A visit in, and getting things done

May 9, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

This morning, I woke to find a message from my older daughter. She had been up all night, not feeling well at all. Her sister stayed up with her to be available to help out.

Not being in a position to cook for herself, she sent me some funds and a request. After talking to her about it, I added a Walmart trip to my list of places to go today.

The first order of business, was to load up the truck with garbage and recycling for the dump. My younger daughter helped me, but she had been up for more than 24 hours, so she was pretty dead on her feet! She headed to bed shortly after the truck was loaded.

Silly me, I headed out right away, forgetting that the dump is not on summer hours. They open at 10am now, not 9am. Thankfully, I remember that before I was a mile away, so I turned around and headed home. It worked out for the better, since I had time to have a real breakfast before going.

The dump was surprisingly busy today. Driving up to the pit, I found a row of four trucks, two with trailers, unloading. I rarely see more than two vehicles at once.

When I checked in with the attendant and told him I had household garbage and recycling, he said I hoped I had only glass! They have one recycling bin for glass, and the rest for general recycling. Six big bins, and they were all full. The recycling gets taken to the city for processing, and it hadn’t been done yet. After I was done unloading into the pit, I found the least over filled bin. Normally, as per instructions on signs, recycling would be removed from any bags; there’s even a separate blue bin, the size of a large trash bin, just for the bags. I didn’t do that today, and just set all the bags on top. When I saw the attendant going by, I made sure to tell him I was leaving them in the bags, so things wouldn’t get blown away. He appreciated that!

Once done, I headed home long enough to change out of my grubbies, then headed out.

On the way to the truck, I spotted this adorableness.

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I’ve turned off the heat lamps in the sun room again, since it stays warmer overnight, but for the next couple of days, I’m leaving the heat lamp on in here. When things warm up again, I’ll shut it off during the day and turn it back on at night.

The cats were really appreciating the heat lamp!

It’s been a while since I’ve been to anywhere I could pick up a card, so I stopped at a small department store to get a Mother’s Day card and signed it before going to the TCU to visit my mother. I stopped at the nursing station first, to ask how she’s been.

The woman that had spoke to us before to talk about my mother wanting to see a doctor, and about her medications, was there. She told me that, after our little meeting, my mother had gone to the nursing station to watch her prepare my mom’s supper time medications – and was already telling her, they were the wrong medications.

They aren’t.

In the end, it comes down to my mother simply refusing to believe the nurses know what they are doing, and believing that they are deliberately messing up her medications, because she’s old and they want old people to die.

*sigh*

The staff tell her what the different pills are, every time they give them to her, explaining which is which and what they are for. She apparently just looks at them and nods her head, most times, and that’s about it. Yet I know she’s been writing notes on a pad she keeps in the drawer under her bedside table, of what she’s getting and when, writing down the descriptions of each pill and making little doodles of them, later on.

As we were talking, another nurse came behind the counter and settled in. Hearing us, she said, “Oh, we’re talking about [my mother].”

“Yes.”

“Ah…”

All I could do was shake my head. It’s not the first time I’ve had that response about my mother! She did clarify that this was a good “ah”. She was my mother’s nurse, this morning.

As we were talking, I brought up about my mother calling me, demanding I take her over to the clinic down the hall, so she could make an appointment with a doctor there. I had told her, I already asked them about it. They won’t do it. Which the nurses both confirmed with me. I told them, I had repeated this several times, until my mother hung up on me – and that’s the last time I have talked to her!

They wished me well on the visit. 😄

After getting updated on things, I went to my mother’s room to see if she was there. She wasn’t, so I headed to the common room. There were other people visiting with another resident in some armchairs by the door. My mother was in her favourite spot; an armchair right in a corner, between two large windows. Snoozing!

She woke right away, though, as I grabbed a chair and settled in beside her. I gave her the card, which she asked me to take out and read to her.

There wasn’t much to talk about, really. My brother had called her yesterday, as he and his wife were going to spend Mother’s Day weekend with their grandsons, in another province. The TCO recreation person had gotten permission from us to take her out for a Mother’s Day meal at a nearby restaurant, which is fully accessible. There were enough ladies to do this with, so they were splitting it between two days. I didn’t know which day my mother was going to be going, and I asked her about it. She said she didn’t go, because she hadn’t been feeling well. In the end, it worked out, because my sister visited that day.

She then asked me what I was planning for Mother’s Day and I ended up telling her about the all-terrain walker my husband got for me, which should arrive soon. Something that can handle being used around our yard as I work, and to keep hand in case I have another fall, like I did last year, where my daughter brought my husband’s walker for me to use to get back to the house. I even mentioned to her that I have my appointment at the sports injury clinic in the city on Monday. That got my mother talking about how my brother and I should really get my sister to be more involved in taking care of my mother, because I have so much to deal with, even though my sister doesn’t understand my mother’s medications like we do. I told her, it makes more sense for me to be the one, because I am the most available, and live the closest.

After a while, my mother brought up about wanting to see a “real” doctor at the clinic down the hall. There are three doctors that some in from the city, she says. Women doctors. She should see them. I tried to explain, again, that the clinic won’t do that. She is under a doctor’s supervision where she is, and there are nurses to take care of her. Nurses that play doctor, she told me. With some of them, she doesn’t believe they are nurses at all. One, because he’s male, and men can’t be nurses, in her mind. She had the same attitude about the male home care workers.

Before she could go off on another tangent, she then told me about the nurses messing up with her medications and not giving her what she’s supposed to, at the right times. She described an incident she says happened more than once that made absolutely no sense to me. Partly because she said she was supposed to have her blood pressure medication at that time, which I knew she didn’t. She got that one earlier in the day. She insisted, and then told me about how this person had given her her Tylenol, but not her other medications. When my mother brought it up, she claimed the person said she got was she was supposed to, but then took a pill out of a blister pack and gave it to her. My mother said she took it.

None of this made sense to me.

