I have just a bit of time, and decided to make a quick post, while I can. I expect to be on the phone for much of this morning.
So, here is a quick good morning from the kitties!
The heated water bowl was completely empty this morning! I was not fast enough with the camera, but as I was coming back from putting kibble in the tray under the shrine, I spotted Rosencrantz (the blurry cat in the foreground), sitting in it!
I guess a dry heated bowl makes a good butt warmer. 😀
Clearly, the cats were more interested in water than warm butts! It must have been empty for a while.
I did my morning rounds earlier than usual to get them done in time for my conference call. I would have been well on my way to court today right now, had our overlords not decided to re-impose more restrictions again. For my new visitors (hello! Welcome!), this is for a civil suit our vandal filed against me, in retaliation for my applying for a restraining order against him after his last attempt to break our gate again. More than a year ago, now. The shut downs and restrictions keep pushing things back, again and again.
This conference call will be just to reschedule, because this has to be done in court, in person. We haven’t had our first court date yet. He has no case, so I would hope a judge would see that right away (our vandal is suing me for $13,000 over things here on the farm that I don’t claim to own in the first place) and throw it out, but who knows.
If things go well, he’ll withdraw his suit, but that is highly unlikely.
As the court clerk will be running through a docket, the files with lawyers will be done first, and I don’t think our vandal has a lawyer for this, as he did for my restraining order application against him. If he does, it’ll be over fairly quickly. Otherwise, we just wait our turn with the rest of the people representing themselves. It could be over quickly, or I could be on the phone for hours.
Whenever it’s finally done, however, I still need to go out. I don’t think I’ll have the energy to do our full monthly stock up, but I at least need to go to the small city the courthouse is in.
Potato Beetle is looking downright malevolent! 😀
It was a very chilly morning today, but that doesn’t seem to have slowed down the cats, any! I tried to do a head count, but never got the same number twice, as they milled about, so I gave up. 😀
We had a first, yesterday evening, though I was not able to get a photo. While it was clear that deer have been visiting our feeding station for a while, yesterday was the first time I actually saw any.
I saw one out the window, but it saw me moving about through the glass and soon left. A moment later, I saw another – and a second one beside it! I’d hung a sunflower stem, with about 5 little seed heads, off the hook that should be holding a bird feeder (we never did find the missing pieces). One of the deer discovered it and started reaching up to nibble on a tiny seed head, breaking off the branch. The other deer promptly went after a leaf on the branch, breaking the stem from out of the deer’s mouth! The first deer went after the rest of the sunflower branch and pulled the whole thing down.
There was no trace of it, this morning.
Meanwhile, a third deer showed up and hovered nearby. I think I even saw a fourth one coming through the trees. About then, the phone rang. It was the pharmacy delivery guy letting me know he was in the area, so I quickly started to bundle up to meet him at the gate – which is when I saw another deer come in through the little gate, walking up the sidewalk, towards the side of the house!
Of course, my going disturbed the deer. I saw the delivery car reaching the gate and, as I started up the driveway, a deer suddenly came FLYING over the south fence of the spruce grove, across the driveway, and over the fence into the old hay yard. It touched ground twice, maybe three times, over the distance. My goodness, when deer go all out, it’s like they have wings!
The delivery driver missed it entirely. He had been rummaging for our package in his back seat by then.
The delivery was a bit of a surprise. My husband had ordered more insulin, but he got a refill on is bubble packs, too. He still have at least a week’s worth, left. It used to be that, because some of his meds are restricted, he couldn’t order refills until he was within 3 days of running out. That restriction went away when the government started shutting things down, and now he’s able to get his medications refilled even when he hadn’t asked for them yet! They don’t even make the bubble packs locally, anymore. He’s the only one on those meds out here, so they had to special order them from the city. Now, his bubble packs are made in the city, and shipped to the pharmacy. I have no idea how they decided to do a refill for him so soon, when they hadn’t been asked for.
What fun. We can’t go into the pharmacy because they don’t recognise medical mask exemptions, but we can sure get our opiates in advance, whether we ordered a refill or not!
Looking at the bill was a head shaker. His bubble packs, with a 4 week supply of about 10 different medications in it, including some pretty rare ones, cost less than half what his one box of 4 slow-release insulin pens cost, and the box of insulin lasts for less than a month. I know this type of insulin is more expensive, but sheesh!!!
On a completely different topic, I got an email from our vandal’s lawyer yesterday. It seems our vandal is agreeable to the conditions we came up with during Case Management, and will be stating this in court tomorrow. Of course, it’s entirely possible he’ll change his mind at the last minute, but assuming he doesn’t, that means we will have a Peace Bond against him. For one year, we will have no contact with him, and he will not be allowed to be under the influence while off his own property (I don’t care if he gets drunk at home. I just don’t want him getting drunk, then coming over here to set fire to the house or something). I’m supposed to get a copy of the court order, so I’ll get the precise wording of it, then.
It’s just a piece of paper, but it’s a tool the RCMP will have, if our vandal ever does decide to do something stupid again.
Now we just have to deal with his civil suit against us. The court date for that is at the end of January. Hopefully, the judge will see just how stupid it is, and throw it out. Even if our vandal did have some sort of claim on the junk he thinks is his, it makes no sense for him to go after me for money, when I don’t own anything here!
We shall see how it goes.
Until then, I will enjoy caring for the yard cats, as my late father did. 🙂
Yesterday, I roasted some chickens for the next few days and, since I had to get up earlier this morning, I had and early supper. I set out a bowl for the “bones and oogy bits” and labelled it before going to bed.
This is what I found this morning.
My younger daughter asked if “oogy” was a technical term, so which my husband said yes, while my older daughter added the headless chicken carcass.
What a great thing to find in the morning, when I was so dreading heading out!
I made sure to feed the cats before I left, but I was gone so long, the outside cats needed a top-op.
They were very appreciative! Another cheerful sight. 🙂
As for my court date… it went as well as could be. It’s on our vandal to respond now, but I’ll get to that in a bit.
The session was booked for 9am. I planned to leave by 7am, if not earlier. I took the time to actually eat breakfast, which I normally never do that early in the day, before heading out, and when I started the van, the clock read exactly 7am. The drive to the town my mother lives in, where I stopped for gas, was not too bad, though there were parts of the highway that had been blown over and covered with ice and snow. Bad enough on their own, but it was starting to melt a bit, too, which added another level of “gotta be careful!”
Once back on the highway after getting gas, I thought things would be better, as that part of the highway is busier, but nope. It was quite a lot worse, which made for slow driving for a while. By the time I reached the divided highway, though, it finally cleared up… just in time to hit the construction zone, where four lanes with a ditch in between bottle necked into two lanes on one side.
Still, by the time I reached the city, I was making good time. While I knew where to go from checking on the map, I had my phone’s map on navigator, so I had a voice telling me when and where to make my turns, just to be on the safe side.
That worked well, right up until I reached the street the court offices were on, and I was to make a left turn. As I reach the lights, I see a sign under them.
No left turn.
Okay, I’ll just go to the next intersection and drive around the block.
As I drive through, the navigator auto adjusts and tells me to make a right turn at the next street. Which I can’t do, because I’m in the left lane during rush hour, and changing lanes was just not an option, never mind trying to move 3 lanes over.
Next intersection?
The sign says, no left turn.
No left turn.
No left turn.
No left turn between 7am and 9am.
One way only.
No left turn between 7am and 9am.
One way only.
