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!
Since we needed to get cats into carriers and meet someone in town with them in the mid morning, I headed out to feed the outside cats earlier than of late. In the summer, I would go out to feed them quite a bit earlier, as I would be awakened by the sun by 5 or 5:30am. Now, the sun doesn’t rise until almost 8am. The cats were rather confused about being fed while it was still dark! Which did make it easier to get through the door, at least.
It also made for a beautiful sunrise while I continued to do my morning rounds.
The photo does not do it justice. The horizon was aflame in red and orange!
I headed out again a short while later to get the carriers ready, and find the cats we were to bring in. Pinky was in the catio, snuggled up with her two that were going out together. The cat with the infected ear was in the sun room. And the kittens?
In their favourite spot, for full belly cuddle puddles.
My daughter came out to give me a hand but, by the time she got there, I had already put the cat with the messed up ear into a carrier. I couldn’t believe how easily she went in! Then we got the three littles. The friendly white and grey that went in is in the cuddle puddle on the left of the first photo. That one, I believe, is female. The super friendly white and grey tabby (a male) was buried in the cuddle puddle and came out on his own. Both were quite easy to put into the biggest carrier, which opens from the top as well as one end.
Then it was time to look for the friendly tuxedo. There are several of them, and two of them are very hard to tell apart, except that one will allow pets.
We ended up getting a different friendly tuxedo. This one was easier to tell apart, even though the markings are almost identical, because it’s fluffier. I have no idea if it’s male or female.
Once the carriers were closed up, they weren’t happy, so my daughter grabbed our squeeze treat supply and gave them treats through the carrier doors while I grabbed two more carriers to get the siblings.
The white and grey male came to check things out as soon as I put the carriers down. He was easy to snuggle, then put into a carrier. Smokey, I had to pick up from the bed in the catio, where she was still snuggling Mom, but she started purring as soon as I held her. She got a snuggle, and was also easy to get into the carrier.
I felt bad about Pinky, though. She doesn’t get along with the other cats, and here I just took away here teenagers she was snuggling!
This was all done so quickly, I couldn’t believe it! I didn’t want to leave them out in the carriers until I had planned to leave. I’d already brought the truck out of the garage, so my daughter and I got them in, and I left ridiculously early. You can see them, all stacked up, in the second photo of the slide show above.
My daughter took care of the gate for me, so I didn’t have to disturb the cats by stopping to get in and out a couple of times. I did remember to pull over to send a message to the woman I was meeting, letting her know I would be very early!
Unfortunately, the cats did not like what was going on, and it wasn’t long before I could smell that someone had a stress poop! By the time it was all done, three carriers needed to be cleaned out when I got home. 😞
Once I was parked, I split our last two squeeze treats between the carriers. Some of them were too stressed to eat any of it, though. I was able to get pictures through each carrier door, though, which are the next four photos of the slide show above.
I was going to leave the door open so they could get some sun and fresh air, but the wind was blowing straight into the truck, and it was too cold! So I got to sit and wait for over an hour, with the windows cracked open just a bit. All but the tiny white and grey tabby seemed to settle in. The vocal one is just always vocal, though.
When the lady from the rescue arrived with her husband, she said she first wanted to transfer over the donated kibble they were giving us. I opened up the box of the truck – which is where the stinky carriers were going to go as soon as they were empty! – as she brought over a big bag of kibble.
Then a second bag.
Then a third bag. !!!
I was so happy. We were running low of kibble for both the inside and outside cats, and I was going to possibly drive to a Walmart to get more. The inside cats don’t like the feed store kibble and were barely eating, and I’d just emptied the kibble bin for the outside cats this morning.
Then she told me, there was more, and came back carrying two more big bags!
She told me there was more, and came out with a box. Inside were several small bags of higher end donated kibble. She told me they were past their best before date, but they had not been opened, and would be fine. There turned out to be three small bags in that box.
Then she brought over a sixth big bag!
Finally, she came out with one more bag, inside a bag. It was a medium sized bag of kibble that had never been opened, but her dog had got at it and tore a hole through it, so she put it in a recycling bag to bring it over.
I was over the moon! I thought a couple of bags, maybe, but six big bags, plus the smaller ones?
Needless to say, I was profuse in my expressions of thanks.
Then it was time to transfer cats.
We started with the one with the messed up ear. That one was growling, so she actually went into their truck, handing one of the carriers over to her husband so she could get in, and closed the door, just in case she escaped. When she came out with my empty carrier, she said they got her, but she did get bit. Then she noticed her finger was starting to bleed quite a bit. I noticed she had blood beading on her forearm, too! She brushed it off, though, and we went to transfer the kittens.
That went much more easily! We could set up on the tailgate of my truck, with carriers face to face, and quickly get them over. She had a larger carrier for the three kittens, and they were much easier to transfer over, from the top of one carrier, then through the top of another.
As we were doing this, we chatted. She told me they are short on fosters, so they’ve had to stop intakes. She herself has 26 cats in her house! I don’t know if that counts our 6 or not.
I had mentioned feeling sad for Pinky, losing her babies like that. She said they would see about grabbing her, too, since she’s a friendly. She and Frank are the two we could catch for spays, without having to trap. Frank is also high on the priority list. She’s so small, I’m amazed she survived being pregnant, and we definitely don’t want her getting pregnant again. They have spots available for spays and neuters, but she doesn’t know which clinic, as the rescue they’re connected with for that is up north in one of the reserves. They don’t have a clinic there.
I mentioned we have three super friendly teenagers, but they’re male, and we really need to get the females spayed as a priority. They will also help us adopt out some of the indoor cats, too. For those, we could be the “fosters”.
Once everything was done, we went our separate ways. I brought our water jugs for refilling, so I just parked closer to the grocery store (we met at the far end of the parking lot). Thanks to the very generous donation of kibble, I was able to use the money that would have gone for cat food for groceries and gas for ourselves.
What a novel concept!
The grocery store carries 2L of milk in the plastic jugs. The grocery store in my mother’s down now carries only the cartons, which my mother struggles to open, or even hold. I hadn’t called my mother about her grocery shopping – I didn’t have the energy to argue about how she needs to have a shopping trip done before she runs out of everything – but she is always running out of milk, so I got her a 2L jug.
A gas station near the grocery store had prices down to $1.229/L, where the other two stations in town were still at $1.269. I had some cash and was at just under half a tank, so I got $25 in before I left for my mother’s town.
Much to my surprise, when I got to her town, the two gas stations there were at $1.199! That town never has lower prices than the town we usually go to!
I went straight to my mother’s to deliver her jug of milk. I hadn’t called ahead, so it was a surprise for her. She was actually happy to see me. Normally, she hates surprises and complains.
I told her I was on my way home and couldn’t stay, but that our usual grocery store had the plastic jugs, and I knew she’d be running out of milk, so I got it for her. She was happy with that, too! I did open it for her before putting it in her fridge. I actually had a hard time getting the cap off myself; she would have really struggled. Then there was the seal underneath. The kind with the plastic tab you lift and pull on to get the seal off. Something else my mother would not have been able to do on her own! She would have used a knife to cut into it, instead.
I asked her about her grocery shopping and she told me, now that I brought her milk, she didn’t need one. In the end, it was decided that I would go her shopping on Wednesday, since I will be there for her appointment with home care to reassess her care needs, anyhow.
Then, after checking on the budget, I stopped to get more gas before heading home. That worked out rather well, in the end!
Once home, I backed into the yard to unload. The cats were very curious when I opened up the tail gate and started unloading kibble and carriers! I had to give them a feeding before I could move the truck safely.
Pinky came over to eat while I was filling bowls, so I stopped to pet her – and discovered an injury on one paw! One of her nails is flipped up and sideways! I have no idea of it’s a fresh injury or not – there’s no bleeding – and she doesn’t seem to be favouring it. She wouldn’t let me check it out, though.