In the end, it was a short visit. My mother got her lunch while I was there. A chicken burger, with lettuce and tomato, cut in half, potato salad, canned peaches, tomato juice, milk and the hot water she requests in place of tea. She ate only half her burger, the potato salad, her peaches, had a few sips of tomato juice, but mostly drank the warm water. She offered me the other half of her burger, because she didn’t want it to go to waste. She said she doesn’t have as much appetite anymore. Overall, she seemed pretty down, tired and depressed. She did add that she looks forward to when it’s warmer, so maybe one of her children will take her out to that restaurant for dinner. Considering it was cloudy and trying to rain, I can understand that. Overcast and rainy weather always leaves me feeling drained and tired, too. The only time she showed any sort of energy was when the group of people across the room suddenly started to laugh. My mother glared at them, her eyes filled with absolute rage. That is something she complains about constantly, every time she’s been in the hospital over the years, and now that she’s in the TCU. Other people laughing. She has even berated people in restaurants for laughing. She complains about the noise and how disruptive it is, but I’ve come to realize, it’s not really the noise. She just hates other people showing happiness. Often times, she also believes that they are laughing at her, specifically. I think part of the problem is that she can’t conceive of other people being happy, because she, herself, never is. When – if – she laughs, it’s never out of happiness. It’s usually to mock people, or to try and manipulate them. I honestly can’t remember my mother ever laughing out of happiness, in all my life. I’m sure she had at some point, but I was probably too young to remember it.

My mother’s mind must be a terrible place to be in.

There was very little to talk about, so I helped her put aside the bedside table with the food tray so she could get up, and walked her to her room before heading out.

From there, I drove to the nearer city to do my Walmart run. Since it shares the parking lot, I swung by the Dollarama first, to see if there was anything to pick up. The gardening supplies are being stocked, and they have some really good stakes and plant supports and much better prices. They didn’t have much for those, this time, but I did end up getting a sprinkler hose. Something I can set up under a covered garden bed, so I can water without having to take the cover off completely. I do have a couple of soaker hoses, but they release water so slowly, it takes forever to water a bed. It’s just a cheap one, dollar store hose, so I don’t expect it to last very long, but it’ll last long enough that I can decide on whether it’s worth getting more. At some point, when the budget allows, we’ll probably get a drip irrigation system. Not until we trench a hose from the house and set up a replacement garden tap.

That done, I headed to the Walmart. I had a small list of my own, as well as stuff my daughter requested, and it didn’t take very long. I kept feeling like I was forgetting something, but had no idea what. It didn’t help that this location is still in the process of being renovated, and everything has been moved. It was also really busy, not just with customers, but with pallets, trollies, pallet jacks and more, blocking the aisles.

I remembered what I was forgetting, just now. I don’t even know where the section is, anymore. I was going to pick up water soluble fertilizer to add to the water for the earliest transplants. They’re getting big enough to need it. It’s will probably be at least 4 more weeks before any of them can be transplanted outside, unless I’m able to cover the beds with plastic.

That done, I headed home, though I did have to stop for gas along the way. Gas prices are still $1.889/L

After everything was unloaded and put away, I updated my siblings, then called the TCU. The woman I spoke to before visiting my mother answer the phone, which made things easier. I explained, as best I could, what my mother had told me. It didn’t make sense to her, either.

What I now know, however, is that the Tylenol they get comes sealed in blister packs. The medication my mother gets before bed, which is a blood thinner, not a blood pressure pill, comes in a paper packet that is torn open. My mother had said the nurse had waited and watched her take the Tylenol, but it had to have been her blood thinner – yet she’s never said anything about a pill being taken out of a paper packet.

I was assured that, when my mother is given her medications, each one is shown to her and explained. When talking to me about it later, it’s clear my mother doesn’t believe them. She’s had it explained to her, many times, that even though the pills might look a little different – or a lot different, as is the case with her eye vitamin – they still have the same medication and dose in them. My mother keeps saying, they are the wrong pills. Especially with that eye vitamin. Before, she had been getting the gel version, which is large and almost black in colour. Now, it’s a round white tablet.

I explained that this has been an issue in the past, when the pharmacy changed suppliers for one of her meds. It looked every so slightly different in size and tint. My mother decided that the pharmacist had changed her prescription and was giving her something else. My siblings and I explained it to her. The pharmacist explained it to her. The doctor explained it to her. She never accepted that. I told her about my mother having to have a lock box for her meds, and that I’d found a pill organizer with probably 50 pills in it that she’d taken out of her bubble packs, long before she got the lock box.

I don’t think the problem is that my mother isn’t able understand that the same medication can come indifferent forms. I think it’s more that she refuses to accept that as a possibility. She would rather believe people are incompetent, or deliberately messing with her medications.

*sigh*

Still, the nurse said she would look into what my mother described. She asked if I knew what the nurse looked like, or when it happened, but my mother’s sense of time has gotten very bad, and she only gave a description of things that bothered her for some reason. The hat the nurse was wearing, the fact that she had curls of hair hanging out from under it, behind her head, and that she was wearing a cross body “purse” (with how my mother described it, I don’t think it was a purse) that she never took off. It wasn’t much for her to go on. All I could be relatively sure of is that what my mother described would have happened after the nurse had her meeting with us, so within the past week. In the end, though, I can’t even be 100% sure of that. My mother made it sound like it was recent, but she’s done that about things that have happen days, weeks, even years ago. So who really knows.

Meanwhile, I’m getting messages, photos and video from my brother and SIL, hanging out with their grand kids. Oh, and their son and daughter in law, too. 😁 They’re having a blast! I’m glad they could make the trip out.

All in all, even with the short but rather odd visit with my mother, it’s been a good and relatively productive day. Tomorrow is expected to be cooler again, so I will use that as my excuse to get a real, honest to goodness, day of rest. I hadn’t pushed myself hard yesterday, but I still needed to get my husband to slather on the diclofenac last night. Even between that and the painkillers I took before bed, I was awakened this morning by sharp pain in my hips. Both of them. Which, strangely, lessened as soon as I was up and moving around.