By this time, I’ve crossed the river and the navigator is telling me to make U turns, which I could not do.
Finally, I found a street I could turn left onto – with my phone telling me to take a U turn again – drove around the block and made my way back. When I got to the street the court offices was on, I saw a parkade just up the block and went straight there, as I no longer had time to search for parking.
By the time I parked, walked back to the street I needed and found the building, it was just before 9am. I also just managed to get into the doors to stand at the back of the line to pass through security.
Thankfully, I had the phone number for our vandal’s lawyer, so I called him and told him where I was, and he said he would pass that on to the judge for me.
Thankfully again, the line moved quickly.
Our province is in an odd situation right now. With the pandemic response, emergency status was lifted a while ago. The mandates, as far as I know, expired as well. But the province is still enforcing mask rules (there were signs for distancing all over, which were being ignored by everyone). Also, as many expected, they brought in more restrictions after Remembrance Day, but most apply only to churches in the south of our province (where not a single case of Schrödinger’s Virus has been traced to) and kids from 12-17 who want to play hockey. There are others as well, that make just as little sense.
I expect them to implement another illegal full lock down before Christmas.
Anyhow, I didn’t have the energy for a hassle, so I wore my Mingle Mask and hoped for the best.
No one said a thing to me while I was in line.
As the line was moving forward, I remembered I had a pocket knife in one of my parka’s pockets, so when I got to the security station and put my things into a bin, I started reaching into my pocket to give it to them. The security guard, who didn’t bat an eye at my Mingle Mask, started to tell me I didn’t need to empty my pockets, my parka would go through Xray, until I pulled out the pocket knife and told him I’d forgotten about it. He was quite happy with that and took it aside while I went through the metal detector (none of this procedure is in the court offices we’d been going to in the smaller city!).
I fully expected to lose the knife. I’ve been through court security in another province before moving here, and they even confiscated the metal travel chopsticks a friend of mine had in her purse. Happily, I was wrong. When I got to the other side, another security guard had a Ziplock baggie with a form on it, got my name and got me to initial it, then told me where to go as I left, to retrieve it! I was quite pleased by this, as my husband gave me that knife, and it is a very good one. It got quite a few admiring glances from the security guards.
After getting directions, I found my way to the courtroom our session was going to be in. Just the lawyer and court clerk was there, and the court clerk left, probably to let the judge know I had arrived. It was about 10 past 9 when I got there, and it took another 5 or 10 minutes before the judge came in, so the lawyer and I had a chance to talk.
The first thing I asked was if our vandal was there. He didn’t actually answer, but started asking me about what conditions I might be willing to agree to.
Smart man, not having our vandal there. He would not have been able to shut up.
I actually feel sorry for the lawyer. Nice guy. Doing his best for our vandal, of course, but I think he’s figured out his client is a problem.
Then the judge came in and things got started.
He wasn’t wearing a mask. I could actually see his expressions! It was wonderful!
I think we spent about an hour in this session, and covered a lot of ground. The judge started by asking the lawyer about where our vandal was, and he explained that he’d told our vandal he could stay home, since the lawyer was there to represent him. The judge then began grilling the lawyer, before having a lot of questions for me. Much time was spent clarifying things like what our role was on the property, who actually owned it, when the ownership was transferred from my mother to my brother, and so on. Our vandal’s civil suit came up, even though it is a federal matter, not a provincial one, but the two files are so connected. The lawyer brought it up briefly and tried to move on, but the judge had a lot of questions. His expression when he clarified that the suit was against me – who doesn’t own anything here on the farm – and not my brother, was something to see. The lawyer is not representing our vandal on this case, but he did make a comment on how this was not the wisest of moves on the part of our vandal. Civil law is not the specialty of either of them, though, so they couldn’t say much else.
After much discussion, what I was willing to accept was a no-contact order, coupled with a restriction on drinking; our vandal (who does not believe he has a problem with booze) can drink all he wants at home, but he can’t leave his property while under the influence. The lawyer got an extra week to have time to bring the proposal to our vandal, so two weeks from now, he will have to show up in court. The lawyer had the option of calling in. If he accepts the conditions, we have a de-facto “peace bond”. A court order that expires in a year. If he does NOT accept it, it will go to trail. The judge made sure to explain that, if it goes to trial, then I take on the role of prosecutor and have to present evidence to justify my application. That would be a year from now, at the earliest. Of course, I have to give copies of any evidence I want to present to our vandal’s lawyer. The only issue is that, if I want to use the phone messages my mother got, my mother has to actually be there in court to confirm that yes, these are from our vandal and yes, these were from her answering machine.
Which my mother is willing to do, but she’d be 91 by then, and who knows how mobile she might be in that time?
I have no doubt the lawyer is going to impress on our vandal, the wisdom of accepting the conditions.
Whether our vandal is smart enough to do it is another thing.
The judge even knew where we live, more or less, so when he started to explain to me how to get a copy of the order (if our vandal accepts), he stopped and said he would just get them to send it to me, and made sure to have my mailing address to do it.
Once an order is in place, things then fall into the jurisdiction of the RCMP.
Which is about the best outcome we could have gotten out of this session.
So that is done for now. The lawyer will inform me of what our vandal decides.
After that, we’ll just have the civil suit to deal with, and the court date for that is in the summer. Unless our vandal is smart enough to drop that one, but I highly doubt it. I don’t know what he thinks he can accomplish. Not only do I not claim ownership of anything he says is his, but I told him long ago that he could take his stuff, if he could prove ownership. He never responded, and didn’t file suit until after he was served in regards to our restraining order application, more than two years later. He has no case, and just doesn’t seem to understand that.
Ah, well. All we can do is hope for the best and prepare for the worst!
As for me, I’m going to go debone some chickens, so my daughter can make some stock for a nice chicken soup later on. 🙂 Life goes on!
I headed out early today, for my court date with our vandal. It’s been a year, minus a day, since my first court date regarding my application for a restraining order was scheduled.
It was a very, very long day.
No, it’s not resolved.
But before I get into that, I will talk about something more therapeutic. I was so mentally exhausted by the time I got home, I needed to do some good old manual labour to get some “rest”.
I feel so much better, now!
With the day being several degrees warmer than forecast, I focused on the area that caused problems before, because the ground was too frozen. The old kitchen garden.
Before our old garden fork finally bent from the mostly frozen ground, then broke when my daughter tried to straighten it, she did get a start on the retaining wall before moving to an area where the ground was not frozen. This is the area that gets the most shade, plus I wanted to transplant some mint out of another bed into some of these, so the blocks got first priority. The ground was quite thawed out, today.
After the groundhog ate the lettuce that was planted in these, they basically got abandoned until now. Happily, there wasn’t too many weeds and roots to dig out.
After I did the blocks from the chives to the opposite end, I dug up some mint and transplanted them into every other block, again starting from the chives. When I thought I was done, I walked back and found some mint that got dropped from the bunch as I moved along the retaining wall, so I cleaned up one of the blocks in the foreground and planted it there. We had buried a mystery bulb in it, earlier in the year, but there was no sign of it when I dug into that block, so mint it will be!
I don’t know if they will take, but we shall see. After they were transplanted, they got a thorough watering, and that section is now done, unless we decide to mulch it with straw, now that there is mint in the blocks. We shall see how things go over the next couple of days.
This is the somewhat triangular bed we had planted carrots in, and where the garden fork met its match. The bed is too wide in the foreground, and that is also where the mint was coming up. Mint was even coming up through the paths we covered in straw and were walking on! There was one mint plant visible in the foreground that looks frozen, so I didn’t try to transplant it.