I was able to get a picture and send it to the rescue group chat. I got some questions about it and, in the end, I’m just to keep an eye out for if it gets infected. She’s already on the priority list to bring in.
This evening, just as I was getting ready to start this post, I got an update on the cats.
The adult that bit her took a while to come out of the carrier to eat, and is now settling in. Smokey and her brother have been absolutely delightful, and are eating well. The littles all needed face washes, which they got. Because they are so small, she checked with me to see if they were eating solid food, and when they were born. They would have been born in June, at the latest, and none of the kittens are nursing now. They’re just really small! They’re definitely interested in food now. The tuxedo was hiding for a while, but is coming around.
We talked about the one with the messed up ear for a bit. I told her that there’s a possibility that she’s one of ours from last year that disappeared for the summer, then came back – but if she’s the one that I’m thinking of, she bulked up a lot! I could see no sign that she’s been pregnant, which would be unusual. She was shy but friendly when she showed up. I suspect she might have been dumped in the area and eventually found us, food and shelter. Given how scared she was during transport and exchange, even to the point of biting, if she had been dumped, that would explain her behaviour.
They are all in good hands now. Ear cat will get the vet care she needs. The teenagers will get vetted, spayed and neutered. Well, maybe not neutered, yet. I don’t think his balls have dropped, yet. The littles will need more time, of course. They are way too small for spays or neuters, but they will get vetted. I suspect they will all be treated for ear mites and possibly worms.
I expect Smokey in particular will be adopted out quickly. Hopefully, together with her bother, as a bonded pair.
Once all that was done, it was still early enough and light enough that I wanted to get some work done outside, and I actually managed to do it . That will be for my next post!
Well, no surprise that the forecast changed overnight. Instead of rain all day on Friday, the rain started here last night, and continued off and on throughout the day.
Thankfully, it was a light rain.
As usual, I started out the day with feeding the outside cats. Before starting on softening the bowl of kibble, I quickly tossed a scoop full through the screenless storm door window to tide them over and distract them, first. I still have gelled turkey stock and meaty bits to mix into to their morning kibble with hot water and some canned cat food, too. Once I got it all mixed up, I left it to soak for a few minutes.
I’d seen on the critter cam that they’d somehow knocked the big cat carrier off its shelf, and it was in the middle of the floor, so I knew it would be in the way as I stepped out of the old kitchen. I snagged a daughter for cat herding duty, then tried to get through the doors as quickly as possible.
There were cats and kittens trying to get in, while others were milling around and eating the kibble I’d tossed in earlier.
Including a strange new ca….
Not a cat.
There, in the crowd of cats and kittens munching away, was a skunk! It and the cats were completely indifferent to each other!
As I got through and added softened kibble to several trays, I paused to pick up the carrier while my daughter dealt with the cats that managed to get through the doors before she could close the storm door. The skunk did leave while I was doing that, as did some of the more feral cats. It seemed unbothered by me as well as the cats!
Not a good thing, but there isn’t much we can do about it.
Once the feeding and watering was done (I’m bringing warm water to top up their bowls now, instead of using the hose, which will soon be put away for the winter), I did my morning rounds. My weather app said it was raining, but it seems our climate bubble was doing its thing again.
With the trellis netting and other stakes and supports done, the deer could access the sunflowers. I’d already grabbed the seed heads that looked like they might have viable seeds in them, so the remaining ones had immature seed heads on them. A couple of the tallest ones were untouched, but the shorter ones were either broken with the seed heads eaten, or the entire stalks were munched down to just a couple of feet in height.
Cheeky buggers!
After the morning rounds were done, I popped inside long enough to have breakfast, then headed out to work on the next garden bed.
I decided to work on the log framed low raised bed. I hoped it would not be as bad as the last two beds I worked on. This one had the failed melons, the successful, if stunted, Spoon tomatoes and the failed purple beans and Swiss chard.
The first picture is how it looked after the grass clipping mulch was removed. There were very few weeds and most of those were crab grass.
The question was, how bad were the tree roots?
Since I would be dealing with rhizomes, I started by loosening the soil of the entire bed before I started clean up at the south end of the bed. This is the end furthest from those trees we need to get rid of, being the source of so many of our problems.
I started finding roots right away. The bed is 18 feet long, plus it’s another dozen feet or so to the nearest trees on the north side.
This bed turned out to not only have fewer normal weeds than the other beds, but fewer rocks, too. As for the roots, the closer to the middle of the bed that I got, the harder it was to get the tree roots out. With some of them, it was because the roots were running under the log wall. I could also feel that there was a large root, somewhere deeper below the bed, because I was finding roots that were basically growing vertically from something deeper than I was going with my garden fork, not horizontal, as usual. By the time I got to the middle, though, even with the pre-loosened soil, there were too many roots I couldn’t pull out of the soil, so I went to the north end to work my way back to the middle.
I promptly hit a larger root.
After fighting around it with my garden fork, I went and got a spade to dig around it, plus the loppers. I was able to cut away one larger root that I found in the process, but it was not the one causing me the most problems.
That’s the one you can see in the second picture of the slide show above.
This was not the root that was causing an issue further down the bed, though. This one ran diagonally across the bed, so I was able to use the loppers to cut it close to where it went under the log frame.
In the next picture, you can see where I’d made my way closer to the middle, and some of the other roots I was having issues with. Some would have to be dealt with when working the other side of the bed.
In the last picture of the above slide show, I had finished clearing one side. At the middle, I’d pretty much dug a pit to try and get the roots out.
In the end, though, there weren’t as many roots to fight with as in previous beds. There wasn’t even as many rocks to remove. The amount I had in the bucket after getting the first half done was about what I’d picked from a third of one side on the other two beds I cleared!
It had started to rain while I was working on this. A light and gentle rain, so I kept working, but I was getting pretty damp by the time I finished the one side. It was well past noon by then, so I headed in for sustenance and hydration.
I took my time with my late lunch, which turned out to be a good thing.
I got a phone call from home care, just as I was wrapping up and getting ready to head out again.
They were unable to find someone to do my mother’s evening med assist for Friday evening. They were still working on finding someone, but it was possible I might have to cover for Saturday and Sunday evenings, too.
!!!
Then they told me, they did actually have someone available, but this home care worker was male, and my mother had said she didn’t want men doing her med assist, so they were stuck.
?????
I hadn’t heard about this at all. My mother hadn’t had anything negative to say about the male home care workers, either, other than to mention that they were “from other places” (meaning, recent immigrants that weren’t white). But for her to say no men at all?
We talked about it for a bit, and I told them I could call my mother to find out what was going on. They told me that, if anything changed, to call the number for the home care coordinator (it was the scheduler and a new trainee that had called me) to talk about it.
After the call, I quickly updated my family, as well as my siblings in our group chat, then called my mother. There was no answer so I left a message. I puttered around on my computer while waiting, staying close to the phone, but I didn’t have a lot of time before the home care office would close for the day, plus I was going to start losing daylight to work outside. After a few minutes, I tried again.
This time, my mom answered just as the answering machine picked up. She’d been in the common room and was just coming back when the phone started ringing, so she’d never heard my earlier message.
I told her about the call from home care, that they didn’t have anyone to cover for Friday night’s med assists, and possibly Saturday and Sunday, too. Before she could start going on about how terrible they were, I told her that they actually did have someone available, but it was a male, and they told me she’d said told them, no male.
My mother confirmed this. She had called the home care office and told the home care coordinator, she didn’t want any med doing her med assists.
I asked more questions, and she said she didn’t want a man rubbing the Voltaren onto her bad and seeing her partially naked body. Which, as far as I knew, was something only done in the mornings, as they have extra time booked for stuff like that. She admitted, she had never asked one of the guys (it turns out there are three different male home care workers that have been visiting her) to do it, but eventually said that, if they had been women, she would have asked them to. She also admitted that they have never been unkind to her, and had never caused problems – unlike for example, one of the female home care workers recently not bothering to count my mother’s meds from the bubble pack, and one was missing. It turned out to have fallen to the floor. Or another that always leaves without making sure my mother took her meds, first.
