just talkin’

A bit of a beach day

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It feels like it’s been such a long day.

I meant to get up earlier to get things watered before it got too warm, but it was feeling too warm, right from the start. We’re getting heat warnings now, as we’re supposed to get even hotter on the weekend, with predicted highs of 30C/86F+, and a humidex of 38C/100F

My daughter and I got the transplants out, and I was on the road soon after. I went to the nearest Canadian Tire, where I could get the air filter I need for their brand of lawn mower that we have, as well as a spare roll of weed trimmer line. I couldn’t believe how much more expensive those are now! The air filter wasn’t cheap, either. I will not be getting more fire bricks this month. I can’t justify it in the budget. I’d brought a couple of our water jugs along to refill in town on the way home, but realized I could fill them at Canadian Tire for half the price, so I did that, too. Which meant I didn’t have room in the cart for the stove pellets that I also had on my list, so when I was asked if I needed help with getting to the car (they are stored in the exit vestibule, so they need to be paid for first, then picked up), I said yes. When a strapping young man arrived to help out and I told him I paid for 2 bags, but they wouldn’t fit in the cart with the jugs of water, he grabbed one 40 pound bag first and followed me to the car. With heavy stuff like that, I try to make sure the weight is evenly distributed above the axle, so I took the bag from him and tossed it where I wanted it to go myself.

He gave me a rather strange, surprised look when I did that!

While he went back for the second bag, I made sure the water jugs were in the middle before I took the second bag from him and fit it on the other side of the jugs.

I got another strange look.

Yes. Short, fat, middle aged women can have muscle, too! 😂

Once everything was put away, I drove across the street to the Walmart and picked up a couple of things I hadn’t been able to get during my Costco run. By that time, our pharmacy was open, so I messaged my husband, asking him to phone in my refills for pick up. The drive to town was more than long enough for them to be able to get that ready.

My husband had let me know that there were several packages read for pick up at the post office, but they were closed for lunch by the time I got to town, so a gassed up and headed home. The driving today burned about half a tank of gas! My mother’s car is not very good on gas, but with a heavy load and the A/C going, it sure does burn through more!

Once at home and unloaded, I left the car in the yard, and my daughter later loaded it with garbage and recycling. I didn’t think to check until we were already heading out, and my daughter was closing the gate behind us. It was just 2pm. We have a card to show the attendant that includes the summer and winter hours for the three dumps in our municipality.

The dump opens at 2pm in the winter. We’re in summer hours now. It wasn’t going to open for another 2 hours!

Neither of us liked the idea of leaving the car to bake in the sun while full of garbage, so we headed out, anyhow. We picked up the parcels, then kept going back to town, with plans to check out the lake. My daughter mentioned she hadn’t eaten yet today, because of the heat, so I got her fed, first. The drive and the meal used up an hour for us! Then we went walking on the beach.

The town had just recently raked the beach, so it was all smooth and clean.

I much prefer the rocky parts of the beach, though.

It’s far more interesting!

Looking at the weather app, town was 5° cooler than home! What a difference the lake makes. As hot as things are right now, no one was in the water. It would still be too cold for swimming.

It sure was nice to walk the beach with that cool breeze coming off of it! It’s been ages since we’ve gone to the beach.

After that, we headed back and got to the dump pretty much just as it opened, then back home.

I need to get outside and water some of the garden beds, but it’s still too warm. It’s 25C/77F right now, and I don’t want to risk burning plants with the hot water from the hose being in the sun all day, only to then shock them with cold well water. We’ve had smatterings of rain, but not enough to increase the water level in the rain barrel. I could fill it with a hose and let it warm up, but you can bet that once I did that, we’d finally get one of those thunderstorms they keep predicting, and I’d have to set up the diverter! 😄

For now, I’m just enjoying being home. I still need to help my mother with errands tomorrow. I keep forgetting to call the garage to arrange to bring the van in to be checked out, but we’ll need to do that soon.