I’m really looking forward to my appointment at the sports injury clinic on Monday!

Hopefully, I won’t have to deal with it again, tomorrow morning!

We shall see.

The Re-Farmer

My husband is the best

May 6, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

So, it was a rough night last night.

Where I’d slept well the night before, last night I simply could not fall sleep. I finally fell asleep sometime around 6am, which is closer to when I wake up in the morning.

No, it was not because of pain. It was only partly because of cats. At least not until I finally did fall asleep and that’s when Ghosty decided to dig into and absolutely destroy things all over, waking me repeatedly until I gave up. I was finding and putting away bibs and bobs she managed to scatter for hours after I finally got up. I will probably still fine more, later on.

Lack of sleep was totally my fault, though it took me a while to figure it out.

No more Earl Grey tea – or any other caffeinated tea – before bed. 🫖🍵 Especially not an entire pot. 😂🤣

The funny thing is, I could have had an energy drink instead, then slept light a rock. I’ve been trying to ration those, because a case doesn’t last long when split three ways!

My older daughter, sweetheart that she is, took care of the morning routine for me.

Currently, I am indeed in pain, but not in my joints, as usual. That diclofenac gel is doing the job. Instead, I’m in pain because I ended up sleeping on my back, pinned flat under my blanket by the weight of I don’t know how many cats in total. There’s a reason I never sleep on my back, normally! I think they were cold last night, because they were snuggling hard against me!

Ah, well.

My husband had a surprise for me last night that I thought was funny at first, but considering how I feel right now, I think it’s more apropos than not.

He ordered a Mother’s Day gift for me, from one of my wish lists on his Amazon Prime account. Something I’d put there months ago, along with many, many other things we have both added to lists and will probably never order. It won’t arrive until after Mother’s Day, but he let me know it was ordered right away. As of this morning, it has been shipped and is expected to arrive on the 13th; a week from now. I would not be surprised if it came earlier.

This is what he ordered for me.

Yup. I’m getting a walker of my very own.

Now, I could borrow my husband’s bariatric walker. I’ve certainly had to, in the past, such as when I had my fall last June. His is designed for someone that’s burley and over 6′ tall, though.

We also have my late father’s walker, which is more suited for my height, that I have seriously considered taking with me during some of my outings. Those are usually shopping trips, though, and I tend to use a shopping cart as a walker.

Where I would be using it most, though, would be around the yard, and that’s that I had in mind when I found this one and added it to a wish list.

This walker is an off-roader.

The frame is reinforced, and it has larger all-terrain, anti-slip, shock absorbing wheels. It also has a step-on curb climber; something I wish my mother’s walker had! It comes with a cane holder; something we had to add to my husband’s walker, ourselves. There’s even a drink holder. 😁 With my late father’s walker, as well as my mother’s, storage is under the seat. This one is more like my husband’s walker, with the storage in front of the seat (or in back, for the person sitting on it).

My parent’s walkers also folded up by lifting the seat, then pulling a bar or handle in the middle that brings the front and back together. In my mother’s walker, the storage under the seat is a wire basket that needs to be removed in order to fold it. This walker folds together like my husband’s does, pulling the sides together, which I find much more efficient. It also allows it to be free standing while folded, as my husband’s walker is, whereas my parents’ walkers cannot stand on their own once folded up. The storage basket is soft sided, so it just folds in on itself as well though, if I needed to, it could be easily taken off.

When my husband asked me why I had a walker in one of the wish lists, I told him, adding that this was obviously something I don’t need yet.

Today, I’m not so sure!

I don’t expect I’ll need to take it with me during outings, but I most definitely will have it nearby when I’m working in the garden. Many is the time that I simply needed to sit down for a while. Over time, we will have benches and seats built all over the place, but we’re not there yet.

I’ll be modifying it, of course. We added LED lights to my husband’s walker, so that while he’s walking, he can have a white light on the back rest as a headlight, plus red and green lights facing behind him. Red on the left, green on the right, of course. Sailors will understand why. 😁 I want to find a similar set of lights I can add to this walker. Especially one as a headlight, if I’m going to be using it while working around the yard in the summer.

I will probably bling the heck out of it, too. To match my sparkly hat collection. 🤣😂

Hey, if you need mobility aids, may as well have fun with them.

Oh, wow! That was fast!

I just got a phone call from the sports injury clinic, regarding the referral from my doctor, sent the day before yesterday. I could have gotten an appointment today, if it didn’t take an hour just to reach the city.

I now have an appointment on Monday afternoon.

I am so looking forward to getting another injection in my left hip. Not sure what treatment will be recommended for my shoulders and knee.

Being broken sucks. It is what it is, though, and we do the best we can!

The Re-Farmer

Snow, and medical stuff

May 4, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

We got snow.

Beginning of May, and it’s been snowing all day.

Granted, it’s really light snow and melts as soon as it touches anything. We are still at our high of the day, 2C/36F, but the wind chill has us at -9C/16F

A good day to have my doctor’s appointment, since I wasn’t going to be able to get anything done outside!

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

In the end, it looks like having to cancel the previous two appointments because of the truck being in the garage so much turned out to be a good thing. Once I made the connection and decided to stop taking the anti-inflammatories to see if they were the cause of my bleeding, my symptoms quickly reduces and, as of today, are almost completely gone.

After explaining everything to the doctor, she agreed. Another possibility might have been PCOS related, but I’ve been post menopausal for so long, that could be ruled out.

Before the physical exam, though, we talked about my second reason for being there. I told her about needing to go back to the sports injury clinic regarding my left hip, then told her about my fall before Christmas and how, after all this time, I still have pain in my right knee, plus my right shoulder feels like it’s about to dislocate so often, and my elbow pain. She wrote it all up in a referral to the sports injury clinic, and a requisition for Xrays. Not for my elbow, but I didn’t push for that. That is most definitely nerve damage, and not something that will show up in Xrays.

