just talkin’

How things have gone today

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Rather all over the place!

Today was our Costco shopping day, and I’ll post about that separately. My day, of course, starting with feeding the yard cats and going my morning rounds.

Which included spotting this little guy.

So far, he’s the only new kitten we are seeing regularly. I saw no sign of any others, so far today.

I think I’ll call him Colby.

While checking on the garden beds, I remembered to take a picture of our new blooms.

Our Sweetie Snack Mix bell peppers are flowering!

I’d seen flower buds starting on the Turkish Orange eggplants, but they got quite a bit of cold damage a few nights ago. They are recovering, but it definitely set them back.

Since we were heading to the city this morning, I didn’t do the watering. I had done it last night. With the expected heat in the next few days, we will have to start watering morning and evening. Even if we do get the rain predicted, in a few days, unless we get a downpour, we’ll still need to water.

Before we had to head out, I got a phone call from the autobody shop. The truck is now booked for repair and replacement of the box cover. I will be dropping it off on the 25th, a Friday, and most likely will get it back the following Tuesday.

They will have a courtesy car for me!

I am just so happy with this place. They have gone above and beyond in dealing with the insurance company, trying to keep costs down for us as much as possible, and now even ensuring we still have transportation – small town shops like theirs typically can’t afford to have courtesy cars available. They were even able to make it so we won’t be charged for part of the paint job, dropping the total cost to us by about $140.

That wasn’t the only call we got to get things worked out. While we were driving into the city, my daughter got a call from the hospital, regarding her upcoming ganglion eviction. She now has an exact time to come in, plus they’ll be calling her a few days before to go over her medical history in more detail.

When we got back from the city, it was getting close to when we’d be feeding the outside cats, so once everything was unloaded, I started on that so my daughter could park the truck. The kittens sure to like to go under the truck when we’re unloading!

And under our feet.

With the heat, part of the routine includes switching out frozen water bottles in their water bowls. Before refilling them, I had to run the hose for quite a while, so it wouldn’t be scalding hot. I refilled the leaking “heat sink” container in the portable greenhouse to get all that hot water out. The handy thing about that is that, while the container was put in the greenhouse to release its heat during cold spring nights, when it gets refilled during the day, it absorbs heat and cools down the greenhouse surprisingly quickly.

It’s still hot AF in there. Just not quite as much. 😄 The luffa seem to be doing all right in it, though.

Once I was finally back inside, there were a couple of messages for me – one from the pharmacy, and one from my mother. Both about her bubble packs that were supposed to be delivered today.

I called the pharmacy back, first.

As soon as I said my mother’s name, the pharmacist was all, “oooohhh… yes…”

They did try to deliver her bubble packs today – which is the last day of her medications she had left from the previous month’s packs – but when the delivery person got there and told her how much it would be, my mother told them she didn’t have enough cash.

Also, she told them I’d already paid for it.

I had picked up her inhaler, and it cost almost $200. Her bubble packs were over $200.

What they ended up doing, since today she would be out of her medications, was giving her a week’s worth of her medications – for free! – until we could clear this up.

Once I got all the info from the pharmacist, I told her I would either got to them before they close to pick up the bubble packs, and my mother would pay me back later, or they could deliver them on Wednesday (tomorrow is Canada Day, so they will be closed). I just had to talk to my mother about it, first, and had the exact amount ready for her.

Also, I was startled that my mother said she didn’t have enough cash. She uses only cash, but can’t go to the bank herself anymore so my brother, as PoA, has been making sure she gets her cash for her monthly spending.

Then I called my mother.

*sigh*

When I confirmed with her that I had only paid for her inhaler, not her bubble packs (because there were no bubble packs ready yet), and that I’d told her this at the time, she started to get really, really angry, and even started yelling at me because I used my credit card to pay for it. As if my using my credit card somehow was why there was a charge for the inhaler? Which, according to her, was supposed to be free. Now, she did get to keep the one they used on her while she was in the hospital – back in February! – but that was it. Then there was the cost of her bubble packs. She’s never spent that much on medications in one month before! Except… of course she has. Maybe not all at once, but she has.

I tried to explain to her that she just hasn’t paid her deductible on her insurance, which is through our province’s health care system. (Something not all Canadian provinces has.) She got mad about that, too, telling me she has never had insurance.

Except she has. Even before Canada brought in our medicare system, my father told me, he always made sure they had insurance. Plus, she’s been covered by our province’s prescription insurance for decades. She has to sign a form for it, every year. She’d commented to me about how she sometimes got her prescriptions for “free”, and sometimes not, in the past. Apparently, she had no idea why. I’m not sure why she would get angry at the idea of having insurance, either. She seemed to think having it was a bad thing.

Then she got even angrier when I offered to come into town to pick up her meds. She actually started yelling at me.

Her neighbours must get quite an earful at times.

It took a while to calm her down enough to tell her that the pharmacy knew that, if I didn’t come in today, before they closed, to go ahead and deliver it on Wednesday.

Then I made sure she knew how much she would have to pay for them, and write it down. She tried to say she would remember it, but I insisted she write it down, just in case!

Then I asked if she really was low on cash, and she said she was.

…

I also made sure she understood that the pharmacy gave her a week’s worth of medications for free, because of the mix up. It took a while for her to get what I was telling her, and she was finally happy about something.

Among the other things she got angry at me about was when I talked about her inhaler. What’s “haler”? What is that? I told her, it’s your puffer. Then she got angry that I was calling her puffer an inhaler – followed by my talking about her bubble packs. What bubble? You mean pills?

I use the term “bubble pack” all the time when talking about her pills, but today, she decided she had never heard the term before and was angry at me for saying it.

On the plus side, as quickly as she became angry, she calmed down.

As soon as I got off the phone with her, I messaged my siblings to keep them up to date. My brother ended up phoning me because of what she was saying about being low on cash. There is no way she’s low on cash. There seems to be a combination of things going on. One is that that she probably just lied to the delivery person about not having enough cash because she believed they were already paid for, and thought the pharmacy was trying to cheat her. The other is, she doesn’t use a wallet and keeps her cash in between the pages of a very old booklet I think is a calendar, forgetting that the cash my brother brought for her are still in their envelopes in other parts of her purse. Or, she “hid” some of the money and then forgot about it. Again. The last time she did that, she couldn’t find the envelop and decided one of her neighbours went into her unit while she was in the common room and stole it. She made the accusation many times during social gatherings, without actually saying the person’s name. Then, months later, she found the envelop with all the money still there.

She never did apologize, nor did she ever acknowledge that there was anything wrong with her behaviour.

By the time I got off the phone with her, I was exhausted!

Then I started on this blog post, with some minor interruptions. One of those was to go outside and help my daughter replace the plastic clothes line winch (I kept forgetting the word “winch” when I wrote about setting it up in the first place!) with a metal one we picked up today. We got some more clothes line separators, too, and now both lines have three each. With how long the clothes lines are, they are needed more to keep the bottom of the line from sagging too much under the weight of laundry than to separate the top and bottom. Two was not quite enough. I even remembered to tighten the winch on the older clothes line; that one has had more than a year to stretch out, even though we didn’t use it all that often. We’ll be using them a lot more from now on, weather willing.