I look forward to when all the running around is done for a good long while! I want to crawl into my hermit cave now. 😄

The Re-Farmer

This and that

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I can’t say today was a very productive day in the usual sense, but I’ll talk more about that later.

I was able to get a picture of Decimous this evening.

I had to zoom in, because he still won’t let us come near him. His fur is so matted! I can see some bald looking spots, which would explain the tufts of white and black fur I’ve been seeing around the yard.

Judgement has us concerned. My daughter saw him a couple days ago and he was limping again, but when we saw him last night, he was fine. This morning, he was limping again! As friendly as he is, he does not like to be handled or picked up, so we’ve been having a very hard time getting a look at his paw. It took three of us before we could finally catch a quick glimpse of the problem. There’s something wrong with one of his toes, at the claw. There is no blood or even visible swelling, but it’s messed up somehow and obviously hurting him.

Getting him to a vet would be a challenge. He now tends to disappear for a day or two, so we don’t know when we’d be able to catch him. We can’t isolate him in the sun room – even if we weren’t using it as a greenhouse, it gets too hot in there now – and with the ladies refusing to leave my room, we no longer have a place in the house we could isolate him in. Which means we can’t make an appointment, since we have no idea if we’d be able to keep one.

I ended up sending an email to the vet, explaining the situation, and asking if we could bring him in on a “walk in” sort of basis. Basically, if we can get him in the carrier, we’d take him in right away, phoning ahead to let them know, and hope that he doesn’t injure himself more, trying to get out of the carrier. I have not yet had an answer. We’ll see how that pans out.

As for today, I went into town to take part in a Freedom Rally, in response to the many things our Prime Dictator and his cohorts have been doing. It actually started in the city and people came in a parade of vehicles to the beach in town, where activities and speeches commences. There was a good turn out, and even people who just happened to be at the beach, enjoying the weekend, showed an interest.

Town and the beach were quite busy for this first day of our long weekend. The lake is ice free now – at least at our end of it – but no one was going into the water, that’s for sure! At home, we were at 27C/81F at the time, with town reading at 25C/77F. The weather station, however, is just outside of town, not near the lake. I’d say we were closer to 22 or 23C/72 or 73F so close to the ice cold water.

Knowing it was busy, I headed into town early to have “breakfast” before the lunch crowd started. I was going to go to a particular fish and chips place – one of the few restaurants on that strip that stays open all year – but they were closed. During the winter, they’d had a break in, and the door is still boarded up. It looks like they are closed permanently! Such a shame, if the are. I don’t particularly like fish, but they have a fish and chips dinner I actually crave at times.

There was another place nearby that is now open for the summer, so I went there. While waiting for my food, I went into the bathroom, where I found this sign.

I love it! So much detail on the plugged toilet and the plunger, but the dude is just a stick man – yet even the stick man has such lively little details on the face. Adding the (me) after “sad employee” is perfect.

It does make me wonder about the need for such a sign, though. Nothing that would surprise me, though. I’ve worked housekeeping at a resort hotel. I’ve seen how nasty people can be!

I also had time to check out a shop I haven’t been to in years. I was looking for something specific, and I found one! Just one…

This isn’t it. I bought this frog the last time I was in that shop. My younger daughter admires it, so when I found one, I got it for her. It is identical to this one.

She was very happy to receive it! I’d considered saving it as a birthday gift, but her birthday is still a month away, so I just gave it to her now. 😊

After spending too much time outdoors in the sun, even with the cooling effect of the lake nearby, once I got home I stayed in the relatively cool indoors for awhile. When I headed out to do my evening rounds, I did quite a bit of watering. I took the floating row cover off the spinach bed. It was getting torn up, and tore up even more as I took it off! The spinach is still quite small. With the heat we’ve been having, they could really use some shade. I am seeing more carrot sprouts, which is good. I still don’t know that the bed will end up full of carrots, but if what I’m can see so far survives, we’ll have a pretty full bed.

