internet woes

Back online

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Well, it got figured out. Sort of. After trying all the usual rebooting and turning things off and on, my husband physically unplugged and re-plugged in all the physical connections. When he was done, we had internet again. How the power being shut off briefly would have caused that, I have no idea.

Speaking of having no idea, at some point yesterday, a cat walked on my keyboard. I have no idea what combinations of buttons got stepped on, but I now have every letter, space and punctuation I type showing up in boxes as the bottom of my screen, along with and “backspace” and “break”. This has happened before, and I figured out how to shut it off, but this time, I just can’t find how again. I’ll have to figure it out later. For now, I’ve got stuff to do!

First up, though, is some cuteness. I puttered around after feeding the outside cats for the evening and discovered two of them on top of the raised bed cover in the old kitchen garden!

One of them is more feral and ran off when I stopped to get my phone out, but Kohl is looking like she’s settling right down for a nap!

It’s a good thing this cover can support their weight, and the netting is secured snug enough that they don’t end up pushing it through the larger openings in the fence wire.

The ornamental apple trees are in full bloom right now, and just buzzing with polinators!

It’s such a gorgeous evening right now, I’m probably going to head out again, after I’m done writing this, even though it’s already past 8:30pm.

This morning was fairly routine, before I headed out to my mother’s. My daughter offered to do weed trimming and mowing for me while I was gone, so we walked about that for a while. She was happy when I suggested using the riding more first, as I knew for sure it had more gas in it. She wasn’t sure we had permission to use it.

I headed out early enough to get a bit of gas before heading to my mother’s, though it turned out to be too early to grab some fried chicken for my lunch, since my mother was getting her Meals on Wheels today. When I got to her place, she had been lying down in bed again, and was really struggling to get up and move around. She says her mobility is getting worse, which I can clearly see. Before she was settled, I offered to apply some of the Voltaren topical painkiller, and she quite happily agreed. Her morning med assist visit is supposed to offer to do that for her, but she doesn’t like the idea of the home care workers touching her like that. Fair enough!

That done, we were starting to settle down to go over her shopping list, when she commented that I was “hiding my beautiful hair”, because I didn’t take my hat off, like I usually do. I told her, yes, I’m hiding my “beautiful hair” because every time she sees my hair, she had something nasty to say about it (even when she compliments my hair, she does it in such a way that it’s actually an insult). Her response was to tell me that it’s because I braid my hair and only little girls wear braids. I reminded her that her mother always kept her very long hair in a braid. Oh, but she wore it rolled up on the back of her head all the time! I said no, not all the time. I remember her braid was so long, it reached her bum.

In the end, she basically said that having short hair is easier (for her), therefore older women should all have short hair like she does. I told her, I find it easier to have a braid. Oh, when you’re in your 90’s like me, you’ll feel different.

*facepalm*

At least she was not being actively nasty about it.

We went over her shopping list and added a few things she hadn’t thought of. She also had a list for things to pick up at the pharmacy, including more Voltaren. Now that she’s using it on her back as well as her knees, she’s going through it a faster, and she doesn’t want to run out. Which is a real switch for her. She usually waits until the last moment before replacing things or getting refills.

Since I was going to the pharmacy anyhow, I decided to go into her lock box and take out those bubble packs that have been driving her nuts. One of them had just a single bubble for her evening meds in it, while another had one bubble of morning meds and one of suppertime meds in it. The equivalent of 1 day’s worth of pills, but each bubble was in a different day of the week. The home care workers refusing to give them to her on the “wrong” day is what’s driving her absolutely bonkers. It’s like she goes into an instant rage. I told her I would take them to the pharmacy. She has about 1 1/2 weeks left in her current bubble packs, so she’ll be getting refills done next week. I told her I would give them to the pharmacist. She started telling me to make sure they knew she had already paid for these (which… of course they do. She wouldn’t have them, otherwise), so they don’t throw them away. I told her, I would explain it to them, and they will take care of things.

One thing I noticed and remembered to ask before I headed out; her Tuesday morning meds are still in their bubble. Today is Friday, and all the other bubbles in between are properly used. What happened on Tuesday?

Apparently, no one showed up to do her med assist on Tuesday morning. I did not get a call, and my mother didn’t call to tell me there was a problem, either.

*sigh*

Today is her day in the common laundry room, so we got that ready, too. My mother, of course, giving me detailed instructions on how to do the laundry, even though I’ve already done her laundry before and know how she likes it done. Then, when her Meals on Wheels arrived, I got her laundry started, then headed out to do her shopping while she enjoyed her lunch. It looked and smelled delicious!

I did remember to grab the bubble packs for the pharmacist and explained the situation. They can’t repackage them, but she did understand why I had to get them out! My mother was getting downright abusive about it.

My mother had only 4 things on her shopping list at the pharmacy, yet it still came out to just over $60. Ouch.

