LED lights

A quiet day

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

I did get a decent amount accomplished today. Got rained on for some of it, which I didn’t mind.

First up, I just had to share this clip from the outside critter cam that I found.

That’s Sweetie in the front. The cats gets along with the raccoons, but I don’t blame her at all for running with those three barralling towards her!

While feeding the outside cats, I got to snag a picture of this little cutie.

The poor thing is such a bundle of nerves, ready to run away at any moment. The important thing, though, is that it’s staying close to the house and regularly coming over for food.

This morning, I had to stay close to the phone as I was expecting a call from a nurse about my surgery next week, any time between 8am and noon. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait too long! I now have pre-op instructions. I stop taking any supplements as of today, and one of my two prescriptions needs to be stopped three days before surgery.

Once that call was done, I could get some work done.

One of the things I got started on today was moving more rocks cleared from the garden bed over to near the fire pit. Then I took out the broken cinder blocks and fire bricks from inside the pit. It needed to be cleared of old ashes and leveled inside, then the fire bricks returned, as they are used under the Dutch Oven. The cinder blocks were very handy in there, but they can’t handle the heat and broke into pieces. We’ll make do without them for now.

The soil around the outside of the fire pit needs to be loosened and leveled before the rocks are added, to replace the old enameled bricks my daughter took out for me. The cracked handle on my garden fork finally gave out, unfortunately, so it’ll have to wait until I get a new one. Last time I was at the hardware store, there were none in stock. That fork is only thing I’ve got that’s strong enough to break up that soil, other than a spade.

This is a project that’s going to be spread out over quite a while.

After doing as much as I could on that for now, I heard something odd and went into the outer yard to see if something among my brother’s stuff had fallen or blown over. I never found anything out of place but, since I was there, I started pulling a whole lot of vines off the back of the junk pile and the willow trees beside it. I was able to access the old bath tub, drag it out and set it up.

It wasn’t that rusted out when it got buried in the junk pile.

For now, I’ve got it supported and stabilized with pieces of the elm tree that had been in front of the kitchen window. I’ll have to pick up something up to stopper the drain, as it will be used to soak and wash the outdoor cat beds and blankets. Some are too big for the washing machine, and all of them are too dirty and gross to use in our washing machine. At some point, the tub will get sanded down and spayed with enamel paint to keep it from rusting out entirely, and then I’ll build some sort of stand to hold it upright. Preferably with wheels, so it can be moved around easily as needed.

Once I got as much outside stuff done while being rained on as I could, I quickly changed and headed to the post office to pick up a couple of packages.

This was a surprise…

This is the 5 pound container of salt my husband got for me. The packaging was damaged, so Canada Post put it in this plastic bag, which has an apology printed right on it.

A 5 pound container, and Amazon packed it in a plain paper envelope. Not even a padded one. This really should have been i a box!

We also got a package of LED lights my husband got for me.

Each light came with the teeniest, tiniest of screwdrivers! That’s to open them up to change the batteries. 1

The Velcro it came with isn’t long enough to fit around my all terrain walker frame. My husband had some longer Velcro strips that he didn’t need, so I used those, instead.

Red light on the left, green on the right.

Who, reading that, knows why?

I gave the other two to my husband for his walker, though he’s stuck with blue instead of green.

I now have my first walker bling. 😄

For now, I’m done with the outside stuff I hoped to accomplish. We didn’t get a lot of rain, but it’s still too wet to use some of the equipment I’ll need to sue.

It’s not even 5:30 yet, and I’m so sleepy, I could probably call it a night! As it is, I’m starting to have a hard time typing. I can at least say it was a relatively pain free day, for now, and there’s no sign of it kicking in for the evening, either. Here’s hoping it stays away!

The Re-Farmer

An awesome surprise

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

I had a really rough night last night. No, not because of pain levels. Well. Only partly because of pain levels. More because of this little beast!

She even looks malevolent in this shot!

Throughout the night, if she wasn’t trying to dig under my keyboard or under my monitor (I have no idea what she is after under there!), she’s jumping up onto a craft shelf that really can’t support her, or goes right next to my head in bed, clawing at my sheets – I’m truly amazed I don’t have big holes in my sheets, yet! – before snuggling into my arms and cuddling hard up against me during the night.

She’s not the only one. I usually have her on one side, Cheddar jammed up against my back, and one or two more against my legs. It makes it very hard to roll over!