The conversation got very intense as she tried to blame home care for not having enough people, etc. She was all over the place with it, and I kept having to bring it back to it just being about her getting her med assists. Eventually, though, we got to the heart of the issue.
My mother didn’t want brown people doing her med assists.
I had no patience with this and pointed out that, because of her not liking brown people, I might have to do her evening med assists, three nights in a row. She tried to make it their fault, saying “they” (the home care office) did this to me but I told her, no SHE is doing this to me.
In the end, I got her to agree to have a male med assist only to do her meds. No rubbing the Voltaren onto her back. If they were doing a morning assist, they could still do her commode, but no back rubs. If she’s uncomfortable with being touched like that, fair enough, but at least they could do her pills.
Once we got that decided on, I told her I had to call the home care office back quickly, as the office wasn’t going to be open for very much longer. She kept going on and on, keeping me on the phone, even after I told her I had to get the call done as quickly as possible. She did, however, finally talk about getting extra home care services, though in a way that had me rather confused, but I didn’t care at that point. We’ve been trying to get her to accept more home care services for quite some time now, and she’s been refusing, even though she really needs more help. I told her I would bring it up with the coordinator when I called her, and they would probably need to make an appointment with her to discuss it, but I needed to get off the phone to call the office. She STILL tried to keep me on the phone and I finally had to cut her off so I could hang up and make the call.
Thankfully, the home care coordinator was in her office at the time, so I was able to talk to her and not just leave a message. I told her about the situation and that I’d talked to my mother about it. I said that my mother had agreed that, as long as it didn’t involve rubbing the medication onto her back, she was willing to accept male home care aids. The coordinator filled me in on the call from my mother and, apparently, one of the men did offer to rub the medication onto her back for her, and she’d said no. I told her that, if the workers visiting her were women, she would be asking them to do her back, but not the men. Which would have been an understandable restriction, but the home care coordinator knows my mother by now, and she already figured out it was really about race.
So that was taken care of. They would be able to schedule men for my mother’s med assists, with the one restriction regarding applying the medication onto my mother’s back.
I then brought up about my mother bringing up her need for more care, and the first question she asked was, is my mother willing to accept more care? Which has been the biggest problem. My mother simply refusing it. I told her that yes, she is willing to do it.
My mother was due for her annual re-assessment anyhow, so we quickly made an appointment for next weed. Along with the care assessment, the coordinator wanted to go over the panel for a nursing home again, as that needed to be updated, too. I told her about how my mother can barely get around her apartment of later, needing to hang on to furniture or the walls to move around, and how I’d actually heard her crying out in pain at times, when I was last at her place to help out with things.
That done, I called my mother back with the appointment time and updated my family.
Grommet was very determined to “help”. Usually by being directly in front of me while I worked, trying to give my hands kisses, or even trying to climb up my legs for attention!
The second side was done a lot faster, thankfully. Here is the finished bed!
The bed actually seems fuller, now that the soil is all fluffy again, instead of compacted. I’m out of stuff to cover it to protect if from the cats, though. When it comes time to do winter sowing in there, I’ll have to watch out for “presents” from the cats!
While working on the bed, I did find three frogs! One had come out of the mulch on its own. I was able to catch it and release it in and area where it would be able to burrow down for the winter. While picking rocks and roots, I uncovered two more frogs! I’m so glad I didn’t accidentally stab them with the garden fork. I was able to catch and move them to a safe place, too.
It was still pretty light out when I was finished, but not for long enough to start another bed. Instead, I did my evening rounds. While I was at it, I cleared up the pile of regrown maples my brother had cut away from the back of the pump shack for me. I set aside the straightest pieces for use in the garden, and the rest went onto the burn pile. Later on, I’ll trim the trigs and side shoots off the straight pieces, then bring the useable pieces to the old kitchen garden. They will made good stakes for the bed that still needs the wall on the inside to be finished.
Now that I have written this, I realize I’ve not switched out the trial cam memory cards yet, and it’s full dark right now. That’s the down side of changing from switching them in the mornings! Ah, well. I’ll survive.
Time to shoe up, grab a flash light, and go take care of that!
One more bed is done. Three more in the main garden area to go!
Wow, were the outside cats ever determined this morning!
When mixing up their softened morning kibble, I made sure to include the turkey stock I made for them, along with some of the meaty bits that fell off the bones. Maybe they could smell it because, even though I’d tossed out a scoop of kibble to distract them before I started mixing, I could hear them clamoring at the door. I got a daughter to stand by for cat herding duty while I tried to get out the door, and she was completely overwhelmed by the stampede before I could even get through!
As much of a crowd as there was in the sun room, some prefer to eat outside, and the ferals hover around, waiting for their chance.
By the time I got all the kibble divvied up around the yard, and topped up their water bowls with warm water (the unheated ones had a layer of ice on them), the kibble was almost all gone already!
Even on the cat house roof, there were just crumbs left.
You can tell the heat bulb inside is working – no frost on the roof above it!
I ended up giving them another light feeding later on, just to make sure the shier and less assertive cats had a chance to eat their fill, too.
I tried for a head count and got 40. Then I tried to count only the kittens, including the teenagers. I think I got 18 or 19, and I’m sure I missed some.
I sent pictures to the chat group I have with the new rescue. They are pretty taken aback by the numbers!
With the temperatures, I didn’t try to get anything done outside after my morning rounds. Instead, I headed out in the late morning to pick up prescriptions for both myself and my husband. We were almost out of kibble for the indoor cats, though, so I made a side trip to the feed store in my mother’s town. They were out of the brand of kibble I usually get, so I had to pick up the more expensive brand. It was still cheaper to get that, then either buy smaller bags locally elsewhere, or drive all the way to a Walmart to get some.
I then headed to our pharmacy, where I was able to pick up my husband’s refill, but not mine. They checked the system and it turned out my doctor hadn’t responded to their fax yet. In the end, I asked them to put it on their delivery schedule in a couple of days. Hopefully, that will be long enough for the updated prescription to come in.
I did remember to pick up some more potassium supplements. I’d run out a while ago and hadn’t bothered to get more. I think that was a mistake. I was wondering why I started to get leg cramps again. Not Charlie Horses, though those were threatening last night. Just weird leg cramps. They would happen any time my legs or feet got uncovered during the night. I’m guessing the temperature change triggered them, but it was very unusual for me. It was usually my calves that would start cramping, but my feet would, too, pulling at my toes, of all things. All of them. It’s the strangest sensation! The cramping would start, I’d pull my feet back under the covers, and they would soon stop.
I haven’t been doing any level of physical exertion that normally would trigger these, so I was at a loss as to why this was happening, until I remembered I’d run out of potassium a while ago. Adding the potassium to my vitamin regimen seemed to be the last thing to finally stop my Charlie Horses. That the cramping started up like this is enough confirmation of that for me!
Once done at the pharmacy, I remembered to stop at the grocery store at my husband’s request, then headed home. By then, it was about time for the outside cats evening feeding. After refilling the bin for the inside cats, the rest of the kibble went to the outside cats. Most of them aren’t old enough to have had this brand of kibble before, and they really seemed to like it!
Through all this, I was messaging with the cat rescue group, including the woman that’s going to be taking six cats from us. She’s going to be in the town nearest us to drop a cat off on Saturday, so we’ll be meeting her there, instead of further out on Sunday. We still have to work out a time, as she’s not sure what her schedule will be. As long as we have enough time to get the six cats and kittens into carriers, we can make it work.
Just a little while longer, and six cats and kittens will get their first step to finding forever homes indoors!
Once all the running around was done, I actually did get some work done outside, but that will be in my next post.
