kittens

Hello and goodbye!

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So today ended up way longer than originally expected. But the, I originally didn’t have anything outside of home planned for today at all. I even offered it up as my one day that I could do my mother’s grocery shopping for her this year, and she said no, so I expected to have another day to work outside.

Then I got the call from home care last night, saying there was no one to do a med assist for this morning, so that got added on. When I called my mother to let her know, she told me she had a grocery list started, so that got added on. Then I was in contact with the rescue that would be taking Poirot’s orphan babies, and that got added on, which would get combined with a trip into town to refill our water jobs.

I still expected to get things done at home.

Ha!

First off, my body let me know in no uncertain terms, I needed to back off. While sitting at my computer shortly before going to bed last night, I got hit with another Charlie horse. This time, the back of my right thigh. I managed to stand up and grab the tube of tei fu lotion, then stagger over to my husband’s room. My husband, darling that he is, caught on as soon as he saw my face, what was going on. Even with his door closed, so I could draw my drawers for him to work the lotion into my leg, my older daughter could hear me and came dashing over as fast as she could so see if I needed help. So she was able to assist me with getting around and eventually to bed.

So… definitely not a day to overdo things, today!

I found myself up at 5am, though, and unable to get back to sleep, so I did my morning rounds pretty early. The outside cats were quite happy with that. I got kitten food bowls set up on the kitchen floor before I headed out with the dry kibble and had a whole row of kittens already ready and waiting at the door, and went straight to the kibble!

While doling out the dry kibble, I had a little fuzzy surprise at the shrine!

Two, actually, but one ran off immediately.

Sitting on the box nest was a little orange baby. The one that ran away looked to be a tortie, but it was such a short glimpse, it was hard to be sure. The orange one ran off a short distance when I came to put kibble in the bowls. As I came around later, I found a white and grey, too!

From what I could see, the orange kitten and the possible tortie are Sprout’s babies, and the white and grey matches the feral mama with no name. They have finally brought their babies to the yard!

When I started setting out the containers with cat soup, I made sure to leave one under the shrine for the newbies. Later on, I saw both cats and mamas – and very round soon to be mamas *sigh* – enjoying it. Lady Hypotenose and Ink are both heavily pregnant now.

*sigh*

After the cats were fed, I did the rest of the morning rounds, and made sure to grab a carrier for Poirot’s littles.

Then it was time to head over to my mother’s for her med assist that home care wasn’t able to do this morning. I got there a bit earlier than they had her scheduled for. When I walked in, though, the first thing I saw was a laundry basket.

Her time slot on the shared laundry calendar is for Friday afternoon, not the morning.

Thankfully, the unit’s marked in for the morning were not using the laundry room today!

There was also a bouquet of artificial flowers. When she’d gone to the cemetery with my sister to leave fresh artificial flowers and family gravesites, they didn’t have enough, so her mother’s gravesite didn’t get any. My sister got more flowers and left them with my mother, and could I put those in the cemetery for her?

Thankfully, it was very much on the way for us, but I’ll get to that, later.

While doing my mother’s meds, she gave me the usual hard time about how I’m doing it instead of them. She’s angry at home care for calling me to do her meds, but she takes her anger out on me. Then she demanded I leave out her other two meds of the day, because on the assumption no one was going to show up for her two evening med assists. Which I refused to do.

I was able to get her to focus on her shopping list, though, and went over that before heading out. I was going to start her two loads laundry (there are only 2 washers and 2 driers for the entire building. It’s a small building) before I left when she told me there was something written on one of the machines she couldn’t understand. It turned out to be a hand written note saying the machine wasn’t working, and what it was doing that it shouldn’t, and that it was going to be replaced.

So that doubled the time for her washing.

*sigh*

Today’s errands included a stop at the pharmacy for a couple of things. She had called them about her refills and was told they weren’t ready, so she arranged delivery for Monday. Which is her last day of meds in the bubble packs. Her inhaler was also out, so she as getting a refill on that, too. So once at the pharmacy, I checked if her meds were ready first, just in case. The bubble packs weren’t, but her inhaler was. Since she was out completely, I decided to take that.

That little thing cost almost $200!!!

I paid for it myself, since that was more than all the cash she gave me for her shopping – and it was more than enough for the day’s needs. I made sure to call her before I went to the grocery store to let her know, so she wouldn’t be surprised by it when I got back with her stuff. She got all angry because it was supposed to be delivered on Monday, and why did I pick it up?

…

I told her, because you’re out completely! This way, she would have it for her last med assist of the day.

She was still upset even when I got back with her groceries. I think it was partly because she was going to pay me back with cash, and she’s been increasingly weird about that. After I put everything away, she started digging through her purse when I suggested a check, so I could do a mobile deposit rather than driving to the nearer city to deposit it, and she could hang on to her cash. She was quite happy with that suggestion.

So I stayed around for the next while, waiting on the one laundry machine to be done. As we were talking, things went back to the homecare situation. I ended up calling the case coordinator and, much to my surprise, actually got her instead of a machine! 😄 I let her know about the missed meds yesterday morning. She looked up my mother’s file, and there were no notations for that time slot. They’ve got some new people – but were still short staffed for this morning! The person that was on the printed out schedule they leave for my mother, with the names for each time slot, was not supposed to come that morning. A new person was. There were other issues related to the staffing changes, including shift confusion that lead to my mother having someone show up twice in the mornings.

After the call, my mother had her usual unfortunate things to say about the case coordinator, and the home care workers. She can’t understand that the case coordinator is not the shift scheduler, and they don’t all magically know everything about her file, including things they were not told by the home care aides!

*sigh*

Because of the broken down washing machine, I was still there when my mother’s Meals on Wheels was delivered. I used that time to go back to the laundry room, where I could fold things, though I didn’t have time to put them away.

Once the laundry was brought in, I soon made my goodbyes. My mother must have been seriously tired, because she made no effort to get me to stay!

From there, I headed home, but was soon heading out again, this time with my daughter and Poirot’s kittens in the carrier.

I’d been messaging my contact at the large animal rescue about the times, but they hadn’t seen the most recent one. My messages weren’t even being seen at that point. We brought the kittens, anyhow and swung by on our way out. My contact took the kittens, but not before I was able to get one last picture.

When we got there, they were in the middle of unloading a horse, so we didn’t stay long.

I’m going to miss those babies!

Our first stop after that was the local cemetery to take care of the flowers for my grandmother. Then we visited other family members laid to rest there. I noticed that my aunt and uncle did not have any flowers at all. My daughter ended up making a little bouquet of wildflowers she found nearby for them. That was very sweet of her!

From there, we went to the cemetery my MIL is buried in. We had tried to go there, at my FIL’s request, as he physically cannot visit the gravesite anymore, but never found the stone. My daughter had accompanied my husband to the funeral as his mobility assistant, but she was so sick that day, she barely remembered anything, never mind where it was. What we did find was a sign saying that, due to flooding that spring, some of the stones were damaged, so they had been removed for repair and would be returned another time. We figured that’s what happened to her stone!

So this time, we expected to be able to find it.

We didn’t.

I finally messaged my husband, asking if he could remember, and he gave me an area that I’d already gone through. Then he messaged her exact plot coordinates.

I had walked right past it and never saw it! It’s a very low profile stone, but I’d actually noticed the one next to it, because of the interesting solar lights around it.

My daughter stayed by the stone while I went back for the truck, which was parked at the opposite end of the cemetery!

We had brought a solar powers light up cross along with the flowers and vase we’d picked up and made up a pretty bouquet. While we did select the heaviest vase available, it was clearly not going to be heavy enough to stay upright with flowers in it. So we went into town to a dollar store – the only place that would have was we were looking for – and got several bags of decorative glass beads to weight it down. My daughter thought the bouquet was looking a bit sparse, so she looked at the floral display while I headed over to another section. I picked up a set of solar powered fairy lights, while my daughter got some greenery, then back to the cemetery we went.

Where we found the vase already fallen over!

Not broken, thankfully.

I helped my daughter with redoing the whole thing, as she added the fairy light string into the vase, then added some of the decorative glass beads, and kept on going. The light string was long enough for plenty to be inside the vase, and still have enough to be wrapped around the bouquet, as the pieces were put back in.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t test it, even to see if we had turned it on or not. It had a mode setting, too, but the solar charged batteries needed much more time before we could test it out. We’ll just have to come back later, when it’s darker and the batteries have had time to charge.

My daughter did a great job making it all look pretty.

