this big beast!
He used to be so tiny! :-D I’m so glad we were able to get his eyes all healed up.
And now some bonus critter pictures!
Much, much bigger critters.
Our renter’s cows came by the barn for a visit. :-D
In the middle foreground, walking away, is the bull. What a massive, meaty beast he is!
It won’t take long for them to eat up all that grass, and it’ll be shorter than our lawn, after being freshly mowed!
I just love hearing the cows when they’re nearby. We’re not in a position to have cows ourselves, so I get to enjoy them vicariously through the renter! :-D
While my daughters and I were in the city, my darling husband finally got through to our internet provider and had a little chat with them.
We had internet soon after.
The problem is still not solved, though. It’s just a make-do until a tech comes out to check the secondary account’s satellite disk.
When they first brought this up with my husband, they said it would cost us $125, just to have someone come out.
By the time he was done with them, that fee was waived!
Also, we are back to using our primary account for now, and we will NOT be charged double the price per gig. However, anything we do use is that much more on our bill, so we will be rationing our data for a lot of things.
While we do have a signal with this dish, it is not the same as it was, before all these problems started, just a few days ago. Data transfer speeds are insanely slow, and it can take several attempts just to get a web page to load. WordPress has always been troublesome, but it took me about 8 minutes just to get the editor loaded so I could write this post!
Still, it should mean I can catch up on posts with images. I always resize the images into smaller file sizes, so they don’t take up much data. The following photos all uploaded faster than I could get the editor to load!
So these go back a couple of days. :-)
In the last while, we have been regularly putting the kittens and Beep Beep in the basement for the night, then my husband is usually the one who opens the door for them in the mornings. So we still have cat food both upstairs and down.
The cats, of course, always act as though they’re starving, even though there’s plenty of food in the upstairs bowls. What they’re really begging for is wet cat food, and they get that only once a day. The dry kibble is always available.
Since the adults cats now go into the basement regularly, they’re also going for the kittens’ food bowls, so I added larger tin, so that the kittens could still get at some.
Just look at those buggers! They’re crowing around the smaller containers, like they haven’t eaten in a week!
We have been mixing kitten kibble in with the adult kibble. I think the adult cats like the kitten kibble better! :-D
While I was tending to the kitties that day, it was also the day to check the temperature and humidity in the root cellar. While there, I noticed something I had forgotten about.
The two bottles of our most recent batch of mead!
We were supposed to taste test a bottle after different lengths of time. One of them was supposed to be opened up on my birthday. I completely forgot about it!
At some point, I’ll grab one and bring it up for a taste test. :-)
While checking the garden plots, I discovered something unfortunate.
All three beds of beets had quite a lot of their greens missing. It seems we had a deer visiting! She especially seemed to like this Baldor variety.
In the squash bed, I had a more pleasant surprise.
The largest squash plants that I thought were green zucchini turned out to be…
… sunburst squash!
From the number of buds we’re seeing, it looks like we’ll have quite a lot of them over the summer, too. :-)
I had one last surprise that morning.
While checking the usual spots for fallen branches, I went by the fire pit, which hasn’t been used in over a year. I noticed the skunks had been digging in the dirt, right beside it, and something in the dirt caught my eye.
That white you see?
That’s a glazed brick. One of the many we have all over the place.
Looking around at other spots the skunks had dug up, I saw signs of more.
The fire pit has a ring of bricks around it, completely buried.
It must have taken years for them to be covered by that much soil!
With no fire bans right now, we can actually use our fire pit, and uncovering the bricks will be a good thing to get done, too.
I am really looking forward to being able to do cook outs again!
While doing my rounds, before going to the city, I went to the usual spots to see if any more branches had come down during the night.
None had, but when I reached the fence near the pump shack, I heard something moving on the metal table beside it.
It took me a while, but I eventually saw a kitten slink under the table itself.
Was that Junk Pile cat’s white and grey baby?