For this bed, the carrots that had bolted got buried in the middle, while the wider end was narrowed.
I stopped before getting too close to the pink rose bush at the “point” of the triangle. We’ve pruned the ornamental apple tree that was overshadowing it, and last year it finally bloomed, but this year, like so many other things, that one cold night in May killed off any developing flower buds, and it did not bloom at all. Hopefully, next year, it will have a chance to do better!
These are the mint rhizomes I found while clearing and resizing the bed! Even the rhizomes smells strongly of mint.
I then moved on to the L shaped bed we planted beets in. This one end in the foreground was particularly bad for weeds, but the rest was much easier to clear out.
My older daughter was able to come out and give me a hand part way through. She brought the logs over to frame the resized bed. The log at the end was originally cut as an end piece for the high raised bed, but the measurement got goofed, and it was more like 3 1/2 feet long, instead of 4 ft. So it’s perfect for here! The other two logs were from the remaining tops of dead spruce trees we’d used in the high raised bed. They are too thin and wonky to use in a high raised bed, but they will work here for now. In time, this will get replaced with something more permanent, and higher.
Then my daughter helped me finish weeding the L shaped bed. Once that was done, a shallow trench was dug along the middle, and the beets that were too small to harvest got buried.
The final step was to even out the soil in the framed bed, then I used the hose to wash the soil against the logs and level it out more. As gaps were found under the logs by the water, I stuffed them with straw.
These beds are now ready for next year. There is just the bed along the retaining wall to clean up, and later the paths will get a new layer of straw to keep the weeds down.
By the time I was done, I was feeling much rejuvenated and refreshed.
The day in court was so much longer than expected. Because of the fairly long drive, plus the need to get some gas, I left before 8am. It was still dark when I left, and there was one redeeming factor during the drive. I got to see a gorgeous sunrise. We do live in a very beautiful area!
On the down side, by the time I got home, I’d burned off all the gas I’d been able to put into the tank! 😦 I used my mother’s car, as it has not been driven much at all, lately. It does not have good mileage!
Anyhow.
I got there so early, I was the first person there, and the security guard didn’t even have the docket yet. We ended up chatting for a while, until the other security guard came with the docket. They both remember me by now! While we were talking the next person who showed up was our vandal. I almost didn’t recognize him at first, because of the mask (I wore my Mingle Mask, making me both recognizable and memorable, it turns out!). His lawyer was going to call in, so our vandal was on his own.
So we waited.
And waited.
Court started at 10, and they went through the docket.
We waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
The security guard called our vandal over and told him he might want to talk to his lawyer about calling in, because he was next on the docket and I heard him say the lawyer was already on the phone, waiting, too!
An hour passed.
Two hours passed.
The second security guard, who was calling people in, came out and called for anyone who was there for the first time, but was not represented by a lawyer.
Someone else went in, and we waited.
Then someone else got called in, and we waited some more.
By the time we got called in, it was well past noon.
Our vandal was asked about his lawyer, and he explained that he had been on the phone for an hour already. The judge called into the mike, but the lawyer wasn’t there.
So they took the next files while waiting for the lawyer to call in again.
Several files later (they went by very quickly) and still no lawyer, so our vandal finally offered to text him, and they went on to the next file, with the understanding that it would be interrupted if the lawyer called in.
This one took longer, and then they moved on to another that was even longer. That one did get interrupted as the lawyer finally called in, with apologies.
The judge spoke to the lawyer for a while, then asked our vandal to clarify some things. I had agreed to suspend my application, if he agreed to seek psychiatric help. It turns out that his first referral was to the bigger city, but they are so backlogged, they are not accepting any out of town patients. His doctor then referred him to the smaller city we were in for court, but they are backlogged at least 3 or 4 months.
Given the way things are going, in my mind, it’ll be twice that, at least, but who knows?
So that left us in a quandary. The judge asked me how I wanted to proceed, and I told him that I understood the issues with backlogs, but until he is getting help, I don’t feel safe. He has already caused damage and been threatening towards me, which was acknowledged. I told them I felt that the only reason we have peace right now is likely because of my application, but it’s already been a year. The problem is, if it goes to trial, we won’t have a court date until…
A year from now.
All the previous cases that got rescheduled while we waited were going to November of next year, so I was not surprised by this.
Given how long it has taken, the lawyer suggested going to Case Management. The judge explained that this would be me, our vandal and his lawyer in a room, trying to work things out. I asked if I could have someone with me. The judge asked who, and I suggested my older brother, who owns the property. I had to explain that we are basically caretakers, and my older brother owns the property; the safety issue is about me, while the vandalism affects my brother. The judge agreed. So I won’t have to be alone and bullied by our vandal and his lawyer.
So, in the interest of speeding things up, the lawyer will have to show up in court a week from now, a date for case management will be worked out with the judge, and the lawyer will inform both of us.
By the time we left, it was nearly an hour, for what is normally a 10-15 minute session.
Near the end of it, our vandal tried to interject that there was a “bigger picture” involved and brought up his civil suit against me. He started to say how the property was transferred to my brother “behind his back”, that I’m keeping him from his possessions, and that I am using the courts against him. Which is a rich claim indeed, considering he is the one that caused damage and took so many things from this property, and he is the one who has filed vexatious litigation against me, in retaliation for applying for a restraining order. However, in his mind, he is the victim. He doesn’t even deny that he vandalized things. He just acts like it hasn’t happened, and my family and I are just persecuting him. He doesn’t deny that he’s taken things, either. He truly seems to believe he was entitled to it all. But then, he also believes he’s “maintained” this place for 30 years (my parents were still actively farming 30 years ago), my parents bought the property in 1952 (they weren’t even married yet), and they somehow managed to fun a fully functioning farm, without owning anything on it (he’s told me 90% of everything here belongs to him). It’s all part of why I want him to get psychiatric help.
The judge pretty much brushed his comments off as something to be dealt with in Case Management.
Given his mental state, I don’t expect anything to be accomplished by Case Management. But, at the very least, it will show the courts that we tried.
The year long delay for things to go to trial, though… good Lord! So much can happen within that year! Even then, ultimately it’s just a piece of paper. But it’s a tool that will, hopefully, get him help for his mental health, and maybe stop drinking (which hasn’t even come up, yet). The judge may even choose to have our vandals guns removed. Not that it would stop him from doing something like setting fire to the house.
*sigh*
The police recommended I apply for the restraining order back on 2018, when I first laid charges. It was already stressful enough to press charges – which got stayed, anyhow – and I didn’t want to go through it all. On the one hand, it feels like I shouldn’t have bothered now. On the other, I wish I’d done it back in 2018, before the world went crazy.
*sigh*
What’s done is done. I can’t stop now, or things will just get worse.
Meanwhile, we just keep on going, taking care of this place, and improving it any way we can.
I was just heading back into the house after a quick version of my morning rounds, when I realized I was being watched.
The Potato Beetle was all tucked in!
For those who are new to this blog (welcome!), one of the things we did to help the yard cats over the winter, was create shelters in the bottom two shelves of a shelf we’d removed from upstairs while cleaning out my parents’ stuff. This remarkably heavy shelf was left outside the sun room until we could figure out where to haul it for storage, since the shed we’ve been using to hold all my parents’ stuff is now full. It ended up being so handy where it was, we left it.
The cats liked it, too.