Well, the wind never really slowed down today until is was basically dark out. I was really feeling it when I headed out to visit my mother for Thanksgiving, fighting the wind for the entire drive. It wasn’t as bad on the way home, as I no longer driving against the wind, but it was still threatening to blow me off the road!
My mother was quite happy with my surprise visit. I made sure to time it for after she got her Meals on Wheels, which she said was extra special for Thanksgiving. She was back in bed when I got there, so I went to her to show her what I’d brought. She told my that my brother had visited the other day, also bringing food for her, and how we feed her so well! I told her, it’s Thanksgiving! It’s all about the food! She was also quite happy when I told her the girls had done all the cooking, so I could get some rest.
I stayed for a fairly short visit, letting her know what the weather was like, and that I wanted to get back home again sooner rather than later, because of it. It was even a good visit, with only one side track when she started going off on a racist tangent and I started saying it was time for me to leave. She stopped and asked me to stay, and that she would stop. Which was a first! Usually, she doubles down!
Since I was there anyhow, I did a few little things about the apartment for her and made her some tea, then we just sat and talked for a while before I headed home.
I didn’t mention it to her, but my brother and SIL were at the farm when I left. My brother wasn’t up to visiting with her along the way, as he had things he needed to do while there was light to do it, and she would have demanded he stay longer than he was able to. When I got back, they were settling in for a late lunch and messaged me when they saw me get back, inviting me to join them. Which I was happy to do, and we got all caught up, until my brother had to get back at things, so I left to get out of their way. 😄
I was soon back outside to try and get things done. It was too windy for some things, but I was at least able to putter around and get quite a few little things done.
I had lots of cat company, like Fluffy, watching me from the top of the shelf in front of the bathroom window.
What a stunning cat! We can even pet her, sometimes.
Most of what I needed to go outside was putting things away for the winter, though some things were kept handy so I could use them when we have a calmer day. The 100′ extension cords were all wrapped and put away, the space around the old basement window was cleaned up again, and the winter window put in. The folding camp chairs that had been in the sun room got brushed clear before getting stored in the old kitchen. I’d given the “roof” of the broken market tent a good scrubbing with the stiff bristled sun room broom, then hung it on the chain link fence to dry. The wind was starting to blow it away, so I made sure to fold it up and stored in in the old kitchen for the winter. The frame may be broken, but the canopy and four wall panels are just find. I’m sure we can find some way to make use of them.
I didn’t work in the main garden area, but I got to put things away from the old kitchen garden and the portable greenhouse. That is also slowly being set up so that the cats can use it for shelter in the winter, with a couple of food bowls in it. One of them had been kept on the well cap with the isolation shelter’s entry protecting box over it. That’s at the isolation shelter now, and I didn’t want to leave the food bowl out without some kind of shelter over it. I did end up setting it over the isolations shelter door to try and block at least some of the winds that’s blowing things around inside.
Stinky is quite happy that it’s there! I’ve seen a few cats sitting on the ramp, now that the box is there, taking advantage of the shelter. I’ll need to figure out a better way to secure the vinyl that will be wrapped around the bottom, to protect it from the winter weather. Last winter, I just used tacks, which mostly did the job, but they weren’t enough for the severely windy days.
While cleaning things up and putting things away outside, I had a pile of scrap pieces of rigid insulation in odd sizes I needed to deal with. One of the walls in the upper level of the isolation shelter has a piece of insulation cut to fit that the cats have been using as a scratching post. to the point that one corner is basically gone. I didn’t have any pieces large enough to cut a new piece, but I did have a piece larger enough to cover the area that was scratched out. It fits snug enough that it’ll take quite a bit for it to be pulled out of position by cats.
Then I decided to use some of the pieces in the cube shelf in the sun room. A few cats are using it, but it’s a harder surface and could potentially get cold on the toa beans over the winter. So I found a piece large enough to cut to size and fit on the bottom of a cube. Once I had the size worked out, I used it as a template to cut as many more as I could, out of the scrap bits of insulation I had to work with.
I was able to cut enough to set into 7 cubes. They are really snug, so they won’t get knocked out of the cubes easily. It wasn’t long before I saw cats and kittens checking the cubes out. If I happen to find more scrap pieces of this rigid insulation that are large enough, I want to cut and add more to fit into the cub shelves. This way, in the winter, the cats can use the shelf to watch things out the window, and their to beans won’t get too cold.
I also found a place to secure the second heat lamp. This one has a 150 watt heat bulb. The other one is 250 watts.
There are 11 kittens in that bottom shelf, plus Grommet under the heat lamp. That tuxedo in the front is, I think, the one that I expect we’ll be able to snag for the rescue, next weekend.
Speaking of which…
As I was heading inside, I spotted Smokey on the hand rail outside the sun room. It took a little while, but I was able to start petting her, and she started purring! Then Collin came by and pushed his way under my hand, and Smokey jumped down onto a bin that’s stored under the rail. I was still able to pet her there, and then…
*drum roll please!*
… she let me PICK HER UP!!!! Not only that, but she let me cuddle her for about 5 minutes, purring the whole time!!! That is massive socialization progress! By the time we bring her in to the rescue, I’m hoping she will be fully socialized.
Now, that is something to be thankful for, this Thanksgiving day!
All in all, I was able to actually get some decent work done outside before It was starting to get dark. Stuff that I would normally defer until later, while I prepped beds for winter sowing. Since it was too windy to prep garden beds for the winter, I’m quite happy to have been able to get the work done on a day like today.
As I write this, we are at 3C/37F, or 1C/34F, depending on which app I use. The wind chill right now, has it feeling like -3C/27F right now. Among the things I did was bring the rechargeable battery tools for winter storage indoors.
Meanwhile, good progress on getting things ready for the winter, though it does ten to be… questionably, that is! There’s still lots to do. We shall see how it works out.
Well, Canadian Thanksgiving has blown in like a tempest. Northern parts of the province have had snow and conditions severe enough to shut down a highway.
I can’t complain. I think it was our first Thanksgiving here, when we got hit by a blizzard.
The high winds, at least, as supposed to go away this afternoon. We’re supposed to warm up a bit over the next while but, depending on which weather app I look at, on the warmest days we’re expecting rain. I’m just hoping the weather holds so I can get more beds ready for winter sowing. Aside from a pharmacy trip tomorrow, and a telephone appointment to follow up on my hip injection, I should be able to stay home enough to get things done. Weather willing!
When I headed out to feed the cats outside this morning, they were absolutely bonkers. I used our turkey carcass to make a stock for them in the slow cooker last night, and that’s what I used to soften their kibble this morning.
They inhaled it so quickly, I mixed up a bit more so the less dominant cats could get a chance to eat!
I also had to pick up the catio, which had been knocked over by the wind (I left the vinyl wrapped around it for last winter, specifically to cut the wind and provide passive solar warmth in there. We will need to re-wrap it!). I had removed the weights on the roof to use them while painting. A couple to left the plant stand above the grass, and a couple more to weight down corners of the isolation shelter roof, where I’d used some wood glue under a support. I hadn’t put the weights back. Last night was windy, and the catio seemed fine, but the wind picked up so much since I did my evening walkabout!
Once the cats were fed and the catio secured as best I could, I moved the isolation shelter’s ramp door box in front, to reduce at least some of the wind. The upper level is enclosed, but the lower level is all wire mesh walls. We’ll be wrapping it in vinyl for the winter again, but not quite yet. The wind from below has been enough to actually blow one of the corners of the hammock loose from its hook.
I then did a thorough walk about, looking for wind damage. In the outer yard, I only found this.
The door on that rotting old … storage shed? … finally fell.
It’ll be good when we can clean up that garbage in there and get that away. It’s a shame it was allowed to fall apart like that. It’s got several shelves in there and looks like it used to be pretty sturdy. Once the roof was allowed to fall apart, that was it. I have no idea when this was built, but I expect it was built by my late brother, probably about 20-30 years ago.
For now, all I could do was lean the door back and find an old tire still on its rim as a weight to hold it in place.