Speaking of weather, my daughter and I talked about the upcoming heat. I’m going to be changing my sleep cycles quite a bit. Basically, I’ll be out early to get as much done outside as I can before it gets too hot, get a few hours sleep during the hottest part of the day, before going out again to do as much as I can until it gets too dark, then have another short sleep during the night. None of us tolerate heat well, but there is much that needs to be done!

Which includes working on that permanent trellis again. My arm is doing a lot better since I fell while working on it before. As long as I don’t over do it, I can get back at it. Mostly, it’s just my palm and my shoulder joint that are still hurting, but the entire arm gets tired and sore very quickly, still. At this stage, we’ll be bringing out the little folding scaffold we got last year, and it is definitely going to be a two person job – and not just in case I trip and fall again!

Oh, and I have more adorableness to share with you! After helping my daughter with the clothes line, I spotted Eyelet and managed to get some pictures. He does NOT like to stay still!

Those eyes! Button had the bluest eyes, but Eyelet’s eyes are so much paler. They almost glow blue, when the light hits them right, but I wasn’t able to capture that with my phone’s camera.

Well, it’s time for me to get outside and start watering the garden. It’s about 7:30pm right now, and we’ve barely started to cool down. It’s going to keep getting hotter every day for the next four days, too. Even the overnight temperatures are not much lower. It’s also really muggy, so that’s not much fun, either!

We’re not going to be doing anything for Canada Day tomorrow. I’ve got one day at home to get stuff done, then I’m booked up for the next couple of days.

*sigh*

Looking at the times, I realize I won’t be able to do that shift in my sleep cycle, after all. I’m going to be driving around, instead of sleeping during the hottest parts of the day!

Ah, well. We’ll figure it out.

Time to go water a thirsty garden! Then work on my stock up shopping post.

That was painful, and I don’t mean physically.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Cold damage, kitty status – and fat people never get exercise, right?

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So, I was expecting to go to the city for our first stock up shopping trip today.

I goofed.

I’m going tomorrow, when CPP Disability comes in, not today.

The door guy is coming tomorrow afternoon. We’re going to have to leave early, so we can be back by 2, so we have time to unload and put things away before the guy gets here.

Ah, well.

That just means I got outside stuff done today, when it’s still relatively cooler, instead of in tomorrow’s expected heat.

So I did my morning rounds, then went back to bed for a couple of hours!

Thankfully, we did not get really cold last night, like we did the night before. That drop to just above freezing did cause cold damage in the garden that eventually showed up.

The first image is of an eggplant. All the eggplant transplants have damage like this. Interestingly, none of the peppers do. They are also a heat loving vegetable, but it seems they can handle at least some cold okay.

The next image is of a winter squash. I don’t know how well these are going to do this year. First, they seemed to have really bad transplant shock. Then they got those little insects (thrips?) all over them. Now, they have cold damage. It’s amazing we still have any of these winter squash at all!

Feeding the outside cats has been getting insane. The adult cats now anticipate their share of the cat soup, so they are pretty aggressive about things! This morning, I had to actually take kittens into the old kitchen to feed them there, before finishing putting out the dry kibble, then setting out the rest of the cat soup dishes. I got all 7 kittens in. After a while, a daughter was able to start passing kittens that were done eating through the screenless window in the door, before passing out the bowls with the remaining food in them.

When I did the evening feeding, I went straight to putting kittens in the old kitchen to eat. I did not, however, see Havarti anywhere, this time. I’ll be going out again later, and will look for him. I really hope Caramel didn’t lure him across the road or to wherever her missing two were taken.

While all the kittens will play together, Poirot’s three tend to take their naps in their own cuddle pile in the sun room, rather than with the bigger kittens. We’ve been making a point of giving them extra attention. I did get word back from the rescue about what happened. They still plan to take the kittens. They’re just frantically working to get ready for their official grand opening to the general public in a few days, but they’re hoping to get the kittens before the weekend. So these three will get the care they need, as well as getting vet care, spays and neuters, when the time comes.

I’m going to miss them terribly, but I’m happy they will have their chance to get adopted, even if it’s through a large animal rescue!

My new goal for the day was to break out the push mower and finally get to all those areas around the edges that the riding mower can’t do.

When my brother was last here, he got a notification from his step counter as we were talking. He commented about how, walking around here really adds up fast! I joked that I should start using one, too. Just out of curiosity. He encouraged me to do it.

I remembered that conversation shortly before I went out to start the mowing, so I found an app and got it started.

I admit, I did go a bit further afield that typical, but I also didn’t do as much as I could have! For example, I finally got the grass growing around my brother’s bailer that is by the garage, but I didn’t go around any of his other equipment that’s closer to the barn.

I did the sides of the driveway, and also opened the gate to do the areas on each side of the driveway, there. There is an easement that I want to do as well, but not today. I need to go through it to cut away all the little trees trying to take over, first. I also didn’t do a section on one side of the driveway I normally would, as it’s getting really full of poplars that need to be cut away, first.

The only other area I did in the south side of the outer yard was to clear right up against the chain link fence. The rest can be done with the riding mower. I’d rather have used the weed trimmer for that, but it’s dead. My brother has a gas powered one, but it’s buried somewhere in the barn right now. He couldn’t find it when he was here last weekend, and didn’t have time to look for too long.

While working around the edges of the East yard, I made sure to go around those rocks in the East yard that would normally be cleared with the weed trimmer. I did get them before the trimmer died, but it needed to be done again. I also cut deeper into the spruce grove. In time, we want all that area cleaned up and cleared out, and we’ll be able to actually walk through it and enjoy the space. For now, it’s all we can do to not lose complete control of it!

After doing the South and West yards, I went back into the outer yard, this time through the gate by the fire pit. I mowed paths and cleared rings around each tree we planted out there, plus the marked areas for future trees. Those, I cut as low to the ground as I could.

Then I lifted the mower as high as it could go, and cleared a lane wide enough to drive through, to the gate. Parts of this area have never been cut yet. My brother and SIL had started to, but they don’t know where the rough spots are, and I wasn’t handy to tell them. So the lane to the back up driveway that I used to be able to keep clear is now clear again.

I didn’t do the north yard or around the main garden area. Once finished in the outer yard, I was done like dinner!

Which I then took a break to feed the outside cats, then eat. I’ve got the app paused now, but this is the final count before sitting down to eat.

So, in almost three and a quarter hours, I walked more than six and a half miles at 16,780 steps of the 6,000 step goal.

And I still have my evening rounds to do. At least I don’t need to water the garden this evening, but it will need to be done tomorrow evening. I’d do it in the morning, but we’ll need to leave early for our first stock up shopping day, so I’ll do it in the evening, after the door guy leaves.

I hadn’t caught on to the “pause” feature on the app, so the time is actually a bit off. I’d stopped to refill the gas tank and noticed a text from my sister. My mother had been trying to phone, but didn’t get through. My sister had tried to call, and just got a noise.

???

So I went inside and tried the phone.

There was just dead air – but it did tell me there was a missed call from my mother. After checking a few things, I went to the main base and simply unplugged, then plugged back in the phone cable.

It’s working fine now.

So I called my mother back. It turns out she was wanting to do that blood work she was supposed to for this month (that didn’t happen because I had to walk out due to her unfortunate behaviour). I told her, this late in June, there’s no point. so we booked a day next week, for her July lab work. I’ll go over early, we’ll wait until her med assist comes and goes, then I’ll take her to the lab. I should get her home in time for her Meals on Wheels to arrive, and then I’ll do her grocery shopping.