Last winter, I used rigid insulation to create little cat caves in the bottom two shelves, and even left a cardboard box in one for an extra cozy little space. The cats love it, and one of their favourite things to do is just sit in the opening, watching the world go by. 🙂
Speaking of shelter, when I came out this morning, I saw at least two kittens were inside the cat’s house. They are starting to come together into one big litter, rather than three little ones! 🙂 With the cooler nights, I’m glad they have discovered the cat shelter as a warm place to sleep.
I also found another sign of our changing seasons.
It looks like a squirrel has been building up a cache of pine cones for the winter! Usually, they do that in log piles or whatever, not at the bottom of a tree like this, but I think their usual places are now occupied by other critters! 😉
On a less pleasant note, today was our teleconference court date for the civil suit our vandal filed against me, in retaliation for my applying for a restraining order against him. It was nothing but a call to set a trial date.
At the end of January, 2022.
*sigh*
Apparently, he is now going to have four witnesses, and asked about how to submit things like pictures. Which is pretty pointless, since he’s suing me over stuff I don’t claim ownership of. It’s vexatious litigation, plain and simple.
After the call was done, I tried the court office again about the status of our restraining order, and finally got through. Last month, my application was put on hold as our vandal agreed to undergo a psychiatric assessment, so this month’s court date was just to follow up on that, and the judge said I didn’t need to be there. That was a week ago. When I explained this to the clerk, she was surprised I was told I didn’t need to be there, and I had to explain several times that it was the judge that told me that.
She was able to look up the file and let me know that it was remitted to next month. (These court dates are always on the first Friday of the month, I notice.) There was no information on file to explain why it was remitted. My guess? He wasn’t able to see a psychiatrist within the time frame. Either way, I plan to be there for the next court date, so I can at least hear for myself, what’s going on.
I first filed for a restraining order in October of last year, and our vandal filed his civil suit against me a few weeks later. Thanks to all the restrictions and shut downs, nothing has been resolved in almost a year. About the only good thing is that he has a criminal lawyer defending him about the restraining order, and I think the lawyer is keeping him on a short leash. I haven’t seen him on the trail cams for a while, other than occasionally driving by in one of his many vehicles, or on his quad. As for the civil suit, he was representing himself on the call. While the trial date was being set, he said he would have four witnesses – previously, he’d said he would have three. To what, I have no idea. He also asked about how to submit things like photos. Again, I don’t see what he’s trying to gain, here. I don’t claim ownership of any of this stuff (most of which is junk, anyhow). Plus, in my response, I included an email I’d sent where I told him he could take the stuff he could provide proof of ownership of, like a bill of sale or a receipt. He had his chance, and he didn’t take it. This is all just a waste of the courts’ time.
Part of the frustration is things like today. It seems these court dates do nothing but book new court dates. It just keeps getting pushed forward, and nothing gets resolved.
No wonder our court system is so backlogged, even without courtrooms being shut down due to government restrictions.
Of course, because I actually needed to get a good sleep because I had to head out early for court this morning, that meant I got almost no sleep at all!
Only part of that could be blamed on the cats being destructive in the night. 😉
Amazingly, it got cold enough that, for the first time in a couple of month, at least, I had to sleep with a blanket! Of course, I could have just closed the window, but I didn’t want to fight with the box fan, which is tied down so the cats won’t knock it over. When I finally did sleep, I was awakened by the sound of our furnace running! We had actually dropped to 8C/46F overnight. Some areas dropped to 6C/43F, and people were concerned about frost hitting their gardens! Our frost date isn’t until September 10, and that’s earlier than the areas the got colder last night.
Meanwhile, we’re supposed to hit highs near 30C/86F or higher, over the next few days.
I turned the thermostat on the furnace way down, so it wouldn’t turn on again. We keep so many windows open during the night, the last thing I want is for the furnace to kick in! 😀
Anyhow.
Since I was up anyhow, I did some of my morning rounds quite early. Which the cats seemed to appreciate. 🙂
I was really thrilled to see both Rosencrantz and Nosencrantz, in the kibble house. Rosencrantz ran off when I got closer, but her baby stayed. Even when I topped up their food bowl by their junk pile home, Nosencrantz stayed in the kibble house to eat.
Progress!
I found the canister for the new bird feeder on the ground again this morning. I am guessing the raccoons have figure out how to open it. I might move the garden cam to face the bird feeder, just to confirm what’s going on, so we can use that to figure out how to stop it.
I didn’t have time to check the trail cam files, though, before I headed to the courthouse. I got there good an early, and the only person already there was the security guy.
Starting after midnight tonight, our province is lifting our police state, somewhat. No more mask mandates and a number of other restrictions are lifted, though of course they’re still restricting actual healthy social gatherings, like weddings and going to church, even though there are pretty much no limits to how many people can go into retail stores. It’s all so arbitrary, it’s a wonder anyone takes the restrictions seriously anymore.
I could see a huge difference when I got to the court building. For starters, the security table was right outside the courtroom door, rather than at the entrance. I still wore my Mingle Mask, just to avoid the hassle of having to explain my medical exemption, and no one even reacted when they saw me.
After identifying myself as the applicant, the security guard looked up our vandal’s name, marked that I was there, then told me I could wait there in the hall, where they have comfy chairs to sit on. The last time, people were made to wait outside. While I was waiting, quite a few people that appeared to be staff congregated around the security table, just chatting, or sitting in the nearby chairs with their laptops. I could hear the security guard asking people what they thought about no masks starting tomorrow, but couldn’t hear the responses.
Eventually, our vandal showed up, and I honestly did not recognize him at first, because he was wearing a mask. Of the many things I hate about the masks, the elimination of people’s identities is one that I think is among the most damaging. I’m glad we live as isolated as we do, because being surrounded by non-entities, even as little as I am, is seriously starting to wig me out. As a lifelong student of psychology, I understand the how and the why of it, which does help, but it still doesn’t stop it from happening.
Anyhow.
The main reason I figured out it was our vandal was because, as he checked in, I heard him mention his lawyer’s name. That and the security guard made a point of turning to look at me. Then the lawyer showed up, and they disappeared around the corner for a while. Eventually, the lawyer came over and introduced himself to me, asking if I was okay with talking to him. He assured me he was double vaxxed. I told him I didn’t care. (His personal health information is NONE of my business.) We did have a bit of an issue with him moving away when I got closer to him, and I had to explain that I couldn’t hear him, because of the mask. He accommodated that, though I still had to adjust things. My hearing is actually quite excellent, but I have an auditory processing problem. Instead of hearing words, sometimes I just hear parts of words, gibberish, or even have blank “spaces” where words should have been. Basically, somewhere between my eardrums picking up the sound vibrations, and my brain interpreting them as words, the signal is lost. If there are a lot of distractions, or if there is something like a mask to muffle speech, it makes it that much more difficult. So I do things like close my eyes, so I can “hear” better or, as I had to today, lean an ear closer and not look at the person speaking. Thankfully, the lawyer had good enunciation, so that helped.
What he wanted to talk about was the sort of conditions for the restraining order I would agree to. Much to my surprise, he was the one who brought up our vandal voluntarily giving up his guns. He also said our vandal had mentioned video I had of him doing stuff, and I ended up giving him copies of images I had in my stack of papers. These included screen captures of our vandal actually damaging the gate, both times, doing things like walking up to the gate and giving the finger down the driveway, the glued locks (from his response to those, our vandal had actually told him about that; he’s never admitted that he glued our locks to us before), the barn doors being screwed shut, etc. I even included the partial list of things our vandal took from the property, that we know off. I told the lawyer flat out that, if he could have a “psychotic break” and do what he did to the gate, what’s going to stop him from having another “psychotic break” and coming over with a gun? Or trying to burn the house down?