I did her grocery shopping next, and that came out to just under $60! She didn’t need a lot, but it was still quite a few items. On both lists there was an ‘if it’s in the budget’ item that I didn’t get. As it turned out, since I paid the small change myself so she get round numbers back, she had only a dollar left of the cash she gave me for her shopping – and even then, it was because I suggested she might not have enough, after looking at her pharmacy shopping list, so she added a bit more to her envelope of cash she gives me for her shopping.

When I got back, my mother as busily picking up rugs and bashing them with her cane to get the dust off, in preparation for me to sweep her floors. Not something she should have been doing, but she just couldn’t just sit there, waiting for me to come back and do it.

I know that feel.

I did get her to sit down on her comfy chair while I put her groceries away. Then I grabbed her water bottles that needed refilling (there’s a tap in the laundry room that has a water softener on it, that she uses for drinking and cooking water) and switched her laundry to the dryers. She had actually forgotten about her laundry! One machine was still going through its final spin, though, so the timing worked out.

That done, I got the sweeping done for her, then made sure everything was put back properly. I do wish she would get rid of her little rugs. They are such tripping hazards! But, the floor makes her feet cold, so she wants the rugs. 😔

Once everything was settled, I remembered to get out my mother’s blood pressure machine and get a reading. I try to remember to do that every time I’m at her place for any length of time. I got her pulse oximeter set up, too, but it has the hardest time getting a reading. Her fingers are so twisted from arthritis, it doesn’t have proper contact. I had to try three different fingers before we could get a reading!

Then we had a chance to just sit and visit for a bit. She even asked me how things went with my appointment for the truck yesterday. I told her how it went, and now the adjusted was trying to blame things on previous damage, and that I was expecting a call from the autobody shop some time today to get full information. I mentioned the potential issue with painting after they fix the bent box frame, because of the rust.

Mentioning rust turned out to be a distraction. I barely finished talking when she suddenly declared, “now let me tell you something about me!”

She then vaguely indicated towards her stove and was talking about this terrible problem of rust she has. She didn’t have the word for what she was talking about, but seemed to think I could read her mind and know what she meant! Her gestures were so vague that, even though she was verbally saying “stove”, she seemed to be indicating the counter… or the sink? I finally had to ask. That made her instantly furious as she got up and started trying to tear off an element to show me. I was able to get her to stop and before she broke something!

It turned out she was talking about the drip pan under the element.

I had to look up the name of it, just now! 😄

It was completely rusted out, to the point of having holes in it. Which is bizarre, because I know this stove was replaced after she moved here, so it’s less than 10 years old.

My talking about rust on the truck reminded her about her drip pan, and how she had asked the cleaning staff if she was responsible for replacing it, or the public housing department that owns the building. They didn’t know but said they would ask. My mother later got a two page letter explaining the things they did and didn’t cover… but nothing specifically about the drip pan, so she still doesn’t know!

I told her, I’d just replace it myself. I took a picture and passed it on to my siblings so that one of us could pick up a replacement for her, when we have the chance.

After a while, my mother sent me to check on the driers, and told me to take them out if they were dry, even if the machines weren’t done. They were on their cool down cycle, so that’s what I ended up doing.

Once I started folding and putting them away, my mother let me know she was done by sitting in her armchair and turning on her TV, really loud. 😄 When I was done, she barely acknowledged when I gave her a hug and a kiss goodbye. 😄

While all this as going on, I got messages from the family. While my daughter was out using the weed trimmer, which is electric, someone from the electric company came by to say they were going to be shutting off the power for about half an hour. My husband, sweetheart that he is, made sure my computer was shut down, first!

They still had just enough data signal to send text messages, so they could keep me up to date. My daughter saw them working on the main power pole, so she went out to ask about what they were doing. There was just a small part at the top that was getting replaced. She was told they will be increasing the voltage to the power grid, and had to replace parts so they could handle the increase. Which means they are going to every single farm and rural household to do this! That’s going to take a while!

Once the power was back up, the internet was still out. When I got home, I tried contacting the electric company, but they aren’t listed in the phone books we have (yes, we still have phone books!). I even tried calling 411, but only got a busy signal. Eventually, I went outside with my phone and logged into the electric company’s app, dug until I found a number I could call, and got through. After explaining things, he checked, and all was clear at his end. Which meant we had to contact our internet provider. Which is Starlink.

Which would require logging into their app. Which I couldn’t do, because my upgraded phone doesn’t have my husband’s computer generated, unhackable password stored in it – and after fighting with it while I was gone, my husband ended up having to medicate and go to bed for a couple of hours.

Meanwhile, the woman from the autobody shop had called, so I had time to call her back.

*sigh*

First, the insurance company will not cover the cost of the tail light. The damage is not consistent with the claim.

