I wasn’t sure if it was going to get done. When I headed out this morning to feed the outside cats, it was decidedly unpleasant.
I also counted 38 cats. I haven’t seen that one tabby that I didn’t recognize, but none of the ones I did see were unfamiliar. Which means the crowd was congregating all at once!
I didn’t soak the kibble in the morning, because I knew it would freeze, so I saved that for the afternoon. I counted 32, that time. Including this little fluff ball.
Tomorrow evening, we are going to get Frank and Pinky closed up in the isolation shelter, so that they can have their fast (after a treat of wet cat food) and be easier to catch in the morning, for their spays. The other cats and kittens are not going to be happy with not being allowed in the isolation shelter for a month! We’ve got the first two that will be in there until it’s time to switch them out for about 10 days, and then we’ll have the next two set up in there for their recovery period. Assuming we can catch two more females. If we ended up with males, they won’t need that much time for observation and recovery.
After the second feeding, I did my evening rounds before it got too dark – these are being done earlier and earlier! Today, I made a point of checking the asters. I’d left the flower bed untouched, so that the Cosmos could shelter the memorial asters from the frost, and hopefully give them time to go to seed.
I collected some to bring inside for planting next year. I left others to self seed. I’m so happy they had enough time to develop seeds before the deep freeze hit!
It was nice enough out that I grabbed a rake and collected leaves to do some mulching, then did a bit of winterizing.
The first picture in the slide show above is where the tiny strawberries were transplanted. I have no idea if they will survive in their new location, but it is worth a try. In the next picture, you can see that the strawberries transplanted into the retaining wall also got mulched with leaves. Next was the saffron. I don’t know if I am being too early with this, or too late, since they are showing new growth. The one flower bud that is still there looks like it froze before it could open, so I left it. I had considered leaving those until later, as we are supposed to warm up a little bit over the next week, but then I saw cats digging around them to leave “presents”, so the mulch is to keep them away, too.
I didn’t mulch the little herb bed, as we are still able to harvest from them, but I did get a pile of leaves ready for when it’s time.
Now that our septic tank is empty, it’s time to get that area ready for winter, too. We’ll be setting the emergency bypass up, just in case, so I stretched out the flexible hose so that it can warm up in the sun and straighten out. I ended up sitting a short length of pipe into the far end to flatten it, because it kept sticking up into the air. The two lengths of PVC pipe we set over the pipe from the basement got shoved into the flexible hose at the other end to help straighten that out, too. In a couple of sections, I leaned boards and bricks and whatnot to get them to straighten out and flatten to the ground.
We did not get the straw bale I was hoping to get this weekend. It might still get delivered in the next while but, just in case, I set the insulated tarp over the septic tank and weighed it down.
The forecast now says we should reach highs of 5C/41F next weekend, and that should be pretty much it for the winter. Time enough for a few last things, like covering the herb bed and, if the straw comes in, using that in various places. I’ll take advantage of every warmish day we have right now!
Today was set aside for me to go to my mother’s to do her shopping and errands and household stuff. I’ll start off by saying, she was actually on really good behaviour today, comparatively speaking. Things did go well.
The morning started off with the feeding of yard cats and doing my morning rounds. I tried for a head count this morning, and got 30. Last time, it was 35, including a cat I didn’t recognize. I haven’t seen it, since.
I moved both heat lamps lower, but this one is a 150watt ceramic heat bulb. The other is 200watt. I thought it was 250w, forgetting that I wasn’t able to find the ceramic heat bulbs at 250w. The lamp is rated to 250w, and there’s an incandescent 250w heat bulb in a matching lamp in the isolation shelter.
Speaking of which, that’s going to be used for its original purpose soon!
This morning, I got a message from the rescue. We have two dates to spay two cats each. I was sent a screen cap of a texted confirmation with two dates, one of which was for 3 cats. I was told I had two slots and someone else had the third, so I thought that was my date. I didn’t think the earlier date was also for me until I got a call while I was at my mother’s from the vet clinic to confirm the earlier date! It is straightened out now, though I did tell the woman who called me that, while we have two females we know we can catch for the first one, with the second one, we might have to just catch what we can, and see what they turn out to be! This isn’t very uncommon when it comes to strays and colony cats. I’ve brought in cats without even knowing for sure what gender they were, and they were fine with it.
But that got worked out much later.
I was able to head out a bit early to my mother’s bringing along my stock pot and a good knife, along with the prepped vegetables and herds, for the chicken stock was would be making for her. When I got there, my mother was back in bed, after her morning med assist. I noticed she had a garbage bag ready for the bin by the door, so I quickly dropped the stuff off, grabbed the garbage and headed out. Which turned out to be excellent timing. I passed one of her neighbours in the hall; someone who’s window faces the street. We ended up chatting for a while, and he told me he seeds me out his window quite often. He was very sweet. He mentioned that my mother clearly needs more help, and that he’d told her, if she ever needs anything, to just knock on his door.
When I got back, I told my mother about this, but she had no memory of him saying this to her! When I told her which apartment he was in, she even struggled to remember who lived there. She would recognize him to see him, but not necessarily connect him to any particular apartment.
It’s good to know she has some good neighbours.
When I got back to my mother’s, she was up and at her table. She joked about her being wrapped in a robe and wearing a regular shirt, because it’s been so long since her laundry was done, she ran out of nightgowns!
She was rather amused when I started unpacking my supplies and pre-prepared ingredients to work on her chicken stock. I just had to prep the chicken legs and thighs. My mother insisted I wash the pieces really, really well, to wash off the “chemicals”, then started telling me how the stores all spray meat with chemicals to make meat last longer. I told her that’s not quite what they do, and she got instant angry with me – but I was still washing her chicken for her, so she turned off the angry. I’m not sure if she was thinking of the CO that’s used to keep beef red in packaging, or she she was thinking of the chlorine rinse they used to do, to kill off bacteria like salmonella, though that hasn’t been done in years. No doubt, it was something she saw on daytime TV or read in a paper, many, many years ago.
After the chicken was in the pot, I started adding the mirepoix ingredients, then showed her the rest. I don’t think she has ever used ginger before, except maybe in power form. I know she was aware of turmeric, as she had bought a whole bunch for herself because she’d read about how healthy it was, but didn’t know how to use it. She ended up giving it to us! Apple cider vinegar is something she was completely unaware of.
She was oddly surprised by how many garlic cloves I brought – an entire head, so about 6 or 7 cloves. That was probably the last thing I would have expected her to be surprised about. “Polish penicillin” was always a staple ingredient when I was growing up, and she often brings up about how we should plant lots and lots of garlic. I remember how my parents would sometimes eat it. They’d pour some salt onto the table, then dip their cloves of garlic into the salt as they ate it raw!
Once the chicken stock was at the point where I could turn it down to a simmer, I got the first two loads of my mother’s laundry going, then we went over her shopping list. She had added a few things to it since I started it for her a few couple of days ago – including wine! The pharmacy has a liquor section, but the wine she likes isn’t available anymore. In our province, the government controls liquor sales (which is one of the reasons our booze is so expensive; it’s mostly taxes). When Trump started talking tariffs, our premier ordered all US booze to be pulled from the shelves. This was already bought and paid for by the government, of course, and hardly anyone was demanding US booze get pulled. It was just an childish tantrum on the part of our premier. Canada has one Western province where alcohol sales are private. Some places did try to remove US booze from the shelves, but the customers complained so much, they put them back. People in our province have no such say in the matter. The irony of this childish display is that we’ve had tariffs on US products for decades.