When I brought up the need for a psychiatric assessment, he started to say, going for counseling or therapy. I said no, and explained that when I pressed charges before, our vandal had done that, by court order, and while he was apparently going to weekly counseling, he was still leaving horrible messages on my mother’s answering machine about me and the property (I explained the property ownership situation, too, since our vandal thinks my mother gave me the farm, for some reason). Counseling clearly did not work. He needs a psychiatric assessment and a diagnosis.
He then went back to talk to our vandal. When he returned to me briefly, before we went into the courtroom, he asked if I were willing to drop the application if our vandal got a psychiatric assessment. I said no. There’s a reason the police kept recommending we go through with this and, as much as I’d like for this to all be over, we can’t trust him. As it was, something the lawyer said in passing tells me he had to convince our vandal to agree to at least getting an assessment.
Which is actually a big step forward, even if he still can’t admit he’s responsible for his own problems. So when we finally went in front of the judge, it was officially recorded that I agreed to not go forward with the application for a month. During this time, our vandal has to get a referral to a psychiatrist and get an assessment. There is another court date in September to follow up, but I may not need to be there at all. The lawyer (with warnings from the judge about potential conflicts of interest) agreed that he would keep me informed, so I don’t have to be calling the court office all the time. I was actually asked to take the stand, where there was a microphone, from the start, so the judge could ask me questions and clarify some details.
After I left the courtroom, the lawyer soon followed and asked for my email address (I already gave him my phone number). He then asked if I wanted to agree on a certain number of sessions with the psychiatrist, but I said no; let’s wait to hear what the psychiatrist has to say, because this is such an individual thing.
Then that was it. We were done.
Now it’s all on him to meet the conditions within the time frame.
In the end, I think this went well. Our vandal may actually get the help he needs. We used to be so close in the past, and I would love to have a relationship with him again, but that can’t happen until he gets that help.
One of the things I made clear with the lawyer is that if he does anything stupid again, I’ll be applying for the restraining order all over again if I have to. He was agreeing with me before I even finished saying it. Our vandal may be in denial, but his lawyer knows full well he has no defense.
We shall see what happens over the next month.
I don’t intend to get my hopes up too much, to be honest. I fear our vandal is a bit too far gone for that, but you never know. I’m just relieved that we finally got in front of a judge and got to move forward. It’s been 9 months since I made the application.
I’d been hearing on some of my local gardening groups that people were having a really bad time with grasshoppers. I knew it was just a matter of time before they moved North.
And here they are.
Do you see them on the gravel? All those specks?
The dry grass is hiding many, many more. As I was driving and walking along our driveway, I was startling clouds of them.
I don’t think my phone picked up the sounds, but while walking paste the garage, I could hear the metallic noises as they bounced off the door.
I remember the grasshoppers being bad last year, but not as bad as this!!
As for why I was back and forth on the driveway, I had a very frustrating morning.
I heaved out very early to get to the court house in a nearby city – applying for a restraining order doesn’t get dealt with in the small, local courts. I was met by my brother, who was technically still at work. We had time to go over my papers a bit while we tried to figure out what to expect, and he kept up with work on his phone. We were told things would start at 10, so we walked over for 9. Always before, we had been able to come in and wait.
But then, always before, things turned out to be cancelled.
I think we were the first people to show up. The security guard recognizes me by now. No issues with my Mingle Mask. Because we were so early, we were told to wait outside, or come back closer to 10. So we walked back to my brother’s care and we went through our papers some more, trying to figure out what we might need – if anything at all – and he continued to work. When we walked back again, it was shortly after 9:30. There was another security guard there, and she asked our names. It turns out my name was not on the docket; just our vandal’s. After clarifying what we were there for and our connection to the file, she took the list and left to talk to someone about it. When she came back, she told us that they would not see our file until after 11, explaining the order that things were going to be taken, starting with federal files. As my application was done by me, as an individual, and not a crown case, it would be among the last files addressed. We talked about coming back at 10:30 and she said we could, but we might be waiting as much as an hour.
So we left again. That’s when I mentioned I hadn’t had breakfast yet, so we started to think about where we could walk to. As we did, we saw our vandal and his wife drive by, so my brother wanted to get a move on, so as not to cross paths with them. Our province is still locked down, despite never having had a need to be, even over the winter, so I wasn’t sure where we could go that I would be allowed in. We finally decided to try a restaurant across the street. Signs said groups from one household only. When we went in, they didn’t say anything about the Mingle Mask and were going to seat us, but then we were asked if we were from the same household. My brother said we were family, but not the same household. We were then asked if we were vaccinated. Which is actually illegal to do, as it falls under the Privacy Act, but I didn’t think of that right away. My brother just got his second shot (which is a problem, because now I have to stay away from my family as much as possible for the next while), but not me.
I was then told I would have to eat by myself.
My brother was willing to, but I walked out. I will not comply with medical tyranny, any more than I will put up with our vandal’s abuse.
Speaking of which, as we left, we saw our vandal walking into the court building.
There was a nearby grocery store. Unfortunately, I had already heard that they illegally discriminated against people with medical exemptions, but things had supposedly eased up in our province, so maybe that changed?
When we first walked in, no one said anything, so I thought we would be fine. We were walking around to find where they had sandwiches or a deli, but before we could, a manager looking person walked up to me, demanding my papers. Meaning, my medical exemption note. Which is illegal to ask for, not required, and which doctors have been ordered not to give out. I just walked away. He kept talking at me and, while I shouldn’t have done it, I flipped him the bird over my shoulder. His response was to wish me a nice day, in the most sarcastic voice ever. I don’t comply with discrimination, either.
After that, we went to sit in my mother’s car, which I used because it has working air conditioning. My brother was taken aback by how I was treated. He’d never seen anything like it before, but then, I’m apparently the only person he knows that can’t wear a mask.
What I wish I’d thought of was to point out that they had no problem with me in the court building, so why would a restaurant and grocery store have a problem with me?
So we stayed in the car while he worked and we talked, until I could no longer stay seated, as I was starting to have troubles breathing and needed to be upright again. Which is why we were on the sidewalk, heading back to the court building, to see our vandal leaving the building and crossing the street with someone we assume to be his lawyer. We figured he was told to wait outside until 11, too. My brother wanted to avoid him, so we walked around the other side of the block to get to the court building.
When we got there, there was a whole bunch of people waiting outside, but not our vandal. I looked where the car we’d seen him to do had been parked, but didn’t see him there, either.
Since we were still early, I popped in quickly to asked the security guard what the status was.
August 6, he told me.
???
Yup. Our vandal and his lawyer had been taken in, and it was over and done with. Judging from when we saw them outside, they would have been taken in shortly after 10. The time we were told our file would NOT be seen.
I asked what happened to the 11:00 thing, and the poor guy could only slump and shake his head. He looked so defeated, even with half his face hidden.
My poor brother. This is now the third time he got himself away from work to be there for me, only to have this happen.
The problem it, we don’t actually know what happened. Only that there is a new date. Is it a trial date, because he’s contesting the application? Or did they defer because I wasn’t there? My name wasn’t on the docket, which suggests they didn’t need me there, but I keep getting told by the court office that I do need to be there.
This is so, so frustrating.