Near where I was standing is a spot the cats use to go under the chain link fence. Rosencrantz, whom I’d seen earlier as I put kibble out for the yard cats, went through, stopping several times to look back at me and give me a death glare! :-D
Just look at that face!
So was that Rosencrantz’s baby I was seeing?
She made her way to the pump shack, then settled down in front of the door, keeping an eye on me. I could no longer see the kitten under the table, but then and orange head popped out of the hole at the bottom of the door!
I’d actually enlarged that hole last year, when Pump Shack kitten was living in there. (We haven’t seen Pump Shack cat, nor her mom, Guildenstern, in a very long time.)
It took a while, but the other kitten did eventually come around.
Of course, there’s that little sapling in the way! :-D
This is most definitely NOT the grey and white kitten I saw before. This one has more white, and also has patches of orange in it.
So this is a first time sighting of these babies!
These would be the younger siblings to Keith, David and Junk Pile cat.
Shortly after this, my older daughter and I headed for the city. Having gone looking around online last night, I had several possibilities for washing machines that I wanted to check out at Home Depot.
Once at the store, I went looking at the machines. I wasn’t too surprised that there were fewer than what I saw online. Aside from the prices, I had also looked at ratings. GE had some of the lowest ratings, while Whirlpool had the highest. Those were out of budget, though. Plus, I wasn’t seeing any on display.
I had an employee acknowledge me when I first got there, asking if I needed help right away. I didn’t, yet, which worked out for him, since he said he needed to go to the back for a while. This gave me lots of time to look at the machines before settling on this one.
It was a GE, but not the same model I was seeing on the website that had the lower ratings. In fact, I don’t recall seeing this model online at all. The price was also easier on the budget than others on display. There were several cheaper ones but… they were also TOO cheap! And I don’t mean just on price.
There was also the issue of size, which turned out to be more of a non-issue. Where we have the washer and dryer is already tight. My daughter at home measured the width and messaged me the info. Our machine at home was 26 7/8ths wide. We could go up to 27 inches, but that was it. The machines were all either 26 7/8ths inches wide, or 27 inches wide. This one was 27 inches wide.
I then waited for the guy to come back.
And waited.
After a while, I asked a nearby cashier if she could see if someone was available, on the possibility there was someone else in that section.
There wasn’t.
So I waited some more, wandering around a bit.
Which is when I discovered there was a whole other section of washers and dryers I’d somehow managed to not see.
Of course, that’s when the guy came back.
I told him I was looking for a washing machine, mentioned that I’d just noticed the other section. After a quick walk around, I showed him the one I said I’d decided on.
“No,” he said.
I could only laugh. He did explain, though.
Basically, the brand sucks. He’d never use one himself, and wouldn’t sell one, if he could avoid it. His recommendation was to go with either Whirlpool or LG. I’d seen both brands were highly rated, but I hadn’t looked at any LG models online.
The first one he took me over to was a Whirlpool. It was over budget but, more importantly, it was 27 1/2 inches wide. That half inch would make a difference.
He showed me a couple others he recommended, both LG, that were 27 inches. The closer one we came to, I told him straight up was out of budget, so he showed me another one.
After going back and forth, I went with the cheaper LG.
This is it.
It cost $100 more than the GE, but it was still within budget. Well. Almost. After taxes and whatever fees were added on, it ended up costing $835 and change. So $35 over budget. It is also a higher capacity machine, at 5.5 cubic feet instead of 4.9 cubit feet in the GE I was looking at.
Unfortunately, they do not keep an inventory of stuff like this. It has to be delivered from the national warehouse in Ontario.
Expected delivery to the store: Friday, the 24th.
That’s more than a week away.
Now, I could have decided not to buy it, then tried going elsewhere, but that would most likely have meant going to another city, at a competitor’s location where we got our replacement hot water tank. That store has higher prices for the same makes and models, though, so even if I were able to find an identical machine, I probably could not have bought it.
So I bought the machine. If we really, really have to, we can go to town and use the laundromat.