While chatting, I asked about grocery shopping for this week, telling her I had only Friday available to do it. She wouldn’t commit, then started talking about having someone else help her, because I’m so busy and she feels sorry for me. *sigh*

I mentioned the door guy coming tomorrow, and this time she asked questions about the door and what was going on. I asked if she remembered how frost would show up under the door and along the hinge side every winter. She did. That made it easier to explain how, over the 50 or so years that’s been happening, the door and frame eventually was just too damaged. She then asked me to let her know how much it’s going to cost, once we get the estimate. I suspect she’s thinking to pay for it, but I’m not going to hold my breath on that. She’s made such promises, then tried to back out, before. Like she did with the movers after asking us to come out here, or again with the new roof. We’ll see.

That done, I made it back out to continue mowing.

While the mowing today isn’t typical, and I did push to do quite a bit more, to sort of lay out a groundwork that will make things easier through the summer, when I do have a day where I can work outside for so many hours like this, the amount of walking probably isn’t all that much more than an average day. It’s those days when I can’t get outside that would be different but, even then, we will often have things like what’s planned for tomorrow, which will involve quite a lot of walking as we do our stock up shopping.

The thing that makes me laugh, in a “laugh or cry” kind of way is… well… I’m fat. Short and fat. With the… attitudes, shall we say, that are out there, that means I just lie around on the couch all day, watching TV while shoving bon bons down my gullet. That’s the assumption. If I just ate right and moved more, I wouldn’t be fat. One of the biggest problems with going to various doctors over the years, and many moves, is finding one that doesn’t look at me askance when I describe what my days are like or how I eat. I must be lying, because if I did what I claimed, I would be skinny. Right?

The step counter app basically shows that this fat chick really does get exercise. Lots of it. Of course, it just counts steps and calculates calories burned based on that. It doesn’t have any way of counting things like lifting or twisting – anything that can be done without actively walking. I mean, if I’m breaking down a log with a chain saw, I’m not stepping until I’m dragging the log away, at which point it measures the steps, but can’t measure how heavy the big piece of tree I’m carrying is and factor that in. Nor if I’m walking to and from the house, carrying large bags of kibble, and so on.

It should be interesting to see how my new doctor responds when I see her next, if have a chance to show her the stats.

Anyhow.

Time for me to take the step counter off pause, then do my evening rounds, before calling it a day! Tomorrow will be a day of much driving…

… and walking. 😂😂😂

The Re-Farmer

Plans? What plans?

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First off, I’m happy to say, we did get rain last night! A lovely, heavy downpour, enough to refill our rain barrel to the top.

I happened to get up at around 4am or so. I was able to see the flashes of lightning around us, and at one point, could hear the rain. My daughter was up working, and she told me we had a power failure during the night, too.

I was unfortunately, heavily disturbed during the night, so I didn’t get much sleep. I tried to leave my door open to allow all the cats in but eventually had to chase them out so Butterscotch could eat and use the litter without being bullied and attacked. That meant frequent scratching at the door for the next while. I’ve finally figured it out. It’s Ghosty, scratching at the new mat I have under my door, to replace the one they shredded. She doesn’t want in. She just wants to scratch at the mat under the door! I finally let them in again after a while, only to have to chase them out again after a couple of hours.

Interrupted sleep is far worse than no sleep at all!

It did mean the inside cats got fed early – I make lots of noise doing a barely there top up on their kibble to lure them out of my room – so I tried sleeping in a little bit before going outside to feed the yard cats and do my morning rounds. The plan was to do my rounds, which would be short, since no watering was needed, have breakfast, then get to work on the permanent trellis before things got too hot.

*sigh*

I was about half way through checking the garden beds when my cell phone rang.

It was home care.

*sigh*

No one was available to do my mother’s morning med assist, which was scheduled for 9:30.

My mom is right that they keep coming later and later. Her meds are supposed to be done between 7 and 9am.

I had time to quickly finish checking the rest of the garden on my way back to the house, update my family on our group chat, since I thought everyone else was asleep, grab my purse and go, still wearing my gardening grubbies.

My younger daughter, it turned out, was up and had come down to check on what was going on.

She was walking with a cane again.

I wasn’t the only one to have a bad night!

I haven’t talked to my mother since I walked out on her abusive behavior on Monday, and today is Friday. I did quickly phone her to say I got a call from home care and that I was leaving for her place right away.

I got there just a little bit before her scheduled home care visit time, so that worked out.

My mother was up, dressed and ready, complete with her cup of water and a cracker to eat with her pills. She noticed what I was wearing and commented, and I told her I was in the garden when the call came, so I just dropped everything and came over. She seemed surprised about how early I was working in the garden (I was actually a couple of hour later than usual) and I told her, I was trying to get things done before it got too hot out. She actually understood.

She seemed genuinely apologetic about my having to come out to do her meds again, and expressed gratitude that I did it. Which is actually pretty rare with her. She did say she didn’t want to do the inhaler, which I was okay with. She was prescribed the inhaler only to see if it would work, and she doesn’t feel it’s making any difference. I don’t really know why her doctor wants her to continue it, if it’s not doing anything. My mother, however, then said she didn’t want to take it because she woke up with a really dry mouth, and she thought it was because of the inhaler (she takes it in the evening, too). Usually, she tries to blame it on her food, or her other pills. Somehow, she just can’t accept the idea that she’s sometimes simply sleeping with her mouth open.

After she took her medications, she asked me…

Would I be able to stay and do her grocery shopping for her?

I told her I couldn’t today, explained about getting new tires yesterday, and that I would be going straight to the garage from her place to get our tires torqued (without using the word, since she wouldn’t understand it), rather than making another trip in the afternoon. I then mentioned that I’d asked my sister if she had a day off during the week when she could do it, and she said she could come today. My mother told me that yes, she was coming. !!! It was already arranged, but she still asked me to do her shopping for her!

She prefers I do her grocery shopping for her. I’d taken her for her errands so often before she could no longer go herself, I know what my mother likes, what substitutes are okay and sometimes even what to add to her list if it is within budget and I thought she might need/want it. I also know how to go over her list with her before I leave and notice if she missed anything, and what questions to ask. My sister doesn’t. She simply never had to do it before.

I told my mother to just make sure she has a good list and talk to my sister about it. My sister does the best she can. My mother assured me, she already had a list ready!

That done, I quickly updated my family and headed to the garage, which is about a half hour drive from my mother’s town. When I got there and the mechanic that worked on the truck saw me, he immediately grabbed the torque wrench and came out to take care of it. As we were chatting, I told him how glad I was that I asked them to check the tires, and that I hadn’t realized how much they were bothering me until the new tires were on. I could feel the difference right away. He was nodding along when I asked, just how bad where they? He told me that, in some places, they were worn down to the metal.

!!!

I mentioned to him that I’d originally intended to come in the afternoon, but had an unexpected trip to my mother’s town this morning. That got us to talking about distances and where I lived.

Turns out, we’re “neighbours”.

Okay, he lives about 5 or 6 miles from us, but in this area, that’s “neighbours”.

That done, I messaged my family and my older daughter started messaging me. Normally, she would have been in bed by then, after her night’s work, but was staying up because her sister was feeling so terrible. I was going to pop into the grocery store to grab something to eat on the way home, since I’d skipped breakfast and was starting to feel light headed. My daughter ended up sending some funds with a request for birthday cake and heat and eats for her sister.