Then I got the physical exam, PAP smear and swab taken, followed by abdominal palpitations, because of the pain I have in my lower abdomen that I don’t think is related to the bleeding.

Gosh, I hate those tests.

I did mention again that I’m prone to cysts and what I was feeling reminded me of when I ended up in the ER, years ago, except not at bad.

On the plus side, absolutely everything seemed normal except for one minor thing. She could actually see where the bleeding is coming from, which in turn confirmed to her that it was the anti-inflammatory that was the cause.

Since it’s been so long, she also wrote me up for extensive blood work, including checking my iron levels – understandable, considering how much continuous blood loss I’ve had over the past few months. I’ve also got a referral for an abdominal ultrasound.

It shouldn’t take too long to hear back from the sports injury clinic, since it’s been less than a year from my last visit. The ultrasound might take a few months or a year before I hear from them.

As she was writing all this time, I mentioned that there was a problem with not being able to take the anti-inflammatories anymore.

“The pain”, she immediately responded.

Exactly.

The prescription painkillers stopped working after a very short time. I’d requested trying anti-inflammatories instead, and they helped out incredibly well. I never even had to take the max three a day I was prescribed for. Usually, it was just once a day. Twice if I had to do a lot of shoveling or something like that. Now that I’m no longer taking them, I’m taking the Tylenol Extra Strength again. It works just as well as the remaining prescription painkillers I’ve still got. That and Voltaren.

Well, I now have a prescription for a topical painkiller. Basically, it’s Voltaren, but at 5 times the strength. I’ll just need to get some help applying it to some areas.

That prescription was faxed in to our pharmacy in town. After the appointment was done, I went straight to the lab next to the clinic for the blood tests and urine sample. After that, it was off to the hospital to get the Xrays done.

I had messaged the family about the new prescription, asking if anyone needed refills to be delivered on Thursday, so we could combine them. By the time I was done with the Xrays, though, there was a message from my husband. The pharmacy had called. They got the prescription, and did I want it filled right away?

My husband told them, yes.

So, instead of heading straight home, I headed to our pharmacy to pick it up, instead. I’ve already talked to one of my daughters about getting help to apply it to the areas I can’t reach, or reach well enough. At the very least, I will use it before bed, as the pain makes it very difficult to get any sleep at times.

I was out long enough that my daughter took care of feeding the outside cats. Slick showed up this morning and allowed pets. She was back again when my daughter was there. She got to pet Slick, Fancypants (he’s getting so much better at allowing pets!), Adam and lots and lots of Flopsy pets!

The boys seem to be leaving Slick alone now. Which means that 1) it should be easier to catch her now that she’s no longer being chased around by 5 males and 2) she’s probably pregnant again, by about a day or two.

We really need to get Slick to the vet!!!!

If we could get Adam, too, that would be bonus. She has been more friendly, too, but as with Slick, only while being fed. We can’t approach them, otherwise.

We’re looking at a few more chilly days and nights ahead; enough that I’ve turned the heat lamps back on for the cats. Looking at the long range forecasts, we won’t be getting past the chill for almost 2 weeks.

I’ve been reading that we are looking to get a very strong “super El Nińo” this year. Typically, that means a very hot summer. I won’t be holding my breath on that, either way.

Just as I was writing this, a weather group I follow sent out a message. Due to the dryness and high winds, several municipalities have have implemented bans on open fires. Ours is not included. We still have full ditches and standing water in places, yet the soil surface is so very dry. We got snow and rain today, but very little. We could really use more! I haven’t seen anyone doing controlled burns, even though they are needed. Too much wind.

I’m getting very tired of being cold.

Anyhow.

I’m glad I finally got my medical appointment. In a month I will have a follow up telephone appointment to go over the results of my bloodwork and swabs. Aside from that, everything is checking out as fine as can be, under the circumstances.

Hopefully, that will continue!

Now, if only that snow would go away and get replaced with just rain…

The Re-Farmer

A draining visit, a good visit and some spring clean up done

May 2, 2026May 2, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today, I was supposed to do a dump run, but I was just too tired and in pain. It’ll have to wait until they’re open again on Tuesday.

I had a rough pain night and didn’t get much sleep, so I was going to try lying down for a bit, then visit my mother in the afternoon. I wasn’t looking forward to that, after her last phone call, but it needed to be done. I wasn’t down for long when I got a message from my SIL. My brother was on his way to see our Mother, and would then come here to the farm.

So I decided to head out to my mother’s earlier and meet him there. When I got there, though, I found another message from my SIL, as well as from my husband. My brother had tried to call me, but he was calling the land line. He was going to the farm, first.

Which worked out. I got the messages just as I parked at the hospital and realized my mother would be getting her lunch tray, so I walked around for a bit to give her time to finish eating before I went in. I stopped at the nursing station to find out about the phone call I didn’t get on Tuesday, about arranging a family meeting with the doctor. The person at the desk wasn’t the one in the know, so she made a note for the nurse in charge to come see us while I was visiting her.

The first part of the visit was okay. My mother talked a lot about things she remembered from back in Poland. All stuff I’d heard before, but that’s okay. I took a chance and showed her pictures of the chicken coop. She asked me why I didn’t build a shed for them instead of something with so many “windows”. I told her, because we can’t do that right now, this is what we’ve got. She laughed at me for having a chicken coop but no chickens. I told her we were getting chicks at the end of the month. Just 10 for now. Only 10? So few?

…

I told her, the coop is only big enough for 10 chicks.

Then she started going on about how wonderful our vandal is, because he buys his eggs from the Hutterites, and he bought chickens for the freezer from them, too. Now, it’s entirely possible he did this once or twice, years ago, but in her mind this is something he always does. I told her, the Hutterites have a huge operation; we just need enough chickens for eggs for ourselves.