As he did the computer stuff, and put me into their system, we had time to chat. I told him about our washer dying yesterday, and how we had to decide if it was worth fixing. I told him about finding the plastic part under it, and he cringed. I mentioned the screws, and he cringed a bit more. Then I mentioned the puddle of oil, and he did a whole body twitch while in the middle of typing. :-D
After the transaction was done, he made sure to let me know to expect a call on Thursday, the 23rd. If there was no call, he said to call him early on Friday (I made sure to take down his name). The delivery trucks stop running at 4:30. Once they stop, there would be no chance of it arriving until Monday, so it would have to be early enough for him to make some calls about it.
The new washer will be delivered to the store. We’re too far away to have it delivered to our place. Which actually helped a bit, since it kept the price down. There would have been a delivery fee on top of everything else, but he was able to waive that.
So we’ve got more than a week without a washing machine.
And I needed to do laundry, yesterday.
While we could make the trip into town to use the laundromat, we’re not going to bother. At least, not yet. My daughters have already done a load of their own laundry in the bath tub, and I’m about to do the same.
The one good thing about the new washing machine not coming in right away is, we have time to haul the old one out and clean up the mess of oil under it.
By the time we got home, I was surprised it wasn’t even 2pm yet. If felt like it should have been more like 4 or 5!
This has been a very expensive month. I had to buy the push mower. Then I had to buy the parts and pieces to fix the sink. My daughter bought the new stove, and now we’ve bought a new washing machine. Meanwhile, we’ve got the riding mower still in the shop (at this point, I’m hoping they’ll continue to take their time getting to it!), plus my mother’s car will be ready for the end of the month. That one, at least, I’ve got almost 2/3rds paid off. My older daughter is still getting regular commissions, but my younger daughter is not going to be able to find a job for some time, given the pandemic situation, and our Premiere extending our “emergency” status for a couple more months, in spite of the lack of cases in our province. So it’s not like there’s any way for the income to increase with the outgo!
Unfortunately, it means a lot of things we’d hoped to get done this summer, likely won’t happen. We need to buy plywood for a floor on the trailer, and more for other projects we had in mind. I was hoping to buy materials to create a base for the cordwood outhouse we were planning to build this summer. While there is a lot we can get started on to prepare that won’t cost money, we do still need to buy some things, like mortar ingredients, and I was hoping to have concrete paving stones as a “floor” to build on. That project will likely have to be pushed back to next year. Plus, if anything else breaks down, there’s very little left in reserve. I’m just thankful we had as much as we did, set aside, to cover these. I just can’t help but think, how on earth are we supposed to come up with $10,000 for a new roof, when stuff like this keeps happening?
But, thanks to my husband’s private insurance and disability income, the bills are being paid, there’s food on the table, and gas in the tank. Being hear at the farm, we’ve got a roof over our head (even if it needs replacing!) and are secure as “caretakers” of the property. We are much better off than so many others, and have much to be thankful for.
Well, there’s one thing that might help, on the financial side. Our internet provider has had a new tower built in the area.
When moving here, the only option we had was satellite and, because of plan limits at the time, we had to get two of them to provide enough data for our needs. (Getting internet is a necessity, since my daughter’s business is entirely online now.) Even then, we had issues. Eventually, we were able to double the data one of the plans. Meanwhile, we lose connectivity fairly easily. Particularly in summer, when the foliage is full. The primary account’s satellite is usually fine, but the secondary satellite is barely a couple of feet to the side, and the branches block the signal more frequently (I’ve lost internet several times, just writing this post!). As we reach the limit on the data plan for our primary account, we switch cables on our router to the secondary account – and we switched cables just this morning. We have been regularly going over our data plans, and while the company waived those costs for the past couple of months, due to the lock downs and more people being stuck at home, that ended this month.
My husband talked to the company and will arrange for someone to come by next month to do a site survey (when we’ll have money to pay for the survey). If they can get a signal to the new tower, we would be able to move away from satellite completely, have only one account, unlimited data, and save almost $200 a month.