Which means the wine my mother usually gets – a super sweet kosher wine my parents bought for as long as I can remember – is no longer available. She asked me to try and find something I thought would be close. 😄
The pharmacy was my first stop and I had to ask one of the staff for help. I don’t know wines. Nothing against them. There just aren’t a lot of alcoholic drinks that I enjoy. In the end, I had two staff members looking things up, trying to find something my mother might like to replace what she normally would have gotten. It came down to just one thing – without US products, their shelves were pretty empty – and there was only one bottle of it left. On sale, too, which was nice.
That done, I picked up a few other things on her list, then got her bubble packs. I got another nice surprise at the checkout. My mother has the loyalty card, which is on her file at the pharmacy. She had lost track of the card for a while, but because it’s on her file, any times she got her prescriptions, she was still collecting points. Only at the store counter does the card need to be shown to collect points.
My mother was able to get $40 off her stuff! Plus, she collected enough new points through her prescription refills that, next time, she’ll be able to get another $20 off. !!!
When I told her that later one, her response was, why didn’t they use that $20 right then?
*sigh*
That done, the next stop was the grocery store for a somewhat larger shop than usual for her. She even requested I picked up some of the deli chicken I would get for her for sandwiches. She didn’t want slices, though. She asked for a chunk about an inch thick. That certainly made it easier for the deli person!
By the time I was done the shopping and back at my mother’s, her Meals on Wheels had arrived and the empty tray was waiting on her walker, outside her door. Those get left in the common room for pick up, on the next delivery day. So I took care of that for her before heading in. I was quite surprised she was done so quickly, and commented on it. I did notice the container with vegetable soup was on the counter, though. Once a week, they do a “use whatcha got” soup using leftovers. My mother says it tastes like dishwater. !!! So that ended up getting tossed. Another moment where she suddenly got angry at me, this time because I couldn’t read her mind over just how she wanted it tossed. *sigh*
Once her things were put away, the rest of the time was spent tending the stock, her laundry and general clean up. I did stop for some tea and a bun as a lunch, before getting back at it. Once the stock was done, I took out the meat to set aside for a bit, then the large sticks of celery and carrots, because I knew my mother would want to include them in a soup or something. I found a little strainer that I used to get most of the big stuff out for the stock before salting it and letting it cook longer, while I deboned the chicken. That all fit into one of the freezer bags that I’d brought along with everything else. The vegetables went into a handy take out container my mother had.
The stock was a different issue. I should have brought jars! I could find only two suitable empty jars and started ladling the stock into them, through the strainer. My mother kept telling me to leave everything out to cool down, first. It took me a bit to understand that she didn’t like the containers being used, and especially when I put the lids loosely on the jars. She thought they would take longer to cool down than if they were just left out. The idea of covering them at least to keep dust out apparently never occurred to her!
I find myself wondering if she was expecting to leave my stock pot behind?
By this point, I was finishing off and starting to pack things up to leave, as soon as her last load of laundry was dry. I had mentioned to my mother earlier that I needed to swing by the garage before going home (she wouldn’t understand what getting a tire torqued means). When she started complaining that I was getting ready to leave, I told her, I still need to go to the garage on the way home.
Which is when she started getting mad at me again. Why was I leaving so soon? I told her, I’d been there for almost 5 hours. Didn’t she finish her Meals on Wheels first? Yes – before I came back with her groceries. She actually tried to claim I’d been there for barely 2 hours, instead of almost 5 hours!
One of the things she wanted me to do was cut her toenails, which I really didn’t want to do on top of everything else. It would have been good for her to soak her feet to soften them, first, too, which hadn’t happened. She basically started having a tantrum. It was as if I hadn’t done anything else for her at all, because her toenails hadn’t been done.
Then she started berating me, asking why I booked to go to the garage on a day I was going to be at her place. I told her, I didn’t; I brought the truck in yesterday. This is a safety thing to make sure my tire doesn’t go flying.
Some time ago, I’d brought over a good set of toenail clippers, because she only had fingernail clippers, and a micro-pedi grinder thing. She told me to take those home, and was angry about it for some reason. I told her, no. She has toenail fungus. If I take them home and use them, I would get her toenail fungus. Only she can use them, now. That made her mad, too.
In the end, I agreed to take a look at her feet. It turned out her nails were really broken up, and only a few had anything to be trimmed. I started using the clippers and she got angry again, demanding I use scissors, because the clippers didn’t work.
They worked find.
I think she may have tried to clip her own toenails and couldn’t manage it, because then she told me one toe had gotten so bad, she grabbed scissors and cut as much as she could, herself.
While I was doing her toes, I pointed out which one had the fungal infection. That lead her to complain about how she spent so much money on medication for it, yet never used it. So I asked her were it was and went looking. At first, the only box I found that was the size I remembered it came in turned out to be eye drops. My mother got angry again, saying she’s never bought eye drops before, so why was it there? She forgot that we did get eye drops for her, when she started getting treated for her macular degeneration.
I finally found the box, hidden way in the back of her cupboard, and applied the medication, but this is not something she can do herself, and it’s not on her care list with home care. I’m not sure if we can even add it to the list or not, partly because I don’t know that my mother would be willing to let them do it.
Ironically, for someone who complains about all the medications she’s taking, she once again brought up about how she thinks she should be using the inhaler – a prescription that was cancelled. I had to explain to her, getting this was a test to see if she had asthma. The alternative would have been to get on a waiting list to get tested, and it could take a year or more before she got to the top of the list. It was simply faster to have her try the prescription to see if it worked or not.
My mother doesn’t understand. She has trouble breathing at night, and she’s gone from complaining about “having” to take it, to now wanting to have it, even though it made no difference at all. Her mind has just latched onto it, now that the prescription has been cancelled. She’d been wanting to stop using it for a long time, too.
Anyhow.
I finally managed to head out, though my mother was still quite angry that I was leaving “so early”. I did manage to get to the garage in good time. I just had to wait until someone was available to do it. Then, since I was there, I popped into the grocery store across the street to pick up some bread, after my daughter told me she hadn’t had a chance to do any baking today.
By the time I left, it was starting to rain! We had reached our high of 10C/50F, too. Happily, I managed to get home before it was getting too dark. That half-light at the end of the day makes it so hard to spot deer getting ready to run across the road.
While things ended on a fairly negative note, I got a lot done at my mother’s. Her fridge is stocked up again, she has her meds, I got her chicken stock made and she has cooked chicken to last her a while.
It just took a really long time, and unfortunately, spending that much time with my mother, even on a good day, is pretty draining.
Good grief, I can’t wait until the days start getting longer again. I keep thinking it’s closer to midnight, but it’s barely past 5:30 as I start this!
This morning was the first morning where I could actually say it was cold. We even had some snow on the ground, though not enough to cover much. For the past while, I’ve been giving the yard cats their morning feeding after softening it with some really thin, warm “cat soup”, but it’s been freezing faster than they can eat it, so I did just dry kibble this morning. They very clearly were expecting different and weren’t too happy not to get it!
I was heading out soon after to do my mother’s morning med assist, after being called yesterday about a cancellation. She now has 20 minutes scheduled, so they have time to do a meal assist and, if she’s willing, to help her get washed up or dressed on top of her regular assist.
When I got there, she was still in bed and really struggled to get up. I encouraged her to stay in bed while I made her breakfast, but she made her way out and did her morning washing up routine. Once she was settled with her meds and food, I took care of her commode, etc.
Since she has a lunch assist now, I asked her what she wanted, in case there was something I could leave out or set up for the worker that came for her lunch assist. In the end, I just brought out a can of chicken noodle soup, because the rest of what she wanted had to stay in the fridge.