While going through the inner yard, I found quite a few fallen branches. Not enough to need a wheel barrow or anything. This was the largest one I found.
There were 11 kittens on that shelf, but Sir Robin jumped out while I was taking the picture.
Seeing Smokey in there is encouraging. She’s starting to enjoy being around other cats. The only concern is, she’s getting old enough to go into heat. I don’t expect her to, as they tend not to when the weather starts getting cold. Thankfully, she will be going to the rescue, next weekend.
Meanwhile, I’ll be heading to my mother’s this afternoon, with a couple of turkey dinners for her. My brother and SIL are actually coming here to the farm today, to do some more winterizing around their stuff. I’ll have a chance to see them before I head out to my mothers, but they’ll probably be gone before I get back.
It already looks like the wind is dying down, and the sun is shining! Our expected high for the day is still only 6C/43F, and we’re at only 4C/39F. We’re supposed to go below freezing overnight, too.
I did plug in the cat house, so they should be getting heat in there when the light sensor turns on the bulb as it gets dark enough. The heated water bowls are plugged in now, too, except the one in the isolation shelter. That one is nowhere near an outlet, yet.
We’re fortunate, really, so have temperatures as nice as they are right now. More time to get things done before the snow flies!
For me, it was a break. A necessary one. By the end of yesterday, I realized I’d be having issues today, so I asked the girls to take over making Thanksgiving dinner completely. I got up to feed the outside cats, and that was it. No morning rounds.
I did get quite a chuckle with a stinky visitor this morning, though! Before mixing up some cat soup to use to soften their morning kibble, with a cacophony of cats in the sun room, I quickly opened the inner door and carefully tossed a small scoop of kibble onto the floor near the trays. Something to tide them over, so it would be easier to get out with their softened food, later.
After giving the kibble time to soak, I grabbed the bowl and quickly went through the doors into the sun room – with Sir Robin getting a ride in the screenless window of the outer door! – managing to shut the inner door behind me before any cats or kittens managed to get through.
Only then did I notice that there was a small skunk, surrounded by cats and kittens, munching away at the kibble I’d tossed in earlier! It was acting like just another cat. It did leave as I was adding softened kibble to the trays in the sun room, but then, so did some of the more feral cats.
It turned out to be windy and rainy, so it wasn’t a day to get much done outside, anyhow! I did the feeding and watering, then went back to bed while the girls started prepping the turkey and getting it into the oven.
I passed out for about 4 hours.
I did end up going out briefly to give the outside cats a light feeding (I’m trying to feed less kibble, more often, so the cats can finish it off before the skunks and raccoons come over). The girls were in between things, so I did a whole lot of dishes for them before they continued. The turkey was done by then, and they just needed to do the side dishes.
I wanted to make sure to get a couple of containers of turkey dinner to bring to my mother, tomorrow. My daughters used the last of our potatoes, cooked and mashed together with a whole much of carrots from the garden, and entire bulb of garlic. With the potatoes and carrots mixed together like that, the containers for my mother looked a little sparse. At the last minute, I made a small pot of rice, because my husband likes rice more than potatoes. Then I grabbed some rhubarb from the freezer and cooked it up with some crab apples we still have, adding some brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice (it seems we are all out of ground cloves!), and just a bit of water, for a dessert. The frozen rhubarb cooked down to a mush very quickly, but there were still visible chunks of cooked apple. Then I got my mother’s containers, one with potatoes, one with rice, plus dessert, ready and set aside to cool down.
We’ve rather lost use of the dining table because, cats, so we each grabbed out own plates individually.
My husband mistook the apple and rhubarb as a gravy. 😂😂
Apparently, it was still quite good!
After we’d eaten, I headed back outside again to do another light feeding of the outside cats, switch out the trail cam memory cards and then, because it was no longer raining, decided to walk up and down the driveway to get my steps in.
At first, I counted a dozen, but more showed up and I counted about 20 cats and kittens. Mostly kittens.
Including one tiny white and grey tabby that is so friendly. This one is very much like the one Frank adopted than ended up passing. Thankfully, while way too smol, s/he seems to be healthier. (I’m pretty sure this one’s a she, but haven’t been able to confirm 100%.) She actually comes running when she sees me, and was doing that while I was out there. This tiny little ball of fluff, trying to keep up with me while I walked!
I picked her up and tried carrying her for a bit, but she didn’t like it much and wanted down. When I came back for another lap, though, she came running again. This time, I made a pouch in my t-shirt and tucker her in.
She comfortably snuggled into my shirt, warm and cozy, for about 2000+ steps. 😄 Eventually, though, she wanted down.
I didn’t get very far when I saw Smokey’s brother loafed in the grass.
So I picked him up.
He settled in with his chin in my elbow, and stayed. At point point, I put him down so I could look at my phone and see how many steps I had left. He sat there, looking up at me, until I picked him up again and carried him some more! It wasn’t until was heading back to the house that I finally put him down. I’ve never carried him around like this before! He would have stayed longer, but I needed both hands to bring the painted plant table back into the sun room.
Those two are going to be amazing inside cats.
The little white and grey tabby I carried in my shirt will be going to the rescue next weekend, for sure. There’s a friendly little mostly white and grey, plus one of the tuxedos, that we can not only pet, but pick up and hold. They are very adoptable!
This weekend, I am giving thanks for the new rescue, which has more people and more resources, and one person willing and able to take 6 cats at once!
Last night, we apparently dropped to 2C/36F. There were no frost warnings. Yet, when I headed out to do the morning cat feeding and rounds, there was frost everywhere, not just in the shady areas.
Which meant we had to wait until it warmed up a bit before we could start on the garlic. I had limited time, as I needed to go to my mother’s today and would be there for a while, so my younger daughter came out to give me a hand.
The bed that was ready for the garlic has been covered in plastic for some time, so the first thing we had to do was unroll it. Then, while my daughter broke up garlic bulbs, selecting the biggest cloves and setting the smaller ones aside for the kitchen, I marked off three rows for the garlic.
The twine and stakes will stay in place until after I winter sow something in between the rows.
In the second photo, we laid out the cloves where they would be planted, more or less. We ran out before filling the bed, so I went in to get more of the biggest bulbs from our stock.
Sir Robin was helping.
Breaking the bulbs apart was surprising difficult. Hard neck garlic and be that way sometimes. We also found that there were very few small cloves! We were more selective than usual – in the past, I would plant every single clove unless they were super tiny. We are now at a point where we can be fussy about it, so the kitchen got quite a few decent sized cloves!
I forgot to take a photo of the all the cloves in place, so the next photo is after we started burying them.
Grommet and Havarti “helped”.
We were pushing off the cats so constantly, it was clear we would need to give the bed extra protection. Normally, I would mulch it heavily with leaves right away, but I will do that after the winter sowing is done, some time in the next week or so. Until then, that’s a lot of soft, fluffy soil that cats would just love to dig in!
Well, we did just take off that plastic cover, so we decided to use it again.
I got some hoops from the pile of stuff being set aside and organizes for winter storage while my daughter gave the bed a heavy watering. The soil was still damp, but more water is good at this point. We do want the garlic to actually start growing a bit, before the ground freezes.
Once the watering was done and the hoops were in place, pushed down far enough that the 5′ width of the plastic could cover it with enough slack on the sides to be secured, a length of twine was run across the tops and pinned snug at each end. The hoops and the pinned end of the twine was kept on the inside of the stakes marking the rows, so the plastic could be pulled down in front of them. Then we unrolled the plastic in the path next to the bed and simply lifted it over.
So glad my daughter was able to help with that!
The excess plastic at each end was twisted to close up the opening under the hoop at one end, then weighted down with bricks. Once one end was secured, I pulled the sheet as snug as I could, then did the same thing at the opposite end. Once that was done, I could send my daughter in. She was caning it again today, and her back was really killing her by the end of it. I used the boards that had kept the plastic from blowing way earlier to secure the sides and added bricks and rocks as weights to hold them in place, which you can see in the last photo of the above slide show.