(As an aside, we don’t tend to celebrate actual birthdays, but instead do nice things for the birthday person, all month)

That done, and another top up on the gas, since the extra driving basically used up what I’d put in yesterday, I finally headed home.

By then, it was already starting to feel warm, but I was still hoping I could get outside to work on the trellis.

Instead, I found myself falling asleep while checking the trail cam files on my computer. I finally gave up and tried to lie down for a nap. The hottest part of the day wasn’t expected until 4, so I might still get something done.

After a couple of hours, I woke to find a message from my husband, saying a prescription refill was called in and ready to be picked up in an hour.

…

???

Normally, he calls his prescriptions in for delivered on Thursdays, but obviously wasn’t going to do that on a Friday. Especially since some of his medications cannot be filled until 3 days before he’s out, because they are listed as controlled substances. But why did he call it in after I’d already come home from town?

My younger daughter was feeling better enough to come with me, and I found out what happened as we drove. When she saw his message about the refills, she went to ask him about it. My husband knew I was planning to be in town to get the tires torqued this afternoon, so he called it in for while I was in town. He never saw my messages I’d sent this morning and had no idea I’d already been to town and back, and was taking a nap when he sent his message!

Oops.

No matter. While at the pharmacy, I picked up some supplements I was low on, too.

By the time we got home, it was late enough to do the outside cat feeding. In this heat, their water bowls get gross pretty fast, so those got a scrubbing. It took a while to get the scalding hot water out of the hose before I could refill them. Then they all got new frozen water bottles added to them. The sun room thermometer was above 30C/86F, but with the littles now much more mobile, it’s not as life threatening as it was during the heat spell we had when Poirot’s babies were really tiny and in that cat carrier up on the shelf. I do still put ice packs out around the cat beds at times, but it’s not as necessary now.

So all my original plans, and then my adjusted plans, got thrown out the window. As I write this, it’s coming up on 6:30, and we’re still at the hottest part of the day. We’re still at around 24-25C/75-77F, while the humidex puts us at about 29-30C/84-86F. We’re barely expected to cool down at all, even in a few hours when we’re expected to get more rain and possible thunderstorms.

Tomorrow is supposed to be slightly cooler, so I’ll be shifting things over to tomorrow morning and will hopefully get things done then. Along with putting up the permanent trellis supports, I want to take the netting off the potato bed, as it no longer needs the extra protection, and put it around the tomato bed in the east yard. While checking the bed this morning, one of the cats actually used it as a little box behind my bad – and dug up one of the beans to cover his business!

I was not impressed. We have very few bush beans coming up!

Before starting this post, I realized I hadn’t even taken an pictures today.

I was going to say I planned to take some garden tour video tomorrow, as it’s the first day of summer, but double checked and realized that today is the solstice, not tomorrow!

Happy first day of summer!

Maybe I’ll head out and take some video this evening, instead.

Since I have no pictures to share from today, I thought I’d finish off with some adorableness from a couple of days ago.

Adorable sleeping Ginger!

For month, he had isolated himself pretty much to the dining room table. He had been bullied by other cats and it was his only escape, so he and Toni (our two tripods) became the only cats allowed on the dining table. We turned a box into a bed for them, to a certain extend. It didn’t stop the bullying. For some reason, the cats that do the bullying are particular about attacking while Ginger (or Butterscotch) try to use the litter.

After a while, though, we just couldn’t keep the cats off the table anymore, and would often find two or three of them smashed together in the box bed. Cheddar and Toni have become especially snuggly.

Then Ginger started showing up in my room again.

So now, when I chase the cats out for the night, Butterscotch and Ginger get to stay together in my room. Ginger has a particular fondness for that green frog bed that was donated to the cats. The “hood” that forms the frog’s head always gets flattened, though. They seem to light it that way. In the second picture, you can see what a beautiful round loaf Ginger forms while in there!

Time for an evening walk and, hopefully, a early and good night’s sleep. I really need to get work done, before it gets too hot!

The Re-Farmer

The good the bad and the ugly!

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Or should I say sickly?

I was able to get a bunch of photos of the kittens this evening. As we have discovered is typical, the older kittens start to get eye infections once they start eating mostly solid food and aren’t nursing as often. It’s a strain of herpes that we’ve since learned is particularly difficult in our area.

So… just fair warning that some of the kittens in the slideshow below look a hot mess, after getting their eyes washed.

I started with Poirot’s cuties first, though.

A rare image of some of Inspector Japp’s white belly and chest spots!

It looks like Captain Hastings (next photo) is related to Ghosty. She has those shadows of colour on her head. When Ghosty was that size, she had those hints of pattern in her fur, but was otherwise almost completely a cream colour. Those shadows kept getting darker as she got older, and now they are very brown. Which is why we think she might be an albino tabby. That and her eyes that glow red when the light hits them. Hastings has a dark tail and dark ear tips, and such pale eyes!

Miss Lemon is the biggest of the three and very assertive! 😄

I’ve contacted a local large animal rescue that had reached out to me last year about possibly taking a more feral pregnant cat to socialize and integrate into plans for opening their rescue to the public for events and tours, but we didn’t have one at the time. They ended up not being able to open last year, largely due to weather. They’ll be having a grand opening later this month, though. If they could take in Poirot and her babies, that would be amazing.

The next image is Sir Robin the Brave. He was all curled up in the grass, napping, and did not appreciate being interrupted! His eye is actually looking much better right now. I didn’t see his sister, Kale, this evening. She was looking pretty sick. We’ve been bringing her into the house for eye washing in the mornings lately. I do hope she’s okay, and was just napping somewhere.

The next image is of Havarti and Little Rig, both of whom are looking much, much better now! I’ve been able to catch Havarti every now and then, but he really doesn’t like it and keeps his distance.

Then Grommet came by. His eyes are looking better, too, but he still got an eye wash after I got that picture. He’s slightly more socialized than his brother, Zipper. Zipper looks just terrible after his eye wash! The only reason I was able to catch him to wash his eyes is because they were both stuck completely shut! Normally, he would fight me off, but he’s so sick, he actually let me wash his eyes, while I had him on the roof of the cat house. Then he just stayed up on the roof, in the warm sunshine, making snorking noises.

The next image is Eyelet and Wormy snuggled for a nap. Wormy has one slightly sticky eye, but nothing of concern anymore. Eyelet’s eyes are… well… check out that last photo!

That blue is so pale, his eyes look almost white!