Overall, things went well, though my mother seemed quite down and a bit depressed about how she was feeling. She said she thought she was going to the hospital today, but did acknowledge that she tends to feel better after getting up and moving about, and is usually feeling pretty good by the end of the day. What did catch my attention and showed me how much worse she was feeling than usual is that she did NOT do her usual complaining, with the whole “I’m dying!” thing, then launching into what she wants us to do for her before she dies. She was quiet about it, and that’s way more of a red flag.
Yes, I did send an email to the home care office when I got home, as this is something they need to know. The care aides also pass on things like that, as they observe them.
The only time things started to go south was near time for me to leave. She remembered something she wanted to tell me, then started going on about how she didn’t want us using her pension to pay for things here at the farm.
…
Yes, she paid for the door, and I told her again (when I had the chance) that I appreciated it, but I had never asked her to. It was my brother that talked to her about it because, for the past while, she’s been talking about how she wants to help me and my family out more. She’s also been hinting about helping with the door before, too. So something has changed.
Before I could figure out, she started talking about how, she doesn’t live here any more, it’s not her responsibility, then started complaining about how much doing the roof cost. She is convinced we were cheated, because it shouldn’t have cost $14,000. I told her, that was just how much things cost at the time. If it had been done three years earlier, it would have cost $9000. I didn’t get a chance to remind her that I’d gotten estimates from three different companies then, and they were all pretty much the same cost. She had said no.
She started telling me, I should have gone to other companies to find a better price, and I told her, I went to 5 different companies (3 responded, but I didn’t even try to bring that up). Then she started complaining that they charged for clean up. We shouldn’t have paid for that. We should have done it ourselves. I said to her, do you know just how much there is to clean up from a roof?
She was talking about the door.
It seems that when my brother talked to her about it, he’d brought printouts, including the original estimate with details on what was included in the cost. Clean up was part of it. My mother said that we could have “saved some pennies” by doing it ourselves.
*facepalm*
I just did not want to go there. Instead, I started getting ready to leave, because I still had to go to our own pharmacy to pick up some refills. I double checked his message about how they’d be ready for pick up today, to see if there was a time I had to wait for, as it was still early in the day for that sort of thing. As we were talking, I read out “pick up injections”, and my mom was all “injections!” then going on about my poooor husband that he has to take injections, and oh, we have it so hard, we suffer so much…
…
I told her, he’s been on two injections for years. (She knows that; she reacts the same way, every time) Doing injections is not a big deal these days. She still tried to play the pity game, and how she feels so sorry for us. I told her, yeah, we have problems, but so does everyone, and a lot of people have things a lot worse than we do. We have a lot to be thankful for.
Even with this stuff, I’d say it was a good visit when it comes to my mother.
From there, it was off to our pharmacy, where I was also able to get my vitamins that I didn’t get at Costco. Different budget. Then it was just getting some gas and going home. I wrote off my planned trip to the dump today. I want to avoid extra driving as much as possible until we can get that leaking seal fixed, next week, and we’ve got a trip for a doctor’s appointment in between.
By the time I got home, it wasn’t too much longer before I was heading outside to take care of the outside cats and switch out the trail cam cards, before it got dark.
The cats were very happy to have the softened kibble again!
After I put the food out, I was topping up water bowls with warm water when I spotted one of the older grey tabbies eating at the feeding station under the shrine.
Then I realized that cat I thought it was, was by the house – and this one was much bigger!
Also, shier. I didn’t try to get any closer, as he was clearly ready to take off if I did, but he also watched me from behind the shrine’s pedestal base, rather than running away.
Just in case, I did a head count and got 35. Which means we have several more than my last highest count.
So it looks like we have a newcomer. This was the only one that seemed a stranger. I think the other “extras” were cats that didn’t usually show up at the same time as others at feeding time. With the colder temperatures, more are coming closer to the house instead of waiting until later.
Later on, I headed outside to check on some noises the girls were hearing through their windows (they can hear a lot more than I can!). I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but I did spot this crowd.
There are four cats in that cat bed! You can barely see the little tabby.
Frank is the one looking right at me, and the little white and grey draped over her back end is the one that has been sick for the last while. It has discovered the heat lamp and spends most of its time in the isolation shelter lately, and it looking much stronger.
They’re going to have to get used to it being closed up, soon.
Thanks to a generous donation, the rescue we’re now connected to is going to book us for for spays and/or neuters. The goal is for four cats, two at a time. With keeping the isolation closed up while females recover from surgery for two weeks, two adult cats is the limit. Though if we are able to get Frank and Pinky in there, I’d probably keep that little white and grey in with them, too.
I’ll have the dates sent to me later, but they will be booked some time after the 16th. I would hope we can get other females after that, but they’ll do neuters are well, if that’s what we can catch. I would love to get Adam, Slick, Sprout, Sprig or that white one with the grey tabby patches, but that would involve trapping.
I should maybe talk to them about the possibility of taking the friendliest outside cats for adoption, some of whom are already fixed. More than a few times, I’ve almost been able to touch one of the more feral cats, only to have a super socialized cat or three, push their way in, demanding attention and scaring off the more feral ones.
We’ll work it out.
So, that’s how things have been today. Tomorrow is Sunday, and it looks like it will actually be a day of rest for a change. We’re expected to have some snow in the wee hours of the night, but tomorrow’s high is supposed to be just below freezing. After that, we’re supposed to warm up again, with highs above freezing for almost two weeks. More time to get as much done outside as I can, while the weather is good.
I was hoping to go to Costco today. I didn’t make it, but not for the reason I was expecting.
I did check and the large payment I made against my MC was no longer “pending”. So I was mostly sure I could use the card for our Costco trip (Costco only takes MC, and using the Canadian Tire card helps build up Canadian Tire dollars, which paid for a whole bunch of stuff, recently). The freeze on the deposit of my mother’s check to cover the door was still there, though, so more than half the money is still inaccessible.
The thing is, I normally am able to use that card, even while the payment made against it is still “pending”. All I can think is that they froze the amount because it was over a certain threshold.
In the end, it didn’t matter.
I headed outside to do my morning rounds as usual. Fed the outside cats, checked on things, discovered the deer visited during the night…
Almost all the sunchoke leaves were completely stripped off the stalks, and even the tops of the stalks on the shorter ones were nibbled down! Sunchokes are related to sunflowers, which the deer like to eat, so I guess it was just a matter of time before they munched these down.
By the time I was finished my rounds, I decided I needed to stay home. My hip wasn’t hurting, but it was definitely unstable after a day of walking on concrete. If I were to go into the city and be doing all that walking on concrete while shopping, I know the probability of it wiping me out for days is very high. Better to give it one more day to rest.
Which was REALLY hard to do! We had a nicer day today and I was chafing at the bit to not be out there, working on various projects or cleaning up the last few garden beds. All of which would have stressed my hip out just as much, or more, than walking around to shop would have. At least while shopping, I could use my cart as a walker!
We did end up going out today, though. And by “we” I mean my younger daughter and I. This afternoon I checked Canada Post tracking and saw that her office chair that I got with my Air Miles was in and ready for pick up. Her current chair is badly broken, so we eagerly headed out.
I forgot.
Today is Wednesday.
The store the post office is in closes at noon every Wednesday for inventory.
Crud.
Since we were out anyhow, we instead headed to the town to the north of us. We stopped at the feed store to pick up a couple more 40 pound bags of kibble.
While there, we wandered around, first. I ended up getting a larger syringe that we could use to feed kittens with. It’s meant to be single use to give medication to larger animals, and they had all sorts of sizes available. Some were meant to have needles screwed onto their tips. The larger ones each came in their own container with a sealed cap for sterility, and the containers were only semi-transparent. We did manage to see enough to grab a type that wasn’t made to have a needle screwed on, but just an open tip like the small ones we have at home. The ones we have at home are made to dispense small amounts of medication. What I found would work much better for feeding sick little kittens. Plus, it cost less than $2.