Oh, and my sister’s husband visited our vandal, who told him he doesn’t want me or my brother at his funeral. Which I figured. My mother told me, she wanted us to do what was the right “Christian” thing to do. *sigh*

Then the nurse came and things got… brutal, though in a relatively calm way, for my mother.

In a nutshell; the doctor will not see her or have any meetings about her, because he simply doesn’t have the time. She does not have any medical need for a doctor’s care. She went on about her hearing and her vision, but neither is something that requires him. My mother is undergoing the mineral oil treatment on her ears again – it will be for 5 days this time – before they try flushing it again, and my mother had all sorts of things to complain about with that. Meanwhile, my mother is adamant that they are not giving her her second eye vitamin pill of the day. She writes it all down, she counts all her pills, but they tell her different things about different pills – the nurse and I both realized that my mother was mixing a blue pill up with a green pill, thinking they were the same pill, so that’s why she was getting different answers. My mother is also now convinced that her hearing was “perfect” before she came there, and her hearing problems have something to do with not getting her pills. When I pointed out that she used to have her TV and radio incredibly loud when I’d come over to her apartment in the past, she switched to Polish and accused me of taking their side and of lying. She also wants a pill for her eyes. I had to go over how the eye vitamin is only helpful for her left eye and the dry macular degeneration. The only treatment for the wet macular degeneration in her right eye is the injections she would have to go to the city for. She has rejected that and demands another pill; going back to how she claims they have stopped giving her the second one of the day. Even her own notes show that she is getting two pills at 5pm, but now she says she only gets one.

Even after the nurse left, my mother kept insisting they were not giving her these eye vitamins, and all her health problems have now only started after she came to this TCU. Things she has been dealing with for a long time. I kept trying to explain things, but she just went back to the manipulation, saying I was taking their side, etc. etc. I finally said, it was time for me to go.

As I was getting ready to leave, my mother brother up her wheelchair. This is a folding wheelchair that had been my father’s.

She asked me if I recognized it. I saw it in the hallway and said I did. She asked me to bring it over, and began questioning me about recognizing it. The staff had clearly given it a really good cleaning; whatever they used on the heavy vinyl got it all nice and supple and looking brand new. They even oiled the squeaky food rest. However, it’s an old chair, and there are cracks in the wheels and spots of rust that I could say where there before.

My mother clearly didn’t believe me. She has decided it’s not the same chair anymore. The hospital switched it.

This is not a new thing. For as long as I can remember, she accused my father of “trading” cattle, vehicles, furniture, the TV, etc. and he was giving the “good” versions the second family she believed he had, and the “bad” versions for us. When she tried to convince me a particular cow had been traded because it looked different – it had matured and filled out, looking bigger, strong and healthier – I pointed out that if this cow had been “traded”, we now have a better cow, so how did her accusations make sense?

I had a very confusing childhood at times.

The visit done, I headed home, utterly drained. My brother was still here, so we sat in their mobile home and I filled him in. It was good to talk to him about it in person, and we had a great visit! He was dreading his visit with Mom, but I just heard from him. He ended up staying with Mom for a couple of hours and the visit went well. It seems my mother got her nasty out of her system before he got there. I’m very glad it worked out that way, because she has been incredibly cruel to him during most of his visits with her.

After filling in my brother, I headed inside and took a bit of a break before changing into my grubbies and going outside for some manual labour. That, more than anything else, really helps decompress after a visit with my mother.

My focus for today was getting the straw off the septic tank. I had just started when I began getting messages from the cat rescue.

They are trying to get ahold of special traps to borrow and bring here. Traps with motion sensors and operated by remote. We can set up the camera currently facing the isolation shelter to monitor the traps. When the motion sensor goes off, check the camera to see what critter is in it. This way, we can trigger the trap only if the specific cat we are after – Slick, for example – is in the trap. Skunks and raccoons can be ignored. 😄 That would be amazing!

My brother was getting ready to head out around then, and dropped off some lovely compost they’d made from their own kitchen scraps for me. He had time to check out the chicken coop and we talked about the septic area, and the emergency bypass set up I had set off to the side until the straw was gone. After he left, I continued and got it all clear. The surface straw was set aside in a pile, but the damp straw touching the ground, which was already starting to rot, got raked up and repurposed as mulch around the honeysuckle and white rose bushes in the old kitchen garden.

That clear, I set up all the parts and pieces for the emergency bypass against the old kitchen wall for their summer storage.

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That done, I also set up a hose at the tap in the wall next to the pipe running out of the basement for the emergency bypass. The shut off valve in the basement can now be opened. I won’t set all the hoses up until things warm up more, but I can at least fill watering cans for the pre-sown beds, etc., for now.

My next garden priority is to start more seeds inside. That keeps getting pushed back, but most of what we have left to start indoors are for 3-4 weeks before last frost, so for those we still have a bit of breathing room. I have only a few things in the 4-6 week range that need to be started now.

So this has been… a day. I’m very happy I got to see my brother and that I got some work done outside. As for my visit with my mother, it is what it is.

It just left me feeling so incredibly drained! Getting the straw cleared off actually helped with that. Now I’m just physically tired, not both physically and mentally tired! 😄

The Re-Farmer

First stock up shop: this is what $694 in total looks like

April 29, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today, I made it into the city for the first of our stock up shops for the month.

But first, I was greeted with this!

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Yeah. April 29, and we had snow overnight.

*sigh*

It didn’t last long, of course, but still… not sure if the winter sown beds I removed the mulch from will survive the cold nights we’ve been having. I had to take the mulch off, to keep the seeds from being smothered, but weather is weather, and this is Canada, so yeah. We get snow pretty much any time of the year.

I’ve reordered some of the seeds, just in case.

The cats didn’t seem to mind the snow, though!

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This little furball is on the roof of the isolation shelter, right above where the heat lamp is. I do have sheets of rigid insulation under the roof for the winter, but the cats have torn holes in it. This cat is pretty much on top of one of them, so it’s a warm spot.