Yeah. We spend over $300 a month, just to get internet out here, with limited data and frequent loss of connectivity.
Yesterday was a day where the weather lurched from pouring rain to brilliant sunshine! Things had cleared up enough that I even turned my computer back on again for a while. The weather radar looked like we would be getting rain, but the more severe parts of the system would miss us, again.
Then, part way through a phone call, I began to see the lightning. It didn’t take long for the sky to turn completely black. Off went the computer, and I’m glad I did. Not only did we loose internet a couple of times (something we now expect, whenever the weather gets wild), but the power flickered out enough to shut everything down. Thankfully, not enough for my husband to notice his CPAP had stopped!
We were supposed to go into town this morning, so he could get some blood work and an ECG done. Unfortunately, pain had him up at 2am, and by the time I was getting ready to do my rounds, he was more than ready to try and sleep again, having completely forgotten about the tests, and couldn’t remember if fasting was required (it wasn’t; these tests are for the cardio clinic). Normally, blood work is just a drop in, but with an ECG as well, we’ll double check to see what has changed with the pandemic restrictions. Not that it’s an issue where we are. Our province never got hit hard, and there haven’t been any new cases of the virus in over a week.
Without that trip into town, I got to spend more doing my rounds, while the temperatures were cooler. On Sunday, I’d watered the garden plots with a fertilizer attachment, and yesterday morning, the squashes were looking noticeably less yellow!
These ones in particular are much bigger than the others.
Since the transplants got all mixed up when the trays got knocked over, I don’t know what type of squash these actually are, but I’m pretty sure these are green zucchini from the summer squash mix (which had 3 types of zucchini in it), only because I remember my mother’s zucchini from when I was a kid. But then, I have no idea if the other types of zucchini in the mix look any different, so really, it could be any of them. They are definitely not the patti pan squash, though. I’ve grown those in a balcony garden, and remember their leaves never got that big.
I don’t think I’m going to bother with trellising this bed at all, either. I might still do the long row in the back, if only because they are closer to the row of trees. This year is my learning year, so I’m willing to change plans and use the results to make decisions next year.
Some of my mother’s flowers are still coming up, in between the apple and chokecherry trees at the sound end of the area we put the squash beds in.
This butterfly was just sitting there, kindly letting me get a picture. :-)
While checking on the various plots, I find myself kind of torn. On the one hand, things seem to be coming up well enough. Granted, some of the squash will probably never reach full potential, between the lateness of planting and damage from that one last frost, but others look like they are doing well. Then I read from people talking about how they are already seeing little squashes starting to form in their gardens. The carrots, beets and parsley are growing well (only 3 khol rabbi sprouts survived), and we’ll be able to use the plants we thin out in salads and such. Then I talk to my mother, and she mentioned how my sister has been bringing her fresh vegetables. I have no idea what she would have in her garden that’s ready to harvest already! Lettuces and spinach, maybe, but my mother never refers to those as vegetables. So is my garden doing well, for our region, or not? I didn’t plant things that late, for this area, and my sister is in the same climate zone we are in.
Oh, dear. I was just informed by husband that our washing mashing stopped working. The breaker has not been tripped, and there is no obvious reason why it stopped.
So let me just quickly share these fun photos with you, and then I have to see what I can figure out is going on with our washing machine!!
But first, I will share something to make you smile!
Upside down, furry friends.
Two Face and Dave were busily playing, with Two Face grabbing, licking and biting Dave’s head and him… letting her. :-D
At about 1am. I just had to turn on a light and get pictures. :-D
So… today’s runaround.
When my husband’s bubble packs got refilled, the pharmacy told us that one of his medications was out of refills. For some reason, this one painkiller got only a 1 month renewal. He’s actually on two versions of this painkiller; a quick release and an extended release. The extended release version was missing.