They will cover part of the cost of the painting that will be required, but we’ll be responsible for $140 of it.

We will have to pay 30% of the cover, on top of the $500 deductible. A cover could cost up to $2000, so we could be paying up to another $600 on top of everything else.

Part of the problem is, there’s not enough left of the cover for them to know what a similar replacement would be.

She asked me questions about it and said she would look for photos to send me, so I can see which one is most like what we already had. As for the tail light, I would have to talk directly to the adjuster about that.

Once I had the time, I started going back into my old photos to find pictures of the cover (turned out, there are none that show enough of the cover to be useful) and for proof of what I was saying about the tail light.

I might have to eat some crow.

I found the pictures I took of the truck when it was still in the lot. No crack in the tail light.

No dent under the tail light.

I thought that dent was already there, because I’ve never backed into anything that would cause that damage. The only time I’ve accidentally backed into something, it was the kibble house because I had the tailgate down and couldn’t see how close it was. The damage was to the kibble house, not the truck, and the paint is yellow, not white like what’s in the dent.

The only more recent picture I could find was taken the day I met the Cat Lady for the catio they donated to use. In there, you can see a bit of white paint above the tail light, no cracks in the tail light – but I was taking a picture of the load, not the truck, so the very bottom of the tail light is not in the frame. No proof that the dent was there, with an intact tail light.

Meanwhile, I’m now wondering how that dent got there and when. As for the crack itself, it’s large enough that I would have noticed it earlier. At least, I think I would have! Now I’m second guessing myself.

*sigh*

In the end, though, I have no way to prove that the tail light was intact before the cover was blown off, and nothing to show when that dent showed up.

Well, we’re not going to get any further ahead on this until after the weekend.

As much of a pain that it is, the main thing is to get that frame repaired and a new box cover, and my older daughter has said she will help us with paying for the cost above the deductible.

We’ll find out how much that is, once we figure out what type of cover is closest to what was lost.

Who know getting this taken care of would be such a pain???

The Re-Farmer

No internet

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I have just enough data signal while out in the yard to, hopefully, post this.

While I was at my mother’s, the electric company came by, saying they would shut off our power for about half an hour.  My daughter chatted with them, and they told her they were replacing the parts needed to handle the upcoming increased voltage on our grid.

The power was back on long before I came home, but the internet is still out.  All the usual steps were tried before I got home.  I even managed to get a number for the electric company through their app – I had to go outside to log in – and find a number to call them.  There is nothing wrong at their end.  We will have to contact Starlink somehow.

Which seems to only be possible through the app.

Which I can’t log into.  My husband has the log in info.  My upgraded phone doesn’t have it anywhere, and my husband uses an app that generates insane passwords that can’t be easily cracked.

After fighting with it, my husband reached his tolerance levels, medicated and went to bed.  Until he is functional again, we have to wait.

We might have to find a way to log in to try and connect remotely.  Hopefully, my husband will just need to go outdoors to get enough signal. Otherwise, we will have to drive somewhere.

Now to see if I can publish this with my barely-there signal strength.

The Re-Farmer

Disconnected

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Something weird happened with our intern during a storm last night. We lost internet, but it didn’t come back right. At the moment, I can only connect with my phone. It won’t let my desktop connect. Even the tablet I use with our security camera can’t connect. It can’t even fund any networks.

My daughters tell me they have the same issues. Unfortunately, the modem is in my husband’s bedroom, and he’s medicated and asleep right now.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to figure out the problem, soon.

The Re-Farmer

All set up

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Well, my brother is just awesome.

And determined.

We were perfectly willing to wait until spring before setting our new Starlink dish up permanently on the roof, but my brother wasn’t. Not at all!

Of course, it turned out to be more difficult than even he expected.

One of the first things he wanted to do – while it was still relatively warm and the sun was bright – was seal the ridiculously large hole we had to make to fit the widest part through (I still don’t know what it’s called) with caulk. He even used his heat gun on it to cure the surface a little bit, before continuing. It’ll take longer to cure because of the cold, but at least tomorrow, we’re supposed to get above freezing.

Then one of the satellites was removed (except the part you can see on the roof), leaving the stand, which we were expecting to be able to use to hold the Starlink dish.

Well, it turned out to be much larger than the support post on the dish. My brother thought he could squeeze it to fit, but the metal turned out to be way too strong. He struggled for nearly an hour up there, using tools I’ve never seen before, before finally giving up. We would have to use the stand it came with. Which meant removing the existing tripod, first. We really didn’t want to make new holes in the roof, but there was no option available for us at the time.

Removing the original support required removing ice and snow.

The ice dam was about six inches deep in places, and he had to clear it all the way to the edge on one side, first to remove the coax cable that was already there – and affixed to the roof in a couple of places – then to be able to run the new cable across. Which also required moving the ladder.