I also suspect he’s deaf.

~~~back from a quick run outside to switch soaker hoses in the garden~~~

Well, I found Kale! She’s sleeping in a kitten pile in the cat house. 😁

Adorable kittens aside…

Today, my younger daughter and I headed out for some errands. One of the things I needed was to get myself a pair of non-work shoes. Finding shoes for my messed up feet is never easy, so my daughter suggested we go into the bigger city, rather than the nearest Walmart in the smaller, nearer city. We had just started driving when my cell phone started ringing.

It was home care.

They weren’t going to have anyone for my mother’s morning med assist.

Which is supposed to happen between 7 and 9am.

It was about 9:20 or so when we got the call.

*sigh*

On the plus side, my mother’s place is along the way, so we were already part way there. I called my mom to let her know about home care, and that I was on my way. The hands free unit my brother gave me sure came in handy!

My mother wasn’t happy. When I got there, she started talking about hiring someone, though the home care office, to do med assists for her. Just one person doing her assists, all the time, and always at the same time (she says they keep coming later and later). I had to explain to her, they can’t do that – and she can’t just hire some random local person to do her med assists, either. There are laws about that.

She doesn’t accept that.

I couldn’t stay long, though, and was soon on my way. My sister was going to be showing up after lunch and taking her to the cemetery to visit our family gravesites. While it will be easier for my mother to get in and out of my sister’s car, I knew it would still take a lot out of her!

That done, my daughter and I continued on our way. Neither of us had had breakfast yet, so lunch was the first order of business.

Then my daughter, sweetheart that she is, busted her butt, trying to find me shoes. She knows me too well! I’m terrible when it comes to buying things for myself. Especially things I need. Add in how difficult it is to find shoes that fit, I would have given up after the first couple of pairs where I couldn’t even get my foot in. I used to be able to wear men’s size 9’s, triple wide. That’s the size of my work boots. That’s the size of my inside shoes I was wearing at the time, that are wearing out and falling apart. In the end, the only shoes I could get my feet into where men’s size 11’s, wide, and even then, some styles still didn’t work.

In the end, we found a pair that fit, but were absolutely tacky. The grey was okay, but the bright neon yellowish green accents were a bit much. Being the only ones I could find that fit the bill, I was willing to get them, until my daughter spotted another display shelf.

I got the same shoe, in bright red. It matches my new dress. 😄 They look like runners, but the “laces” are fake and stretchy, so they’re actually slip ons, not lace ups. I think they’ll work out just fine and, thanks to my daughter, I wasn’t going insane by the time we found them!

From there, we had our shopping lists to get. We were both pretty tired – my daughter actually fell asleep during the drive in! – so we took our time about it. Which worked out, since my husband remembered a few things he messaged us about, too.

We didn’t refill our water jugs in the city, though. We were going to do that locally, so I could get my “buy 10, get one free” freebie. During the drive from the city, though, I did end up pulling over so my daughter could take over driving while I tried closing my eyes for a bit. The energy drink I got for the ride accomplished nothing!

By the time we got to town, though, I was feeling much better, and was able to drive home after we finished in town.

I’d better get to bed early tonight and, hopefully, get some real sleep, because my daughter and I have an early start tomorrow! My brother and his wife got her a blacksmithing beginners workshop for her birthday this month, and we have to be there before 9am tomorrow. The drive will be almost an hour, as the forge is just past the smaller city. The workshop is all day, with a 1 hour break for lunch. I’ll probably pick something up in the city nearby, so we can have a picnic on the grounds (something they say is available) during break. It’s going to be a long day!

With that in mind, I’d better start winding down for the day, kick most of the cats out of my room, and try and get some sleep!

The Re-Farmer

New tool in, and finally cleaning some smoke damage

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I’ve mentioned before that we are still having to run a hose from our washing machine, out the window of our storm door, to drain into the yard. Even though we had the pipe cleared by a plumber, when we set the washing machine back up to drain into the plumbing, it overflowed and started flooding our entry again.

The plumber had made an easier access to the pipe, so now we can clean it out ourselves. Unfortunately, even though we’ve done it a few times, there seems to be one spot where things build up again very quickly. The kitchen sink still drains fine, but we can hear the water in the drain for the washing machine, and it doesn’t take long before it sounds like water is backing up into that pipe again.

In talking to the plumber, he suggested we might have to cut out and replace a section of that pipe, as we can tell it’s always clogging up in the same spot. The pipe runs under my husband’s bedroom, and he can even hear the difference in the sound of the water flowing through.

Replacing a section of pipe would be far from ideal, as it would be difficult to access.

In the past, we had a similar situation and were able to rig up a toilet brush to part of a chimney sweep to clear out a drain pipe to a septic tank. That worked really well but 1) the pipe was larger than what we’re dealing with here and 2) it was easy to get at.

I figured there had to be something similar out there, so after some searching, I found this. (not an affiliate link). A flexible hose cleaning tool – and it arrived today.

This is what we got.

I got the longest one I could find in the size needed.

When I opened the package, is seems smaller than I expected. It’s the size needed for the pipe, but my brain keeps saying, the larger bristle end is too small. What really got me, though, was how soft the bristles are. I don’t know that it’s stiff enough to scrub the insides of the pipe.

Well, we’ll find out, later today. I don’t want to open up the pipe until we’re done using the kitchen sink for a while, so we don’t get splashed. I’ll use the plumber’s snake again, first, then see what this brush can do to clean the insides of the pipe.

It will be really good to finally be able to use the actual drain for the washing machine, instead of running the house out the window. My daughters had laundry day yesterday, but some things needed extra time in the drier. By the time my younger daughter was able to switch loads, the hose out the door had frozen in a low spot and clogged. My daughter had used hot water to thaw it out, but by 2 in the morning, she finally gave up and went to bed, after setting the hose out on the sidewalk, in hopes it would thaw out in the sun, today.

Which it did. Once I was sure water could flow through the sump pump hose we’re using as a drainage hose, I ran a tub clean cycle, which uses hot water, to get the loose ice out. Once the tub clean cycle was done, I could finally bring the hose in and close the inner door. Thankfully, it wasn’t too bitterly cold out last night, and today is much warmer, though still below freezing.

I was able to finally get something else done that I’ve been meaning to for a while. I was able to clean the smoke damage off the mementos I got for my mother, from our little local church that was torched some time ago. The church was too damaged to repair, so there was a service to officially close the church, and people were welcome to take what mementos they wanted. The rest will be properly burned or buried.

I’m still hoping to be able to get a bench and or a pew home, but we have nowhere to safely store anything that big until we can clean the smoke damage off.

Anyhow.

I had selected a couple of small items for my mother and, today, I finally was able to clean them.

The church had the fourteen Stations of the Cross along both sides, and the Twelfth Station in the photo was taken from the wall near where our family pew used to be. The back of it can be seen in the second photo. It was almost completely black with soot from smoke, but did not have any actual fire damage. I used baking soda and water to clean it, gently scrubbing with a nail brush and an old tooth brush. I will later be using mineral oil on the wood, once I’m sure it’s good and dry. It looks dry in the photo, but there’s a possibility water got under the ceramic part while soot was being scrubbed off the sides.

The votive holder is one of many from a stand where people could light a candle and say a prayer. The ones that weren’t taken as mementos were going to be taken to the still active Catholic church in town, where they have a similar, larger set up. The holder had quite a bit of wax in and on it, though very little soot. I set it on parchment paper in the toaster oven on the warm setting until the wax was fully melted, poured off what pooled on the bottom into the garbage, then used paper towel to wipe up the rest, while it was still hot.