The pharmacy had faxed the clinic, but as of Saturday, there was still no response. They did have a pre-bubble pack prescription left for 6 pills. Three days worth. So I took those. My husband will be out of them again, after today.
So this morning, starting from when the clinic opened at 9, my husband tried phoning the clinic.
After more than an hour, he still hadn’t gotten through, so once I finished my rounds, I drove to the clinic.
Which is in a town 45 minutes away (as far as I know, the clinic we had been going to previously, still doesn’t have new doctors to replace the two that moved away, which is why we had to switch to a town further away).
When I got there and talked to a receptionist, telling her we couldn’t get through by phone, she was apologetic. It seems that on Mondays in particular, the doctors all have telephone appointments and use up all the lines.
I explained the problem and she looked up my husband’s file. According to what she saw, the doctor had phoned the pharmacy on Saturday. She even had a time. It was maybe an hour after I’d already stopped by the pharmacy myself!
So as far as she could tell, the pharmacy should have had a 2 month renewal for these meds.
Once I was done there, I messaged my husband and let him know, asking him to call the pharmacy while I made a quick stop at the hardware store nearby to get the latches I needed, then drove to the pharmacy. Which was another 45-50 minutes of driving, so it would give them plenty of time to find the fax and fill the prescription.
By the time I was done at the hardware store, I had messages from my husband. The pharmacy had no fax. They said they would talk to the clinic about it.
So I drove to the pharmacy anyway. By then, the pharmacist had gotten through to the receptionist at the clinic at noon, which is when our doctor was supposed to be in, but he wasn’t yet. He needed to sign the triplicate, before the clinic could fax it to the pharmacy. That hadn’t happened yet. The pharmacist told me that, if she didn’t hear from the clinic by 2, she would call them herself. She knew my husband would be out of the painkillers by the end of today, and how much of an issue that would be.
I decided I would stay in town for a while and have breakfast lunch, then make a stop at the beach.
It’s been about 8 or so months since a storm completely covered the boulders at the main dock, and the waves are still only starting to reveal them again. Where I’m standing to take the above picture, I was about 5 feet above water level. Normally, there would be a lot more boulders visible, and the beach here would be more “slope” and less “erosion cliff”.
The beach was busy, though not crowded. This is a resort town and normally it would have been packed with tourists and people at their cabins for the holidays, even on a weekday. It was good to see people out in the sunshine.
I walked around the strip of beach I usually do, pausing at a Pokemon Go gym near the beach to do battle. I had gone to a tree for some shade, and would have leaned on it (since the park bench that used to be there is now gone), but found it was occupied.
This bumble was just wandering around on the bark, minding her own business, so I let her be. :-)
The pharmacist had told me they would phone our home number if the prescription was filled. By about 3, there was no call, but I swung by anyhow, just in case.
The pharmacist had called the clinic, but the doctor was with a patient and had not been able to sign the triplicate yet. She did not know when he would be done, and there was no fax, yet.
*sigh*
I told her I had to go home, and asked if they could phone us when they got the prescription. She told me they could deliver it to us, even as far out as we are. I told her we don’t have a credit card to pay for it, which is how they usually do payments on home deliveries. She said that we’re there so often, they would just set it aside (the printouts with the bar codes) to pay for it the next time we came in. !!!
Which would be amazing, though I don’t expect it to happen. As I write this, I can see that the pharmacy is either already closed or, if they’re back to regular hours, closing soon.
I really, really hope this can be taken care of by tomorrow. I will happily make the extra drive in to get them!
Thankfully, with my being gone most of the day, the girls were home to take care of the routine stuff. So while I can’t say it was a completely wasted day – I at least got the latches I needed, and even found pruning paint, for the next time we have to cut away live branches – but it feels like nothing tangible got accomplished.
I’m going to install those latches, just to say I got something checked off the to-do list!
Yesterday, things cooled down enough it was actually worth opening up my window.
There is still a problem with that.
The three amigos and their stuffed companion!