At this point, I was realized I hadn’t eaten anything since my very early breakfast – and my daughter hasn’t eaten at all – so back into town we went, this time to get something to eat! Meanwhile, my husband had messaged me with a request, which meant going to a store across the street from where we eat.

Then, finally, we could get the water bottle refills we’d gone into town to do in the first place!

That done, we could finally heat home, with only a brief stop at the rescue to retrieve our carrier. The rescue is officially open to the public this weekend, so they were really busy, and we didn’t get a chance to see them where they were set up for now.

By the time we got home, it was well past time for the outside cats to be fed again. Once we were unloaded by the house, I went to do that, and was able to distract cats away from the truck so my daughter could park it. Sir Robin likes to run under the truck!

Once again, I made sure to leave a bowl with the cat soup under the shrine for the new kittens, though I when I finally did see one, it was just the orange one.

Around this time, I got a message from my brother and SIL, letting us know they were on their way here, to spend the weekend in their trailer.

With the new kittens in mind, I sort of skipped my evening rounds and instead focused on getting the isolation shelter out for cleaning. The plastic around the bottom for winterizing was removed, along with everything inside it, so I could start hosing it down. When building it, I tried my best to have it open and accessible enough to reach inside for cleaning. Some corners are still had to get to.

I was still working on that when my brother and SIL arrived. They had lots to set up so, I left them to it.

The isolation shelter is now set up near the shrine and catio. What I’m hoping is that the new kittens will discover it as a place with food and water and shelter (the beds and cat blankets were hosed down and will be returned later). Which would make it far easier to catch them, if necessary!

Once my brother and SIL had settled in, and I popped over for a good, long visit. While I try to keep them up to date with messages, when it comes to my mother, some things just need to be talked about in person. Especially with some of the things she sometimes says. It’s a good thing we keep the lines of communication between us as much as we do, because my mother has a habit of saying different things to each of us, and trying to play us against each other.

By the time I headed back to the house, it was starting to get dark. The yard light is nice and bright, though, so I could see where I was going…

… and activity in the grass!

Yes, I saw kittens.

There are at least four of them in total, and one of them appears to be a calico.

I get the impression Sprout and the other feral mama have been co-parenting the litters together, too.

Well, I hope they discover the cat isolation shelter.

Tomorrow, I was expecting to do our Costco shopping, but my younger daughter is dealing with a lot of pain right now and wouldn’t be able to come along to help me. My arm is much better today, but clambering in and out of the back of the truck would certainly not be a good idea! With the stock up trip we’ve already done, we can get away with waiting until Monday. That’s the day before Canada Day, so Costco will likely be insanely busy. We’ll deal!

Which means that tomorrow, I get to stay home. One of the things I want to do is set up a fresh litter box and clean cat beds inside the isolation shelter. I spotted Ink dashing around in a way that made me think she’s looking for somewhere to have her babies. If I can set up a nice, cozy “nest” for her in the isolation shelter, that would be idea! Well, not as ideal as having them in the sun room, but she’s too feral for that, I think.

We said goodbye to three kittens today – and said hello to at least four, by the end of the day.

I’m hoping things work out with this other rescue, with the one that’s been helping us shutting down, soon, and that Poirot’s babies will get lots of love and attention, and get adopted soon!

We shall see how it works out!

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

Sad news

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As my daughter and I headed out today, I saw a cat crossing from the unoccupied farm across the road from us, stopped in the middle of the road.

Sniffing at another cat on the road, before moving on.

At which point, I stopped and walked over to take a look.

Sure enough, it was a cat that had been hit by a car. It had been there long enough for there to be… damage, shall we say… making it hard to identify the cat, but it looked an aweful lot like Poirot.

We saw Poirot yesterday, but did we see her while doing the morning feeding? I couldn’t remember, but if we had seen her this morning, it was unlikely she was this cat. My older daughter had helped, so we messaged her and she couldn’t remember early, but promised to keep an eye out while her sister and I continued with our errands. She did confirm seeing her kittens sleeping in the sun room, but did not see Poirot.

We got back late enough to do second outside cat feeding of the day. It was, as always, a commotion of hungry cats and kittens. I managed to close up all the kittens in the sun room so they could have their cat soup without being pushed away by larger cats.

Miss Lemon, Captain Hastings and Inspector Japp had their fill, along with Grommet, Eyelet, Sir Robin and Havarti. We have gone from 11 kittens to 7, and we know what happened for sure with only one of them.

I messaged the Cat Lady about the potential situation during one of our stops. I’ve been sending her photos of Eyelet as well, because he reminds me so much of Button – and is very photogenic! She is going to try and find a home for him. The chances might be better with a kitten with such striking eyes.

Once I was sure enough, I also messaged the large animal rescue that was going to take in Poirot and her kittens. I’m sure they will still take her kittens. At more than 7 weeks, they can be weaned pretty safely. They are so tiny, though, I’m sure they’ll have vets thinking they are much young. I do, however, have photographic proof that they were born on May 4th.

Crud. We weren’t able to completely socialize her, but Poirot was such a sweet cat. She would have made a great ambassador for colonies such as ours at the rescue.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Really??? It’s almost July!

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Talk about fluctuations!

Yesterday, I was seeing the forecast for last night’s lows change from 4C/39F to 6C/43F, though that changed with which app I looked at, too.

This morning, I woke at about 4:30am, and this is what I found…

We dropped to 2C/36F.

That’s a “cover your plants, there might be frost” temperature.

Today, we’re supposed to reach highs of 23C/73F and an overnight low of 8C/46F.

We’re in the last week of June.

I just took a look at the historical data. Our average low for today’s date, since 1951, is 12C/54F. The record low of 1C/34F was set in 1958. We almost matched the record low!

Needless to say, I was concerned about our cold sensitive plants, like the melons, squash and eggplant.

It was a couple more hours before my daughter and I did the outdoor cat feeding. They are such a mob in the mornings, since the adults have discovered the cat soup we’ve been making for the littles, it’s gotten quite necessary to have two people doing it. For the kittens, I mash up a couple of cans of wet cat food, add enough hot water to make it very thin, then add dry kibble. That gets divided up among a whole bunch of bowls. Those then sit so the kibble can absorb most of the liquid while I go out with a the dry kibble bowl. That gets distributed in many areas, so that even the shiest of ferals can have breakfast.

The first challenge is just getting out the doors into the sun room. Once both doors are open, there’s a crowd of kittens right under the threshold, making it very difficult to step down without stepping on a cat or kitten. Poirot’s 3 are particularly eager to jump up onto the threshold to go into the old kitchen, so closing the doors behind me is also hard to do without hurting kittens diving into the space.

Once the sun room door – the storm door with the missing screen in the window – it closed, it is safer, though I still have to wade through swirling cats and kittens. They are very hungry, by this time! Some of them actually start fighting, so I try to get food spread out for them as fast as I can.

There are kibble trays in the sun room, the shelter shelf just outside the door, the kibble house, under the shrine and in the open isolation shelter. I also put some out on the cat house roof, in a tray on the well cap, the patio blocks outside the sun room, inside the catio and on the front step.

A number of adult cats, however, know that the warm cat soup is coming out next, so they hang around the sun room door, instead of going to the kibble bowls. Kittens are also milling around, so I try to scoop them into the bowl I used to carry the kibble and get them into the sun room.

Then my daughter starts handing me the kitten food bowls through the screenless window.

I try to put a couple of two sided bowls into the cat cage and get Poirot’s babies into there. Poirot usually joins, as well and, if I can snag them, one or two of the bigger kittens. The Grink, who is still very tiny, will jump into the cat cage and push away the kittens, if we don’t act fast! I set some bowls in one of the larger kibble trays on the floor before starting to take the rest, outside. This morning, I had to actually chase most of the adult cats out of the sun room and close in the kittens, so they could eat without being bowled over by bigger cats, while taking more bowls of cat soup outside. Several go into the water bowl shelter, one or two into the entry of the cat house, or wherever the kittens are. While going back and forth, I was able to snag all the bigger kittens – even Havarti, who did not want to get got! – and put them in the sun room, where they could eat their fill with only Magda to contend with. Magda is so small, my daughter mistook her for a bigger kitten, at first!

That done, I was finally able to do my morning rounds. While switching out memory cards on the gate came, I spotted Adam, making her way down the driveway towards the house. I have not been seeing her as often, and I think she may have had a later litter of kittens somewhere. She’s so fluffy, we can’t tell if she’s pregnant or nursing. I’m still 99% sure that one stillborn kitten we found in the cat house, about the time Brussel had her two in the sun room, was Adam’s.