After my brother and I parted ways, I took advantage of being in the city and swung by a Walmart to pick up more cat food, and a bagel to eat on the way home. Like the court building, this Walmart has no issues with me. From there I went home and unloaded, then got my husband to call the pharmacy to let them know I was on my way to pick up his refills (he forgot to request delivery) in town, that it would be a parking lot pickup, and give them permission to put it through the till. Because, unlike the court building, the pharmacy still discriminates against people with medical exemptions and I’m not allowed to go in.
When I got back and gave my husband his medications, he found one of them had not been included. We weren’t billed for it, either. So he called them back about it.
It will be delivered on Monday.
Meanwhile, I’ve called my LegalShield firm. My file is updated, and my lawyer will call me about it. I don’t know that there’s any more advice he can give me, but hopefully by then I will have got through to the court office (my call went to voice mail, and the mailbox was full, so I couldn’t even leave a message) to find out what actually happened.
Oh, how I wish LegalShield still had a firm in our province! If I needed to, they would find me a local lawyer at a discounted price, but not as good of a discount as I would get if I were working directly with the firm. Mind you, we probably couldn’t afford even the discounted price, but at least we’d have a better chance of it.
*sigh*
I think I’d rather deal with the hoards of grasshoppers, than with all this garbage.
Today was one of those days that went all over the place! So this is probably going to be a very disjointed post! 😀
One of the first things I wanted to get done this morning was to call the RCMP, as advised by my lawyer, about the gunshots from our vandal’s property. For non-emergency calls like this, it first goes to a receptionist who then, if it seems warranted, starts a file (or adds notes to an existing file), then passes it on to a constable, who calls back later.
The challenge was to bring up my concerns about hearing the shots, while also making it clear that there was no crime that took place. The interesting thing is that, as I described a bit of about why it was a concern in this particular case, the receptionist asked, “is this about…” and gave the name of our vandal.
I had not mentioned his name, nor did I mention my own. Yet, she knew who I was talking about!
She might have looked up my phone number in their system while we were talking, but she later had to ask me what my name was, so… that’s probably not it. She did remember talking to me about our situation previously, which would have been at least 8 months ago.
After we talked for a while, she put me on hold to talk to someone else, then came back to me with a new file number, telling me that an officer would call me back later. Since we were going to the city later, I gave my cell phone, just in case.
I shouldn’t do that. Whenever there is a cell phone number available, that’s the first number that gets called!
Once I was done on the phone, I went to quickly do my morning rounds, only to have my pocket start ringing. The officer was calling me back already! I do have my phone set to use WiFi, and at first he could hear me just fine, but then my signal started breaking up. We managed to arrange for him to call the land line, and I got back into the house just as the phone started ringing! Thankfully, I made sure my husband had the phone before I headed outside, so he got it before it went to machine.
In the end, the call was pretty much what I expected. There is no cause for them to go over. They did check and our vandal’s firearms license is up to date, and there are no restrictions in our area in regards to firing a weapon on your own property. He did tell me that, if something like this happens again, to go ahead and call 911, even if I didn’t feel it was an emergency. They would pass me on to dispatch and it would go from there. He also assured me that, even though there clearly was no crime (and I made sure to say, normally I would have no issues hearing gunshots out here), it was a good idea to call, given our particular situation. If nothing else, there is now a file on record.
Now that I think about it, though, while I’ve certainly heard gunshots a few times since moving out here, I have never heard gunshots from our vandal’s property before, or even that direction.
So that’s taken care of, as much as possible right now.
After quickly finishing my morning rounds, my daughter and I then headed out to the city, with a quick stop at the post office, first. Much to my surprise, I found a letter from the Court of Queen’s Bench. I opened it before we continued on, and it turned out to be about the court date for the civil suit our vandal filed against me, in retaliation for applying for a restraining order against him. We had an in-person court date in July but, according to the letter, due to Schrodinger’s Virus, all in-person small claims matters scheduled between May 6 and September 6 were being rescheduled and being done through teleconference calls.
Court of Queen’s Bench is federal, not provincial. The dates seem rather telling.
Anyhow, our teleconference date is set for September 10 now. Since my restraining order is a provincial matter, it is not affected by this. However, from what I’m hearing right now, our provincial government has no intention of relaxing their choke hold on us. I fully expect our court date in July to get cancelled. I really hope I’m wrong.
My daughter and I then continued on to the city, with a brief stop at a gas station along the way to grab some food. Now that we have changed where we get our gas, we’ve started going to a place that not only has hot food available, but even a few tables to sit and eat at, if desired. They’ve got some of the best fried chicken and potato wedges around! 😀 When we got there, I just parked and dashed in to get food. I walked in fine, but as I walked out, something went wrong and a metatarsal in one of my feet decided it didn’t like where it was and tried to escape.
That hurt.
My daughter thought it was a great idea when I suggested that maybe we should keep my father’s walker in the van. Just in case. We do keep a collection of canes in the van, though, so at least I had that to fall back on.
Once in the city, we headed straight to the Costco, drove through the parking lot, saw the line up was even worse than yesterday, and kept on going. We went to the Superstore, instead. They had a line, too, but it was shorter and moving. My daughter reminded me to grab a cane, then when we were in line, she was able to get a shopping cart for me to lean on as we snaked our way through.
The down side of the change is that they don’t have flat carts. We did get most of what was on our list, but only half the amount of cat kibble we should have gotten, and a few other heavier or bulkier things got dropped. We’ll have to make another trip, later in the month. For the kibble, at least, we can go to the smaller city for some things, while other items can be gotten locally.
The price of beef has gotten insane. 😦
Even though we only went to the one place, we were both exhausted by the time we were done. My daughter dislikes shopping as much as I do! We find these trips more tiring than a day of hauling wheelbarrows full of soil. Plus, with the drive, I was having breathing issues again, and my daughter did the driving on the way home. I’m so glad she comes along, “one person per household” be damned. 😦
Still, it feels good to be stocked up again, even if some things will need to be topped up later.
Once we were at home, I had time to check the trail came files. Nothing triggered the tulip cam at all. I had plans to finally plant the beans today, and maybe start on the squash tunnel, but it was insanely windy. For all the rains we finally got, everything is all dried up again. In checking the garden beds, when I pushed my fingers into the soil, it’s dry all the way through. So this evening, wind or no, I went out to water.
I’m really happy with how great the garlic is doing!! Next year, we need to plant more. 😀
I set up the new hose we bought yesterday, and was able to reach everything that needed watering at the far end of the garden. Which was handy, because I hadn’t had a chance to refill the rain barrel we have out there, for the watering can. We want to get more of those. We’d rather use watering cans and warmer water, as the well water gets to incredibly cold.
Which reminds me. I looked up about the mulberry tree. There isn’t a lot of information out there, but I did find one site that proved useful. It turns out that mulberry trees tend to just drop their leaves when hit with frost, and grow back new ones. If our little mulberry had more time after being transplanted, it would have been better, but it may still actually survive. We shall see!
Meanwhile…
I found these tracks on one of the spinach beds. They were not there, this morning! The seedlings at the very end were nibbled on, too. There are no defined tracks in the soil, but I am inclined to think it was a deer. Partly due to the spacing of the tracks, and partly because we almost hit a deer this morning, while on the way to the post office! In this morning’s trail cam files at the gate, there was a deer making its way through the fence and hanging out in the driveway, too. We seem to have a lot of deer activity this year.
Tomorrow, we have to figure out how to set up the new chicken wire to protect our garden beds! Time to go scavenging in the barn and sheds for materials again.