This would have been a LOT easier in the summer!

My brother put most of the screws he took out, back into the roof after, to make sure there were no open holes for water to get in. In the summer, we’ll have to remember to fill them.

Once everything was clear, it didn’t take long at all to install it.

I didn’t get a good picture of the completed job, but once the stand was secure, the cable was run across the roof, then across the side of the house, before running down to where it enters the house. There was a huge amount of excess cable – it comes with 150 feet – which was quickly wrapped and secured to the wall. In the spring, I’ll take it down and redo it neatly, but for now, he just needed to get it up and tucked away, where it’s protected.

By the time he was done, it was starting to get dark, and he just dashed off home – but not until after he made sure the parts of the satellite dish were tucked away into the old basement! There is still one piece of the support attached to the roof, but there was no need to remove it, for now.

The unexpected thing is just how much the new dish is pointing north. Those tree branches are actually an obstruction! According to the app, we should expect signal interruption every 17 minutes. The app actually tracks that stuff. Looking at the log now, the last time we had an outage, it was because there was “no signal received”, and it lasted for only 2 seconds. It was happened more than 3 hours ago. In fact, looking at the log, the outages happened pretty much only during the time it was being physically moved around and frankly, I’m amazed there was any signal at all during some of those times. While my brother was working on trying to fit on the existing support, I had to pass the dish up to him several times. I had the base on the shelf against the sun room window, so I could safely put it down in between tests. Several times, the dish started to move, looking for a signal. This was almost right up against the house, and partly under the eaves. How it managed to get any signal at all amazes me. Especially considering the dish is facing North, and the house itself would have been obstructing the signal!

I do have to say some positive things about our Xplornet dishes. They are rock solid, they were installed very well, and we usually had decent speed on it. If we got enough signal strength for it. And that was the problem. We just kept losing our signal. Even when they had tech guys coming out, according to their equipment, we should have had a good clear signal, and they never did figure out why we weren’t. That doesn’t even take into account the problems we would have in high winds, or if there was bad weather to the south of us. The problem just kept getting worse and worse, too.

That will be the big test with this system. How does it hold out in bad weather? So far, we’re expecting things to get colder, the closer we get to Christmas, but there are no storms on the horizon, or even high winds. It might be a while before that test finally happens.

I suspect it will be just fine.

The Re-Farmer

Still working!

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Just a quick morning update.

The kitties were quite happy for some fresh kibble this morning! Their heated water bowl was completely empty again. The snow it too packed for tracks, but I strongly suspect we have deer drinking it during the night.

Tuxedo Mask got his eye treatment, and we should be able to let him out tomorrow. His eyes are looking excellent.

I am happy to say that our Starlink is still working. :-D It even moved.

The dish lines itself up to get the best signal. When we first set it up, it was pointing straight up. Now it’s facing North. I thought it might tilt a bit to the North, based on what I was finding online, but I didn’t expect it to tilt quite this much.

After finishing my rounds and checking the trail cam files, I just had to share this image of me the sign cam caught while I was about to switch out the microdisc.

Butterscotch was making the job much more difficult!

Clearly, I have been forgiven for trying to turn her into an inside cat.

With the trail cam on a mounting plate, it can move around while still on the post. I can put it upside down, to make it easier to remove the microdisc, though I do still have to be careful. The spring is surprisingly strong and shoots that disc right out, if I’m not careful! Still, it’s a lot better than trying to get it from below.

Except when there’s a cat in the way!

Meanwhile, I had updated my siblings about how things went with the Starlink set up. Just a little while ago, I got a call from my brother, asking if it’s a good time for him to come over.

He wants to mount it on the roof for us, using one of the mounts for the satellite dishes. He even has something that can fill that hole we had to make to put the cable through the wall. I was more than willing to wait, but having the dish sitting on the ground in the middle of the yard was driving him nuts. He knows we don’t have everything needed to mount it ourselves, and when I brought up about the ice, he didn’t care. He just wants it properly mounted!

So he is on his way over now and should be here in a couple of hours.

I have the best brother. <3

The Re-Farmer

Linked!

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Well, we’ve gone and done it!

I am now writing this post while hooked into our Starlink internet.

Oh, my goodness, what a difference!

It was not without issues, though.

The first thing I had to do was some shovelling.

I had to use the ice chipper to break up the snow before I could shovel a path to the corner, where the current cables enter the house.

We had talked about pulling one of these out and drilling the hole better, but they are well sealed, plus on the inside of the house, not very accessible. We decided to make the new hole higher.

Using their app, I found a clear spot off the path to the kibble tray under the shrine and dug it out.

Which got immediately claimed.

Before drilling a hole, though, we needed to pick up some more sealant, so a quick run into town and a visit to the hardware store was in order.

That turned out to be… not quite what we needed.

Once we had the inside parts inside, we set the dish itself up, so we could fuss with the cables.