I’m seeing a very few more purple asparagus showing up. This is their third year, but last year’s flooding right around them easily set them back. In fact, I think we may have lost two crowns. The strawberries, however, are doing well, and a couple are even starting to bloom!

The peas are coming up quite nicely. It looks like almost all of them have germinated. Still no sign of poppies, though. The peppers and thyme that were transplanted last night are still alive. 😄 The bed with the Montana Morado corn is doing okay, but something has gotten in and spread some of the thick grass clipping mulch around the edges, so I had to put that back.

I dug our last garden hose out of the shed and set up the old rain barrel near the new raspberry plants. They got a deep watering while I set up, and then I used a watering can to do the sea buckthorn and the highbush cranberry, while filling the barrel. I didn’t water the silver buffalo berry as there are just too many of them, and I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes!

So things are looking good. I was quite sore after reworking the bed the corn was planted in last night, so I made sure to take it easy today. I didn’t want to overdo it and render myself useless for several days. There is still much work to get done, before it’s time to put in our transplants and do more direct sowing!

The Re-Farmer

Bad pain day

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I didn’t overdo it yesterday. Honest. I have done far more physical labour than I did yesterday, without much problem.

So why am I hurting so much today?

It’s not muscle pain, either. It’s my joints. My knees are a mess… well… more of a mess than usual… but worst of all are my finger joints. They had been getting better, but are much worse again.

Makes it rather hard to type, that’s for sure.

I got the girls to feed the cats this morning, but did eventually get outside to switch out the trail cam memory cards, check the planted garden beds, do a bit of watering. Even that was difficult.

So today is going to be a pain killer and recovery day. I’ve got some computer stuff to work on, like another time lapse video to put together.

I’m also still trying to recover my personal Facebook account that got stolen. I got zero progress on that. However, I am still getting emails from Instagram, which is linked to that account. When I got one last night, I decided to check it out.

Of course, I couldn’t log in and following the links from the email resulted in error messages. However, since my personal email address was still attached to this account, I was able to recover the account and change the password.

So now, at least, I have my Instagram account. Not that I was using it, but it’s something!

If only recovering my original account were that easy. It just blows me away how useless Facebook support is for this.

On the plus side, it seems all my friends that have been also reporting the account, and the posts being made selling crazy stuff, calling the account out as hacked and even playing games and stringing along the thief, apparently there is no longer any activity coming out of my original account anymore. Hopefully, it will stay that way!

Anyhow.

Time to pain killer up and ingest some sustenance.

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties

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The wee hours of the morning!

As usual, I had a whole lot of cats crowding me during the night. Cheddar likes to lay where I usually do, and does NOT like to move, no matter how much I disturb him. Still, it was a surprise even for him to not move when Nosencrantz came over for pets, and lay right on top of Cheddar!

When I had to get up to let out a cat scratching at the door, I discovered this had been beside me.

This is HUGE progress! Cheddar is so chill, he’ll cuddle with any other cat. Nosencrantz, however, is a bundle of stress and anxiety around other cats. At best, she will lay down next to Butterscotch, or share the shelf table with her. For her to be curled right up against Cheddar like this is a massive step forward.

I didn’t get a head count while doing my rounds, as the cats were running around too much. It’s been so warm, they aren’t spending as much time in the sun room, and with so much snow melting all over, they aren’t running out of water in their bowls. Kibble, on the other hand, has been disappearing. I don’t think there are a lot of hunting opportunities right now, but we’ve got the cats, deer and skunks all cleaning the trays out! The cats, at least, eat most of it right away, so the other critters that we really don’t want to be feeding just clean up what’s left. My only concern is that if there is a cat that comes around later, such as one of the visiting strays or a mama that couldn’t leave her litter right away, they won’t have much food left for them.

Spotting this was a funny surprise.

Some of the cats are enjoying the new roof! I think this is Sprout, but it might be Phantom. She was stalking something at the peak of the roof!