I think that project just took priority over building squash arches!
Last night, our temperatures dipped to -5C/23F. I’m not sure what to make of that, though. When I checked my app during the night, it said it was snowing, so I opened the garage cam app to see. Snowflakes are lit up by the infrared flash.
There was no snow.
I checked the weather radar, and from the big blue circle directly over us, we should have been having quite a bit of snow. Instead, I was seeing a bright full moon! Still, we did get the colder temperatures, so when I did my rounds before we headed for the city, I made sure to check all the garden beds. Everything was looking just fine! There was no signs of snow or even frost, by the time I went out, and all the seedlings looked untouched. All the leaves on the trees and flowers were just fine.
I forgot one thing.
The mulberry bush.
We should have covered it!
I took this photo after we got back from the city.
Damn.
We have a frost warning for the south of the province tonight, not for our area, and the low is supposed to reach 2C/36F. I don’t know that there’s much point in doing anything now, but we could put jugs of hot water beside it and cover it with a blanket for the night. It had been doing so well, too! I am hoping the roots had established enough that it will sent out new leaves, but we may well have lost our mulberry tree.
Anyone have experience with growing mulberries reading this? Is it dead?
*sigh*
Anyhow.
My younger daughter and I headed to the city to do our monthly shop. We did our first stop at Canadian Tire to pick up more stove pellets for the litter, and checked out the garden section. We ended up getting some trellis netting that will be good for the rest of our peas, instead of using twine. I also got a 4′ x 50′ roll of chicken wire that I hope to use to protect a few things. If it works out, we’ll get more. It was less expensive than the other options. We also picked up another 50′ of hose. We now have enough hose to reach the furthest areas of the garden. There likely won’t be much pressure left, but a gentle watering is all we want! I also looked in the plumbing section and found some PEX pipe that might work for the hoop supports I was thinking of, but after getting the chicken wire, which can hold itself up fairly well, we skipped it for now.
Things took longer than expected at Canadian Tire, as the pellets we wanted turned out to still be in the warehouse, so someone had to be called to bring a couple of bags over for us. From there, we went to an international grocery store. I don’t usually buy a lot of meat there, but they had some exceptionally good sales on, so I picked up some for the freezer. The only down side of this part of the trip was being hassled by a customer. This store respects medical mask exemptions. I wear my Mingle Mask more to avoid being hassled by customers. Today, I got an old guy stopping me and start lecturing me on how what I was wearing really wasn’t doing anything… I cut him off and told him flat out, “I have a medical exemption, and you can leave me alone.” He was all, “well, we can be nice.” As if lecturing a complete stranger over something that wasn’t his business was nice? I think I shocked my daughter, though.
The rest of that part of the trip went very well, though. I do not like shopping, but I really enjoy going to this store. While chatting with the cashier and commenting about some of the items we can only find there, I made a point of telling the cashier that they are the best! Staff usually just hear complaints, not the good stuff, so I do try to give positive feedback when I can.
The next – and last – stop was Costco. Usually, from where we enter the parking lot, I like to drive around the back of the building, to where I know fewer people park. A company vehicle of some kind was blocking half the lane, though, so I ended up going the other way. Much to my shock, I actually found a parking spot near the doors!
We also saw a line going down the side of the building. It doesn’t usually go down that side of the building, but it’s been a while, so we got in line and started waiting. Then someone else came by asking if this was the line in, or the line to the pharmacy?
It turned out to be the line for the pharmacy!!
When we heard that, about 6 of us stepped out of the line to look for the other one! 😀
At the sight of the real line, my daughter and I turned around and left! They changed things up, so that people were no longer lined up along the side of the building, but a back and forth line guided by temporary fencing. More efficient, I’m sure, and also making it easier to tell just how many people were waiting in line. I had forgotten. Our provincial government’s increased restrictions before the long weekend had not been relaxed, so more people had to stand in line than even before, and the line was moving slowly.
We decided to try a nearby Superstore that I’d heard was safe for people with medical exemptions, but they had a long line, too. We made a last ditch effort and drove across to a Walmart. I wasn’t sure if this one was safe for me to go to or not, but it had a long line that wasn’t moving.
Though we did remember to bring ice packs, we did have frozen items and fresh meat in the van, so we decided to head home. We will try again tomorrow. We talked about going to the little Walmart in the smaller city, but decided to try the Costco again. If it’s the only place we need to go to, we won’t have to worry about food thawing out or going bad in the heat of the parked van. If the line was too long, we could try the Superstore again or something.
Before we left the Costco, we filled the gas tank and I reset the mileage counter. I do that once a month. This past month, we drove less than 400km with the van. That’s about a third of our usual mileage for the past year. Counting the driving I did with my mother’s car, it still would have been less than 700km of driving, total.
I am quite okay with that. If I could get away with going out even less, I’d be happy!
Speaking of driving, I did end up getting my daughter to drive most of the way home. During the trip in, I was having breathing issues again. It wasn’t as bad as in the past, but it did prevent me from joining my daughter in singing along with sea shanties. 😉 I did all right for the rest of the drive, but as we were shopping, even with the Mingle Mask, it didn’t go away. The current restrictions state one person per household should do the shopping, but stuff like this is why I am glad to have her with me.
My doctor did refer me to a respiratory specialist, but I haven’t gotten a call yet. Frankly, I don’t expect to. People can barely get normal medical care right now, never mind getting in to see a specialist! So far, whatever is causing my breathing issues seems to be limited to when I’m driving, when I’m wearing the Mingle Mask for longer periods, and sometimes when I’m lying in bed, trying to sleep. A part of me suspects it has more to do with whatever is causing the mystery pain in my side that no one’s been able to find the cause of for the past 10+ years, after I had a large cyst removed. The last time I saw a respiratory specialist, it was to try and find the cause of my chronic cough. All he did was try to find ways to blame it on me being fat. When all my tests kept coming back normal, he just sent me back to my regular doctor. I would not be at all surprised to get the same treatment in this province, too. I irritate a lot of doctors by not having all the fat-people problems they “diagnose” me with, on sight. Kind of like the dieticians who get all flummoxed when I tell them what my diet and exercise habits are like, and they can’t wrap their heads around the fact that no, I don’t just lay around all day, shoving junk food down my gullet, but actually eat real food and, even with my busted up knees and feet, still manage to be more physically active than average. ( Granted, that’s a pretty low bar to compare with.) With some, I can tell that they think I’m lying. I don’t fit their preconceived notions and biases.
But I digress, yet again. I’m still thinking of that guy who decided he had some right to lecture me about my Mingle Mask. The fact that I was wearing something over my face, even if it was something he didn’t approve of, with my masked daughter beside me, should have been a hint that I knew what I was doing. Masks do unfortunate things to people.
Ah, some news! I got a call as I was finishing that last paragraph; my lawyer called to talk about my restraining order situation. As I suspected, he sees no advantage to contacting our vandal’s lawyer to discuss some sort of private agreement and bypassing the court. There would be no consequences if he broke the agreement, to begin with. The transcripts I’ve been making of the messages our vandal has been leaving on my mother’s answering machine are certainly something I can submit to the court, as they speak to his state of mind, and his obsession with me and the property. I remembered to bring up about the gunshots I heard this past Sunday; I haven’t had the opportunity to call the police about it. Our vandal legally owns his guns and he was shooting on his own property, but the lawyer agreed that, given our circumstances, it would be good call the police so that there is something on the files. Normally, I wouldn’t be the least bit bothered by someone shooting on their own property, but these are not normal circumstances.