There was quite a bit of soil and debris stuck to the damp plastic, so I hosed it off before calling it done. I got inside with a whole half hour left to clean up, change and head to my mother’s!
I hope the garlic will be protected enough, but also that it won’t get too warm under there. We’re dropping to 5C/41F tonight, but tomorrow is supposed to have a high of 17C/63F, with a low of 11C/52F, then Sunday is supposed to have a high of 19C/66F. It can get pretty hot in those plastic covered rows even at those temperatures! The temperatures are supposed to drop right down again after that, including overnight lows below freezing.
When the time comes to mulch the bed for the winter, I will be focusing on a thick mulch along the sides of the bed as well as the top. Even though the bed is raised only a few inches, the outer rows could potentially get hit with winter freezing quite a bit more than the middle. In one of our first few years growing garlic, I planted in the low raised beds in the east year. One bed didn’t survive the winter, except for a handful of cloves, because it froze through the side walls. The other had mostly bulbs in the inner rows, while the other garlic planted closest to the walls didn’t make it.
Live and learn!
I’m quite happy that we finally got the garlic for next year planted. There has been so many last minute delays!
I won’t be able to get much, if anything, done in the garden tomorrow, though. I’ll be doing a dump run, then I need to go to town to pick up some prescription refills and do a bit of shopping before Thanksgiving. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get back to cleaning up that bed so full of tree roots, then get started on the other beds that need to be prepped for winter sowing.
I wonder how full of tree roots the other beds will turn out to be!
I woke up late this morning which, unfortunately, meant we had a lot of very hungry cats outside! I asked one of my daughters to simply pour a scoop of kibble onto the sun room floor to tide them over before I could do a proper feeding. Which helped, I suppose, but they were really eager for their morning food. That is when I mix up a small bowl of “cat soup” with just one can of wet cat food, and use that to soften the bowl if kibble, first. I also prep a smaller bowl of kitten soup that I leave on top of the freezer until later. I could hear so much commotion at the door, I ended up taking the bowl of softened kibble and going out the main doors, instead. Even if I had someone ready to herd cats out the door as I went through, I just didn’t want to risk stepping on a kitten!
Which means I filled their food trays and bowls in reverse, doing the furthest ones first and making my way to the sun room. I didn’t take long for them to hear me and come running. Which worked out so well, I’m thinking I might start doing this regularly!
After I finished putting the last of the softened kibble in the sun room trays, I grabbed Frank’s two remaining littles and brought them into the old kitchen to have their own kitten soup without having to fight off other cats. That also gave me time to wash their eyes open again. That done, I quickly popped into the sun room and back again. Frank wanted into the old kitchen and I let her, so she could have the special food along with her kittens.
It didn’t quite work out that way.
She was too nervous and went hiding and exploring around the old kitchen. I let her be and went to get the squeeze treats I bought a while back but never got to using, yet. I gave some to the kittens in their food bowl, then just squeezed the last of it onto the freezer near them, hoping Frank would be tempted. At one point, I was able to reach her and pick her up, but as I moved towards the freezer, she got more and more nervous. Before I could put her down beside her kittens, she panicked, scrambled when her feet touched the top of the freezer, sending food – and kittens! – flying. One of the kittens ended up falling behind the freezer, while Frank ran and hid under a couch.
The other kitten was still on the freezer and done eating, so I let it out through the screenless storm door window. Then I tried to get the kitten that was behind the freezer. It was sitting on the floor, just out of reach. I thought I could use something to push it from behind and get it to move out from behind the freezer.
Instead, it disappeared. It took me a moment to realize it had gone into the opening where the freezer’s guts are! After several attempts, to reach it, it finally came close enough that I could grab it and lift it out without getting tangled in things I could feel, but not see, in there!
The kitten got to enjoy a bit more food and squeeze treat, but Frank wouldn’t come out. I finally went out with the kitten, hoping that Frank would go onto the freezer and eat, while I wasn’t in there.
The kitten joined the cuddle puddle – and was nuzzling Sir Robin, trying to nurse!
I spent some time refilling water bowls, then opened the doors to the old kitchen, where I found Frank just inside, waiting. She never ate what was on top of the freezer, and was very eager to just leave the old kitchen! That gave me a chance to take the bowl of kitten soup and leave it out for other kittens to finish. There was still the glob of squeeze treat on the freezer, though. I ended up picking it up with my fingers, trying to hold it in my hand. It was messy, but I got most of it. I then went to the cats and kittens at the kitten soup bowl.
Two kittens I’ve never been able to get close to before where there. Both of them happily licked the squeeze treat off my fingers instead of running away!
Then they ran away. 😄
Meanwhile, I started getting messages from people with the rescue. This continued throughout the morning, and while I was in the city. Long story short, we might be bringing as many kittens over on Sunday as we can get into carriers! I’ll have to get some clarification, first, though. There seemed to be some communication issues. Tomorrow is Saturday, so I need to get that cleared up fairly quickly!
When I was done my morning rounds, it wasn’t much longer before my daughter and I started for the city. We left insanely early, to give ourselves time to get lost. 😄 I did look the place up on the map last night, plus I had Google Maps up on my phone to give directions. The route looked pretty straightforward, though what it was showing in the app did not match was I saw on my desktop last night. The address was the address, though, and I did remember the area fairly well, from my days when I used to work around there, and lived just across the river. I was not looking forward to trying to find the address, then finding parking. The area is mostly narrow, one way streets.
We did make a stop at my mother’s down along the way, though, to pick up a couple of energy drinks and some chicken and wedges for breakfast. From there, I got the app going to give me directions while I drove. My daughter was a sweetheart and passed potato wedges to me while I drove. I couldn’t eat my chicken while driving, but my daughter could eat hers, and I was more concerns that she got some food in her. She has a terrible habit of not eating, because eating most foods makes her sick. We have not been able to track down exactly why.
As we got into the city, I had the app up on the dashboard holder, but for some reason, it wasn’t giving voice directions. So my daughter took the phone so she could see the map and gave me the directions as we went along. I did remember the route from checking the map last night, but it’s been so long, I preferred having a navigation officer!
When we got to where the area, one of the first problems I noticed was not being able to find street numbers, anywhere. We got to where the app said the address was at, but couldn’t see anything to show where the clinic was. Specifically, a building tall enough, as the endocrinologist clinic was on the 9th floor.
With the one way streets, we drove around the block a couple of times, made slower because of construction, before finally spotting a parkade that didn’t have a “lot full” sign and headed in. We figured we could find the place more easily on foot. It couldn’t be far.
We then had the fun time of trying to find a place to park with enough room for our truck. The first four levels were all reserved parking. We finally got to a level that wasn’t all reserved, but the first side of that level was half roped off, apparently reserved for “game day”. We finally got to where it no longer was all reserved, and nothing was roped off, but the only open spots we saw were “small car only”.
Then I spotted two accessible parking spots.
My daughter and I don’t have our own accessible parking placards, but we do have my husband’s. We used it and finally parked.
My daughter actually forgot her cane at home, but we had three spares in the truck. After she grabbed one for herself, I decided to grab another for myself, just in case.
I am so glad I did. My left hip may be better after the steroid injection, but that lasts for only so long, when pounding concrete!
We had to back track to the street the clinic was on (with a gorgeous, castle-like cathedral as a landmark; I once had the opportunity to go there for mass, when I lived in the area, and can attest it’s as beautiful on the inside as the outside), then tried to find someplace with a street number. We found one, but didn’t know which direction we needed to go for the clinic. We were in the 300’s, and the address was in the 200’s.
We were about to wing it when I spotted a guy in a suit about to cross a street, so I quickly asked him if he knew where the clinic was, and which direction we’d need to go. He was an absolute sweetheart, quickly found the place on his phone (his app got it right, where ours clearly didn’t!) and pointed us in the first direction. We had about 3 blocks to walk, though part way along, the sidewalk was blocked off for construction (which was happening all over the place), so we’d have to cross the street, then cross back again, along the way.