Also, it has been so great to not have any leaking as the snow melts! The sun room is nice and dry, and the girls haven’t had to deal with leaking at one of the windows next to their computer desk. I’m so glad my brother was able to get my mother to finally follow through on her promise to get this done! That has taken a huge weight off our backs.

The dump is open today, so I started the van to see how it is. It’s making a noise I don’t like; I think it might be from a belt, but I can’t tell for sure. To be on the safe side, we used my mother’s car, instead. We have a mat in the back of the van to protect the floor from any leaking garbage, so I moved that over to the back of my mother’s car. Her car is narrower, but I don’t mind the mat going up the sides at the wheel wells a bit.

The down side was having to go through the “moat” with a wagon load of garbage bags. It’s a lot wider and deeper, now. Enough snow has melted that I was able to go around on one side through the snow, but the wagon can’t get through that.

My boots are set aside to dry now. 😄

Since I didn’t want to slog through water any more than I had to, I made sure have what I needed to head out right away – though I did have to turn around and come back when I realized I’d forgotten our pass card for the dump in the van. After going to the dump, I went to the post office. It’s been more than a week since we’ve been able to get to it while it was open. I got there too early, though! Just a little while ago, my husband let me know that a package had arrived. It would have been there while I was getting the mail, but it hadn’t been processed yet. Ah, well. It’s just more Lysine for the outside cats, and we still have plenty unopened containers waiting.

I did get something else in the mail, but that will be in my next post! 😊

The Re-Farmer

Waited too long

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Well, that was a mistake.

After doing some shoveling this morning, I headed in and took a break with breakfast and a pot of tea before heading out again in the afternoon.

I waited too long.

I started by doing the upstairs litters, then getting the burn going, getting rid of our burnable garbage along with the sawdust litter. While tending that, I cleared the paths to the electric meter. With how warm it was getting and how the snow was changing, even in that time, I put a cover on the burn ring sooner than I normally would have, then went to get little Spewie out and clear the driveway.

It was too late.

It’s -4C/25F right now, bright and sunny. All the paths I dug earlier, where it’s darker, have melted away, but the snow is just getting wetter, stickier and heavier. Too sticky for the snow blower. I had to give up after only a couple of passes across the front of the garage.

While it’s not much of a problem for shoveling paths, with the snow just getting wetter and heavier, there’s no way we can shovel the entire driveway.

Which means we’re stuck. Our vehicles can’t get through that, either.

On top of that, the roads aren’t plowed, and I suspect they won’t be.

Hopefully, the warmer temperatures will take care of it for us by the weekend, when we are supposed to reach above freezing temperatures for highs from then on. I know the highways will be clear by then, but it’s rather different on gravel roads.

Crud.

The Re-Farmer

So this is a thing that happened

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*sigh*

Today, I tried to have the door open in my room while I was doing stuff on my computer. I don’t expect Nosencrantz or even Marlee to leave the room, but I’m getting really tired of the constant interruptions of the “safe” cats scratching at the door to be let in or out. In fact, most of the cats are okay coming in, even if Marlee snarls at them. Nosencrantz even stayed on her window shelf rather than hiding somewhere. Marlee parked her butt under my printer table and snarled at any cat that went at the food bowls, and they basically ignored her. Butterscotch was settled under a foot stool I have near the heat vent under the window; a favourite spot for many of the cats.

But then, there’s Turmeric.

She was creeping around and snarling beside the cat cage, which is how I found out Butterscotch was under the stool, enjoying the heat vent. I shooed her away and she wandered on and around the bed for a while. I even pet and cuddled her for a bit, to calm her down, before settling at my computer again.

Then the fight happened.

Turmeric attacked Butterscotch.

I got her away, but not without some damage.

I’m glad we picked up those large gauzes, not long ago! I ended up with two long scratches under my arm, and a few puncture wounds on the top. The gauze was large enough to cover all of them.

Tissue also tends to be snarly when she comes into my room – she really hated being isolated in here when she was healing. But not even she tends to actively attack one of the ladies.