I am going to be much happier when this is on the roof!

Then the issues started. Drilling a hole through the wall.

A log wall.

We have a long set of drill bits that go up to half an inch, which is wide enough for the end of the cable. It’s too bad we couldn’t just use the coax that was already there, but it is what it is.

Except…

Just a few inches from the end of the new cable, there is a wider part. I don’t know the name of it, but it’s wider than half an inch. Still, we did create a half inch hole through the wall, almost 2 feet higher than the other cables. This was a pain, because my drill sucks and the chuck key is stripped. We still needed a larger hole, though, and that meant a trip to the basement, were I remembered a set of spade drill tips we found when cleaning the basement out.

We ended up having to drill a 7/8th inch hole, from both sides, because the spade tips were not long enough to go all the way through.

That is a large hole!!

We still couldn’t get the cable through. So for the next while, we used the long bit to try and smooth out whatever the wide part of the cable was getting caught on, somewhere in the middle. Having to drill the larger hole from both sides caused a “bend” in the hole, and the wider part of the cable, which is inflexible, was too long to get past.

Eventually, it got done, and the cable made it through. My daughter pulled through a few feet of slack, then set up the inside parts. As soon as the dish had power, it set itself.

I foresee a problem! :-D

It’s only temporary.

While still outside, I used the app on my phone to set up our account, then my daughter and I tucked away the extra cable, until we can set things up permenently.

By the time we were finished fighting with it, I completely forgot to take a photo of the hole. It looks so ridiculously big for the cable that’s running through it. We’re going to need to pick up some sort of spray foam to seal it properly. For now, it’s got some fibre fill shoved in, on the inside, to keep the wind out.

After using my phone to set up the Starlink, I went ahead and did a speed test.

Not too bad at all!

Now, download and upload speeds were not something we had much to complain about. Especially my husband. His computer is set up right next to the router, so he can plug a cable right in. He hasn’t been able to use WiFi since his Windows OS updated a while back. This is what he got.

Which is just insane!!! Wow!!!

The girls upstairs got hooked up and immediately noticed a difference, though I don’t think they’ve got speed test software on their machines.

Once I was settled in and hooked up, I went to a few places where I knew I would see a difference, if there was any. Images on Pinterest, for example, which loaded without issue, or Discord, which has always been a huge problem for me. It also connected almost immediately.

I didn’t have speed testing software on my desktop, so I downloaded some and did a test.

Before I show you the test results, however, keep in mind that I am in what’s probably the worst place in the house for WiFi, even with a booster.

Yes. My download speed was 0.16mbps. My upload speed was faster at .23mbps

Out of curiosity, I did another test on my phone, while sitting at my desktop.

Yeah, even my phone’s WiFi sucks in my office corner.

I tested my desktop again, after waiting a few minutes, and it did improve.

Then a few minutes later…

Yes. This is an improvement.

There was, however, a different problem.

Once we got this set up, my husband called our satellite provider and suspended both our internet accounts with them. We will test the Starlink for a couple of weeks before we cancel our old accounts. We won’t need to switch from one account to the other, part way through the month, and we no longer have data limits. It all comes down to how stable and reliable the connection is.

Then, because our old router was still pushing out signal, my husband unhooked the old satellite routers (that will need to be returned when/if we cancel) and turned off our router.

Suddenly, I no longer had a live feed to our garage security camera. The one that lets me keep an eye on the driveway and gate. Because the camera is so far from the house, we have a set up that hooks into our internet system via the electrical wires, and is then plugged into our router, which has something like six ports on it.

The router the Starlink system came with had only one port available.

We talked about it for a bit, then my husband went looking. He found a fix for his computer, and was able to start using his WiFi, and was able to hook our IP camera to the Starlink router. I now have a live feed again!

My husband’s computer, however, has gone down to 158.49 mbps download and 12.65 mbps upload. I just tested my phone. It’s at 52.6 for download and 9.2 for upload right now. My desktop is…

… 4.78 mbps download and 0.71 mbps for upload.

Excuse me while I don’t feel sorry for him. :-D

You know what I think I’m going to do?

I think I’m going to make some popcorn, go online and watch a full length movie or something. At highest resolution.

Maybe even two of them.

And not worry a bit about data limits!

The Re-Farmer

It’s here!

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Yes, our Starlink system is finally here!

When we first signed up for it, we read that it would be sent by mail. After it was ready to be sent and fully paid for, my husband started getting notifications about FedEx delivery. Which was weird for our area, but whatever. It was due for delivery yesterday but, as I had mentioned in my posts, it never arrived.

This morning, my husband got an email telling him it was successfully delivered by FedEx

???

Well, it wasn’t delivered here, so we were really hoping it got dropped off at the general store the post office is in. This has happened before, when a delivery driver couldn’t find our place.