The guy was so wonderful and happy about giving directions, he really made our day!
So, off we went, picking our way through construction at an intersection across from the area blocked off for construction (!!!) before finally making it to the final stretch. That’s when we could see a big billboard sign for a clinic. We couldn’t actually read all of it, because there was a tree growing right in front of it, but we could make out enough that it looked right. The entrance wasn’t on the street the address was on, though, and as we walked past the corner and could see the other side of the billboard, which wasn’t blocked by a tree, we realized it wasn’t the right clinic. We still popped in to ask for directions.
The lady pointed out the window to another high rise building across a parking lot.
A building with a huge painted on sign on the side.
With the name of the clinic at the bottom, in white paint on a pale blue background, barely readable.
We were very appreciative for the help.
Thank God we left as early as we did! My daughter’s appointment was at 1pm. We reached the front doors at about 12:40!
When we got to the 9th floor, the elevators opened up to a reception desk.
With things roped off in front, as if under construction. I think it was actually just to keep people from waking up to the counter, though.
There was no one at the counter.
We tried reading the sign, all it really had was arrows for endocrinology in both directions, and some doctor’s names. My daughter didn’t have a name for the doctor she was booked at, so we didn’t know which way we had to go. I spotted a cleaning lady, so I asked her which way to the endocrinologists. She asked which doctor we needed to say, and I told her we didn’t know. She said the staff (meaning the receptionists) were on lunch and would be back soon, so they’d be able to tell us.
We thanked her and went to a nearby waiting room. We couldn’t see the reception desk from where we were but, thankfully, could hear when someone was at the counter. My daughter and I – and several more people in the waiting room – promptly headed over to check in!
… and ask where a bathroom was. It was a long drive!
Of course, it was while my daughter was still in the bathroom that someone came out and called her name! I let them know. 😄
Even with all that, my daughter ended up at her appointment almost 10 minutes early!
She was out much faster than I expected for a first time appointment. She had requisitions for blood work, one to be done right away, the other to be done later. She had been told there was a lab on the ground floor, and she could get her first blook work done there, so that was her first stop.
When we got there and she was checked in, I asked about how long it would be, since the waiting room was quite full.
About 40 minutes was the answer.
!!!
It turned out they were short staffed today, and falling behind.
With time ticking on our parking spot, we decided it would be faster if we head out and stopped at a lab on the way home.
So, off we went to get the truck and head home, this time taking a route I was much more familiar with. It wasn’t until we got home that I had a chance to check why we were sent to a completely wrong area.
It turned out the address in my calendar for the clinic had two numbers reversed. The bizarre thing is, when I was looking at the address and directions on the website last night, I saw the address that was in my phone. Yet, when I looked up the clinic last night, I used the street address that was on my phone, and found it.
So weird!
As we were leaving the clinic, my daughter made a comment about how much she appreciated our new doctor, but she was going to wait until we were out of the city, and I didn’t have to focus on traffic so much (dancing around more construction) before telling me how it went.
We did make one stop along the way. Gas prices in my mother’s down had dropped to $1.269/L, but I planned to get gas in the city. I’d seen a station on the way in that had gas at $1.239/L and was planning to go there – until we passed a station with gas at $1.199/L !! I was just over a half tank and put $40 in, which filled my tank! I can’t remember the last time I was able to fill my tank from half for only $40!
Once we were out of the city, I remembered to ask my daughter how the appointment went.
Not well.
It was a very short appointment and I won’t go into detail, but the doctor was very rude and “just an old b***”, as my daughter described her. Long story short, though, by the time she told me some of the things the doctor did, my jaw was dropping. She needs to make a formal complaint. The doctor apparently made it clear she was disgusted by my daughter’s body. My daughter has hirsutism. She was there because of her PCOS. How does an endocrinologist not encounter a PCOS patient with hirsutism before? Or maybe she has, and just treats all her hairy female patients with hormonal disorders with disgust?
As if that weren’t bad enough, my daughter was manhandled, without explanation nor consent, in a way that is considered sexual assault. Sure it was a physical exam, but NO doctor is supposed to touch a patient like that without first explaining what they were examining for, and getting consent.
She also tried to test my daughter’s reflexes, but kept missing the tendon, then getting ticked off because there was no reaction to her hammering on my daughter’s ankle.
I really hope my daughter files a formal complaint, because… damn!
Along the way, we stopped in the town our doctor’s clinic is in, to do her first blood tests at the lab in the hospital. My daughter went in to get her tests done, while I stayed in the truck to finally eat the rest of my breakfast!
I’m glad we chose to go to a lab on the way home. My daughter was out so quickly – with two people called in ahead of her – that I was just finishing eating when she came back to the truck! Had we stayed at the lab in the city, we would have been just getting out and heading to the truck, unless they fell behind even more.
Her second set of blood tests can be done whenever she is able, but for this one, she is supposed to take a medication at 11pm, then get her blood tested at 8am.
I don’t even know if the local labs are open at 8am. I think they open at 9am. We’ll have to figure that out. Either way, she has a prescription to pick up before she can do the second test.
After the results are in, she hopes to get a telephone appointment only, or pay extra to get the results emailed to her. She does NOT want to go back to this doctor. I told her that she needs to let her regular doctor know about what happened so that, if necessary, she can get referred to another endocrinologist. Apparently, there’s a new clinic being built and there’s already a long waiting list for it, but she’s more than willing to wait, rather than go back!
For the most part, my daughter is just angry, but she realizes that a patient with, for example, a history of sexual abuse, a visit like this would have been very traumatic.
So glad that appointment is over with!
By the time we got home, it was late enough that the first thing I did was get the outside cats fed. No crowd trying to break through the old kitchen door during the evening feedings! Then I got changed and head outside, focusing on getting all the now-dry stuff from the sun room packed up and put away in bins with lids.
As seems to be the usual around here, it took longer than I expected, but I finally got it done!
The storage area is now organized and packed. Before winter, more things will be added for storage but, over all, it is done. On the cat side of the room (second picture) I still need to figure out where to set the second heat lamp, which has a lower wattage heat bulb, but that’s pretty much it. That cats really, really like the new set up! More and more of them seem to have figured out the litter boxes, too.
Finishing the sun room meant I could finally move the cat isolation shelter under the canopy tent.
That took some doing. The wheels kept sinking into the soil! That thing is heavy. What I would like to do, once I have the spare funds for it, is replace the wheels with something larger. For now, I put scraps of cardboard under the wheels to keep them from sinking into the dirt. I also have some handles I want to add to the front and the back, so it’ll be easier to move around.
Meanwhile, the cats can still use it where it is now.
Or that one skunk I have been finding, napping in the cat bed!
The box to go over the ramp door during the winter needs a bit of work. The overlapping plastic cracked when I set it on its side to attach the legs. I did try to set it where it could overhang the edge of the well cap, but it kept moving while I tried to work on it. Nothing some duct tape can’t fix. 😜 The panel in front, with a smaller opening for the cats to get through, was broken by cats panicking and hitting the edges while running out, so that needs to be trimmed. I also want to add a couple of pieces of the same material used for the legs to the sides, as handles to make moving it around easier. Right now, it’s hard to get a grip on it without damaging that roof panel even more.
It might be a couple of days before I can do the painting. Saturday would be perfect for it – a warmer day and, more importantly, a warmer night in the forecast. I might be able to get just one coat on before it starts getting too cold for wet paint to cure, but even that is better than nothing.