Turmeric, on the other hand, will actively try to search out, stalk and attack Butterscotch, Nozencrantz and sometimes Marlee. I can’t understand why. I mean, we’ve brought Potato Beetle in, he’s never been kept away from the other cats, and she’s never gone after him like that. She especially gets along well with Grandma, who moved out here with us, and let Turmeric “nurse” after Beep Beep decided weaning was going to happen, whether her kittens wanted it or not.

Oh, for crying out loud!!!

I just got interrupted while I was writing the above. Nosencrantz was on her window shelf on my craft table, as she often is, when Leyendecker… LEYENDECKER!!! suddenly jumped onto the table and attacked her. WTF???

I just don’t get it.

Yes, we have too many cats in the house, but it’s a big house, and many of the cats don’t even bother coming in when my door is open. There is nothing to explain why we are having so many cats specifically targeting Butterscotch and Nosencrantz. Especially Nosencrantz. Not even Marlee is as much of a target, but maybe that’s because she is the snarly one and, having survived being abandoned and on her own for 2 years, is no soft target. They are not “new” cats anymore.

I just. Don’t. Get it.

Well, at least this time, I didn’t have to physically separate the cats and end up with more unintentional wounds!

The Re-Farmer

Change in plans

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With all the snowfall warnings we got, my mother called me up last night to talk about helping her with errands today. In the end, we decided I would check conditions on the morning, and we’d go from there.

Well, I’m not going to my mother’s today.

Not even the deer wanted to take my path to the sign cam. 😄

We didn’t get a lot of snow. I was keeping an eye on the highway conditions group I’m in, on Facebook, and people were talking about the icy road conditions. Which makes sense, considering how warm it was while the snow was falling. Nothing but ice on the road, under that snow! Still, the people posting had driven the highways several hours before I would need to, so it wouldn’t necessarily apply anymore.

There was some drifting at the end of the driveway, but the gravel road looked okay. No plowing needed. I shoveled out the sidewalks and a path to the garage, but that was about it. I was going to combine trips and head to town to our regular pharmacy first for a prescription refill, so I called them up just minutes after they opened, thinking to leave soon after.

The pharmacist that answered the phone happens to live half way between us and town. When I said that I was hoping to pick up today, but would require delivery if I didn’t make it, she told me the roads were still very icy. If I were using our van, with its good winter tires, I probably would have gone for it. However, we’re not using the van right now, nor would I use it to run errands with my mother. While my mother’s car has good all-weather tires, they’re still not winter tires, and can’t handle the ice as well.

So I decided to reschedule with my mother to tomorrow. We’re supposed to get more snow later in the week – hopefully not too much, because we’ve just accepted an Easter dinner invitation in the city on Saturday that a daughter and I will be going to! – but not early tomorrow.

I called my mother to reschedule, and she was all “but it’s so nice and sunny outside!” as if that somehow meant there shouldn’t be ice on the roads. If she can’t see it, it’s not real! 😄 Then I headed outside again to shovel the drifts out of the end of the driveway. It didn’t take long. The snow was still light and the drifts weren’t very hard packed. Yet. Which is why I wanted to get them cleared now. I didn’t want them to be there if we do get more snow later on.

Then, since I was out anyway, I cleared the snow in front of the garage so the side doors can be opened easily. Then I widened the path to to the garage. Then the paths to the electricity meter and the burn ring. Finally, I cleared the paths around the cat shelters and to the shrine, where we still keep a food bowl for the shiest of the cats. The snow was blown around enough that the food bowls inside the kibble house had snow in them, and even the trays under the water bowl shelter were full of snow! The cats were definitely happy to have access to food in the sun room. There were 16 of them, just in the sun room, when I put food out this morning. I counted 23 altogether.

Then I came in to a lovely breakfast my daughter prepared. What a sweetheart!

So today is going to be a quieter day than planned. I’m good with that. By rescheduling with my mother to tomorrow, and getting our prescription refills delivered the day after (I am so thankful for that service!!), it’ll mean much less driving around, too.