My daughter, meanwhile, found the section for horse brushes. She ended up getting two small ones; one for her leather boots and one for her cowboy hat. You can get brushes specially marketed as boot brushes or hat brushes, and they are very expensive. These are pretty much the same, but since they’re marketed for horses, they were much cheaper!
She also made another find that she was so excited about. Leather gloves with wool lining. Most gloves have some sort of polyester lining; even the high end ones. She can’t wear those because her hands get all sweaty and they don’t absorb moisture well. She has the same simian hands that I have; a distinctive trait inherited from my father. Short fingers, broad, square palms. So the gloves she found that fit her palms were too long on the fingers, but that was a trade off she was willing to make! If she really felt up to it, she could undo the stitching and make the fingers shorter, herself.
Looking at them more closely as we drove home, after getting the kibble, she found that they are actually made by a company in the city! We’ll have to look them up. They are really high quality and cost her a pretty penny for something like gloves, but they will last her for many years. She wore them on the way home and was so thrilled. Her hands were roasty toasty, but not at all sweaty! While in the store, she suggested I try some on to get for myself, but I can’t do wool.
Once we got home and loaded things into the house, we went to the kibble and water bowl shelters and talked about some modifications I’m thinking to do. The water bowl shelter in particular has a lot of “wasted” space. I want to add a shelf about half way up. That would give the cats another place to perch, while also giving better coverage to the cat beds in the back of the shelter.
It would be good to do something similar in the kibble house, but that one is quite a bit longer. I built it so that the floor, which has rigid insulation under it, can be removed. We can’t add extra support in the middle without losing that ability, but without support, any shelf we make will sag in the middle. There is, however, a vertical support in the middle of the back wall, so we could attach angled supports to that. Something to think about. Mostly, I want to get the extra perch for the cats to be done in the water bowl shelter.
As we talked about that, we went into the garage, where we have scrap wood in a variety of shapes, sizes and types that we can use to do this. The back door of the garage is near the outhouse. Behind the outhouse is where we’ve been dumping the stove pellet litter to compost. With the number of cats we have and how many years we’ve been doing this, there is a large pile starting behind the outhouse, slowly extending further into the spruce grove. I’ve already scattered two boxes of wildflower seeds over part of it, but the oldest section still had the top of that tree that fell over the outhouse, that my brother managed to get off and save the outhouse at the same time, on top of it. I plan to use the pieces of that tree to make things, but even the smaller top of the tree is huge and heavy.
Well, with my daughter there to help, we got it off!
It was NOT easy. Not just because of the weight. This part of the tree had many branch nubs all around it. No matter what position we had the trunk, there were branch nubs digging into the ground – you can even see a gouged out trench in the soil from one of them, in the photo above.
The trunk had been straight across the pile, with a couple of old tires to keep it from rolling against the outhouse. We found we could rotate it almost 45 degrees, so that the heavy end was running more alongside the outhouse. I grabbed a rope we found in the garage some time ago, that has latch hooks at eat end (I think it was meant to attach to a horse’s halter) to put around the heavy end of the trunk. We also had a metal bar we could put through the hooks that was long enough for us to use as handles, rather than wrecking our hands trying to grasp the rope. With that, we could move the trunk about a foot or so, then I would go behind the outhouse to move the light end away from the outhouse a bit more, we’d move the entire trunk, I’d shift the top again, over and over. Sometimes, we would have to rotate the trunk to get whatever branch nub that was digging into the ground clear before we could move it more.
Once we got it clear of the pile and lying only on the ground, that was it. We couldn’t move it anymore. Somewhere along the bottom of the trunk, there’s a branch nub dug deep enough into the soil, anchoring it enough that, even with both of us, we just couldn’t move it any more. That was okay, though. I just needed it clear of the pile.
That done, my daughter headed back to the house to put things away, while I grabbed our last box of wildflower seeds and scattered them over the most composted part of the pile that the tree was on top of. Now that the trunk is where it is, it will be easier to get at it with a chain saw and work on it. I’m planning to use the parts and pieces to make some seating or maybe a table of some kind. We shall see.
Earlier, I had set up sheets of rigid insulation under the isolation shelter roof. They are the same pieces used last winter, and there are holes where the cats had scratched at them, so I ended up rearranging how to fit them in.
Last winter, I had a leftover piece of the insulation that was trimmed off and used it on the shelf inside. That ended up getting knocked off regularly, then broken. This year, I had some leftover insulating material that I’d used around the pipes on the emergency septic bypass, and it’s the right width for that shelf. So I put a length of that on there to try out for this year and, hopefully, tied it down well enough to stay there. That makes the shelf a slightly more comfortable place for the cats to hang out on, and warmer on the toe beans!
In the second picture of the slide show above, you can see where I tucked in a thermometer that was in the sun room. Hopefully, the cats won’t drag it out of there. While in the sun room, the thermometer read about 8C/46F. By the time I had set it up and paused to take a picture, it had already moved up to about 12C/54C. When I came back after we finished fighting with the tree, it was reading almost 20C/68F. The angle of the photos make the needle look off by a few degrees, though.
Meanwhile, there is a little sick kitten I’ve been monitoring. I can’t get near it, unfortunately. I would call is a semi-feral kitten, since it will not run away if I walk past it, but if I stop to try and pet it, it runs off.
It does seem to be getting better, though. For a sick kitty, it gets around quite a bit!
In the first picture, it was hanging out inside the shelf shelter, enjoying a sheltered, sun warmed cat bed. In the second picture, it’s hanging out on a step in front of the new door, and in the third, it was hanging out on top of the trap we’ve been leaving out for them to be used to, so that it will be easier to trap cats for spay or neuter, later on.
Well now.
I got a phone call while I was working on this post, from my mother. I guess it was a good thing I didn’t make it to the city, after all!
My mother got a letter from our regional health authority. She doesn’t understand what it is saying, but from what she could read to me, I think it is an appointment for the brain scan she’s supposed to get as part of her paneling for a nursing home. She was able go get the required chest Xrays and EKG right away. The lab and Xray is right across the waiting room from her doctor’s clinic, and those are all drop ins. The scan, however, has a waiting list and, if it is what I think it is, she finally got to the top of the list.
It’s been more than a year, or is it almost 2 years? since she got on that waiting list.
Since I can go through her town on my way to the city, anyhow, we worked it out. After picking up my daughter’s office chair when the post office opens tomorrow morning, I’ll drop that off at home so she can start assembling it, then head back out right away. I’ll stop at my mother’s and go over the letter with her and then continue to the city for the Costco shop. No extra trips needed.
After tomorrow, our daytime highs are expected to be below freezing for a while, and then warm up again. Those will give me a chance to work on more outdoor projects before the hard freeze hits. Everything depends on the weather.
As for today, it may not have been the day I originally planned on, but it all worked out for the better, because of it!
This morning, I did my rounds after feeding the yard cats (I counted 32 this morning), as usual. I even remembered to take pictures of the finished garden bed in the old kitchen garden.
Hopefully, the leaves will at least somewhat keep the cats from digging in it but, when I looked at the section of the wattle weave bed I cleaned up and covered, I noticed evidence that at least one cat had gone through it, leaving flattened patches behind.
And dug through to the soil in one spot. I did not see any “presents”, though, so it’s safe to click through to the next picture.😄
I headed out early to drop the truck off. Along with the keys, I gave them the printout from Canadian Tire that showed what they worked on. As I was heading out, I remembered the recommendation with the wires. It wasn’t in the printout, because I declined the work, so I headed back.
