First, the cute!

Lately, when I open the doors to the sunroom to get the cat kibble during my morning rounds, I have had company.

Little Braveheart has been dashing in and out as I load up on kibble. Even Tabby has been coming closer, but not quite as close as Braveheart.

Right now, I’ve put several of the kibble bowls by the old dog house shelter, to encourage the cats to go into it, but I do still have one near the sunroom door. This morning, Little Braveheart was eating at that container – and I was able to gently pat her back! It took her a few moments to decide she didn’t like it after all, and moved away.

Awesome progress!!!

Then there was the creepy.

Part of my rounds includes switching out the memory card on the trail cam. Something weird started happening with our first one, where it the motion sensor would get triggered, but it wouldn’t stop. So I’d come by the next day to find the red light blinking, the batteries almost dead, and nothing on the memory card. So the newer camera is now set up near that same area. It has a wide angle lens, which is great, because it not only picks up the gate, but the fence on both sides, too. I did end up moving it to a fence post instead of the tree it was on, since the wide angle was blocked by other trees on one side.

Since it’s on the post, I don’t need to go through the trees to reach the camera, and can use the driveway. Since our vandal had glued our locks, before vandalizing the gate itself, over the months, I make a point of checking the lock to see if it’s glued, or for anything else that might be vandalized.

When I got to the gate this morning, the lock was on the wrong side of the gate. As I locked the gate behind me yesterday, the lock was left on the inside of the gate, and the excess chain was wrapped around the bars so as not to dangle. This morning, the chain was turned to the outside of the gate, and the extra length was dangling under the lock.

When I checked the files, sure enough, there was our vandal. In one video, he was just standing right at the gate on one side, looking down the driveway and from side to side. At a couple of points, he seemed to be looking at the camera. In the next video, he had moved to the middle of the gate and was moving the chain around so he could look at the lock. Then he let it go and walked away.

Creeper was creeping again.

Of course, it’s the weekend. As he has been repeatedly told to stay away by the police, I would normally call the non-emergency number to talk to someone about it. The RCMP offices are closed on the weekends, though, and I’m not about to call 911 for this, so it will have to wait until Monday.

*sigh*

I really don’t get why our vandal is so obsessed with this property.

I did make sure to pass on the files to my brother before we headed out to visit.

Which brings me to the awesome.

It was a fantastic visit! We were able to just relax and chat. When he comes here, it’s usually because there is something that needs to be fixed or, as most recently, for a family gathering, so we don’t really get much chance to just be with each other. It was just fantastic. He and his wife are some of my favourite people, and I don’t spend anywhere near as much time with them as I would like!

On top of that, my mother’s car handled the drive very well! No more alarming noises, coming from anywhere! :-D It’s amazing how quiet that car is, now that everything’s fixed! :-D Plus, it has working fans and air conditioning, too! Rather nice to not have to drive with the windows open. :-)

My brother has helped my mother with this car for many years, so before we left, he popped the hood to show me some things. I’m glad he did, because I was wondering about some of it. I knew he had a trickle charger as well as the block heater attached to an extension cord. It also has a battery warmer. He had the extension cord all neatly laid out so that it was tucked safely aside, all three could be plugged in, and the plug for the extension cord could be left hanging outside the hood to plug it in, in the winter. It seems that every time the car was worked on, even from when I’d taken it to the garage near my mother’s place, things got moved around. Only the trickle charger was still plugged in but, of course, the clips were no longer on the battery, since it had been pulled out to be charged, just a few days ago. I don’t know when the extension cord was first moved to where it is now, but when I popped the hood to take the end out so I could plug it in in the garage, prior to last winter, I found a loop of it was touching the serpentine belt, and was starting to get worn. It never got put back under the hood before I left it at the garage, several months ago, for the mechanic to check it as he was able. My brother had tucked it away, so I showed the worn out part to my brother. As we looked closely in the sunlight, we could see the layers had broken and we could see exposed wire. !! So I will have to replace that (along with a burnt out bulb in one headlight) before plugging in and tidying up all the cords again.

Changing that light bulb is going to be so much easier than our van. You can just reach in and pop it out. With our van, we have to unscrew and unfasten the entire headlamp unit, and pull it out completely.

I’m so glad to have my brother to turn to for advice and information! When we moved out here, we were just sort of plunked into the middle of things. We would be pretty lost, without him!

I have the best brother! <3

The Re-Farmer