Of course, while doing my rounds, I carefully checked for cold damage in the garden. This is where I think our cat protection and water conserving measures actually helped. The melons and winter squash all have their plastic collars around them, which would have protected them at least a bit. Even the tomatoes, which are much taller, would have had some protection. A lot of other things we have growing right now are more tolerant of colder temperatures. Eggplants and peppers are no, but they are in the wattle weave bed, and that little garden is more sheltered in general.

Everything seems undamaged, though it might take a day or two before we can be sure.

So that’s a relief, for now.

Once done my rounds, I opened the sun room to allow free access again. I couldn’t see most of the kittens – I think most of them were playing under the counter shelf – but I did spot this cutie.

Eyelet is big enough to discover how to climb up to the platform above the cat cage. That meant, he got to enjoy a cat bed, all to himself!

As for today, if all goes well, my younger daughter and I will be loading up the truck for a trip to the dump, then to pick up another birthday take out courtesy of my older daughter. We’re all so busted up right now, no one is up to doing any cooking!

Doing the first stock up shop in the city tomorrow is going to be… interesting.

The Re-Farmer

Birds, gardens, kittens and pain

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Things were definitely all over the place today!

I was out doing my morning rounds pretty early. That’s always disorienting. By the time I’m done and settling it, I feel like it should be 2 or 3 in the afternoon, only to find it isn’t even 9 in the morning yet!

Our permanent trellis may only have the vertical posts so far, but it’s already being appreciated by birds.

I zoomed in with my phone’s camera, before getting closer and startling it away, so the image quality is not very good. It’s still enough to see that this is a type of bird I don’t recognize at all. Pretty, whatever it was, and it enjoyed a nice little rest on top of one of the trellis posts.

I also got a tiny harvest in this morning. I picked what is probably the last of our garlic scapes.

You can see one is starting to split a bit; the consequence of not harvesting for a couple of days. The scape was starting to straighten out again, and getting ready to form bulbils. I didn’t notice it when I finally did a larger harvest of scapes, yesterday, thinking the straighter stem meant it was too early to pick, rather than getting almost too late to pick! That’s okay. It’ll still taste good!

As I was getting ready to head inside, I managed to get this adorable picture of Havarti.

He’s more feral than the other kittens but is starting to clue in that when I pick him up and carry him, it usually means I’m putting him next to a bowl of kitten food. We make a sort of cat soup for the littles, but some of the adult cats have discovered it and can get pretty aggressive about eating it before the littles have a chance!

Havarti’s two siblings are still missing. Every day we don’t see them, the more convinced I am that, wherever Caramel took them, they have not survived. She is always here, and I sometimes see her in one of the cat beds in the water bowl shelter, covered in kittens and napping. This is not the behaviour of a mama cat with babies in another location.

I managed to get a picture of Captain Hastings this evening.

Poirot has been diligent in keeping her babies close to the sun room, and we’ve often seen her picking up Inspector Japp and carrying him back to the house if he goes too far! Hastings and Miss Lemon tend to stay closer, though.

It looks like Hastings will be another blue eyed beauty!

I just got back from chasing a racoon and a skunk out of the sun room. I found Caramel in the water bowl house, snuggled with Havarti. She definitely is down to one kitten.

This time of year is normally when the more feral cats are starting to wean their kittens, bringing them to the house where there is reliable food, water and shelter.

That isn’t happening.

Just now, I saw Slick – aka: Octomom, as she had a litter of 8, two years ago. She was one of the pregnant ones that would come close to the house for food, but we couldn’t otherwise get close to. She is one of three ferals, for sure, that were definitely pregnant and suddenly were looking skinny again.

Slick is looking pregnant again.

Which means, she lost a litter.

As for the other two ferals, I haven’t seen any sign of kittens with them, either. At least neither of them are looking pregnant, though!

I don’t quite know what to make of it. I suppose I should be glad I’m not finding remains to bury, as happened so often last year, but it does make me wonder.

Oh, there is another possibility.

The nearest farm to ours that has someone living there full time is our vandal, and I know they care for a colony, too. I can see on our trail cams that some of our cats head in that direction, too.

Perhaps they had babies, but took them to our vandal’s place, instead?

It’s possible, I suppose. Not likely, but possible!

Anyhow.

When I first headed out this morning to get the food ready for the outside cats, I realized something.

There was a cat stuck in the old kitchen all night!

The old kitchen is our “buffer zone” between the house and the sun room. It’s sort of tacked on to the original log portion of the house. When heading out or in, we make sure to close the doors. That way, the inside cats don’t end up outside, and outside cats don’t end up inside, but if they do get through, they’ll only get as far as the old kitchen.

The problem is, the door from the main part of the house to the old kitchen is an antique door. I love it, but it doesn’t always close properly. Sometimes, I’ll be convinced it’s closed, but when I open the first door to the sun room, the air pressure change pushes open the door into the house.

Well, I guess something like that happened during yesterday’s evening feeding. My daughter was helping me and, as she started back into the house from the sun room, she discovered a whole bunch of inside cats in the old kitchen!

We thought we got them all out.

Unfortunately, the old kitchen has been used for storing things temporarily. One corner was full of cardboard set aside all winter, to be used in the garden. It is also where we put our garbage bags until we can go to the dump. Which we haven’t been able to do properly, since the box cover was blown off the truck. Without a cover, there are too many lighter bags that would end up blown into the ditches. Between that and things coming up to prevent us from getting to the dump, we have way too many bags of garbage in the old kitchen. With those, the cardboard, the furniture, chest freezer and old wood burning cook stove, there are a LOT of places a cat can hide.

This morning, while getting the kibble ready, I started hearing meowing, but couldn’t see anything. My daughter came to help with the cat feeding, and she couldn’t see anything either. Once the outside cats were fed, she and I started passing things out of the old kitchen, mostly through the door with the missing screen (which has been SO handy!), to clear space. A few garbage bags, stuff for the burn barrel we can’t burn because we’re under a fire ban still, and all the carboard I was setting aside for the garden.

The old kitchen feels down right huge, now!

Still no sign of a cat.

We did eventually track the meowing to coming from under a dresser. My daughter ended up removing its 2 drawers completely, only for the cat to run out and under the couch. We did figure out it was Tiny. No wonder we didn’t realize she was missing. She is one for hiding away on top of the closet in the entry, or other secret places, because some of the other cats bully her.

So I continued my morning rounds while my daughter made sure to unlock the other door, so I wouldn’t have to go through the sun room and potentially scare a cat into hiding again.

By the time I finished and was back inside, I found my younger daughter on her knees, trying to persuade a cat out from under the couch. Her sister had already left a bowl with the contents of a squeeze treat in it, but the bait wasn’t enough.

My daughter did find a way to get Tiny to come out voluntarily, though.

A tin of wet cat food, and David.

Tiny loves David. The two of them get along incredibly well.

My daughter put a bowl of wet cat food in the middle of the floor, then brought David in, leaving the door from the house into the old kitchen open, standing guard to make sure none of the other cats went in.

Tiny saw David and immediately came out.

She saw the food bowl he was at and ran over to eat.

She saw the open door and ran into the house!

I strongly suspect Tiny is not going to sneak into the old kitchen again. At least not for a very long time!

Very glad my daughter was able to take care of that!

Meanwhile, my husband had his appointment at the new pain clinic today. I was finished my morning rounds so early, I was actually able to try and lie down and close my eyes for a couple of hours, before trying to drive.

My husband also tried to go back to sleep. He had a horrible night last night. Ozempic side effects. He’s been on it for years and they keep increasing the dose. I don’t know why he’s still on it. It is not working. Oh, and the weight loss side effect everyone is being prescribed it for these days? He has lost zero weight, but he HAS lost muscle mass. Which is the “weight loss” of Ozempic, though in his case, the number of the scale hasn’t changed in years. One of the other side effects, however, has sometimes been a problem. That particular side effect had my husband taking a shower and doing laundry at 2am.

Nasty stuff. I can’t understand why anyone would take it, if they weren’t diabetic – and even then, I don’t think it’s worth it!

Neither of us managed to get much sleep before it was time to start heading out. I had deliberately made a point of resting my injured left arm as much as I could yesterday, so that I would be okay for driving.

I forgot something.

The broken handle inside the driver’s side door. The one that requires opening the window and twisting my left arm around to open the door from the outside.