For some reason, the cats really, really like to attack the bugs through this window screen. I try to keep on top of it, but they’ve managed to cause some minor damage already, and I’m often forced to close the window to keep them from clawing their way through the screen!
With the window closed, they prefer the spaces I’ve left for them on my utility shelf. As crack-eyed Two-Face is demonstrating! :-D
The cool of the evening was a welcome respite.
It didn’t last long, unfortunately.
By about 5pm, we reached our high of 32C/89F, with the humidex at 38C/100F. The low of 21C/70F we’re supposed to reach tonight is going to welcome, along with any rain we might get.
We have yet to try and move the counter today. I’m hoping to try this evening, but I don’t have high hopes for that.
This afternoon, I headed into town and made another deposit to the garage, against the work on my mother’s car. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, he’ll order the part and shoot to have it done at the end of July, when I can pay off the balance. I am really appreciating how patient he’s been about my mother’s car!
The down side it, almost our discretionary funds in our budget has been doing to get my mother’s car fixed, rather than towards things like what we’ll need to buy to build the cordwood outhouse, or the plywood to make a base on the trailer frame, or a cover for the old basement window to replace the one that fell off, or… the list goes on. Between that and the heat making it downright dangerous to work outside, I already feel like spring was almost completely wasted, and summer doesn’t look like it’ll be much better. :-(
Still, we do what we can, and try not to stress about what we can’t.
Once I was done at the garage, I went to the pharmacy to pick up prescription refills. We’d called them in yesterday, but one of my husband’s meds that was renewed last month, was only renewed for 30 days. They had sent a fax to the doctor’s office, but there had been no reply yet. So they filled my husband’s bubble packs without it, and when I talked to them today, the pharmacist said he would send the fax again.
Along with mine. It turns out mine was renewed for a short time, too, and there was only 15 days worth, left. I decided to wait on those. Hopefully, I’ll be able to pick up both at the same time, in a few days. Unfortunately, the missing medication for my husband is one of his pain killers. That is NOT going to go well for him. His pain is barely controlled as it is. Being down one of his painkillers is going to make life decidedly more unpleasant for him. :-(
My next stop was at the hardware store, where I wanted to look at different types of fasteners to use on the wire screen door I made for the basement. I ended up going with the old standby: hook and eye closures. I also found some angle plates that will solve a problem for me, in making a new screen window for the old part basement to replace the one that finally broke apart over the winter. On that, I plan to use both the 1 inch wire that I used on the door, to keep the critters out, and window screen mesh (I found rolls of it when cleaning out the basement!) to keep the bugs out. The air circulation from outside is needed to help keep the old basement dry, together with the blower fan. With the materials I have, I knew I’d have a problem making strong corners on the frame, and these right-angle plates are just what I need to solve that problem!
Once I got home, I put the hook and eye closures on the screen in the door. There are now 4 of them, and there is no way the cats will be able to push their way through anymore!
We had talked about possibly removing the basement door, but decided against it. When it is fully open, it blocks my bedroom door. So I’ll just leave my own door open, and the basement door will provide me with privacy. :-D
With the heat, just putting on those hook and eye closures was enough to leave me dripping. I’d hate to think how much hotter it would be if we didn’t have that door open! It’s like poor man’s geothermal. :-D
One of the other things I did while in town was swing by the grocery store to get more things that don’t need to be cooked. It’s been too hot to eat; none of us have appetites, and no one has the energy to cook. So fruits, vegetables, and sandwiches are the order of the day! I have been telling myself to go eat something since before I started writing this post, because I’m absolutely famished, but I have zero appetite. It’s the sort of thing where we have to make ourselves eat, just so we don’t end up getting dizzy spells or something. We have no problem making sure to stay hydrated, though, that’s for sure.
*sigh*
Well, I guess I should go make myself a food of some kind.