I headed into the city on my own today, as my younger daughter who sometimes comes with me was still not feeling very well today. Today’s shopping was a triple shopping stop, though I did stop at a gas station on the way out to get a drink and a sandwich for breakfast, then at a Domo in the city to put in $30 in gas (fuel is from a separate budget line).

The price of gas. Oh, my goodness.

The gas station just outside of town I stopped at to get breakfast (their sandwiches are made fresh by a local bakery, and the single restaurant in our little hamlet, and are very good), the price of gas was $1.689/L

As I drove into the city, the first gas station I passed was $1.449/L ! As I continued on, I saw a Shell station at $1.889, but two other stations were at $1.449. After I was finished at Canadian Tire, I stopped at a Domo along the way and put in $30 before continuing my shopping. As I was leaving the city, that first gas station I saw had changed its price to $1.889!!! A 44¢ per litre jump happened while I was shopping!

I’m afraid to find out what the local prices will be. I took a different route home, so I never saw, one way or the other.

My first stop of the day was Canadian Tire, since there are no food items to get while there. This time, I actually got a picture, since I got a few extras.

This is what $92.02 looks like.

Yeah. Not much.

The main thing on the list was the litter pellets. I also found the small wood screws I needed, then picked up some flat right angle corner plates to further secure the extra roosts I made for the chicken coop. The angle brackets I used to assemble them are not very strong, and I don’t want to risk the weight of roosting chickens to break them loose.

I found some clear repair tape, and a hose repair kit I needed, plus another bag of seed starter mix; I haven’t been able to start the 4-6 weeks before frost seeds, yet, and will soon need to start the 3-4 week seeds.

I ended up getting a package of LED bulbs. We just used our last spare, and these were 53% off. On the way to the checkout, I spotted some nitrile garden gloves on sale. After making sure the size large would actually fit my hand, I picked up a pair. Most of the garden gloves I have now are wearing out.

Just that, for almost $100. *sigh*

From there, my next stop was the Walmart.

This is what $413.84 looks like.

That cart isn’t even full. It’s a lot of non-food items, though.

Going through the receipt from the top, there’s a package of paper towels that was marked down in price. Then there are four bags of dry kibble. Two for the inside cats, two for the outside cats. Feed store kibble is cheaper per kg, but this way they get variety, which is better for the cats.

The price of strawberries was very good, so I got 4 clamshells. There’s a couple of loaves of rye bread – I’ll get more bread at Costco – and a bag of 5 avocados for a very good price. I got some heat and eats – fish sticks and chicken nuggets – for those days when none of us is up to cooking. Those have gone down in prices. There’s a 2L of 3% milk and a 2L of oat milk, plus a large block of Old Cheddar cheese. For my husband, I got some pretzels, plus I got a small bag of popcorn. Normally we get the big container of popcorn at Costco, but we couldn’t find any, last time.

I found the brand of soy sauce my husband likes and picked up a bottle. I’m glad I did, because the international grocery store didn’t seem to have any again. For my husband, I got four boxes of Crystal Lite, in two different flavours.

Next is a large bottle of hair conditioner. Yes, just conditioner. We use twice as much of that as we do shampoo. Then there is the Lactaid, except I got the wrong kind. I thought I was getting chewable, which my husband asked for, but when I went for the extra strength, they turned out to not be chewable. There is a box of antihistamines for me, some *ahem* personal hygiene products for the girls and I.

The budget for this part of the shop was supposed to be under $400, but the taxes put it over.

Ouch.

After this, I had one last stop to make. I did consider going to the Dollarama next door, afterwards, but I was just too tired and just did the International grocery store.

By this time, it was coming up on 1pm, so I got lunch, first. Some Chinese food and a drink, that came out to $17.70 after taxes.

As for the rest of the shopping, this is what $188.24 looks like.

There’s … not much there at all.

You know what we didn’t get?

Beef. We did not get beef. I was looking at a “value pack” with a whole two grilling steaks in it that cost $56.65. The price per kg was $79.34. Those two steaks weighed only 0.714kg

I don’t expect the prices to be any better at Costco.

There is some instant milk tea for the pantry. Last time, we couldn’t find any, and now it’s a new brand to try. That and the instant Matcha Latte I got for the girls were on sale. I got a large bunch of banana, some Pink Lady apples, and a tiny Camembert cheese round that has a $1 off sticker on it.

The two Chef Samplers are sushi and nigiri platters I got for the girls – there was no way any of us would be up to cooking by the time I got home. For my husband, I got a Lumber Jack sandwich, and a Teriyaki Bento box for myself.

I had planned to pick up ground cinnamon at Costco, but when I saw the price here, I picked up a bag. Why pay more for a shaker container when we can just reuse the old one?

The frying chicken was a very good price. I got two whole chickens for about half the usual price.

The 10 pound bag of Russet potatoes was a good price, so I grabbed on. The sushi right for the girls was the most expensive thing on the list, but that will last time a long time (my husband and I prefer the Costco Basmati). I got two different types of smoked bacon, unsliced, that was on sale. There are two types of tea that I got on sale; tea is getting insanely expensive, but these are house brand teas, so they’re a bit less expensive even when not on sale.

Last on the list, I got two different types of fish fillets for the girls.

That’s it. That’s all of it.

The grand total for all this is $694.10 Add in my lunch and the gas, and we’re at $721.80

This isn’t even much of a stock up.

After what we got today, we’re working out the list of what we will be getting at Costco. I’m already dreading what it’s going to cost, but my older daughter has already told me she’ll be sending funds for some things. That will certainly help. Along with the usual budget times for May, we need to cover things like the annual WordPress subscription, and the bi-annual emptying of the septic tank. Which cost about the same. 😄

Well, that’s one stock up shop done, at least. Such as it is.

The Re-Farmer

What a day

April 25, 2026 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

My original plan. It’s colder today, so I was going to wait until we got near our expected high of the day, do some work outside, then visit my mother.

Of course, that didn’t quite happen as planned. I never got any work done outside at all.