*sigh*

After moving the truck closer to the house for my husband, I had to give it a go, and it was way more painful than it should have been. I was still okay to get his walker out of the entry and down the concrete steps so my husband could use it to walk the rest of the way to the house. He used a cane to go through the old kitchen and sun room, to avoid the steps he’d have to taken using the main entry.

In working with his walker, however, we discovered a problem.

It’s been a long time since my husband has had to go anywhere, so his walker has been in the entry for a while.

The cats climb it, of course.

Well, one or more of them decided to pee on the cushioned seat, even though the walker was folded up. While getting it in an out of the truck, folding and unfolding it, we realized it was even still wet.

Once at the hospital, we were directed to the new pain clinic, which happens to be sharing the same area as the outpatient clinic my daughter will be going to for her surgery. We went through the registration process and my husband settled down to wait. Typically, to take pressure off his back, he will sit in a chair and lean forward onto his walker, stretching his back out.

The smell of cat pee was so bad, he took his cane out of the holder and asked me to put the walker back in the truck.

!!!

When I got back, he was already taken to see the first pain clinic specialist. This guy turned out to be a physiotherapist. My husband had a questionnaire to fill out, along with a list of his medications, and send in some time ago. They were going over that first. We went over the many things attempted before we moved, and how things went at the city pain clinic in this province he managed to get to (that was a waste of 2 years on a waiting list!) in 2020.

After going over all that, he left to consult with the doctor, who then came to get us for the second part of the appointment.

The doctor was looking at the husband’s CT scans from November, and we appreciated that he was honest with us.

There really isn’t anything they can do for him.

Which is pretty much what my husband expected to hear.

Everything that could be tried, has been tried. He’s on the medications. He’s had the various treatments. In the end there were just two things they could offer. One was information about scheduled workshops they have available online, though in person is also a possibility, for those who are able. They cover a variety of things to help cope with and live with chronic pain. My husband has been living with is for so long, he’s probably tried or has been doing them already. Still, there might be something he hasn’t tried, yet.

The other is physiotherapy.

My husband did the physio route pretty much from the start. It kept him going for a long time, and he even started to get better. He started out seeing a physiotherapist three times a week. She got him down to once a week. He was still able to work at this time, too.

The insurance covers physio 100%, but with an upper limit, so once that limit was reached, my husband had to stop physio until the fiscal year started again. Without the equipment used on him, his condition deteriorated during that break, but then he started up again and things started to improve.

Then the physiotherapist was lured away by a rugby team. The therapist that replaced her was… not as good.

There was much more going on that affected his condition as well that I won’t get into here, but it wasn’t much longer before my husband couldn’t work anymore and went onto disability. Then we ended up here, on the farm I grew up on, in a province where some of the specialists that had been helping my husband before don’t even exist.

Anyhow. That’s what we both thought of, when physiotherapy was brought up. There’s no way my husband can handle driving all that way, multiple times a week. Even when he got a prescription for physio with the first doctor he had after our move, and he could have gone to a closer therapist, it just didn’t happen. With only, at best, 10 sessions covered by insurance, why even bother? Of course now, we couldn’t afford the gas, either.

Well, it turns out they can try something different.

Physio, done at the pain clinic, is covered by our medicare system, for starters. It would also be just once a month, with my husband being given a regimen he can do at home until the next session, when things can be adjusted as needed.

Once a month with a 45-50 minute drive one way, my husband can do.

We are now booked with the first guy we saw today, next week!

Beyond that, however, there really isn’t anything that can be done about my husband’s condition. His doctor is going to get a report, and she can take it from there again.

That done, my husband and I headed out. As difficult as it was for him with just a can and not his walker, it was lunch time, and he wanted McDonalds. 😄 It’s probably been more than a year since he’s been to one. So we went to the nearby Walmart and had lunch, then I left him to enjoy the fries he had been craving to do a bit of shopping. My first city shopping trip is in just a couple of days, but we were going to run out of cat food before then.

During the drive home, we actually drove through some rain! Not a lot. We still need much more! Thankfully, the kibble I got that was in the box of the truck came in plastic bags, not paper, so the rain wasn’t an issue.

We kept the girls updated the whole time, so when we got home, my daughter had the gate open for us, and was able to help me bring things inside. As careful as I was, my arm was really throbbing by then.

Oh, I discovered two things while taking my husband’s walker to the truck.

One, I really, really like using a walker.

Two, my right arm hasn’t completely escaped damage. While leaning on the walker’s hand bars, my left arm was actually quite a bit better than when my daughter brought it out to help me get back to the house after my fall. My right arm, however, seems to still have some damage to a triceps. Nothing I notice unless I am pushing down on something, though.

Once everything was inside and taken care of, my daughter took care of my husband’s walker. She took it outside and scrubbed the whole thing down, top to bottom, hosed it down, then took the carpet and furniture shampooer to it. That thing looks brand new, now!

It’s also now stored in the old kitchen, where the cats can’t get at it!

Unless they sneak in and hide overnight, like Tiny did!

With all this, my husband is completely worn out and drained, and in so much pain. Hopefully, he’ll be able to actual sleep tonight, and not end up feeling sick again.

As for me, I’m happy to say the arm is doing better. I was able to get a bit done outside this evening. I went over the pink rose bush again, looking for any scale insects I missed. There were a few! I treated it with another soapy water spray, too. It’s only been a day, but I think the rose bush is already looking less droopy than it was, yesterday! We only have the one pink rose bush, so I would hate to lose it.

While checking on the rest of the garden, I noticed insects on the winter squash again – possibly thrips. They got the soapy water treatment, too. The winter squash are trying to bloom like crazy, but the plants are not looking very healthy at all. The transplants were very strong and healthy, so this is disappointing.

So, that has been our day today! It’s been a wonderfully cool and, at times, rainy day today. The only downside is, our overnight low is currently expected to drop to 6C/43F tonight – which is actually an improvement! This morning, they were saying we might drop to 4C/39F. With temperatures that low, I’d be looking to cover some of the garden beds to prevent cold damage! Meanwhile, the 10 day forecast has us looking at temperatures approaching 30C/68F, soon.

Good grief. It’s hard to believe we’re almost at July already.

Oh! I forgot one bit of good news!

We got a call from the door guy at the hardware store I went to last week. We now have an appointment for three days from now. He’s going to check out the damage, take the measurements he needs, and we’ll start talking what options we have, and how much it’ll cost.

I know it’s going to be painfully expensive… well… everything is painfully expensive right now. However, once that door and frame is fixed, it’s going to be really nice to not have frost showing up on the bottom of the door every winter!

So I’m both dreading and anticipating getting that door fix.

What to do with the cats while the work is being done is a problem we’ll have to figure out when the time comes!

😄😄

The Re-Farmer

Finally! Rain! or not…

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Plus an adorable photo shoot.

My daughter was able to get the most adorable Eyelet pictures when she joined me for the evening walkabout.

Eyelet really loves to be carried and cuddled. So does Sir Robin.

Now for the boring stuff.

I’m happy to say my left arm did rather well during the night. I was pro-active on the pain killers and getting my husband to rub the joints with the Voltaren cream, from my hand to my neck. Oddly, it was less painful on my arm to sleep on my left side, which seems rather backwards. I wasn’t going to complain, though.

All day, I was practically crawling out of my skin, wanting to do stuff. It was a gorgeously cool day out, and it would have been perfect for so many jobs that need to be done around the garden beds and yards. I kept having to stop myself. I had to get my older daughter to do most of the work with feeding the outside cats; basically, I passed the kitten food bowls out to her. I didn’t do my full rounds, but we did walk around the garden beds closer to the house.

I’m glad we did because, as we were in the old kitchen garden, she spotted something odd about the pink rose bush. The stems, in between all those thorns, were covered with little bumps. They were the same colour as the stems, so I didn’t really see them, but she realized they were bugs.

There were so many of them, the rose bush was starting to droop, and the roses that have started to open were showing browned edges on their petals.

We weren’t too sure what to do about it but, just to start, we got the spray bottle of soapy water and sprayed it down.

It was still quite early when we headed back inside, so I tried to lie down again.

That didn’t work.

I finally realized I was getting light headed, so I got up and made myself something to eat. While I was doing that, I started getting some messages from my SIL. I knew my brother was coming out today, so she said she’d find out when he planned to be here.

He already was.

He went into ninja stealth mode and left without her even hearing him – then got here shortly after my daughter and I came in, so we never saw him drive in! He parks by their trailer, which is blocked from our view by trees.