I still have other items that need to be cleaned of smoke damage, but as these are for my mother, they had priority!

I was going to be taking my mother to the city on Thursday (today is Monday) for her appointment at the eye clinic, but she called me today about it. She was really unsure about going, but couldn’t make a decision either way. The appointment is not for treatment, but to monitor her macular degeneration, and we already postponed it once. She says she’s not noticing any change in her vision. I ended up calling the clinic and talking to someone about her situation. The receptionist passed it on to the doctor and his assistant, and the assistant called me back later. After explaining the situation some more, she went ahead and cancelled the appointment, making sure to tell me that, if my mother notices any changes, to make another appointment.

I will still be going to my mother’s on Thursday, though. I will probably do some grocery shopping for her, but she also needs help filling out the paperwork for her Life Line set up. I also have some stuff from my brother to drop off – he’d mistakenly left them with me instead of our mother – so I can bring those along with these mementos.

What I haven’t done today was work on the basement some more. I was hoping to set up a temporary table to hold seed starts, but what I was thinking to use is just too big. I might simply use the work station, instead. I didn’t want to set up on top of the new self healing cutting mat, but I’ll figure something out.

For now, I think I’m going to go treat the wood on that cross with a first coat of mineral oil. I expect to do that a few times before it’s in decent shape again.

I hope my mother will be happy with these!

The Re-Farmer

Partial birthday celebration, and other things

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As a family, we’re not really dedicated to birthdays. As in, the actual date. Before my husband went on disability and he was still working, we would celebrated birthdays on the weekend before or after the actual date, depending on which was after pay day. The entire week, however, tended to be when the birthday person would get little gifts, or extra special treatment. The day itself was recognized, of course, but we liked to spread it out.

Now that my husband is on disability, his payments come in at the end of the month, so we budget accordingly. Which means we tend to have more birthday months than birthday weeks!

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My older daughter’s birthday is this month. She is really hard to get things for! One regular thing we would do is have the birthday person choose a special celebration dinner. When our income was higher, this was a time when we might go to a specific restaurant that we normally wouldn’t, but dining out for four people hasn’t been something we could afford for a long time. Now that we are out in the boonies, we generally don’t bother and will order takeout from somewhere.

I had already done a birthday take home meal earlier this month, but my older daughter wanted Pizza Hut – and she was paying. Yeah. She insists on paying for her own birthday meal!

It’s still early, but today was when we decided to do pizza day. The birthday girl placed the order online with a pick up time late enough that other stuff could be done first. My younger daughter came along to help out. After a quick stop at the post office to pick up one more package, we headed to the town our doctor’s clinic is in. We got there about an hour early, but there’s a grocery store in the same area, so we could just park and go there, first.

The only thing I needed for general groceries was milk and eggs, plus my daughter spotted some dark coffee; they’ve been running out. The rest was birthday related. I ended up choosing two cakes; a tiramisu cake and a Pina Colada angel food cake trifle. We picked up some ranch and blue cheese dressing to use as dips for the pizza. We got drinks, some Cotton Candy Ice Cream, and their last box of mango Melona bars. As an extra, I decided to try some frozen finger foods for later on. Breaded pickle spears, Italian Mozza Bites and Tempura Yams.

I was going to treat my daughter for her birthday, no matter how much she balked! 😄

By the time we were done and the truck loaded up, we still had almost half an hour before the time set for our order. The location is take out only, but I figured they’d have seating for people waiting for their orders, so we made our way over anyhow. Which worked out, as they were almost done with our order!

Good grief, pizza has gotten expensive. Four large pizzas and three chicken bites bowls, and the total was just under $200 – before tip! A few years back, it was almost half that, and we were getting extra large sized pizzas.

Well, we only do this once a year. Plus, it will feed us for a couple of days, at least. Still… *choke*

Since it is a special occasion, I’ve taken a break from my Lenten fast of sugar and simple carbs.

In other things, I had a chance to chat with the Cat Lady earlier today. She sent me a post made by the woman who was able to provide us with so much donated cat food. It was very generous and much appreciated – we still have wet cat food left from that! The Cat Lady did warn me, though, not to share to much. As the Cat Lady put it, her heart is in the right place, but she causes problems. A few months back, she was “helping” someone caring for a colony, got the province involved, and most of the cats ended up being euthanized. Sadly, it seems to be happening again. There’s a call out for various supplies, fosters, donations for spays and neuters, and so on, for a colony that sounds about the same size as ours, though the number of cats we have showing up can change considerably from day to day, and even feeding to feeding. All great stuff being called for, except for on thing.

She got the province involved again.

The post had mentioned that the cats have winter suitable shelters, but not much else. Well, the Cat Lady knows of this colony. She says the cats are well cared for, and they have lots of excellent shelters. While help would certainly be appreciated – especially with spays and neuters – with the province involved, the person that’s been caring for them is going to get pressured a lot before the province finally steps in and simply wipes them out.

I know that in our municipality, their procedure to “help” people caring for colonies is to simply shoot the cats. It’s pretty much the main reason we don’t try to do any local fundraising drives for spays and neuters. We don’t want it to be generally known, how many cats have been showing up (I’ve seen another tabby that looks like a stranger recently. He has a distinctive Nicky the Nose face; that old tom hasn’t been around for years, but this cat looks like it could be one of his decedents). I want to adopt them out. Not kill them off.

Speaking of spays and neuters, the Cat Lady hopes to book us for three cats, as soon as she gets a chance to call the clinic we’ve been going to. She’s been spending a lot of time at another clinic in the city. The vet that saved Cabbages sold his clinic and went back to India for a while. He has since returned and opened a new clinic, and she’s happily been going to him again. She’s currently dealing with a rescue case that is quite severe. I was quite surprised when she said for three cats. The last we talked about it, she was hoping to be able to get two done. Hopefully, that means donations to her rescue have started to go back up again. Otherwise, it means she’s paying for it out of pocket, which they have done before. They are so amazing!

Meanwhile, I also got a note from my brother. He plans to come out here tomorrow morning. Along with needing to do some stuff among their stored items, he plans to set up “that bypass valve” on the septic diverter. He must have thought he had already talked to me about it, but I had no idea about this. He said that we’ll be able to test out the ejector to see if it’s frozen and, if it is, can switch back to the emergency bypass. Which is an awesome idea! I don’t think the ejector is frozen, though. I think there’s something stuck in the venturi valve. Either that, or there’s a clog somewhere in the pipe to the house. To be able to switch from the ejector to the emergency by pass through a bypass valve instead of having to attach and detach hoses is a brilliant idea! I look forward to seeing what he’s come up with to do this. With all the issues we’ve had with the septic in the 7+ years we’ve been living here, having that bypass is a godsend.

Aside from that, I’m planning to make a dump run tomorrow. Time to finally get rid of that broken microwave! I’m glad we replaced it with the multi-function toaster oven. The girls have been using it more than they’ve been using the oven! Very handy! Tomorrow we’re expecting to have a high of only -8C/18F. Not bad, but quite a drop from today, where we ended up hitting 4C/39F, which was higher than was forecast. Things were melting all over the place! It’s expected to be almost a week before we see highs above freezing again. Nothing to complain about, though.

I look forward to seeing my brother tomorrow. 😊

The Re-Farmer

Enjoying the quiet