After my morning rounds, I had breakfast and spent some time catching up on my computer, which is working very well again right now. Which is when I found posts on FB from the rescue, talking about Frank!

The intake person still has Frank, and Frank has not warmed up to her or anyone at all. At most, she came out of her hiding place and had a nap on the floor in full view, once.

Well, yesterday, she went into labour, but it was clearly not progressing. They had to take her in for an emergency C section, and managed it only because she had hunkered down into a cat cave. They were able to slide the entire thing, with her in it, into a large dog crate. Once at the vet clinic, they apparently had to use a net to get her!

She had three kittens. Two survived, but Frank didn’t want anything to do with them. Volunteer fosters with experience bottle feeding newborn kittens have stepped in, and as far as I know, Frank is still at the clinic, recovering from surgery.

Poor Frank!

So far, her two baby boys are doing well with the fosters.

Once I saw the posts, I messaged the group chat I have with some people from the rescue and we were talking about her, when my mother phoned.

After our hellos, I told her I’d been planning to visit her later today, after I got some work done outside.

I was promptly informed that she was more important than anything else, and I needed to visit her.

No, she didn’t have any emergency, though she did bring up her ears and hearing problems. I tried asking her if they were doing the oil treatment to be able to clear her ears if it was a wax build up, as she has had happen in the past. She made some disparaging comments about the staff and I knew I wasn’t going to get a straight answer from her.

In the end, she asked me to bring her some Ginger Ale – just a small bottle – and a tube of Voltaren that she wanted me to bring to her and hide from the staff.

*sigh*

My mother had been asking for a particular cushion with a crocheted cover she wanted me to bring to her. I had found two almost identical ones and already had one of them in the truck to bring to her. After our call, I quickly changed out of my work clothes and headed out, just before lunch time. I stopped at the pharmacy to get her Voltaren, then went to the grocery store to find the small bottles of Ginger Ale. I’d considered getting her the tiny pop cans, instead, but a 6 pack of those costs almost as much as a 12 pack of full size cans! So I got her a 6 pack of Ginger Ale.

On entering the grocery store, though, I saw a sign saying their had seed potatoes in stock. I ended up getting a 5 pound bag of Yukon Gold and another of Viking Red, which I am not familiar with. I don’t know if we’ll get more potatoes later on, but we will at least have as many as we planted last year. It depend on what space I’m able to get available.

When I got to my mother’s, I stopped to talk to the nursing station first. The nurse there today actually worked at the hospital while my mother was there and remembered her, though I don’t think my mother remembers her back. I asked about my mother’s oil treatment for her ears, mentioning that my mother had specifically brought up that her right ear is worse. She dug out my mother’s file in their note book, where every shift’s nurse writes down things of note for the next shift, and for the doctor when he does his rounds once a week.

My mother’s file has a lot of notes.

She found the notes from the nurse to did my mother’s ears. She got the mineral oil treatment for three days, then he flushed her ears. The notes said her right ear was clear, and only a small amount came from her left year.

Since it is now confirmed it’s not a wax build up causing the problem, we talked about the situation for a while. In the end, we would have to make an appointment with an audiologist in the city ourselves, but once we let them know when the appointment is, they would arrange the transportation, since my mother would have to use her wheelchair. A family member could accompany, of course.

While the nurse was reading the notes on my mother’s file, she spotted something of concern for me. My mother has a new room mate now. A very frail woman. It seems my mother has pushed her walker and something else of hers out into the hallway, angry that they were … in the way? It wasn’t very clear.

That got me to asking about the possibility of my mother getting one of the private rooms, if one opens up. My mother will always complain about her room mates, no matter what, and she did have one that was apparently aggressive towards her, in the other TCU, but this is about my mother’s behaviour towards her room mates, not the other way around. The nurse took notes about that. We also talked about how my mother is on the waiting list for a particular nursing home. There’s no way to know now long that would happen, though.

We also talked about my mother’s medications, as the notes say she keeps asking about them. It turns out the “extra” pills my mother is getting are just multivitamins. This has been explained to her, but she doesn’t seem to get it.

Before going to my mother’s room, I showed the 6 pack of Ginger Ale bottles I was bringing to my mother, but also told her about the Voltaren, and that my mother asked me to keep it a secret from them. I explained, it’s just for her knees, which she can apply herself. That’s it. They already do her back and hip for her. The nurse agreed that it would be fine for my mother to have some to apply to her knees, herself. I just made sure to remind my mother later that I got her the extra strength version, so to use it only once every 12 hours.

When I got to my mother’s room, there was a cleaning staff member there, offering to take my mother’s lunch tray away. There was a note my mother had written on a napkin that she asked about, and it was for the kitchen staff. She wrote that they were giving her too big of a glass of milk and she couldn’t finish it and didn’t want to waste it, so she wanted a smaller glass. The woman tried to explain to my mother that she can’t write a note like that, or tell someone like her about it. My mother needed to go to the nurse so they can write it down in the instructions for her meals. My mother wasn’t understanding why; she felt writing the note should be enough. Since I was there and heard all this, I said I would take care of it and went back to the nursing station.

After explaining the situation, the nurse got out the folder with instructions for each residence and found my mother’s. She already had instructions to have a cup of hot water to go with her milk, so she can mix them together.

I spotted the problem.

They give her a full cup of milk, and a full insulated coffee/tea cup of hot water. Both are so full, she can’t combine them.

There are now instructions to give my mother only a half glass of milk with her meals, and she will have the room to mix her milk and hot water, the way she likes it, now!

As I was walking back, I crossed paths with the cleaning lady, and she started saying how she is surprise she hasn’t run into me before. She’d worked in our little hamlets single hotel/restaurant/bar for years.

Turns out, she’s a neighbour. She’d been to this farm, years ago, probably while I was still living here! When I asked her name, I did recognize it, though I certainly didn’t recognize her. Too many years have passed.