When I got to the post office, I asked about a package from FedEx, while getting the mail. There was a whole bunch of packages in and…

One of them was our Starlink system.

Yeah. It was sent by mail.

*sigh*

I ended up swinging past home to drop off the mail with my husband, who was waiting at the gate with the wagon, because there we no longer room in the car for my mother’s walker!

While I was at my mom’s, my husband checked it out, but we can’t set it up yet. We need to put a wire through the wall, but it’s possible we can use one of the existing holes for the co-ax running to the satellites. I’m pretty sure they’re weather sealed, though. We’ll have to dig our way to that part of the wall, first. We will most likely set it up in the middle of yard temporarily, until we can safely access the roof to install in permanently. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, my visit with my mother went rather well. I brought her the honey she asked me to get for her, and I did bring some pierogi that we made last night for her to try. When she asked what kind of filling they had and I told her, she made some comments about how she’d never used mushrooms before, but didn’t say anything negative, so that was a good start. We had lunch, then I helped her with her errands, then stayed for a bit of a visit after putting away her groceries. There were a few attempts by her to bring up her … hot topics, shall we say, but I managed to distract her from what usually devolves into racist rants. At one point, she started asking me if I wanted to be “healthy”, so I knew that was going to go weird. It turned out to go back to her visit here, to see the finished sign, then used wanting to see how nice the inside of the old outhouse looked as an excuse to get into things. One of those was fighting her walker through the back door of the garage to look for things she could criticize me about. It took a few weeks, but she finally brought up about the cans. We’ve been bagging our aluminum cans to eventually sell to a scrap dealer. We’ve got about 4 years of cans stored in a corner of the garage. Most of them are cat food cans, and sometimes critters tear the bags apart, so everything needs to be rebagged. My mother, of course, only saw the pop cans. Or what she assumed was pop cans. There are V8 cans in there, too. They’re the same cans she complained about, 3 years ago.

We don’t actually use cans all that much.

Anyhow, she has decided that these are all pop cans, and that means we drink nothing but soda, and that’s why I’m fat, and because I’m fat, that must mean I’m unhealthy. Never mind that she’s been fat for as long as I can remember, and aside from things like injuries or hernia surgery, I don’t remember her ever being sick. When I pointed out that most of those cans are cat food, she just gave me a condescending look, because of course I’m lying. Right?

I managed to distract her from that, though, and the conversation continued. At one point, grocery shopping came up, and I decided to take a chance. I told her about the quarter beef that we’ll be getting soon, how many pounds of meat we were getting, and some of the cuts. Now, this was part of a conversation about the cost of groceries, so buying 125 pounds of beef like this is saving money from having to buy in the store. So what did my mother get out of it?

She wants me to be healthy. She doesn’t want me to be sick and die. Because apparently, buying enough grass fed beef to last us for months is going to kill me? Apparently, I’m going to sit there and eat 125 pounds of beef, all at once? Or maybe it’s because she has been convinced that red meat is bad, even though we used to raise our own beef, butcher it and fill our freezers with it, for decades and never got sick? Whatever her reasoning, our buying a quarter beef is somehow supposed to kill me.

I have to admit. That’s a new one.

Still, overall, it was a good visit, and I was glad to see her stocking up on things, taking advantage of me being there with her car and able to carry them for her.

I’m glad to be home, though. These visits are very psychically draining! There’s just no way of knowing if something well suddenly trigger her.

As for the Starlink system, it’s already getting too dark, so we’ll have to work on that tomorrow. :-)

I’m really looking forward to testing it out!!

The Re-Farmer

Getting stuff done

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Today was my day to do part of our monthly shop.

After the kitties were fed, of course.

Rolando Moon followed me around while I did my rounds.

She even let me pet her a bit, before trying to chomp my hand.

She is so mean. :-D

It’s a good thing we were doing a shop today, because we ran out of bird seed yesterday, and used the last of our dry kibble for the outside cats this morning!

Normally we would have gone to the city to do our Costco shopping today, but our budget got a bit switched, so it was a smaller Walmart trip at the smaller, nearer, city. The electric company changed the dates to report our meter reading, which meant the due date changed, too. Normally, we can pay all our utilities when my husband’s disability payment comes in on the last business day of the month; that would be the one with his private health insurance that we live on. He also gets CPP Disability from the government, which is a top up of sorts, on the third last business day of the month. That allows us to do the bulk of our shopping a few days before the end of the month. This time, however, we had to make our electric payment out of it, and it was a few days late. We haven’t had a late payment on any bill since we’ve moved here! Thankfully, though, I was able to get explain our situation to the electric company and they were able to change it for us, so this will be the only month where it is an issue. Still, it left us with only about a third of our budget for this trip.

Which is okay. We’ll just do the big trip next week.