It’s so funny to bring something like that up with three mechanics in the room! I think one was actually a customer, but he clearly knew what he was talking about. When I mentioned that they recommended replacing the spark plug wires, all three of them started talking shop about why that might be. They agreed to check the wires, too.
I also asked them to replace my headlight, letting them know I’d bought a bulb and where it was. They were also going to look for the source of the oil leak while changing the oil. That there was oil on the spark plugs gave them an idea of where to look. My brother said it was likely a gasket, but I didn’t think to mention that at the time.
Then I headed out, first for a quick lunch, then to run errands. I stopped to take care of renewing my driver’s license in person, since the postal strike meant I hadn’t received the letter about it, yet. The vehicle insurances rolls over to monthly payments automatically, so she gave me a printout of what those would be. The cost to renew my driver’s license went up by $10, but my insurance went down by a couple of dollars per month.
Then I walked to the other end of town (about 5-6 blocks) to the dollar store to check out their craft section. I’ve made my decision on what I want to make for my annual hand made Christmas ornaments and wanted to look for Christmassy yarn, a sparkly contrasting yarn and maybe some little decorative embellishments.
There wasn’t anything.
Oh, they had their Christmas section up, but in the crafts area, there were no Christmassy materials. There was a time when, every year, these sections would get a whole bunch of items for Christmas; yarn in Christmas colours with metallic strands in them, baubles and beads, cordage, blank ornaments, etc. I haven’t seen anything like this in craft sections for years. Only Michaels, the only craft store franchise we have left in Canada (and I hear they might be closing down) had them and, being a specialty craft store, they have most of them year round, since it can take months to do some seasonal crafts.
In the end, all I got was a couple of skeins of yarn in green and red. I might have something in my stash that I can use as a contrasting edging, and I should be able to use some other things I can add. I think I still have some things in appropriate colours left I can use for hangers, too. It was pretty disappointing, though. That dollar store is pretty much the only place to get crafting materials of any kind, locally.
Once I was done there and making my way back towards the garage, I stopped at another store where I found some things my husband requested. Then I stopped at a bank machine to take out the cash I’ve budgeted for getting our septic tank emptied for the winter. The last stop on the way back to the garage was a hardware store, where I got copies cut of our new front door key. I still need to test them out.
By the time I got back to the garage, I was starting to have issues with my left hip. The truck was in one of their bays, so I dropped my bag off in the truck before going through to the office. The door was closed, though, as the manager was on the phone, so I stayed by the truck and chatted with the mechanic that was working on another car next to it.
It turned out the truck was done! He told me they did find the source of the oil leak, but that was something they would give me an estimate for before ordering in a part, so it was something to talk about once I was in the office.
First, we went over what they did do. That included replacing the headlight.
The bulb I had, though, was blown out! They couldn’t use it. He asked me where I got it from, and I told him – including that I had gotten it for “free” by using my Canadian Tire dollars. He was happy to hear that I didn’t pay for it. I didn’t take it back. He had gone ahead and used one of their own bulbs in inventory and replaced it, figuring I’d still want it done either way. He was right. Even with that, the final bill was under budget!
I asked about the wires that Cdn Tire had recommended I replace (which would have brought that bill to over $800, and that did not include the $150 or so they charged, just to look at it).
The wires were fine. Nothing wrong with them. They did not need replacing.
He made some guesses as to why they might have recommended replacing them, to which I added, “or it might just be Canadian Tire. We’ve been burned by them before.” I told him, if I had had any choice, I wouldn’t have gone there in the first place. He didn’t say anything overtly, but did agree with me.
After that bill was paid, we talked about the oil leak.
It was a gasket.
The oil cooler line seal, to be specific.
The part itself was only about $20, and they figured only half an hour in labour, so about $100 in total.
I booked the truck for next week to get that done.
When he told me it was a gasket, I mentioned that that was exactly what my brother was expecting.
It turns out the mechanic knows my brother! At least enough to ask a few polite questions about him. He clearly thought well of my brother. That was nice!
As for talking about trading in the truck, I brought that up when I dropped it off. This is a conversation to have with the owner, though, and the mechanics don’t do the car sales part of things. The mechanic/manager I was talking to, though, did understand why I would want to do that, even though the truck is perfect for our needs. In the end, it’s a conversation for another time.
The main thing is, the truck is running well now, and got the all clear. The only issue is the leak. I was told to check the oil every week until it was fixed, but I just booked the fix for next week, instead.
The only down side was when I tried to pay for the work using my Cdn Tire MC, which is what I will be using when we do our Costco trip, too.
It was declined.
It turns out that the payment I’d made against it is still “pending”. Which means I might not be doing the Costco trip tomorrow, after all. That’s where I put our budget (gotta build those Canadian Tire dollars back up).
I was still able to do a small grocery shopping trip after we were done, though. Just a few times to last us, in case the payment takes a while longer to be released.
By that time, my hip was really starting to hurt, not just feel unstable. Before heading home, I messaged to ask if someone could meet me at the garage to help me bring my shopping in, mentioning that my hip was giving out. I didn’t have enough to warrant parking by the house, but too much for me to carry in one trip.
When I got to our driveway, my daughter was waiting by the gate.
Surrounded by cats.
With more cats, all down the driveway!
She had probably 20 cats out, following her, with the more social ones around her feet, demanding attention! I had to actually drive carefully, because there were so many of them – and of course, one of them kept running ahead of my on the driveway, instead of going off to the side, like the others.
I got this picture after we’d brought everything to the house. I so want to snuggle this kitten! I’ve been able to sneak a pet, every once in a while at feeding time, but that’s it.
Well, I made it into town today to do a small grocery shopping trip.
I forgot about daylight savings. Most of our clocks automatically shift, but not the truck. I got there, thinking they were already open for a while, but I was 15 minutes early.
The truck now has the correct time! 😄
I was not the only one waiting.
As for the truck, it did run fine in general, though I was still feeling some shuddering that I couldn’t attribute to the wind. On the way home, I was headlong into the wind and actually had a hard time getting up to speed! I think it’ll run smoother after the oil change, though. Once I get the all clear from our mechanic, I’ll do the Costco stock up trip in the city.
For now, I did what is a more typical local shop. Getting a few things we needed, plus taking advantage of sales.
This is what $183.20 looks like.
I did end up getting a fair bit more than planned, but still… that’s not a lot for almost $200!
This is what I got.
I got a 4 pack of Monsters, mostly for my daughters. I did get one more from one of the store fridges for the drive home. We’ll pick up a case at Costco (which I get reimbursed for by my daughter). I also picked up some Coke Zero and Fresca. Those are for all 4 of us. I can’t stand Fresca, and my daughters don’t like Coke Zero. My husband likes both.
The Mafalda Corta is a pasta. I was actually looking for broad egg noodles, but the only ones I found were skinny ones from a specialty brand and cost over $13 for a bag! Nope. I got the pasta that was on sale. I want to make haluski, so I’ll try it with the Mafalda Corta pasta, instead. The radiatori pasta is something fun I like to get when it’s on sale.
The rice crackers were for my husband. I also got four packages of pudding mix because they were on an excellent sale.
I got two 18s of eggs instead of a flat of 30, because the cartons of 18 fit in my hard sided insulated bags.
There’s a couple of pounds of butter, because we ran out completely. I also got a 2L each of milk and oat milk.
Then there was the box of mandarins that were on sale, and a cabbage and onion for the haluski.