So I will have to make sure to call the police tomorrow, before we head to the city again. It will be up to them to decide if they want to talk to our vandal again.
So much of our time and energy is being wasted, having to deal with all this! All because someone I was once so close to, covets this property and resents that we are living here.
*sigh*
Time to distract myself with more useful and productive things!
Not at all like the mischievous bugger I had to stop from trying to attack one of the trunks of the big jade tree in the living room! 😀
I did very quick rounds this morning, since I had to head out early, but I did manage to check on the mulberry tree.
It clearly has handled being transplanted just fine!
It’s also doing very well with the cooler, wet weather we’re having right now.
I haven’t been able to get much done for the past couple of days, and not because of the weather.
Yesterday, I called the court office to make sure today’s court date was still on. As expected, with the long weekend, our provincial government increased restrictions even more than they did before Mother’s day. They don’t come into effect until midnight tonight, though, so…
Well, I could only leave a message, as there was no answer. I had to go to my mother’s, on a related matter, so I quickly headed out in the afternoon. Of course, that’s when I got a call back, but not with an answer to my question. I called back, left another message, but never heard from them by the end of the day.
Thankfully, my daughters were able to continue working on things in the garden while I waited for the call. There’s one area ready for one corn variety, then they began working on a trellis for the peas. The plan was to do more clean up in the spruce grove, and use the poplars we’re cutting down to make an sort of A frame on the existing supports, but we haven’t been able to work in that area at all, lately. So they decided to use what we’ve got now and made pegs to hold the twine we were going to attach to the frame, instead. They didn’t get to finish it before they had to come in as the temperature dropped, but it’ll be a while before the peas will be big enough to need the support. I didn’t get any photos yet.
I headed out to the courthouse this morning, leaving early enough to get some fuel and still have time for delays, like road construction (there was some, but just a short stretch) and meet with my brother, who booked the morning off work so he could be with me. We deliberately set a time to meet an hour before court was supposed to start. Just in case.
When we got there, I saw security guards, so that was hopeful. From previously visits to the building, there were security guards only when court was in session.
Well, not this time. It turned out they were there for the court office! The first guard we spoke thought that court had gone virtual, so he went into the office and talked to someone for us, then came back with a number for the crown office, in the bigger city, for us to call. While we were still talking to him, the woman he spoke to came out with a printout for him, and it said everything was delayed until June 18, because of the increased restrictions.
So my brother and I went to his car and I called the crown, only to be told they knew nothing about any virtual court dates; that would be with lawyers only, and the court office of the city we were in to schedule. She was quite frustrated when we told her we were just at the court office, and they told us to call the crown!
We went back to the court office. I wasn’t allowed to go in until I emptied my pockets and they scanned me with a metal detector, while I got the usual covid questions. I did get asked about my Mingle Mask, but when I said I was medically exempt, they were fine with it. My brother had to quickly dash back to his car while I went in (only one person allowed into the court office at a time, anyhow). When I asked about the virtual court session, she told me only lawyers could call in to those (?!?!?!), but that they weren’t doing restraining orders, anyhow. After we talked for a bit, she got my name and the name of our vandal to look up our file. She remembered talking to someone about it and asked if I’d called a couple of weeks ago. I had not. I called yesterday. It had to have been our vandal. Or, more likely, his wife. My voice may be low, but not low enough to be mistaken for our vandal! She then went to look things up while I went to wait in the lobby.
Shortly after, my brother got back and, even though we were only going to wait in the lobby, the security guards still had to scan him, and we both got our temperature checked on our wrists.
When the woman came out again, she told me she’d got through to our vandal’s lawyer, and he agreed to a court date of July 9 – if the courts are open then.
Our vandal’s vindictive civil suit against us is scheduled for July 12.
*sigh*
I do, however, now have the name and phone number for our vandal’s lawyer – something I should have had long ago, but it’s not like anything it working the way it’s supposed to right now. The worst of this is that this is for a retraining order. It’s a safety issue for us, and it just keeps getting delayed. This is now the fifth time!
She said that, if I chose to, I could call the lawyer myself and potentially work something out privately and bypass the courts completely.
Well, I suppose that’s an option, but I really don’t think there’s anything our vandal would agree to that didn’t involve completely dropping the whole thing. Considering that he’s still calling my mother with his bizarre rants about how we’re all laughing at him, his mental state is clearly a concern.
So that was another wasted morning – and another day my brother booked off work that was wasted, too. At least we were finished early enough that he could still make a meeting.
*sigh*
I made sure to call my mother before I headed home, because I knew she’s be concerned. As you can imagine, she wasn’t happy, either, but is having a hard time understanding why the court office isn’t calling us to let us know about the cancellations. It’s almost as if she thinks ours is the only case they’ve got, or that there are very few of them. Meanwhile, they probably had a couple dozen files or more, just on this morning’s docket, all cancelled. The extra frustration is that they DO call the lawyers (more likely just their firms, really), so there’s a sort of two tier justice system. People who can afford lawyers (or are willing to go into debt for one) and those who can’t. Though to be honest, it’s always been like that, so nothing’s really changed, there.
Once I got home, I contacted my LegalShield firm. That membership has more than paid for itself! It’s been so long, the file was actually closed, but it was reopened, and the lawyer assigned to my file will call me. Given that today is the Friday before a long weekend, I don’t expect to hear from him until Tuesday. It’s possible our membership will cover some action between our lawyer and our vandal’s.
I also looked up our vandal’s lawyer. There is a Canadian website that lists all lawyers, and I found his profile – with no photo, and a different phone number from what I have. It listed him as “in good standing” and included the name of a firm. I looked up the firm, which was not linked from the profile, which turns out to specialize in criminal defense. This lawyer was not listed on their website. It’s not even a matter of there being more than one person with the same name. The guy has a somewhat unique surname, and only one in Canada showed up in my search. This is also not the same lawyer or firm our vandal has worked with before. I wouldn’t be surprised if they found a way to drop him from their case load. Still, it all comes across as very strange.
So now I wait for a call back from my lawyer. We’re also somewhat stuck indoors today. We’re getting actual rain right now. From the weather radar, the worst of the weather will be hitting the southern regions of our province, but it’s big enough that we’re getting at least some much needed precipitation. We might even get some of the storms they’re predicting to happen overnight, though I doubt it. What has been happening, though, is repeated loss of our internet. As I am writing this paragraph, we have no internet connection at all. Again. Hopefully, we’ll get enough of a connection that I can publish this, soon!
Traditionally, a lot of people put their gardens in on the May long weekend, but from the looks of the weather this year, few people will. Particularly those living closer to the Rockies, where they have been getting snow! From the zone 3 gardening groups I’m on, quite a few people had taken the chance and started transplanting outdoors, and are now struggling to save their gardens. Thankfully, everything we’ve planted so far is frost hardy. They should be okay, even without being covered. Hardning off our transplants is getting delayed, though I can at least open the inner door to the sun room. Between the screened window of the outer door, and the ceiling fan, the seedlings will get exposed to differing temperatures and some wind. Rotating the bin the purple corn and giant sunflower seedlings are in seems to have made a difference, too. The sunflowers that were looking all floppy and leggy, yesterday, are now standing tall under the lights. That’s encouraging. Now, if only the purple sunflowers would start germinating!!!
Oh, our internet is back! Time to see if I can publish this before the signal is lost again…
The Re-Farmer 