We had another change to our budget this month. We signed up for StarLink quite a few months ago. The initial down payment was made and we were just waiting for the service to go live in our area. Once that happened, they would send us an email to let us know before taking the rest of the funds out of the account. That would give us time to transfer the funds from our savings account to cover the bill.

Last night, my husband showed me an email from them, saying they’d tried and failed to make the payment.

!!!

It took a while, but my husband eventually found several emails from them, in his spam folder. Not only did they send as an email in advance, but they had tried to take the payment out a couple of times already!

Thankfully, today my husband was able to make the payment manually. Which means the equipment will soon be mailed out to us. He did have to update our address to our driveway marker number, because they didn’t consider a box number a valid address. Which is silly. There are plenty of people in rural communities that don’t get mail delivery. Considering rural internet is the whole point of what StarLink is doing here, you’d think they’d clue in.

No matter. With the shortage of computer chips delaying their roll out by months, if not years, we weren’t sure when we’d get our system. Thankfully, we signed up long enough ago that we are still high on the list.

The only down side is, even once the equipment gets here, we may not be able to install it. There is an app that will help us locate the strongest signal from our roof, and that’s where the dish will be installed.

There isn’t a massive amount of snow on the roof – the girls would have gone out to shovel it, if there was – but there is enough snow to make it dangerous to go out there, while lugging around the parts and pieces of a satellite dish and tools!

No matter. It’ll get here when it gets here. It’s still in beta, so once we do have it set up and running, we will close the larger of our two satellite accounts but leave the second one as a back up, just in case something goes wrong. After about a month, we’ll see about closing the second account. Just closing the one account, while paying for the new StarLink account, will save us about a hundred dollars a month. If it works as promised, we should have more reliable internet, with no data limits. Our current service keeps going up in price, but connectivity has been getting worse. Meanwhile, if we go over our data limit, the cost per gig is double. The StarLink satellite signals shouldn’t be affected by weather to the south of us, the way our current service is.

Once we get to the point where we have just the one, new account running, it should save us at least a couple hundred dollars per month, and with the way the price of basics, like food and fuel, are rising, that will be a big help. Plus, with more reliable service and no data limits, I’ll be able to do things like participate in Zoom calls and meetings that I’ve had to skip. I tried doing a Zoom call with my brother once, and it was barely functional!

So that is good news. :-)

My husband was able to take care of that while I was doing the shopping. We haven’t been able to clear enough or the yard to drive up to the house, though, so I had to pull up as close to the gate as I could. Thankfully, it all fit in the wagon we’ve found so handy, though it was heavy enough that the wheels were sinking in the packed snow of the driveway!

As soon as everything was unloaded, I fed the outside cats again while the girls put stuff away. You’d think they hadn’t been fed this morning at all, the way the little buggers were begging! After taking a couple of kibble bags into the house for the inside cats, I came out to get the last two bags for the outside cats, and found a cat in the wagon, looking ready to tear one of the bags open, right then and there!

Once all that was taken care of, I headed out again to the post office, where I also picked up a bag of deer feed this time, instead of the black oil seed I get in the summer. I was also able to refill the suet feeder. I’ll have to pick up more deer feed next time; for the past couple of winters, we went through about a bag of deer feed a week, but with the extended fall we had, and the current mild temperatures, the deer aren’t in as much need for supplemental feeding just yet.

While going back and forth, I usually have several of the adult cats following me around. Among the kittens, it’s been Nosencrantz and Agnoos – until now! This handsome boy has joined the party of cats determined to get stepped on and tripped over! :-D

More importantly, he lets me pet him regularly now! He even lets me pet his belly while he’s rolling around on the ground, though he does look awfully confused when I do! :-D

I just love those golden eyes!

I’m settling on this one being Chadicous. Aside from Bradicous, with his distinctive white tail tip, we’ll have to settle on which is which for the other ‘icsouses. :-D One has a distinctive black mark on its nose, while another has a lot more white on his hind legs. There’s still a third one that doesn’t stay still long enough for us to spot any distinguishing features.

I’m happy to say we are now good for the next while; it was mostly critter food we were running low on or out off, but we’ll be good until we can do the rest of the shopping next week. After that, we will be avoiding shopping as much as possible! I expect one last trip to the city in the middle of the month, then not again until after Christmas and New Years, at the earliest. Hopefully, the weather will remain mild, but if we end up in a deep freeze or snowed in again, we should be stocked up for a couple of months by then, if necessary. Especially once that quarter beef we ordered is ready!

I really look forward to when we are at the point of self-sufficiency where these trips to the city are just for topping up, not a major necessity as they are now.

The Re-Farmer

Internet Down

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Posting might be sparse for a while. Our internet went down last night, and has not come back, yet. Likely due to Blizzard conditions to the south of us.