As soon as I could, I headed out to say hello. He was still unloading from his car and hadn’t have breakfast himself, yet, so once everything was in, we chatted in their trailer for a while, as he ate. It gave him a chance to show me the new security camera he picked up for the gate, along with a wi-fi booster.

Over the next while, he plans to do here what he used to have at their house that they sold; add security cameras all over the place. The main thing, though, is the main gate and driveway, since that’s been our vandal’s primary trigger for rage and vandalism. Now that they have so much of their equipment here, our vandal can see bits and pieces of it from the road, and it’s driving him bonkers that he can’t come onto the property to see what’s going on and help himself to things. So I’m quite content with my brother wanting to set up more security cameras!

My brother had lots to do, though, so as soon as he was done eating, I left him to it.

I did head back out and harvested some things from the garden and put them together in an insulated bag for my brother to take home. I finally harvested the garlic scapes, so there was plenty for them, as well. I was also able to pick a couple of turnips, lettuce and chives, with blossoms for them. My younger daughter had cleaned up and smoothed out the stuff she made in her blacksmithing workshop. She set aside her two best ones as a thankyou gift for my brother and SIL for the gifts of that workshop, and I was able to add that in, too.

My brother wasn’t at his trailer, though, so I left it on the step for later and headed back in.

Which is when I got the phone call.

From home care.

*sigh*

Yup. For the third day in a row, no med assist for my mother. Yesterday (Saturday), it was the two evening visits, which get done by the same person. The day before, it was the morning visit. Today, it was the evening visit again.

During our family chat about how things went with my mother, my brother said he was planning to visit my mother, so if it happened again, he could take care of the med assist. Which is great, but I really wasn’t expecting us to have to cover med assists, three days in a row! Yes, we’ve had that happen before, but what was because someone was sick. These visits were all different people.

Before calling my mother, I went to talk to my brother. He wasn’t sure if he would be finished before her first scheduled visit – he had a lot he needed to do before the predicted rain hit. So when I called her, I told her that it might be either me or my brother, but one of us was going to cover her med assist tonight.

My mother wasn’t impressed (none of us are). The weird thing is, she got a double visit on Saturday morning. She had mentioned it to me while I was getting her supper meds out. The last time she said this happened, when the second person came in, my mother said she’d already taken her morning pills – but her morning pills were still in the bubble pack. So I checked, and that was not the case this time, and promptly forgot about it with all the other stuff going on.

As we talked on the phone, my mother was able to tell me when they’d showed up and who they were, though she can’t quite remember the name of the second person.

Then she told me about the 17th, and things got confusing. I thought she was still talking about her double visit, but it was about something else entirely. She said that someone had given her her meds for the 18th instead of the 17th.

???

So she kept her morning meds from the 18th, and stashed them away for the next time no one shows up in the morning.

???????

What I was finally able to get from her is that, when the second person came in for her med assist on the 17th, she noticed a mistake the morning person had made in the form they have to fill out. She had marked the date as the 18th, when it was the 17th.

Which my mother has concluded means that she got the wrong day’s medications. Or something. She’s been furious at me or the home care workers for not giving her the medication from the days that that were missed for some reason, so it’s not really getting the medications from the “wrong” day that bothers her. Basically, she thinks her medications were messed up, even though it was just the date that was wrong.

So when she got her morning medications on the 18th, she didn’t take them, and the home care aid left without making sure she took them.

She then started going on about how we are worried about her messing up her meds (she did that quite a bit), meanwhile the home care workers were the ones messing up her meds…. Except they didn’t. Someone just wrote down the wrong date in their form.

A lot of this was new to me, so I couldn’t get into it too much with my mother at the time. I needed to get off the phone and write it down, while I still remembered the details!

So all that got passed on to my family.

None of us is happy, and my SIL is planning to write a letter to the provincial government, which runs the home care system, about it. I don’t expect that to make any difference. This sort of thing has been going on for as long as the system has been around.

That taken care of, I spent some time doing some research, then tended to a rose bush. From what I could find, the first recommendation for dealing with scale is to prune away the infected branches. Which would cut away too much of the bush. We can cut it back severely in the fall, and it’ll come back, but not this early in the spring.

We don’t have anything like Neem oil or other suggested sprays, but one site I looked at mentioned dish detergent.

Well, we already started that.

A few other options came up that were not of any use to us, but apparently, using an old tooth brush to take them off can work.

So that’s why I tried.

I then spent the next while searching the rose bush, wetting it down with the soapy water, and using a tooth brush to get rid of the scale. This rose bush is a mass of short thorns, so I used a scrap of rigid foam insulation to stabilize the sections I was working on. The thorns could get pressed into the foam and stay in place, while also protecting my fingers from being ripped to shreds!

Once I got them all (that I could tell), I sprayed it down with a hose, then gave it another dousing with the soapy water.

I’m hoping this actually works.

The other thing we need to do is get that ornamental crab apple tree cut back. Sunlight is another thing to help prevent scale!

While all this was going on, I could hear the sounds of power tools being used. My brother had installed a post near the stand I have our trail cam on. He told me he was going to put in a post, and I was thinking “fence post”. Instead, he dug out a 4×4 post from some of their lumber that they brought over before the house sale, and set that in.

The camera is something like 10 feet off the ground.

He even added a few extras, some decorative, some practical – like a little roof over the camera to keep snow from building up on it. The camera itself is solar powered, and the solar panel could be mounted separately from the camera, unlike my solar powered trail cam, which can just pivot slightly to get a different angle. The solar panel is now mounted at the top of that 10′ or so post.

Which means we don’t need to have our trail cam at the gate anymore!

I’m thinking we can move it to record the cat shelters. I want to see how many “visitors” we get (as I have the critter cam up and have used it to chase out a racoon).

But not now, when I can only use one arm!

My brother was rushing to get things done before the rain started, but the rain wasn’t starting. I kept getting weather warnings on my phone about how, the rain will stop in about half an hour, or the rain will start at… but at most, we got spit on a bit.

Which was driving me nuts, because the garden needs to be watered, but I didn’t do it because we were expecting rain. In fact, we were supposed to get rain from about 1pm to about 2 or 3am!

We didn’t.

Later on, when my daughter and I were walking around with Eyelet, it did start to finally rain…

…only for it to stop soon after we got back inside.

I’ve just been itching to get outside, and watering is really about as much as my arm can handle right now.

Currently, we’re now expecting to get a thunderstorm between 7 and 9 this evening. It’s past 6:30 as I write this, and I see now sign of a storm. All of that seems to be passing to the south of us.

I did manage to finally try out those biscuit mixes I picked up at the dollar store. I ended up using two of the four packets. With the first one, I added a lonely piece of Prosciutto, chopped fine, and a garlic scape, also chopped fine. It was so fast, while the first batch was in the oven, I got another one going – this time with cheese to go with the garlic scape – waiting to add the water at the last minute.

I got enough biscuits out of the packages that I was able to bring a bunch to my brother. He was using the big riding mower, trying to clear the tall grass closer to his equipment, and could neither see nor hear me, so I just tucked it into the trailer for him.

When we did finally connect, he told me which app I needed to download and what I needed to be able to log on.

By then, he really had to hurry to finish and get to my mother’s. There was lots more he wanted to do, but they have decided they will come back next weekend – both of them – and stay the weekend to catch up. My brother was telling me what he really wants to do is to stay here, full time, for 6 months so he can get things done.

I’m practically swooning at the though. There is SO much we simply can’t get done, but he can, he has the equipment for it, and if he doesn’t, he has the ability to get it. With the stuff we’ve got going right now, we’re barely treading water and going into debt to pay for necessary repairs. Stuff like this is why we have credit in the first place, but to have so many things expensive things needing to be done, all at once, is good at all.

Well, we’ll see how things go. While I was at my mother’s, yesterday, she started talking about how she’ll pay to get her car fixed up. Which is great, but we can no longer afford to keep two vehicles insured at the same time. Our insurance has actually gone down, thanks to my excellent driving record (which will not be affected by our insurance claim due to wind damage), but everything else just keeps going up and up and up. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind selling the car, so we can use the space it’s in, in the garage. My brother thinks he can fix it.

Ah, well.

My brother is probably still at her place as I write this. He always goes over her banking with her in detail, leaving the printouts for her, all of which she promptly forgets as she throws away the printouts. She’ll keep some political party donation request letter from 5 years ago, but she won’t keep last month’s bank statements. Which is really, really frustrating for my brother!