Meanwhile, the storm warnings are still happening. A Colorado Low is coming in, and the south end of our province is now expected to get another 15-25cm (6-10 inches) of snow, starting tomorrow afternoon and over the next couple of days. How much of that will reach us, or even as far as the city, is hard to say. After that, our highs are supposed to go above freezing, then keep getting warmer. It’s a good thing the municipalities have been clearing the ditches and culverts. That will go a long way to prevent flooding. Not that we’d have anything close to the flooding we had last spring!

I am really looking forward to the snow being gone, and things being dry enough to start working outside!

The Re-Farmer

Where do you share?

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Views and follows of this blog have been slowly growing over the years. A bit thank you and welcome to those who most recently joined the family! I really appreciate that there are people out there who are enjoying what they find here enough to hit that follow button! I hope you find things interesting and useful. 😊

One of the things WordPress does in their “insights” section is show how many shares the blog gets, and where they are shared to. It’s no surprise that Facebook and Pinterest shares are pretty high on the list – they’re pretty much equal for second and third place among platforms shared to the most. I was rather surprised to see that shares to Telegram pretty much blow away everything else. There are almost twice as many shares to Telegram than all other platforms put together!

Which has me curious.

If you share my posts, where do you share them to, and why do you share to that particular platform? Also, what kinds of posts inspire you to hit that share button?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

The Re-Farmer

Wimpy!

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One of the things we had to do because the cats were so determined to dig up the soil in our house plants – especially Cabbages! – was cobble together barricades around each individual plant or pot. For smaller plants, we used the plastic containers from cheese balls and pork rinds we found at Costco. Containers I meant to save to use to protect plants in the garden. I’d cut them into strips to put around the inside edge of the pots and, when that wasn’t enough, to loop over the plants. That worked for things like the aloe vera, but one pot with a jade tree in it was just too big. I ended up using some 1/4 hardware cloth I had – again, something I bought to use for something else entirely – to make a wall around the entire pot. It took 2 pieces to go all the way around. This pot is a square with an inner pot that can be removed. The outer pot has a reservoir for bottom watering, and we had to jam the hardware cloth between the two. It was the only way to keep the cats from simply pulling it out. That still wasn’t enough, and we had to make a “roof” over it, too. I only had 1 inch hardware cloth left, but it was enough. Sometimes, we’d find Cabbages sitting on top of it, looking out the window!

Now that the living room is barricaded and can be used as a plant room, most of our house plants have been moved over. The one hanging in the kitchen can stay, since the cats have been leaving it alone up there. A couple of larger pots, however, needed a second person to open and close the door in the barrier and keep the cats out.

Yesterday, that finally got done.

One large aloe vera handled the transfer well. After removing the plastic strips around it, it was a bit floppy, because some of its leaves were forced to grow into curves by its protective force field.

The jade tree in the big pot had outgrown its cage a while ago. Branches were starting to grow through the larger holes of the “roof”, so that had already been removed. My daughter was a sweetheart and was able to manhandle the pot into the living room for me – the thing barely fits on the largest shelf of the plant stand we’ve been using for them! Once it was in place, I wrestled with the hardware cloth to get it off.

As soon as it came off, everything fell over!

There were three main stems in the pot and, with the cage around the pot holding them up, they didn’t have the strength to hold their own weight! On top of that, the branches were twisted around, some around each other, in various directions.

It took some doing, but…

I got it supported.

I had some thick doweling left from my outdoor kitchen model. They’re short, but strong enough that I could put them around the thickest stem and use super long twist ties to support it at the base. I was even able to support a smaller stem to those as well. The third stem got its own support.

That still left floppy tops, though. After scrounging around, I found a couple long cherry wood stems in the basement we’d saved with the intention of eventually carving something out of them. One of those is now shoved into the middle of the pot, and I was able to weave some paracord around various branches and stems and get them lifted up and supported.