I wasn’t planning on getting meat, but took advantage of sales to get a pork roast, a couple of packages of breakfast sausages and hot dog wieners. I also picked up a garlic sausage, made by a local company, and dried salami sausage for my husband to snack on. The sushi was my breakf… er… lunch for the drive home.
While my daughter did do some bread baking, I picked up more bread products. A couple of packages of mini garlic Naan, a loaf of sourdough, a couple of loaves of marble rye, and some hot dog buns.
Between the sales and my points card, I saved $44.71, or 20%. I could have used my points to get $10 off, too, but I decided to save that for another time.
So, there we have it. A total of 36 items, almost all on sale.
It was enough to pull up to the house to unload. After everything was in the house and I headed out to park the truck in the garage, I spotted the adorableness.
The little tuxedo staring out the other side window is also feral. There is another tuxedo, even smaller, that is less feral and I’ve even been able to pick it up and snuggle it a bit. I have suspicions about that, though. I think it might be at least partially deaf, and possibly have vision issues. Maybe I’m just paranoid, after what happened with Button over time, but it seems the tiny tuxedo’s eyes are dilated more than they should be, all the time. If it’s at all like Button, that would mean it can see shadows and movement, but not much else.
Or, it could just be that it was very scared when I picked it up.
We still have an ongoing Canada Post strike right now, but they have moved from a full strike to rotating strikes, so mail is starting to get through. With that in mind, I placed an order with Amazon last night. One of the things I picked up was an outdoor cat shelter (not an affiliate link).
This is something I’ve looked at in the past and rejected, as there is no way they’d handle our winters. However, we now have the catio and it’s winterized. I am thinking of setting it up inside there, along with the box nests that are already in there. I will just have to find something to put under it, so it’s not directly on the ground, just in case water pools inside again in the spring. It is waterproof, insulated and self heating. Between that and being inside the winterized catio, it should provide better shelter – and a private hiding place – for the most feral cats. Who knows. Adam, Sprout and Sprout’s clone baby might actually start using it, instead of disappearing into the outer yard until feeding time.
Oh!! I just thought of a name for Sprout’s clone baby.
Sprig.
Both are still completely feral. Sprout’s fluffy orange and white is also feral, but is at least willing to come closer and I’ve even managed to sneak a pet or two as he runs by.
Speaking of the more feral cats, as I was driving into the yard, I spotted a cat running across by the driveway by the pump shack, disappearing into the tall grass. I didn’t recognize it.
If this works out, we might get a second one for the garage. Pinky does use the isolation shelter, but at night, I think she is once again retreating to the rafters in the garage, above the truck. If we had some sort of self heating shelter in there that would be better or her.
Best of all, of course, would be for her to get spayed and adopted out, but that might take a while longer. The rescue is still working with the six they took from us not long ago.
Meanwhile, we need to work on socializing the littles! At least they have the shelters. Right now, we’re supposedly 7C/45F, but with the wind chill, it feels like -5C/23F. We are under an ongoing wind warning, with some areas expecting gusts up to 90kph/56mph.
I’m glad I was able to make the small shop today, at least, even if it did mean fighting the wind the whole way home! We’re good for a while, even if the truck ends up needing work and the Costco trip gets delayed.
This morning, I was to cover for home care for my mother’s med assist, so I was up and about feeding the outside cats before it was light out.
They seem torn between famished for breakfast, and wanting to still be in their cozy spots!
Thankfully, it was light out by the time I started heading for my mother’s, as the first thing I saw when I got on the main road was a pair of deer on the road! The highway condition group I’m on has been reporting a lot of deer activity this year, with certain areas being particularly dangerous right now.
I got to my mother’s a bit early. She was still in bed, and I would have brought things to her, but she came out to join me. I made her a breakfast that she could have with her meds. I suspect it was a fuller breakfast, small as it was, than she would have been up to doing on her own. Hopefully, she will be willing to have the home care workers help her with that. The new assists aren’t part of her current schedule, but they would be informed by now, and her morning assist is 10 minutes to allow for extra help, even if it’s just to get the kettle going and doing some instant oatmeal.
When getting some milk out for her, I discovered she had issues with the carton. She had tried, and failed to open it from both sides and ended up making a hole with a knife! I was able to get the spout side open for her but, with the hole she made, had to be very careful pouring it into her cup. Last time, I’d got her a plastic jug of milk from another town. She had cleaned it out to use it as one of her water jugs for drinking and cooking, so I gave it an extra rinse and transferred her milk from the carton to the jug.
I wish her local grocery store still carried the smaller plastic jugs. They only have 4L in plastic, and my mom can’t handle jugs that size. My siblings and I will have to make a point of getting 2L milk in plastic jugs for her, when we know we can swing by to drop it off.
After that, I spent the next hour or so doing some of the things home care can do for her, like emptying her commode and rubbing the Voltaren on her back, and stuff they can’t, like changing her bedding and sweeping her entire apartment.
She told me that she’s been asking the ladies to do the Voltaren in the morning and before bed, and they have been quite willing to do it, but there’s one home care worker she has issues with. This is the same one that will come in, get her pills out, then leave without making sure my mother takes them. Last night, my mother has asked if she could rub the Voltaren on her back. Her response was to look at the sheet and say, that’s one listed on there. Which… of course it isn’t. This stuff doesn’t require a prescription. But they are supposed to be able to help with a number of things – her bed time visit has 15 minutes schedules for that. I don’t know if this worker refused to do it or not.
As we were chatting, my mother asked me if living here at the farm has been helpful for us, financially. I told her that yes, it was at first, but things are getting really expensive now. Especially when we have things like the door to replace. This is the first time I told her that we had to put it on credit. That’s when she started saying that my brother should be taking care of this stuff for me. I just laughed at that, because I know when she says that, she’s saying it’s because he’s male, and I shouldn’t be doing “man” stuff. However, she had also been teasing about helping pay for the door, so that would also have been her way to say he should have paid for it. Meanwhile, our deal is that we live here “rent free”, in exchange for maintaining the place and keeping it up as much as we can. I wasn’t going to go there, though.
Then she started saying that we should be communicating more. That confused me because she knows I’ve been talking to my brother about this (it’s his house, after all), and her. So I asked her, what did she mean? Oh, I should be talking to my brother about it and… don’t forget! He has access to her money.
…
???
Yeah, he has Power of Attorney, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to use her life’s savings!
I told her, she needs to talk to my brother about her money, not me. Then I added, I won’t ask her, like our vandal did. He was forever going to her for money. He even expected her to pay for a large building he wanted to build and was furious when she refused, and blamed her for having to take out a loan. She said, oh, that was a long time ago. He doesn’t ask for money. Not any more, I pointed out. I reminded him of how she’s given him a check for a substantial amount, only for him to come back asking for another one, saying his wife had accidentally burned the check with their garbage in the burn barrel. She gave him another, much smaller, amount (still a lot, though). When my brother found out, he checked her account and discovered the first check had already been cashed!
She remembered that. That was money she gave him to go towards the building he wanted to build.
*sigh*
That did give me a chance to tell her about our incident from a couple of days ago. When I told her how he’d opened up his shirt, took off the support strap and started waving his colostomy bag at me, she told me, he’s been showing that thing to everyone.
*shudder*
All in all, things went really well this visit. I was able to get quite a bit done for her, which was nice. I even remembered to ask her if she wanted me to make lunch for her before I left – and from her reaction, I could tell she had meant to ask me to do just that, but had forgotten! She told me what she wanted put together on a plate for her, then to set it in the microwave, so that all she needed to do was turn it on when she was ready to eat, after someone from church came over to give her communion.