Meanwhile, I’ve tried to log into the new security camera, and it says it’s offline, so I think I should go check on it.

Tomorrow, my husband has an appointment at the new pain clinic that’s closer to us. I think my arm will be fine for driving, but I might have issues getting his walker in and out of the truck!

Hmm. According to my weather app, it’s raining right now.

It isn’t.

I should ask my daughters to water the garden while we’re gone. Tomorrow is supposed to be a lovely, cooler day, but no rain.

Well, what we get, we get. Not much we can do about it.

*sigh*

It sure was great to see my brother, though, and we can look forward to seeing them both, next weekend! Yay!

Meanwhile, time for some more painkillers, then one last walkabout outside… and maybe cuddle a few kittens in the process.

The Re-Farmer

Cats, kittens, garden stuff, truck stuff, a tiny harvest and more!

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Good grief. How is it not even 6:30pm as I start this? It feels like it should be much, much later!

It’s been a long day. 😄

Once again, I was awakened way too early by cat shenanigans. I finally gave up and got up at around 5:30 to top up their kibble and give the hoard access to my room before heading outside to feed the yard cats and do my morning rounds.

Checking on the garden as part of my rounds at this time of year is a bit like Christmas. There seems to be something new, every time! I just came back from doing the evening watering, and there was more new stuff to see, in just the space of about 9 hours!

One of the things we have blooming right now are the ornamental poppies.

Very few of them, this year, but they sure are show stoppers! Those are irises in the background, that have been growing there since before I was born.

I also got a tiny little harvest.

Just a few scapes and ripe wild/alpine/whatever-they-are strawberries.

When approaching the low raised bed with most of the tomatoes, interplanted with yellow bush beans, I startled away a bird that had been digging in the dirt. As if cats digging wasn’t bad enough, the birds are, too!

When checking on the damage, I spotted our first yellow bush bean sprouting! I was really happy with this, as these seeds are several years old, and I wasn’t sure any would germinate.

When I was back at the bed to water it this evening, I found almost all the other beans I’d planted in the bed had sprouted while I was gone! I only planted a single bean in each spot, no extras, and at the moment, it looks like just one hasn’t germinated yet.

I didn’t see more corn sprouting in the other bed in the morning, but this evening, I spotted the tips of perhaps a dozen, breaking through. Still no beans in the alternating rows sprouting there, yet.

This morning, I had the usual cats following me around, but I was also joined by an Eyelet!

Who really looks ticked off at getting his picture taken. 😄

The cats really love that grass mulch. It does protect the soil from them a bit, but they do dig it up to use the gardens beds as a litter box, if I’m not there to chase them off. Those collars around the transplants are probably the only things saving them from being flattened by cats rolling in the beds!

In the second image of the above slide show, you can see the cuddle puddle I discovered, just before coming inside.

Adorable, but a concern.

Caramel is in there, cuddling with the kittens. Only the orange tabby, Havarti, is hers. Her other two are still missing. While my first thought was that she took them to the property across the road, I am no longer sure. Every time I got outside, she’s here. Which means if she did take them across the road, they are there alone, not being nursed by her or any of the creche mothers, and not getting any of the cat soup I’ve been giving out specifically for the kittens. I now wonder if they are even still alive. I don’t get it!! Zipper is also still missing.

Later on, as I was preparing to leave for town, I just had to get this picture of Leyendecker.

Chonky boy! Gosh, he’s so big. I don’t just mean he’s a fat cat. He’s just a giant, overall.

He’s also one of the bullies.

I picked up that calming liquid to try, but the instructions aren’t particularly clear. It basically says to add it to their food, no mixing required, and that cats love eating it. Add how? Just… pour it on?

It also sort of assumes feeding one cat directly and individually.

Which is our problem.

How do we dose just the most stressed out and/or aggressive cats?

After talking about it with my daughter, we decided to just add it to their cat soup. It’ll be a very low dose, but basically all the cats would get at least some. Except Potato Beetle. He still won’t eat wet cat food. He’s a chill dude, though, and not one we’d be dosing, anyhow. I honestly can’t remember even seeing him try the cat soup. I use 6 cans of cat food for one batch of cat soup, so this evening, I decided to add one tsp per can (the recommended dose is 1.5 tsp for under 10 pounds, 2 tsp for 10 pounds or over, per day).

We’ll see how it works out.

Meanwhile…

I headed out early because I wanted to remove the remains of the truck box cover, first. We kept wanting to do it, but once the truck is in the garage, there really isn’t a lot of space to move around in. Then we’d forget again.

So today, I got the truck out of the garage, grabbed a tool kit and got to work. It ended up taking way less time than I thought it would. There were just two of one type of clamp on one side, then one each of a different type on both sides. I was fully expecting the nuts to be seized or something, but nope. They came off easily, as did the remaining piece of the box cover.

Once it was done, I just went ahead into town right away, anyhow. I did remember to stop at the post office along the way; I kept forgetting to do it all last week.

Our mail box was completely stuffed.

With fliers.

With the threat of a strike hanging over us, no one is using the mail for anything but junk mail right now. Not even for packages. The threat of a strike alone must be costing Canada Post millions of dollars – and they have already been running in the red for years. People living in cities and larger communities have plenty of alternatives to choose from. People like us, however, are stuck with pretty much only Canada Post. There are a couple of delivery companies that will actually find us and deliver directly to our place (which is impressive, since our physical address doesn’t exist on any maps), or will deliver to the store the post office is in, but they are rarely an option when we place orders online. Right now, a lot of places won’t even take orders. It’s not just Amazon cancelling orders that can only be sent by Canada Post. I’ve noticed some tree nurseries and seed companies have notices on their websites, saying they’ve stopped taking orders completely until the threat of a strike are over. Some say they have found alternative methods and are taking orders again, but for those that don’t have the option, they could well lose their businesses entirely because of Canada Post. Of course, these are almost always the small, independent and family run companies that are most affected, but public sector unions don’t give a rip. It’s insane how bad they’ve become.

So, junk mail is all we’re getting.

While heading into town, I kept a close eye on that oil pressure gauge. At first, it seemed to be back to normal; that half liter of oil we’d put in last night seemed to have made a difference.

And then it didn’t. The pressure kept slowly dropping until it was just barely in the range it’s supposed to be in.

When I got to the garage, the owner was there, so I had a chance to talk to him about the booked oil change, and what was going on. I was honest about the fact that I really couldn’t tell if it was low on oil or not, because I simply can’t see the line, but it did seem to me that it was low. They had done so much work on it when we had the issues before, it really didn’t make any sense for anything to be leaking now, so he was definitely going to check on it for me.

I then asked if they could check the tires, too. We have the one front tire with the slow leak in the valve step that needs to be replaced first, but there are three altogether that need to be done, because the sensor batteries are dead. As for the one that was already done, I told him that it always seems to look low to me. I’d check the pressure and it would be fine, but it still looked low. So he said he would get that checked, too.

I reminded him about the broken handle inside the driver’s side door, and it can only be opened from the outside. We talked a bit about the possibility of getting a new one from a scrap yard or something. He does make use of those for parts and says they usually don’t sell just a handle like that, but the entire door. So it is unlikely to actually save us anything. He did say he would keep it in mind, though.

Not that we’ll be able to get it done, anytime soon.

That done, I turned over the keys and started walking. I was 2 hours early for my appointment, so I had plenty of time to run any errands and have lunch.

I had lunch first, since I hadn’t had breakfast yet. I walked across town towards the marina and decided to stop at a fish and chips place. I don’t normally like fish anything, but they have the best fish and chips anywhere, and it’s been a very long time since I’ve been there!

I forgot how massive their portions are. A really great deal for the dollar – a rare thing, these days!

I think next time, I should see if I can get just the fish and skip the fries completely. 😄

This place happens to be next to a Thai store that we rarely get a chance to visit, so after lunch, I went to check it out. My younger daughter, who’s birthday is this month, has a couple of pairs of very unique, very comfortable, pants from this place that she loves. I was thinking of possibly finding her more – after going through some of the other Thai stuff they had. There were some really nice things, but not anything I thought would be good as birthday gifts.

While trying to find a rack with the type of pants my daughter had found, I was approached by the lone saleswoman holding out a dress for me to possibly try.

I was rather amused by the small size of it, but told her I was looking for something for my daughter.

She came back with something even smaller, so I told her my daughter was an adult. She didn’t speak much English, but we managed to communicate.