Today, I finally got the riding mower in to the shop for some TLC. We finally got to use the new ramps my brother bought me. <3 The girls and I had to take the middle seats out of the van (one of the first things we did after buying the van was take out the bench seat in the back; we never put it back and left it behind when we moved) to fit it, but we got it in, with room to spare.
It was rather funny when I got to the shop. After talking to the lady at the counter and getting the work order form filled in, I asked about getting it unloaded out of my van.
She did a double take and looked at me. “It’s in your van?” Yes. I can fit a lot in that thing!
She got someone to come out to unload it with me. As we were walking out, he asked me where it was, and I told him it was in the van. My van was the only one in the parking lot at the time.
He did a double take.
“You got it in a van??”
:-D
Yes. Yes, we did!
So that is now delivered, and I will get a call with an estimate before they work on it. I made sure to mention the drive chain had come off, and that I didn’t bother putting it back on, since I can’t reach under to tighten what needs tightening. I also mentioned the tire I think may need replacing, as well as mentioning that it’s had a hard two years, so if they see anything else, let me know!
Thankfully, we have the new push mower, so there is no rush to get it done.
Once that was done, I called up my mother to see if she was home for the next while. My timing was perfect, as she did have something booked later. The building she lives is has started to hold social events again, organized by a social worker. I had just enough time to pop over. I told her I had something for her; a mushroom!
“Oh! I hope it’s okay,” she says.
It took me a moment to realize she thought I meant mushrooms I’d picked at the farm. :-D I cleared that up with her!
Now, I wasn’t sure how she would respond to the spoon. My mother is not exactly gracious with gifts. In fact, she is often very cruel, and I would not have been surprised if she refused it. As it was, when she finally saw it, she immediately started talking about what kind of mushroom it was that she wanted me to carve for her, and doodled it on the back of an envelope. I explained to her (again) that I got a spoon blank in my carving kit, and when she asked for a mushroom, I decided to include on in the spoon, and a morel was basically what fit. I would need wood in a different size and shape to carve what she wanted – and now I have her sketch to go by. She just laughed and said there was no hurry.
I had to ask specifically if she wanted to keep the spoon or not, since she had dismissed it immediately to do the sketch. I told her it was my first carving, and that I was offering it to her, if she wanted it. She said she would keep it.
Getting that straight was a bit like pulling teeth! I think she might actually like it, but I’m not sure.
Then she asked me if she’d ever shown me her Russian spoon. No, she hadn’t! So she brought it out for me to see.
While the spoon is from Russia, she got it from her late aunt, who was born in Canada. My mother said that it was spoons like this that they used for eating, when she grew up in Poland. (What a large size for an eating spoon!) She mentioned that the spoons they used were painted, too, and commented on how they must have been eating the paint, as it came off over time. Who knows what was used to make the paint; it’s unlikely to have been something commercially prepared, in that region and time period. Home made or purchased, any paint still could have been potentially toxic!
I’m really glad she showed it to me.
Once at home, I decided to spend some time in the basement to work on a hair pin my daughter requested. I’ll post about that separately. Before I do, though, I just had to share my company!
Of course, as soon as I sat down at the work table, I had kittens all over me. They did eventually move on, except Big Rig.
Who decided to give my arm kisses.
My goodness, she looks like Susan (who would be her big sister!).
Then she heard a kerfuffle and ran off to join her siblings.
Beep Beep is so patient! :-D
Later, I looked up from my work and found this face, staring at me.
Nicco looks ready for a nap! :-D
The lilac wood she has a paw on is the branch from which I’d cut off a piece for the hair pin.
Unfortunately, at the point I was at when I took that picture, I was needing to use the Dremel, and the noise chased her away.
I was actually able to start and finish the project, even with the kittens crawling all over me, so that worked out much better than expected!
I’ll have photos of the finished hair pin in my next post.
Our high of the day was reached at about 4:30 pm! 32C/89F, with the humidex putting us at 36C/97F. We’re not going to be cooling down much, even overnight, either.