After I was done there, I was going to swing by the grocery store to pick up a couple of things for home, but they were closed. So I made a side trip to the town closer to us and got a few things there before heading home.
By then, the winds had gotten even worse, so there was no way I was going to get anything done outside today. A forced day of rest!
The forecast now says we will be getting rain all day tomorrow (Monday), continuing on through half the next day. So that’s two more days of outside work lost. After that, it’ll be cooler, but at least the winds will have died down and the weather clear. The problem is, Wednesday is my first city stock up shopping trip. I’ll shoot to head out as early as I can and hopefully get back with enough daylight hours to get at least some work done outside. At this point, I think I’m going to start winter sowing, just to get things into the prepared beds while I still can! On the plus side, the long range forecast now suggests the first couple of weeks of November might still be warm enough to get more done out there.
When it was time to head out and feed the outside cats, I ended up spending quite a long time doing my evening rounds, checking for wind damage, picking up fallen branches, etc. I was finishing up when I spotted this cozy scene.
In the first picture, you can see Pinky in the cat bed on the bottom. That is the cat bed that had been in the catio, where she and her little would cuddle together and sleep.
In the upper level Midnight is in the cat bed there, and in the second picture, you can see he is cuddling with a little grey tabby kitten! Which is amazing, because he usually growls and swipes at the kittens!
I’m glad to see kittens in there. Most hang out together in the sun room, but some just won’t stay there other than to grab some food. The winterized catio is being well used, too. So far, it’s been holding up to the wind all right. I did put the red bench I made against one side wall, to reduce how much it was fluttering in the wind, so that helps, too.
Technically, it’s warm today, but with that wind, it’s very unpleasant out there, so I’m very happy to see the cats using the shelters. Some, like Adam, Sprout and Sprout’s calico seem to have secret spots out in the outer yard somewhere that they hang out in. Sprout’s fluffy orange and white seems to have moved into the portable greenhouse!
Oh, I have news about the ones that have gone to the foster. The adult and Pinky’s two have been spayed and neutered. The adult is completely deaf and has a really bad ear infection, but there were no ear mites in any of them! The vet thinks the adult may have been born deaf. I fully expected to learn the infection was from a really bad ear mite infestation, and that that is what caused the deafness.
So the adult is going to be rehabilitated and socialized, so she can be adopted out rather than coming back to us, since she won’t survive long as an outside cat. If she really were dumped, as we suspect, I’m amazed she survived long enough to find our place at all!
We do the best we can for the outside cats, so they can be cozy, safe, well fed and warm, but nothing beats getting adopted and living the good life indoors!
Gotta work on socializing more kittens, and getting those ladies fixed!
Today was supposed to be a much warmer day. Technically, it was, but we also had high winds, so it sure didn’t feel much warmer!
The winds showed exactly why I needed to get the catio finished. The bottoms or the front panels I had to leave unsecured because it got too dark and too cold to continue were flapping in the wind.
If you click through above, there’s a short video of the kitten being adorable.
Working on the bottom of the catio had its challenges, but the biggest one turned out to be Kohl. She absolutely HAD to be right in there, trying to lick my fingers and giving me little nips if I didn’t pet her often enough.
Once it was done, I figured it would be easier to make a video to share.
The only problem was that the door was loose. Previously, I was able to tie it in the mostly closed position, so it wouldn’t get blown around in the wind. There is a brick to keep it from closing all the way, but it sometimes gets knocked over and I’ve found the door closed a couple of times, just since it got moved to this location. Since it’s not latched, a cat inside could push their way out, though it might take them a while to figure it out, and it would be harder for the smaller kittens. No cats would be able to get in to the food, water and shelter, though.
What I ended up finding was a small Bungee cord with hooks small enough to fit onto the wire mesh. I’ve got it looped around the handle. It’s stretchy enough that larger cats can push their way through the gap, but strong enough to keep the door from being blown around – plus securing the door like this helps keep the brick in place, too.
All in all, I’m very happy with how it has turned out. There are a few finishing touches I’d like to do, but they aren’t essential.
After I finished with the catio, I had intended to work in the garden, but it was just too windy. Instead, I worked on putting things away for the winter. The canopy tent was really being blown around, so that is not down and tucked into the garage for the winter. Then it was puttering round, doing things like getting the insulation set up around the based of the house, putting the hoses at the back away, etc.
While I was working, I heard some load noises from somewhere in the outer yard, so when I had the chance, I went looking around to see what had been blown over.
This old log building has been slowly collapsing more and more for many years. It’s a shame it was allowed to happen. I remember playing in there when I was a kid, and it was in front of where the chain link fence is now.
With the wall down, I went closer to take a look at things. We’re definitely going to have to get that cleaned up as soon as possible. There are a lot of nails and sharp things sticking out.
There is also an oil drum that is now visible, though not in the angle of the shot above. Something sitting on top caught my attention.
Yup. They are fire bricks. I had to remove moss growing on one of them.
After taking the picture, I looked up the name on the bricks.
It turns out they are vintage fire bricks! Claybank Brick Plant in Saskatchewan is designated as a national historic site! It operated from 1914 to 1989, with a brief closure in 1916, partly due to WWI.
The bricks are now in the garage.
There is so much stuff in there, including what appears to be salvageable small lumber and possibly a stack of plywood? I can just see the edges of them, with no indication of size, other than there being some smaller ones in the stack.
After inspecting the wind damage on the old log building, I went around the yard to see what other wind damage there might be. No new fallen trees, thankfully, but I did find some larger fallen branches. My mother’s angel by the gate is still upright, though! I’ve no doubt that, were it not secured to the concrete base under it, it would have fallen over with today’s winds.
While I was still outside, I got a call on my cell phone.
It was home care.
*sigh*
They don’t have anyone to cover my mother’s morning med assists, tomorrow. This was a time slot that actually had someone scheduled, not one of the “unfilled” slots. I went in to call my mother and left a message, then headed back outside to finish a few last things. When I got back in, I thought I saw a new message on the machine and listened to it. It was my mother talking about not getting her meds regularly, and that’s why her health is failing. I called her back but she was confused when I mentioned I’d heard her message. She hadn’t called me today! (She hadn’t seen my message to her, either.) It turned out I had listened to an old message.
Ah, well. I needed to talk to her, anyhow. She’s still upset about having the male home care workers from India. This time, she saw something on the news about a “new” gang from India that the police found. Nothing about where, but now she assumes that if the home care workers are from India, they must be gang members.
*sigh*
Anyhow.
I encouraged my mother to ask the home care workers for help more often, and she didn’t get angry with me about it, so that’s an improvement. Since I’ll be there tomorrow morning, I’ll be taking care of a few other things as well. Her current schedule was done before we had the meeting with the home care coordinator, so it doesn’t reflect extra time for this, but I noticed that she’s got 15 minutes for the morning, 5 minutes at supper, and 10 minutes for the bed time meds. If they’re going to be available to do things like make her a small meal, they’ll need to increase at least the scheduled time at supper.
With that in mind, I’d better get to bed before midnight for a change. :-/
Tomorrow is supposed to be just as warm as today. I hope the winds won’t be back. If I’m going to get any winter sowing done, I need to rake up lots of leaves to mulch the beds right away. I wasn’t even going to try, today. It would just get blown away!
Well, crud. I just checked the forecast. Apparently, it’s going to be even windier, tomorrow!
At this rate, there might not be any leaves left in the yard to rake up for mulch!
Well, I’m actually glad the installers couldn’t make it in to do the front door today.
The rains stopped some time before sunrise this morning. It was still super wet when I went out to feed the cats at about 7:30am There was no rain in the forecast, but while driving today, we got hit by rain several times! Hopefully, things will be better tomorrow.