In the end, she helped me find a sundress that’s actually pants, that looked like it would actually fit my well endowed daughter. So that turned out all right!

After that, I started making my way back towards the garage, stopping at a couple other places along the way. There wasn’t much that I needed, so I wasn’t stuck carrying much during the walk back.

By the time I reached the garage, it was shortly past my actual appointment time. I half expected the truck to be in a bay still, but I found it parked in a different spot outside, so I knew it was done.

The owner was in the office when I got there, but he wasn’t the one who worked on the truck, so he went and got the guy who did. Which turned out to be the same guy who had worked on it last time.

I am so glad I asked them to check the tires.

One of the things this guy had found before was that our tires were starting to wear on the insides, showing that we needed a wheel alignment. That was done along with most of the other stuff at the same time.

In the months since the alignment was done, the worn spots had gotten worse, and were now completely bald on the inside. Something I wouldn’t have been able to see. It was, however, very likely contributing to why both front tires would sometimes be low, even though one of them had had its leaking valve replaced already.

We talked about it for a while, and could confirm it was just additional wear and tear; I’d already had the wheel bearing replaced on the driver’s side, then they did the alignment. They would have spotted any other possible contributing problems at the time.

While, technically, I could still drive on them, this is not something I was going to mess around on, so I asked how much it would cost to replace them.

It’s going to cost over $600, after taxes, for new tires, installation, balancing and labour.

*sigh*

I am thankful that we now have credit cards that we can do stuff like this, but … yikes!

I asked how long it would take for the tires to come in, since they have to order them first, and was told if they ordered them today, they’d be in tomorrow. The day after tomorrow, I’m taking the truck in to the autobody place for them to go over and determine what parts they need for our insurance claim repairs, so I booked the new tires to be installed after that.

Then we talked about the oil change.

It turned out that the oil level really was low. As in, almost half what it should have been. !!! He told me that it was wet all over underneath, so they couldn’t pin point exactly where it was coming from. The leak was so slow, there was no dripping under the truck for me to see. So what they’ve done for now is cleaned it all up so that, when I come back for an oil change again, they would be better able to see where it’s coming from.

If there’s still a leak.

They recommended an oil treatment concentrate to use before then. Every now and then, over the next while (which might be weeks, or months), I’m to check the oil when the engine is cold. Once the level reaches between the “fill” and “full” lines, I’m to add this stuff, instead of more oil. This should improve all the seals and stop any leaks. They both said it works really, really well, and should solve the problem.

That done, I paid the bill, which turned out to be lower than I expected. Especially with the additional product. When I commented on that, the mechanic I was talking to said it looked like the owner, who have left for the day, had given me a deal!

He is so awesome.

While all this was going on, we chatted about other things with the truck. I mentioned the issues we were having with the insurance company and how, because of the things they won’t cover, it’s still going to cost us a lot – and they won’t cover the tail light at all. We’d talked about the broken tail light earlier, when describing the damage to the truck box frame. I told him the insurance guy says it’s from an impact, not from the cover being blown off. Yet when I described what I saw in my mirror when it went flying, the mechanic immediately said that it would have been broken when the box frame was twisted. I agree, but there is impact damage under the tail light. I didn’t hit anything, and that damage wasn’t there when I bought the truck, so all I can think is that maybe someone hit the truck while it was parked in a parking lot, and I just didn’t notice until I checked for damage after the cover was blown off – and I have no way to prove that the tail light cover wasn’t broken before the box cover was blown off.

When he found out they wouldn’t cover the cost of the tail light, the mechanic suddenly got excited and asked which tail light it was. He quickly became disappointed when I told him it was the passenger side. It turned out he had a spare tail light for the same truck as mine, but it was for the driver’s side. He would have let me have it for free, if it had been the right size!

Have I mentioned how much I love our garage? The owner is awesome, and the guys he has working with him are also just fantastic.

So we’ll see how things go with the autobody shop, and their guy has a chance to price out parts.

Once done at the garage, I made a quick stop at the grocery store before heading home. By the time I was done there, I was heavily using the shopping cart as a walker. My hips were starting to really give out. I mentioned that when I messaged my family that I was on my way home, and was pleasantly surprised to find the gate open for me already. After I was done parking in the garage, I was going to leave the couple of bags I had in front of the garage while I went back to close the gate, only to find my daughter already on her way to do it for me!

She is so sweet!

She also noticed and commented on the pretty bag I was carrying, so I asked her if she wanted her birthday present now, or later? 😄😄

She decided, now.

So, once we were inside and everything was put away, I presented her with her gift. She put it on right away, and we were very happy to find it fit just fine – unlike the previous one I picked up that was “one size fits most” that didn’t fit either of us. My daughter has some matching fabric and will be adding gussets to the side seams, but until then, she now has a floofy, flowy, gorgeously patterned pants-dress to wear on those really hot days. It also looks quite beautiful on her, but my daughter always looks beautiful, so that’s no surprise. 😊

Not much later, after taking some pain killers, I headed back outside for my evening rounds, and the evening yard cat feeding. After Caramel apparently moved two of her smaller babies away (or…?), I’m now very concerned that Poirot might do the same, but so far, nope!

She seems quite content to keep her babies close to the house. They are getting so much more active and starting to go further around the house, and using the old kitchen garden as their very own playground – even when I’m watering the beds!

Oh, I’ll have to make a point of heading out after dark and getting some pictures. When I was last at the Walmart, I took advantage of a clearance sale and got a box of 8 solar lights on stakes. Most of them are now in the wattle weave bed – literally in the weave – with a couple in the rectangular bed near the house. They look really nice and, if the price is right, I’d like to get more for other areas around the garden beds.

The cats aren’t the only ones that like the garden beds, or the mulch. Every time I water, there are frogs jumping out all over. The beds with the heavier mulches often have a dozen or more emerging and jumping away from the water!

This evening, however, I spotted a different frog. The usual ones tend to be coloured in browns and greys. Sometimes, I’ll see one that looks copper coloured. What I haven’t seen before it one that was green!

There are two images of this frog, above.

Usually, any green frogs we see are tree frogs, and I haven’t seen any of those this year, yet. The only other native frog that I know of that’s green is the leopard frog, which is now pretty rare to see. This one looks like our typical wood frog, except for the colour. What a beauty!

I am so happy to see so many frogs in the garden this year!

So that was how things went for most of the day.

I do, however, have some concerning updates about my mother.

After what happened yesterday, I updated my siblings in our group chat to let them know what went down.

I got a message from my sister late this afternoon. She had phoned our mother earlier in the day. Apparently, my mother got two med assist visits this morning for some reason.

???

She also said she would try and walk to the grocery store (it’s just a couple of blocks away) to do her own shopping, then have them deliver it. She also had stuff to get at the pharmacy, though, and that’s much further.

I responded by saying I’d gone over there on my one free day, and I’m booked up through to next week (not all of which is stuff away from home, but including time dependent stuff that must get done outside, while the weather is good). My sister said she told my mother that people would be far more willing to help her, if she treated them nicely!

(I’m hoping my sister or my brother can do the shopping for her, but my mother doesn’t like their shopping. I know her list so well, I can pick out exactly what she likes, even when I get things not on her list. They don’t know as well and pick the “wrong” things – which might only be a brand from their local store they shopped at for her, rather than the one next to her place.)

Not long after I got home, I got a call from the home care coordinator.

It was about the double visit this morning.

When the home care aid got to my mother’s, she insisted that someone had already been there and given her her medications. The aid went into the lock box to check. This morning’s medications were still there, and no one had signed the form. Yet my mother insisted, someone had already come and done her meds. The home care workers have the lock box code on their instructions file for my mother. She’s not the only one with a lock box, and there are quite a few different people doing her med assists, so it’s not like any of them are going to be remembering everyone’s lock box combinations, nor is it possible anyone NOT a home care aid would be going into there. Not even my sister has the code for it (my brother is the one who programmed it so, of course, he knows what it is).

I read to her the message I got from my sister, about my mother saying that two people had come to do her morning meds today.

There is no record of any home care aid going to my mother’s place before the one that made the report on my mother saying that someone did.

I told the coordinator that I’d been there yesterday morning, but left very soon after, because of my mother’s behaviour (she understood!), but I was there long enough for my mother to mention no one had shown up on Saturday morning. I hadn’t gone back into the lock box to check if the Saturday morning meds where still there; it never even occurred to me. The coordinator looked at the record for Saturday, and there was nothing about her morning med assist being missed.