Then there were the cats determined to use the carpet as a scratching post instead of the scratching post, and the ones that do the non stop digging in the litter boxes (that includes Nosencrantz!) and generally waking me up repeatedly during the night. Oh, and of course there is the scratching at the door as various cats want in or out.

So this morning, I fed the outside cats while still in my pajamas, then went back to bed to try and get a least a couple more hours of sleep!

I almost got it, too.

Which is why I was later than usual when leaving to run some errands. We’re running low on dry kibble, and the price difference is enough to warrant going to the nearest Walmart. I left late enough that the post office had reopened after their lunch break, and my backordered seeds were supposed to be in, so that was my first stop.

Alas, my back ordered seeds did turn out to be yet another package of substitute seeds! Instead of the Improved Purple Queen beans I’d ordered, I got another package of Red Swan. That makes three packages, including the one that I’d actually ordered originally! Ah, well. I won’t bother trying to get the Improved Purple Queen again. They’re obviously having supply issues with that one. On the plus side, the seeds did come with a new catalog of garden supplies, including greenhouses. My older daughter is saving up for a hard sided greenhouse, so it will be great to look through what they have available, and get an idea of what it will cost.

I also got a surprise gift in the mail! I opened up the padded envelope to see, but didn’t open the boxes I found until I got home again. Check this out!

The insert says “Human Body Induction Night Light”. Apparently, they will turn on with body heat? Which is weird. Especially since they have motion sensors.

The box of AAA batteries to go with them was also greatly appreciated. We don’t use those a lot, and my last package got knocked behind a shelf by the cats and we have yet to be able to move that shelf to reclaim them.

I am just thrilled with these! Before moving out here, the townhouse we were living in had some dark hallways and corners. We had night lights all over the place, plus in the three bathrooms (gosh, I miss having more than one bathroom!) with motion sensors, so we could use the bathroom at night without blinding ourselves.

For me, the biggest problem is right at my bedroom door. It’s very dark on both sides, and with cats constantly wanting in and out of my room, I’ve accidentally stepped on or kicked way too many of them. I now have one attached to the wall at the inside of my door, and one attached to the basement door on the outside, both at cat height. It wasn’t long at all before they were tested out, too. Perfect!

I do have the decorative fairy lights in the hallway to light our way without having to turn on the main light, I’ve been using the leftover batteries from the trail cams for those. They each take 8 AA batteries. When the batteries are too low for the cameras, there’s still quite a bit of charge in them. Enough for the LED lights. So I’ve been keeping those separate to use in the LED lights. Now that we have the solar camera and just one other working trail cam, we’re not going through as many batteries as we used to. I’m finally working my way through the box I’ve been storing them in! Since they’re already partly used, they drain fairly quickly. With the fairy lights, they just get dimmer and dimmer.

So, I now have one of these new lights set up in our very dark hallway at about knee height. Another is set up in the even darker corner one of the upstairs litter boxes is in. There’s an old mirror we have yet to remove from the opposite wall, so the light reflects and brightens the whole space. Another went on a bathroom wall opposite the mirror for the same reason. We do have a battery operated LED light switch style light in the bathroom, but it’s a pain to change the batteries on it. We have another in the corner where one of the upstairs litter boxes it, too. They’re held to the wall with self adhesive Velcro, which would come off either the wall or the fixture. I ended up buying heavier duty self adhesive Velcro for the bathroom one, which holds in place better, but now it’s harder to remove to change the batteries. Plus, as the batteries die, the light starts to blink on and off like a strobe, so we’ve pretty much stopped using them. With these new lights, the backs slide off easily. The back stays on the wall while the batteries get changed.

The last light went just inside the old basement door, under the light switch. There is no light over the stairs, so right at the door is quite dark. Not a problem when you’re going down, but when going up, it’s hard to see, and where the new motion sensor light is set, it perfectly lights up the door knob as you reach the top of the stairs.

I am just loving these things! I’ve asked for the link, so we can pick up more! There are so many dark spaces in this house. Plus, of course, if we lose power, we will still have these lights. There are strategic places I can think to put more of them, if I can figure out how to attach them. The self adhesive mounting strips won’t work on the old basement walls, for example.

Yeah, I’m geeking out over these lights!

Also… I’ve got the best friends!!!

The Re-Farmer