Before I get into more stuff, though, I just have to share this bit of fluffy adorableness.
There was one litter with four grey tabbies. Two of them are getting fluffier as they get older, and they look almost identical! This is one of them. The other two are short haired and one of them sometimes allows pets, but they are also almost identical. Which means that when I reach out to pet, I’m never sure if it’s the friendlier one that will allow it, or the skittish sibling.
Must. Socialize. The babies.
So they can get fixed and adopted out!
Meanwhile…
My daughter and I headed out to my appointment ridiculously early. I had a budget for lunch, and we could take our time with it.
Not long after we’d passed through my mother’s town, my cell phone started ringing. My daughter answered, and it was an automated call from Life Line. It was to notify that my mother’s pendant seems to no longer be connected, and recommended doing a test.
When the call was done, I pulled over to phone my mother. It went straight to machine, so I left her a detailed message about it, telling her to test her pendant and see if anyone answered. If they did, to just tell them it was a test. If there was no answer, I would be there tomorrow to deal with it, and would call her after I got back from my eye appointment.
Doing this didn’t take very long, but enough time that I was glad we left as early as we did!
Once in town, my daughter and I had lunch, then went to the eye clinic. We got there about half an hour early but, after about 15 minutes, I was take in for stuff they do before the actual appointment with the doctor. This time, it was just the glaucoma test. Taking photos of inside my eyes would be done after I got the drops and the field of vision test.
For the field of vision test, I just had to wait for another patient to be done and the usual sanitization, and was called in quickly. She did the eye drops first, which meant tilting my head back.
This is the first time I got the dilation drops in this room. Usually, it’s been done in the examination room. When I tipped my head back to get the drops, I found myself looking directly into a couple of bright lights! Very hard to keep my eye open for the drops! After the first one, I let her know and she shut the lights off to do the next eye. With the door open, she had enough light but, until I told her, she didn’t realize that doing the drops there meant getting blinded by the ceiling lights!
The field of vision test could be done right away, without having to wait for the drops, since it is all close up. By the time that was done, enough time had passed that I could go straight to getting the photos of the inside of my eyes.
There’s nothing like being told not to blink to suddenly want to blink like crazy! 😄
Those done, it was back to the waiting room until the doctor could see me.
I didn’t have to wait long.
The first thing she did was go over the photos with me, and compare from my last appointment. I’ve got the tiniest of hemorrhages that are being monitored. One slightly larger one – just large enough for me to easily see from the eye exam chair – was no longer there. Overall, nothing had really changed, so there’s nothing to treat. I’ll be back in 6 months for continued monitoring.
Then she did the physical exam with the bright light to see directly in my eyes.
Fun stuff.
Not.
The whole thing was done nice and fast. Being there so early meant we were out early, too!
I made my next appointment for April, and then my daughter started driving me home. Next time, I won’t be getting the eye dilation drops, so she won’t need to come with me.
In my mother’s town, there are two gas stations along the main road. One is a co-op, and we no longer go there for gas. Turns out they can pay dividends because they use old, cheaper gas. I found that out when we had to replace an expensive part in our previous vehicle that had gotten clogged up. Even our lawn mower got clogged up after only one summer’s use, and we only use premium for the mowers!
On the way out, both stations were at $1.199/L
On the way back, the co-op was at $1.310/L
!!!
We turned around and went to the other station that was still at $1.199 to put some gas in before they got the call to increase their prices! I mentioned the other station’s new price and it had changed so recently, she didn’t know about it yet (the two stations are close enough that they can see each other’s price signs).
We didn’t put a lot in, but it was enough to fill the tank at that price. Which is good, because I will be back tomorrow and probably would have needed to put more gas in by the time I was ready to go home from my mother’s. If all goes well, I won’t need to get more gas until our first city shopping trip next week.
Once we got home, it was later than I would normally have fed the outside cats, so taking care of that was my first priority. They were very hungry!
I’ve been keeping an eye out for Pinky. This morning, I didn’t see her until I was getting the truck ready to leave, and she was by the garage. I saw her again while doing the later feeding, and she was again near the garage. I’ve seen her sleeping – alone – in the catio, but since we took her babies in to the rescue, she has been alone.
She won’t let me get a closer look at that injured toe, but it no longer looks bright red, she isn’t favouring it, and there’s no sign of infection, so I think she’s okay. Still something to monitor.
I so wish we could bring her in to her babies! Of course, her “babies” are the cat equivalent of teenagers now, but they were the only ones I ever saw her with. She doesn’t get along with any of the other cats, and now she’s alone. She barely even lets me pet her anymore.
💔💔
Hopefully, we can bring her in soon – and can get her friendly enough again to get her into a carrier!
Once settled inside, I called my mother. She never noticed that there was a message waiting for her, even though I could hear that she was in her TV watching chair, which is right next to her answering machine. I told her about the call I got and had her test her Life Line pendant while on the phone with me.
There was no response.
So, I will have to deal with it tomorrow. I had planned to come earlier, so I could do her shopping while she was having her Meals on Wheels lunch, but she suggested I do the shopping after, so I wouldn’t have to be at her place for too long.
This being my mother, it makes me wonder what she has planned for the morning that she doesn’t want me to know about.
So I’ll be there for early in the afternoon. The appointment might take an hour or so, since the home care coordinator will be reassessing my mother for the nursing home panel, too. I pray my mother finally gets approved! She has been wanting this for over a year now, and her mobility is getting a lot worse. At the very least, she needs to accept increased home care for things she’s been insisting on doing herself, when she shouldn’t be.
We’ll see how that works out.
By the time I’m done at my mother’s, I should be coming home to a new front door!
As for now, the rest of my day is pretty much toast. Aside from it being too wet to get anything done outside, my eyes are still aching from the dilation drops and blinding tests. If it wouldn’t mess me up entirely, I’d be going to bed right now, just so I could keep my eyes closed!
Well, there was definitely no chance the door would get replaced today! It started raining last night and is expected to continue to rain until about 6am tomorrow morning.
The door isn’t going to be done tomorrow, either. The installers aren’t available until Wednesday.
Which is the day I’m going to my mother’s for her grocery shopping and appointment with the home care assessor. I’ll be coming home to a new door.
Rain or no rain, the outside cats needed to be fed. When I went out to do the evening feeding, though, this one was not hungry and stayed in bed.
This fluffy kitten is getting so big – and so gorgeous!
Must. Socialize. The wild kitty.
Feeding the cats was about it for going outside today. Even they were avoiding it as much as possible!
Which means I more relaxed day indoors. I even got to do some crafting! I haven’t doing any in a very long time. Partly because I usually do crochet, and with my hands to rough and dry from working in the garden, the yarn gets hung up on my skin and will even pull the loops of my hook!
Today, however, I tried doing a small weaving project. I’ve got a loom knitting and weaving kit, and used the pieces to put together the smallest square peg loom possible. Big enough to make coaster sized squares.
I’d gotten the idea from some Pinterest images that showed up in my feed, but it was this video that gave me the full instructions.
I tried using single strand yarn, but found it too open and floppy. I ended up making four squares, experimenting with different thicknesses, doubling up the yarn, and different ways of finishing the edges. Eventually, I’ll make up larger peg looms and see how that goes. If nothing else, practicing on the small loom for coaster sized squares is a good way to use up leftover balls of yarn that are too small for anything else!
So it’s a been a quiet day, overall. Which is good. Normally I try to keep Sunday as my day of rest, but took advantage of the good weather to get much needed work done, so today is my day of rest, instead. I’m going to need it, as I’m going to be doing a lot of running around over the next couple of days!
The Re-Farmer 