She was going to instruct the supper time med assist person to check the bubble pack to see if Saturday morning’s pills were still there.

This morning’s home care aid, the coordinator and I all agreed that it was very unlike my mother to be mixed up about someone coming and giving her her pills, when no one had actually come. Now we have the possibility that she can’t remember someone coming on Saturday morning. This is very concerning! My mother was very prone to messing with her meds, forgetting what they were for, thinking they had been “changed”, etc. But she had never actually forgotten to take them, or thought she’d taken them when she hadn’t.

It’s going to be looked into, and I will be contacted about it later.

It does not seem like my mother would invent (whether she knows it or not) that someone came when they didn’t. Could someone else have come to her place that she mistook for a health care aid? If so, they couldn’t have given her her meds, since they’re locked away.

This is just so bizarre.

Another reminder that my mother really shouldn’t be living on her own. She wants so much to be in a nursing home (a very specific one), and it still seems like she somehow doesn’t “qualify” yet, according to our system.

Whatever they find in their investigation, maybe this will be the final hurdle that will get her into, at the very least, some sort of assisted or supportive living situation.

Assuming there are any spaces available.

*sigh*

There isn’t much we can do until then, which is the most frustrating part. It’s not like any of us can have her move in with us. Either we’ve got our own family health issues to deal with, or lack of accessibility in our homes, or both – it just couldn’t work. She would hate it, anyhow. She knows she needs to have a higher level of care, especially at night, than any of us can give, but she would also go bonkers without the social activities she has access to in her building, now.

Well, it is what it is. We can only deal wit the hand we’ve been dealt, no matter how messed up it is.

My mother certainly isn’t helping herself out, with her behaviour, though!

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: sprouts!!

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I just got back from giving the garden beds a watering for the evening. Tomorrow is not supposed to be as hot as today, but we haven’t gotten any of the rain that hit other parts of the province, some of which got serious thunderstorm warnings!

When I got to the trellis bed, I was rather blown away by how much bigger the noodle bean sprouts were, even compared to this morning.

They were not the only ones.

In the first image, you can see four of the five collars around pumpkin seeds – and they are all sprouting! Nothing in the fifth one, yet, but these were the very last seeds I planted, and they’re already up! I remember last year, being amazed by how fast these free pumpkin seeds grew, too.

I have also confirmed, and you can see in the next photo: we have sunflowers! Not a lot, but the Hopi Black Dye sunflowers are starting to sprout. I wasn’t sure if these seeds were still viable or not, so anything we get of those is bonus!

While watering the new asparagus and strawberry bed, I got another pleasant surprise. I am pretty sure I planted the bare roots and crowns too late; I had not expected it to take so long, or I would have stored them properly. And yet, I found a single Jersey Giant asparagus, sprouting along the stake I place to mark where the crowns were planted. It’s so adorable!

I spent a fair bit of time working on the snap pea bed, carefully using the hose to pull weeds without also pulling the peas and tiny carrots out. As I worked my way from one end to the other, I was startled to find a bean sprout. Several of them. I had completely forgotten that I’d planted the last few bean seeds in the gaps between pea plants in one row! Gosh, the red noodle beans germinated fast!

Meanwhile, the Royal Burgundy bush beans I’d plant much earlier, beside the spoon tomatoes, have finally shown signs of life. All of two beans have sprouted. Hopefully, this means more will show up.

I didn’t bother trying to get a photo, but I also saw more corn seedlings showing up in the corn and yellow bush bean bed. Still very few, while the leftover seeds that got planted with the Arikara squash have more sprouting, and the earlier ones are getting quite big!

The Black zucchini has been doing really well. I planted three seeds in three spots, and 8 out of 9 seeds are now sprouted! With so many sprouting, I will probably have several to thin by transplanting, later. Even where the White Scallop square are planted, one seedling has appeared. Last year, those ones took three tries and a much longer time before any germinated, so that makes me very happy.

So far so good! I have to keep reminding myself that I finished planting everything such a short time ago. It just feels so late in the season. Probably because we had that heat wave in May.

On a completely unrelated note…

We seem to be missing three kittens.

Caramel’s tabby, Li’l Rig, and her tortie, Wormy, are nowhere to be seen. Yesterday, I spotted Caramel “luring” Li’l Rig into the maple grove on the north side of the inner yard. I strongly suspect she has taken them across the road. I was really hoping that, after I brought Li’l Rig back to the sun room yesterday evening, she wouldn’t try again. Caramel has been hanging around the house, which seems very strange for her to do, if she took her babies onto the property across the road.

Their brother, Havarti, is the biggest of the litter, is still very much around. He is so active and independent, I doubt he’d follow his mother anywhere right now. The other two are much smaller and were both recovering from oogey eyes. I can’t find them to check if their eyes still need washing.

The third missing kitten is Zipper. He was the sickest and the last on the road to recovery. He did seem much improved but, to be honest, in looking for him, I was looking for a body. No sign of him, anywhere. I do hope he’s okay. I can’t imagine he would have followed Caramel across the road.

I’m probably going to go outside one more time and do a walkabout. Maybe I’ll find him then.

The Re-Farmer

Looks like it’s going to happen!

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I heard back today from the large animal rescue not for from us. I had approached them about Poirot and her babies. They are interested in taking them in, and will be contacting me later in the week!

Oh, how I hope this works out!

Inspector Japp will have to find new things to teeth on.

That’s one of the tie downs for the portable greenhouse. The paracord was added for visibility. We often see various cats playing with them. 😁

Now, if we could find a home for this beauty, too.

Eyelet’s eyes are actually bluer in the photo than in real life. They are so pale, they are almost white.

Most of the kittens around the house can be handled now. Zipper went from being very skittish to appreciating being held while we wash his eyes with warm water. Only Havarti is getting harder, rather than easier, to approach. Gotta find a way to lure him in!

It’s going to be a challenge to get Poirot, though. She is great about jumping into the cat cage in the morning, and waiting for me to bring her a squeeze treat, but aside from then, she runs away when we come close. At least we know she’ll go for the squeeze treat, though, so maybe we can use one of those to get her into a carrier with her babies. The rescue that will hopefully be taking them is aware of her socialization status. She and her babies will be used as a way to raise awareness for the problem of ferals and rural colonies like ours, and hopefully result in increased donations, adoptions and resources.

We shall see how it works out in the next while!

The Re-Farmer

Goodbye, sweet Kale

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When I didn’t see Kale this morning, I feared the worst. She was looking really sick, yesterday. So was Zipper, and and I was on the lookout for him, too, while doing the morning feeding. I did eventually spot him inside the cat house, in the kittens favourite cat bed for cuddling. His eyes were stuck shut and he wasn’t coming out to eat. He did actually look a bit better, though, which gave me some hope.

All day today, I was on the lookout for Kale, including looking through the cat house windows, every chance I got. I only saw other kittens. It wasn’t until I was doing the evening cat feeding and all the kittens were out and about that I finally spotted her.

She was on the bottom of the cat bed. I hadn’t seen her before because the other kittens were blocking my view. It was quite obvious she was no longer with us.

After the cat feeding was done, my daughter helped me wash some eyes. Zipper still looks a hot mess, but does seem to be improving. Li’l Rig is one that looks all right until we start washing his eyes and goo starts coming out. We washed Wormy’s eyes, too, though she is almost completely recovered, as have the other kittens that went through their sick phase. That includes Kale’s brother, Sir Robin.

The eye washing done, my daughter helped me lift the roof of the cat house so I could retrieve little Kale. I had a hard time figuring out where to bury her. We buried so many kittens last year, all the spots I could think of already had kittens buried in them. Then I remembered that we still have walnut seeds that need to be planted. We keep forgetting about them.

Sweet little Kale is now laid to rest and, hopefully, will have a tree growing in her memory.

I know we have too many yard cats, and it’s so hard to get them spayed and neutered – a socialized kitten would have been easy to get done! It’s still really sad when we lose any. It’s one thing for them to just disappear, as the adults do, pretty regularly. We never know what has happened to them. It’s entirely possible, if unlikely, that someone found them and took them and kept them. This is the second kitten we’ve lost this year, and the other one looked like a still birth, so even that was very different. It was so special to have a feral cat like Brussel trust us enough to have her kittens in the sun room, where we could keep watch over them and socialize them right from the start. There was even someone interested in adopting Kale, though I think that was another person that backed out, since I’ve heard nothing since.

*sigh*

Rest well, little one.

The Re-Farmer