I’m going to be out and about a lot over the next while. Tomorrow, I’ll be at my mother’s for longer than usual. Along with her grocery shopping, I will be cooking up some of the chicken she was so angry at me for buying for her. I even remembered to ask her to take it out of the freezer tonight, so it’ll be thawed out before I get there. She’s also asked me to trim her toenails for her. I want to take a good look at her feet, as she apparently is getting an ingrown toenail, and that might need to be checked by a doctor. Of course, I’ll be doing some housework for her, changing her bedding, probably doing her laundry. Some of this stuff, my sister would normally come out on Fridays (my mother’s scheduled laundry time with the shared machines) and do for her. Since my mother gets her Meals on Wheels at noon on Fridays, I don’t plan to be there until about 1pm, so she has a chance to eat, first, and I can take the tray out to the common room for pick up, later in the week.
Saturday, I’ll be out again for a dump run, but that shouldn’t take long.
Sunday afternoon, I will be meeting to drop off cats near a Walmart, so if there’s any last things we need before Thanksgiving on Monday, that would be my time to get it.
Then I get to stay home for a while! The only appointment I have next week is a telephone follow up about the injection to my hip. I’ve got lots to do to prepare beds for winter sowing, as both day time highs and overnight lows will soon be cool enough to sow seeds but not have them germinate until spring.
I’m happy to day I did actually get some progress done outside.
Last night, however, I was up late doing some research on well pumps and pressure tanks.
I’ve been angsting about our well pump since we moved out here. I’ve never been able to ascertain what “normal” sounds like. Thanks go my brother, we do have a new pump ready and waiting to be installed, but no plumber has dared do it. I explain about it in this post from 2020. Basically, there was a possibility the foot valve was leaking, because the pump would start running, even when no one was using water, and they were concerned that if they switched out the pump, the foot valve could break apart. If that happened, we would have no water at all and could potentially need a new well dug.
Eventually, though, we figured out that we have phantom flush. I just happened to be on the toilet in the wee hours of the morning when I heard the water start going in the tank, to refill it. We replaced all the parts in pieces in the tank, but it was still happening. Finally, I just took the refill out of the overflow, so it filled directly into the tank instead, and the phantom flush stopped. Why it worked, I have no idea, but it did.
So with that problem “solved” (we actually want to replace the toilet, for a number of reasons), we figured it should be safe to replace the tank. We just don’t have a budget for it.
Well, in the last while, the pump sounding more and more grindy,. It runs for a normal length of time and the pressure is good. Most likely, it’s the bearings.
Which is bad enough on its own, but lately it’s been going off way too often. Every time the toilet is flushed, even if it’s been on person right after the other, using it. When someone is in the shower or the washing machine is going, it starts running so often, it may as well not have stopped in between (as I hear the pump starting up again, while my daughter is in the shower). We’re also losing pressure faster, which is always most noticeable in the kitchen, which is the farthest sink from the pump and tanks.
After looking things up, it looks like the pressure tank is starting to lose pressure. There can be a number of reasons for this, but the end result is the same. The tank can’t keep up the pressure, so the pump keeps having to turn on to refill it. Depending on the size, a new pressure tank can cost anywhere from about $200 to over $500. For the amount of water we use, we would need a somewhat larger tank (I think this one is a 7 gallon tank), I’d love to get a 20 gallon tank. That way, if we ever get those water fountains by the barn serviced, we could turn the tap on in the basement, and there would be continuous water available for any animals we might get, or even for the renter’s cows. These fountains are insulated and keep the water warm enough to never freeze, too.
But that’s not an option now, and to meet our needs, we’d want at least the same size as what we have no, no smaller.
This morning, I messaged my brother about it. The tanks I looked at all say “compatible with most deep well pumps”, but he’s the one that knows the system better than anyone living.
He doesn’t think it’s the pressure tank.
He thinks it’s the foot valve. He says it was last replaced 20 years ago.
Well, I don’t know how it can get replaced. The bottom of the well access is a concrete floor, with pipes running to the house through the side near the bottom. I don’t know how the well pipe itself can be accessed. The plumber seemed to think that the concrete on the bottom would have to be broken up. Which doesn’t make sense, if the foot valve was replaced 20 years ago. We should be able to pull it up somehow.
I’ll have to consult my brother about that.
Whether it’s the pressure tank or the foot valve that needs replacing, either way it would be a good time to install the new pump!
All these pumps and tanks are the greatest source of stress for me. Water related or septic related!
So that’s something I really would rather not have to worry about. There’s absolutely nothing we can do about it right now, either.
What I did instead was my morning rounds, after feeding the outside cats. While coming back from checking the gate, I realized I was seeing an amazing full moon, and just had to try for some pictures. I even found someplace to steady my phone against, so I could zoom in.
Now that I see the picture on my desktop, it looks so detailed, I’m wondering if the camera automatically “fixed” the photo. That was a bit of a “scandal” some years ago, and that “feature” was supposed to have been dropped.
As I was going through the garden, I checked out the sunflowers. This past frost has killed them off, so any remaining seed heads will never reach maturity. I did, however, find this one…
It is possible that this one has viable seeds in it! I’ve tucked it into the portable greenhouse for now, to dry out some more. It would be nice to try again from our own seeds. Every generation of seeds collected will be better adapted to our local climate.
While the frost killed up most of the things that were exposed (I still haven’t tried peaking under the cover for the winter squash), one thing is doing just fine.
Once the morning rounds were done, I waited until things warmed up a bit in the afternoon before continuing with the stuff from the sun room that I had soaking over night. Most of it could be spread out, hung up or set up to dry. Except for the garden mesh. Today turned out to be ridiculously windy, so unraveling those will have to wait. For now, they’re set aside with their bin upside down over them, so they hopefully will not blow away.
That old sheet I found that was repurposed to cover garden beds sure had it’s moments when I tried to hang it on the line. Lots of clothes pins needed! Sure dried fast, though. 😄
I’m so glad I though to put that old roof panel onto the shelf shelter! This little feral kitten could enjoy a warm sun spot while completely protected from the wind.
Eventually, I got things done as much as I could until things dried. After my daughter and I get back from her appointment in the city, I’m hoping to finally put everything in bins with lids, and get them out of the yard again! I need that space to paint the isolation shelter.
The next thing to work on was that garden bed I’d started on a couple days ago.
*sigh*
With all the years of amending the soil, prepping these beds for the winter should only have taken about 15 minutes each. Half an hour, if the rocks and weeds were really bad.
Where I’d stopped, last time, had a bit root sticking up and I had to use the loppers to cut that. Then I just kept working my way down that side of the bed. In the first picture, you can see some of the roots I was exposing as I worked my way down. By this point, the soil was so dense with roots, I actually had a hard time pushing the garden fork through it!
The second picture was taken when I finally got that side done. I’d emptied the rocks bucket before I started, so these just rocks I’d picked today. When I stopped last time, I had worked past the half way point, so this was from about a third of one side of the bed. That pile I raked up at the end, near the bucket, is almost all tree roots. Very few normal weeds.
That last photo was taken from the unworked side of the bed. There were a could of bigger roots that I pulled up, but I won’t be able to get the rest out until I’ve worked the other side of the bed.
None of this was there when I planted the peas and carrots in it in the spring. All those roots are just one summer’s growth.
My mother keeps giving me a hard time for being such a bad gardener. Meanwhile, it’s the self seeded trees she deliberately left, after transplanting the raspberries they’d been growing through, that is causing me more problems that all the rocks! The roots are growing into where the soil is easiest to grow in – the soil I’ve been amending to grow vegetables in. So they’re filling the beds and taking up all the water and nutrients, and I’m not even finding it until the end of the season, after the damage is done. This, on top of dealing with drought conditions and smoke this year.
Trees are not always good thing.
One of these days, I’ve got to snag a daughter and our cutting equipment, and take down the entire row of elms and maples. Then we’ll have to find a way to make sure they don’t grow back! Otherwise, even as we build these up into high raised beds, the roots will still find their way up and into the growing zone.
It’s taking a lot longer than it should, but at least I did get some progress in today. Whether I manage to get any done tomorrow, after we get back from the city, will depend on how much daylight we have left.