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It seems so very strange to be sitting here and realizing it’s almost 6pm right now, and we’ve got bright sunshine outside. I’ve gotten so used to the sun setting between 4:40 and 5pm, it feels almost wrong for the sun to still be up. Of course, we just had daylight saving time a few days, which would account for some of that, but I was getting this sense even before the switch.

Before I go on, though, we must have the cuteness!

Would you look at those adorable faces! Clarence and Cheddar.

You’d never know from the photo that Clarence is quite the troublemaker. 😁😄 One of his favourite things to do is run and jump onto my office chair before I can reach it to sit down. He will then roll onto his back and look at me, like he’s all innocent. 😄

Anyhow…

Today has been a pretty quiet day, though I made a discovery this morning, while I was outside feeding the cats this morning.

For some time now, I’ve been finding frozen throw up on the ground here and there, with roundworms in it. Surprisingly large and distinctive looking things! On learning that Button needed to be treated for worms 3 times before he was clear of them – and then he suddenly grew to the size he should have been for his age – I just sort of figured it was from one of the tiny cats. There are three small ones, plus one more that’s a bit bigger, but not by much. My bets were on The Grink, a black and white, but the other three white and greys were candidates, too.

While going to the isolation shelter with kibble, I just happened to be in time to see a cat that had finished throwing up, and yes, the throw up had worms in it. The cat, however, was not any of the ones I thought it would be! It was a tabby that’s about the same age as my suspects. It’s the one that was all sick and stuffy, and allowed us to treat him, last fall. He is now somewhat socialized. He’s quite a bit larger than the suspects, which is why I hadn’t considered it might be him.

In a way, I’m glad it’s this one, since he is socialized enough that the chances of treating him are much higher. The Cat Lady was going to try and get some medication for us, but 1) we weren’t sure which cat needed to be treated and 2) if it turned out to be one of the more feral ones, we wouldn’t be able to use it anyhow. Of course, it’s also possible more than one cat has been leaving evidence of roundworms frozen in the snow, so that may still be true.

We had a Colorado Low making its way up today which, for our area, meant we did get a pretty good snowfall shortly after I’d gone back inside, but nothing major. The south part of the province got a lot more than we did. My husband’s bubble packs were delivered late this morning, and it had been snowing a while by then. The current pharmacy delivery driver is also a school bus driver; I see him go back and forth past our place, every weekday, on the trail cam files. He starts his deliveries after he’s parked his bus in the morning, and told me about the different areas he’d already been to, and still had to go to. By the time his deliveries were done, he would be going straight back to the bus for more driving! Deliveries are only one day a week, but it does make for a long day of driving for him! Thankfully, the road conditions were still pretty good, and the snow stopped not long after.

I did end up going out later this afternoon. Several packages had arrived earlier than tracking said they would, including a large one for my husband, so I got a daughter to come along and help load it into the truck. It was not at all heavy, but awkward – and fragile! My husband was able to get himself a larger monitor for his computer. It’s a gaming monitor, with a curved screen, but he got it mostly for reading electronic books. With his disability, he spends a lot of time on his computer, and he was having a very hard time being able to see on his old monitor. This one is much, much easier on his eyes. The other monitor is still good, though. My daughters both have dual monitors for their desktops; an essential for my older daughter as she works on commissions. One of her monitors is quite old and starting to die, so she will have a much newer monitor to replace it.

Speaking of which, my older daughter has a birthday this month. She has chosen Pizza Hut take out for her birthday dinner. It’s a bit early, but we will probably be doing that tomorrow. While I’ve given up sugar and simple carbs for Lent, exceptions are made for special occasions – like birthdays!

As I write this, we are at -4C/25F and haven’t reached our high of the day yet – and it will not get any colder through the night. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to have a high of 2C/36F, then it’s supposed to drop below freezing again. So tomorrow will be a good day for the drive to pick up birthday pizza! We’re trying a different location this time, and will be going to the town our new doctor is in. In fact, the Pizza Hut is right near the clinic – and a grocery store. So I’ll be taking advantage of that to pick up a few things, including a birthday cake. Or a cream pie. Or cheesecake. My younger daughter will be with me, so she will help me choose. 😊

All in all, I’ve been quite enjoying another nice, quiet day! I admit, though, I’ve been procrastinating terribly. I want to set up an area in the basement to start seeds, but I just haven’t been able to get to it. There isn’t a lot my daughters can do to help me, since I haven’t quite decided how I’ll be setting up – I need to consider that, if we have a wet spring, water is going to seep through the concrete even in the new part of the basement, which has weeping tile, which isn’t doing its job anymore. That means setting up pedestal fans, box fans and blower fans all over, again.

The main issue, though, is the stairs. Stairs and my knees are not a good combination. Especially if I’m going to be carrying anything.

Ah, well. I’ll figure it out.

I just need to get my butt in gear about it!

The Re-Farmer

Who did dat?

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I’m guessing racoons. For part of it, anyhow.

First off, going into the sun room, it looked like there had been a fight or something. What probably happened, though, is that racoons were digging around. Trays were pushed aside all over. Cat carriers on the shelves were pushed aside and half out of their shelves. The litter box was half way across the room. Even the cat beds and self-warming mat on the platform were messed up.

All the food trays and the heated water bowl were empty.

There is the big heated water bowl that no longer heats, but it still being used for water. Of course the water freezes. With the temperatures we’ve been having, it no longer freezes solid. This morning, I could see that the ice on the top had been broken through, and the water below was almost gone.

My guess is, racoons got into the sun room and, once the trays were empty of kibble, they just started digging around on the floor and shelf and the platform, looking for stray bits.

What really hit me, though, was the smell. It’s gotten really bad in there. Yes, we have a litter box, but it looks like it’s only been used to urinate in. Which means, somewhere in hidden corners, we’ve got messes thawing out.

It will be good, once things are warm and dry enough, to empty the sun room and give it a thorough spring cleaning! That’s something we’ve been trying to do every spring. It’s just easier to empty the whole room to clean it, than to try and clean it around the shelves and whatnot stored in there.

Outside, I found one of the food bowls from the bottom of the shelf shelter was on the sidewalk, but that one is always knocked out for some reason. The bowls on all three shelves were empty, though.

All the food trays in the kibble house, and under the water bowl shelter, were empty.

The heated water bowl in its shelter was almost completely dry.

Only in the isolation shelter, did I still find a bit of kibble left in the food bowl.

What I also found was this. It was not there, yesterday.

At least, not how it is now.

I noticed something had been digging into the snow pile a little while ago. My guess was that, when I last cleared snow off the top off the well cap, where some cats prefer to eat, old kibble was mixed up in the snow and a skunk or racoon was digging for it.

The hole was bigger after a while, and it looked smoothed out, like something had been lying in the snow cave created.

Today, not only was the “cave” deeper, but if you click through to the next image, you’ll see the other entrance.

The cave had become a tunnel!

I wonder if there is a “room” somewhere in there?

There are too many tracks in the snow to be able to tell what made this. Not the cats, of course. I don’t think a racoon did this, though. It’s too small. Which means it was probably dug out by a skunk.

I noticed cats snuffling about one of the openings, but none seem interested in exploring inside.

Can’t blame them for that! I don’t think it was occupied at the time I found it, but who knows what’s inside?

With the freeze-thaw cycle we’ve been in for a while, the top of that pile of snow has developed a pretty heft crust of snow that partially melted, then froze again, several times. I could probably stand right on top of where the tunnel is, and it would still hold my weight. Not that I’d try, since I’d probably slip and fall right on my butt. Just moving around to the other side of the pile to get a better look at the second opening was rather treacherous!