The top broke off one of the smaller stems, along with a whole lot of leaves. After cleaning up all the broken leaves, I planted the broken top. Jade trees are remarkable in their ability to propagate. If I wanted to, I could have started up a new plant out every single one of those fallen leaves. I think the broken stem has a good chance of survival.

It will take a while, but eventually the stems will gain strength and be able to support themselves. Still, it’s interesting to see how the cage that was there to protect the plant also weakened it so much.

There’s a life lesson in there.

Meanwhile, now that these last two big plants are moved away from the dining room window, it suddenly seems to much bigger and brighter in there! 😄

The Re-Farmer

Just a few things (updated)

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We continue to be teased by spring. We had high winds yesterday and through the night, and while this morning, we are at a rather okay -16C/3F, the wind chill is at -24C/-11F. During the night, we had wind chills down to -28C/-18F! Today, we’re supposed to be sunny and reaching a high of -5C/23F, and a few days from now, we’re supposed to start getting consistent highs above freezing. The first official calendar day of spring is in only two days, but it’s going to be a while before real spring finally reaches us.

It got chilly enough in the sun room for this little guy to take advantage of an empty heated water bowl!

While putting their food out, I tried petting Junk Pile, but as soon as she realized I was touching her, she got startled and moved away. I was hoping, after being able to pet and carry her yesterday, she would still be okay with contact, but apparently not.

Then, as I was returning from the sign cam, there she was, coming up the path through the garden! I tried to pet her and she acted skittish, but kept coming back until she finally let me pet her. After a while, I tried walking again, but she wouldn’t let me! I finally picked her up so I could get back to the house, and she was quite okay with that. She kept snuzzling the back of her head against my face and making this noise that was kind of like a quiet growl! While holding her, I could feel her teats were slightly swollen, from not having any kittens left to nurse her, but they lived for so short a time, she should dry up quickly. She was not in any discomfort. When I got to the house and she wanted to jump down, she still wouldn’t move away from my feet, so I had to pick her up again and deposit her onto the cat house roof, just so I could walk!

Today, I plan to take my mother’s car for a run to Walmart; the kibble bin has reached the point where it’s mostly the cheap brand we got from the feed store, and they’re actually picking out and eating the other brand and leaving the cheap stuff behind. They do eat it eventually, but they clearly don’t like it. This gives me an excuse to see how my mother’s car is doing for a longer run, since we have to go to the same city for her follow up appointment with the specialist on Monday.

I’m happy to say that my tax return came in this morning, which means that we can finally call the plumber to fix our leaking taps, as well as pick up a replacement tub surround, since he’s going to have to rip the old one off. Not that there’s much besides the arm bars holding it in place, as it is. We’re going on the most likely assumption that the last time the taps were replaced, it was done from the tub side, then covered over by the surround. I highly doubt the person that I know was hired to do it would have gone through the bedroom wall on the other side. There’s no hole in the paneling, and no sign that the entire panel itself was removed.

We don’t know how much getting all this done in the bathroom is going to cost in the end. The girls and I talked about the possibility of not putting another tub surround up at all, but taking out the old paneling and tiling it. That would be a lot more expensive, though. Plus, I’m still hoping we can at least get my daughter her new glasses right away, now that she’s got a prescription. While she was getting tested, I looked around at the frames in the clinic, and the cheapest I could see was about $180. Most were in the $300+ range, and I wasn’t even looking at the fancy brand names. She is going to try getting glasses from Zenni, which was recommended to me (thank you!), as they do have a Canadian site. I need progressives, so those were the frames I went looking at in the site, and the prices are SO much better. Apparently, “premium” progressive lenses start at about Cdn$70, so my daughter’s very basic prescription should be quite affordable.

We shall see how that goes soon enough.

The Re-Farmer

Update:

I just asked my daughter about her glasses order, and it turns out it’s already done! She was even able to order a second pair of prescription sunglasses, and even with shipping, it was still under Cdn$100! I look forward to seeing what the quality is like.