We are in pretty good condition here. Maybe 5 or 6 inches of very wet snow. A few branches fallen from the weight. Our gazebo tent collapsed under the weight. But we are fine, and so are the outside cats. :-)

I am getting just enough data signal on my phone, that I can make a text post. Hopefully. If you are reading this, it worked.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: first pea pods!

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We managed to get a few things taken care of in the garden, once things started cooling down.

But first, kittens!

I wasn’t able to get pictures of all four of them, but these two seem to be a bit braver. :-) I also saw Rosencrantz and her two babies. It looks like they are actually living in that junk pile now.

I also saw the woodchuck again, this time diving under the garden shed. I don’t know if it was just trying to hide from me, or if that’s where it’s new den is.

One of the things that finally got done today was transplanting of the Hopi Black Dye sunflower seedlings that we’d tried starting indoors so long ago. There was a total of 8 to transplant. I also transplanted the few pink celery seedlings. I don’t expect them to grow, but I figured I’d give them a chance.

While I was refilling the watering can for the transplants, something caught my eye among the green peas.

Our first pea pods are developing!

The green pea pods are surprisingly large, for the size of the plants. There turned out to be quite a few of them we found as we watered. I didn’t see them this morning, but I may have missed them.

There was no missing these ones, though!

These pods are SO purple! I love them! :-D Among the purple peas, we only found two pods, so far.

Oh, I am so excited. :-D

Before I transplanted the sunflowers, which you can see in the row in the foreground, I hoed around the remaining Dorinny corn. Of the 7 rows we planted in this block, there are 4 rows left, and all of them have gaps. I did transplant about 5 corn plants from the other three rows into the larger gaps. They seem to have handled the disturbance well. Even the corn plants that got munched on seem to be recovering!

It’s hard to see, but after the watering was done, the girls put up the wire mesh on the last section of the squash tunnel. My younger daughter has been diligent in getting the winter squash, gourds, melons and peas trained to climb their various structures.

While they were putting up the wire mesh, I got another corn block hoed.

Even though we had already watered everything, I was finding the soil so dry, I watered all the sweet corn and sunflower beds, over again. Little by little, I’ll be hoeing all the blocks. Since these rows were just new garden soil placed directly on the ground, with no cardboard layer, nor any sort of organic matter underneath, what few plants that were growing here are working their way through. As this corner gets so baked in the sun, what little had been growing here can handle drought conditions. Their roots are incredibly tough and hard to pull. Now that the area is being watered for the first time, these plants are growing like I’ve never seen them before. I don’t want them choking out our corn and sunflowers, but my goodness, they are hard to dig up!

With these beds being so far from the house, we’re doing a lot of dragging of hoses around. Today, a pair of hoses gave out. The joined connectors both started to break, spraying water with remarkable pressure. So tomorrow, I’ll have to head into town to find both male and female connectors to replace the broken ones. Both of these hoses were purchased last year, but considering what we’re putting them through, I am not at all surprised that they would break where they did.

Oh, my daughter tells me that the potatoes are blooming now, too. When I watered them this morning, they still just had buds.

So much growth is happening right now!! :-)

On a completely different note, my husband got a notification email. Our StarLink kit is on its way. Our area should get coverage by mid to late this year – and we’re already midway through the year. I’m really hoping this new service works out, even though we would still be in Beta. Our satellite internet bill keeps going up, while the quality of our connection keeps going down. That is annoying enough in general, but I’m finding the WordPress editor seems to need higher connectivity than pretty much anything else. The editor simply won’t finish loading in any browser but Chrome and Tor. While everything loads much faster in Tor than on any other browser, the block editor does not work well if I have to go back and edit or adjust things, because blocks end up overlapping each other. Today, Chrome stopped working, too. Nothing will load except the tool bar across the top, and the question more icon in the bottom corner. The rest is blank. And sometimes, I don’t even get that much. Instead, WordPress just keeps timing out and I get error messages, instead.

So I’m using Tor right now, and am hoping that I can eventually load WordPress in one of my other browsers enough to open the draft and fix any weird formatting that might happen.

Hopefully, once we’re on StarLink, we’ll have a more stable connection. We’ll also have unlimited data, so we won’t need to have two accounts anymore. Switching could save us a couple hundred dollars a month, possibly more. Well worth the initial expense of setting up, which is pretty high, but doesn’t get billed all at once. For now, we’ll just be charged for the kit that’s being mailed out to us, which includes the dish, router, tripod and all the cables, parts and pieces needed to install it. My brother knows quite a few people already on the service, and they are really, really happy with it.

For now, though, I have to keep juggling browsers, just to be able to keep posting on this blog. I suppose I could use my phone, but I really need the big monitor and full size, ergonomic keyboard! That and the editing software I use to resize any photos I include, so they take up less storage space in WordPress.

So we’re getting a little bit of technical progress to go with our garden progress. :-)

The Re-Farmer