At least there’s a wind, and on the weather radar, it looks like we’ll at least get some rain this evening, if not the thunderstorms. Those look like they’ll go right past us.
It was, at least, much more bearable when I did my rounds this morning. That, and the basement is nice and cool for the kittens.
Since they have gotten so good and escaping as soon as the door is opened and my hands are full, I’ve sacrificed one of my slightly taller laundry baskets for kitten jail.
I succeeded only in catching David! :-D He loves that thing!
I ended up just leaving the door open and let them be, until after I was done outside. By then, a daughter was available to help herd them back downstairs.
I am happy to say that some of the replacement sunflower seeds we planted are starting to sprout! They are just starting to break ground. The ones from the first planting have, for the most part, been growing quite well.
Something has been digging into the softer soil where we planted the seeds. Whatever it doing it, isn’t after the seeds themselves. This time, at least, the seedling didn’t get dug up in the process. My guess is, skunks are after grubs or worms.
We did, however, have a couple more losses of the original seedlings.
Something just up and ate a couple of them! Most likely deer. *sigh* The deer aren’t coming around much anymore; there is one that I’ve been seeing at the gate on the trail cams, but that’s it.
So far, at least, nothing has been eating the squash plants, and it doesn’t look like we’ve lost more beet greens.
The small mock orange by the side door of the house is going to be blooming very well this year! It got a major pruning, the summer before we moved out here, so that the walls could be painted, but it has recovered very well. The other one by the clothes line platform had a rough time last year, but it does have some flowers – all along the bottom! Most of it, however, has no buds at all.
These guys are finally starting to open. I expect to see many more, within the next few days!
This little shrub along the south side of the driveway has lots of berries on it. I have no idea what they are. There are quite a few of them around, but only this one has berries. I’m thinking location has much to do with it. It’s the only one that gets a lot of sun all day. The others are shaded by trees or sheds.
If anyone knows what this is, please feel free to let me know in the comments.
For now, I’ll just assume that whatever it is, is poisonous, and just appreciate it for its beauty. :-)
Today was our day to go into the city to do our big shopping trip.
We didn’t finish.
We currently have more weather warnings. This time for heat!
I took the above screenshot shortly before 4:30pm. We might actually go a bit higher before it starts cooling down. 30C/86F is hot enough, but check out the humidex expected for Monday! 40C = 104F
We’ve been getting enough rain lately that our municipality has removed the burn ban, completely. No restrictions at all right now! We have lots that needs to be burned, but with the heat, who wants to be around fire right now? :-D
And we don’t have air conditioning in the van anymore, nor even working fans in the console.
It did make the trip into the city … interesting!
We managed to get to the Walmart and the Costco to stock up. After gassing up at the Costco, we were going to go to a couple more places. Then road construction and detours had us doing a route march through residential areas (why are they designed to be such mazes???) before we could back track, go back through the construction, and finally take a road that would get us to the street we needed, albeit at a different spot than I was originally after. By that time, I was done. We just went home.
Part of the reason I was okay with doing that is because my daughter asked for an extra trip into the city, which we’ll be doing tomorrow. She’s buying us a new stove! Since we’ll be in the city again anyhow, we can also pick up the rest of the stuff we need for the month.
Considering she is using her savings and had to quit her job, I am extremely grateful that she is willing to do this for us. The stove we have has only three working elements right now – we stopped using the 4th when we saw sparks every time we turned it on – and even those don’t heat up well, among other issues.
There isn’t much in the monthly shop we need to get, though. The freezer and pantry are stocked up again. We also have lots of cat food and litter – we’d run out of both, completely, as of this morning! The only things left are the items we don’t want to get in bulk quantities, like fresh fruits and vegetables, or ingredients we can only find in various ethnic sections of a grocery franchise we regularly visit now.
With the current heat wave, getting work done outside is going to be difficult. Unless I start getting up at 5am, while it’s still cooler (well; not so much over the next few days). I might just have to start going that. Which means, no more staying up until 2am!
The Re-Farmer 