Inside that tunnel would probably be quite snug and even warm. Snow can be an excellent insulator.

We’re supposed to go above freezing today – we’re almost there already – and be slightly warmer tomorrow. There’s going to be quite a bit more melting happening! The paved roads are good, but it’s going to make portions of the gravel roads very touchy, when my daughter and I head into town to get her prescription. She wants to check out the second hand store I visited yesterday, too. I think she wants to check out that bucket of knitting needles! 😁

It should be a good day for it. Hopefully, the winds have changed. Yesterday was a good day for walking around, except for the wind coming off the ice covered lake. Such a warm day, only to be hit with bitterly cold wind at the same time!

But I will have my daughter for company today. Thankfully, she is feeling better. She had to use a cane, yesterday, and could barely walk from joint pain. PCOS really sucks.

We are such a household of gimps! It says a lot when we have days where I am the most able bodied person in the house!

Ah, well. It is what it is! We just deal with whatever the day brings us!

The Re-Farmer

So glad we’re not in the city anymore!

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But I’ll get to why, in a bit.

Today – the second day of Christmas – has turned out to be a lovely day, even with the wind. The last couple of days have been slowly warming up, but we have been hit with winds from the south, and they were pretty brutal at times. Today, the winds were milder, so our high of -1C/30F was feeling more like -7C/19F, instead of -17C/1F!

The outside cats are quite enjoying the milder temperatures, though there’s a crowd that prefers the isolation shelter more than anything else!

I counted a dozen cats in the upper level! Plus there was at least one, possibly two, on the ramp inside the entry shelter box. It is mostly the littles that are in the isolation shelter, I have noticed. The adults and older cats go in and out, too – you can see Stinky over in the corner on the right – but they don’t tend to stay in the cuddle puddles in the isolation shelter. I see them on the critter cam in the sun room, more often.

Judgement really wanted attention this morning! When I stopped to try and get pictures of the cats in the isolation shelter, he basically flung himself down on my feet and began rolling. 😄

Today has been a catch up day on things. Because it’s so much milder, we set up the drainage hose for the washing machine out the front door. My husband and I got our laundry done, then we did a couple of loads of cat beds and blankets, and the girls will be doing their laundry next. As long as the hose gets dragged in as soon as the last load is done, it will be fine. We don’t want it out there when we hit our low of -8C/18F tonight!

In between other things, our Christmas turkey got deboned and I made a stock for the outside cats as a treat after for after their evening feeding. They got the bits and bobs, too – we made sure to leave lots of meaty bits for them – and are very happy! When I made cat soup for the inside cats, I used some of the stock instead of hot water, to treat them as well. The inside cats were also very happy!

Then, this afternoon, I started getting some messages from the Cat Lady, with a rather alarming tale to tell! One of their motion sensor alarms went off and her husband went to check, thinking it was one of the cats setting it off. The next thing she knew, he was calling for her to call 911!

Long story short, a woman and broken into their cat garage (they checked the security footage, later), which is a separate building housing the rescues. She took some drugs, pet the cats and passed out. Then she went to the house, letting out the cats, broke into their garage and started going “shopping”, helping herself to jackets and ski pants, and a couple hockey bags she filled out of their freezers, before triggering the alarm. When the Cat Lady’s husband showed up, she was clearly high and there was a bit of an altercation. She was still there when the police arrived.

Everyone is okay, thankfully, but there was glass broken and other damage done. As you can imagine, they were pretty shaken by it all! Thank God they have security alarms and cameras.

This is not the only incident. A couple of days ago, my son from another mother, who lives in the city we moved from to come here, was involved as a bystander in what turned out to be a carjacking and kidnapping. Someone had come running to him in absolute hysterics, asking for help. This also ended as best as it could, and the girl that was kidnapped was recovered safe and sound.

The crazy thing is, the incident didn’t even make the news.

As for the Cat Lady, when the RCMP showed up (they are in a suburb, and are not covered by the city police), they basically didn’t care, it happens so often – and they are in what is considered a very good neighbourhood!

Living where we do does not exempt us from such troubles. Given that the nearest police are at least 20 minutes away, and chances are if we called 911 for the police, they might not show up for even longer, the properties out here are convenient targets. Still, even taking into account our vandal, it’s nothing like what’s happening in our cities. Even our small towns are seeing increases of crazy stuff like this. Sometimes, it feels like we were able to escape the city, just in time. We certainly had … situations, shall we say… that we had to deal with, but it all just seems to be so much worse now.

I’ll take living in the boonies, any day, even without all this, but right now, I’m just appreciating it so much more.

The Re-Farmer

Quiet day today

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Well… as quiet as cats like Tissue allow!

She posed for a picture, but don’t let her deceive you. Tissue: Destroyer of Cars is just resting in between rampages!

Unfortunately, that usually involved chasing other cats around. Especially Tiny and Ginger. Yet, today, she was super cuddly with me. That’s unusual. She prefers my younger daughter!

It’s just a few degrees below freezing today, and just starting to snow a bit. The “real feel” or whatever any particular app calls it, is actually warmer than the thermometer says. According to the forecast, these milder temperatures will last a few more days, and then we’ll be getting highs in the double digit minus-Celsius.

The long range forecast into December is downright strange.

Check out the 20th of December! They’re actually predicting 8C/46F!

Yeeeaaahhhh…. I don’t think so. But, you never know. This is the prairies. Wild fluctuations in temperature happen pretty often.

Personally, I’m hoping the forecast for the 6th and 7th is wrong, and it will be much warmer. If things go to plan, we will have a couple of cats in the isolation shelter during that time. Even with the heat lamp in there, that’s going to get cold. If we get temperatures like that, we might want to at least put sheets of rigid insulation as a ceiling, under the roof.

I’m also trying to wrap my head around the fact that we are now into the last week of November. The month just flew by!

We’ll be doing our first stock up shops for December in a few days, but with all the holidays, my husband’s disability payments will probably both come in before Christmas. CPP Disability, for sure. That always messes up our stock up shopping for January!

I haven’t even thought of what we are going to do for Christmas. Meanwhile, messaging with the Cat Lady last night, she mentioned Cabbages had already knocked down their tree. They have their tree up already! With almost 30 cats in the house! Our first “official” day of the Christmas season is November 27, the Feast of St. Catherine. In my husband’s family, the tradition was to make pull toffee on that day, but we haven’t done that in many years. Too much cat hair drifting around!

Even my Christmas decoration progress has been slow. I’ve got four Slinglade balls stitched up, with two more to go. I haven’t quite decided how I will attach hangers on them, yet. There’s no hurry. We will be having miniature trees on the piano in the cat free zone (aka: the living room) again this year, so they wouldn’t be used for that, anyhow! We do like to hang garlands near ceiling level around the dining room and have decorations hanging off of those, so that’s likely where we’ll end up using them.

I think this year will be a lot quieter than usual. Especially for New Year’s. Last year, we decided to do a fondue, using both our oil fondue for cooking meat, and our ceramic one for a cheese sauce to dip into. It ended up being way more expensive than expected. I think this year, we’ll just do lots of finger foods again. 😄

As for Christmas, which we start celebrating after sunset on Christmas Eve, we already have a turkey in the freezer, though I’ll probably pick up another, just to take advantage of cheap turkey season. We’ll get our 1/8th beef pack in a couple of weeks, so we will have other options. A lot will depend on what we end up getting during our stock up shopping trips. As we get older and are now happily in the boonies, we’re quite content with very quiet holidays!

In fact, I’m good with quiet every day.

Like today!

Hold on… what was that noise….

*goes to grab paper towel to clean up the latest cat mess*

What was I saying again?

…

The Re-Farmer