I told her I’ve been living in other provinces for some 30 years, and we’ve only been back for 8, going on 9, years. Plus, we don’t go out much. 😄

It turns out she knows our vandal quite well and mentioned him in passing, since she sees him all the time and knows how close we used to be. Even as she talked about him and started to cringe, commenting on “how he is” now.

*sigh*

As we were talking, my mother popped her head out of the room and we both greeted her. Not long after, she popped her head out again and told me, “I thought you came to visit ME!” I told her, “I was just saying hello to my neighbour!”

We said our goodbyes and I went to my mother’s room. Her room mate was not there, so we stayed there for my entire visit. As I came in, the first thing she did was tell me to close the door. There is someone across the hall that has his TV on and she found it too loud.

For someone who is having hearing issues, it’s surprising how much it bothers her, because it really wasn’t that loud. She had her own TV and radio on in her apartment when I’ve visited her, much much louder!

The visit went… okay. It certainly has been worse.

She complained about her pills, convinced that they are deliberately messing with her medications because they want old people to just die.

She brought out a list she’s been writing, of how many pills they give her and when, and now they’re giving them to her at the wrong times and the wrong amounts. She wouldn’t let me actually see the list, though.

I told her I talked to the nurse about her ears and she told me the flushing was done by a Filipino guy who says he’s a nurse, but who knows what he really is, and how nothing was flushed out of her ears. I told her, that meant there was no wax build up and explained about needing to get her ears tested in the city. That got a derisive comment about how they are just trying to push responsibility for her onto someone else. Why can’t the doctor do it? I had to explain, she needs to go to a specialist with the training and the equipment for it. A regular doctor can’t do it. She disagreed.

Oh, and she thinks her pills are causing her hearing loss. And eating is causing her breathing problems.

She complained that I brought her a 6 pack of Ginger Ale, when she only asked for one bottle.

She complained that the noise from the TV was breaking her sanity and literally killing her.

She complained that there was a chair in the corner of the room, where she stacks some of her stuff, because it’s ugly and big and doesn’t suit the room and she has asked for a shelf, instead. The chair is not big, not ugly, and all the double occupancy rooms are furnished exactly the same. She just doesn’t want it there.

She tried to make me take a pocket book on the life of Princess Diana that someone gave her but she has trouble reading because her eyesight is going. I tried to politely decline, so she tried to tell me to give it to my daughters. They need to read, too. I told her, we all read. What do we read? All sorts of things. We just don’t have any interest in the personal life of a dead princess. She took issue with the fact that we don’t read the things she thinks we should be reading.

At one point, she actually asked me what was new. I told her, she already knew about the well pump. That was pretty much it. She told me, she didn’t want to know about that, it’s our business. I told her, then don’t ask what’s new if you don’t want to know! She then explained she meant if we watched anything new on TV. I reminded her, we don’t watch TV.

I tried to tell her about uncovering the garlic bed and how they’re already sprouting, and got a lecture about how it’s too early to uncover them because it’s still too cold. Then went on about how, after we first moved here, she had offered to hire someone to plow the old garden area for us to garden in, but I said no. I told her, right… I said no. Because that would not have been a good thing. I tried to remind her, we don’t have a herd of cows with manure we can add to the soil, like she did, and the soil is very poor now. That’s why we are doing things differently.

That got the same response as mentioning the well pump did.

When the door opened and someone assisted my mother’s room mate in, my mother immediately began to complain about the TV. I told her, maybe they are hard of hearing, too? Oh, but then everyone has to suffer. I pointed out that not all people are bothered by it, and just tune it out (which I had already done during). I reminded her that some people always have a TV on, like my in laws did, just for background noise. Oh, that must be why she (my late mother in law) died.

…

I told her flat out that this was a very terrible thing to say.

My mother was completely indifferent and unapologetic.

Needless to say, I didn’t stay too much longer.

By the time I got home, it was late in the afternoon. I finally had my lunch, then headed out to feed the outside cats. I never did get any work done in the garden. I’ll have to make up for it, tomorrow.

I did get more messages from the rescue while I was with my mother, and they are talking about trapping cats. After what happened with Frank, the intake person really wants to get the females done, so no other cat has to go through what Frank is going through. It turns out Princes Auto has an 80% off sale on traps right now, and two people have already picked some up.

When I headed outside to do the second feeding of the day, I managed to get a good picture of one of our most feral females.

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We have not named her. I am open to suggestions!

I have not seen Adam or Slick today at all, but this one, and Sprout, who is just as feral, have both shown up. I strongly suspect this white and grey is not nursing, because of how often I am seeing her in the inner yard. I find it hard to believe she didn’t get pregnant, when she and others went into heat in January, which is really, really early for that. Which suggests to me she may have lost a litter. I had no way of knowing, though, and we don’t see enough of her body to be able to tell if she’s nursing.

The second picture in the slideshow above is of the two big traps we have, which I sent to the rescue chat group. We have two others that my brother gave me, but they are more appropriate to catch squirrels, not adult cats. The thing is, if we were to manage to trap a cat, we’d have to get them in somewhere immediately – and we still have to find a way to monitor the traps. The intake person agreed, yes, immediately, but I asked, immediately to where? I have not had a response yet. As far as I know, I can’t just show up with a cat in a trap at a vet clinic and request a spay or neuter. Especially since the only clinic that we’re dealing with (with special rates and arrangements with the rescue) is a 45-50 minute drive away. So where would I go with them once they are trapped?

Other folks in the chat group were talking about coming here, as a group, with traps to get as many as possible for spay or neuter and release. Which would be the best plan, since they would be able to work something out before they even arrived here. The intake person wants me to focus on females only, but there’s no way to pick and choose who gets trapped.

We shall see what actually ends up happening.

So that is where I am at now. A very different day than expected!

I do hope Frank heals up well, and they are able to find a way to get her adopted out. While we are more than willing to take her back, I’d hate for her to become an outside cat again, and it would be too much for her to join the crowd of inside cats we already have.

Ah, well.

What will be, will be.

The Re-Farmer

This is going to hurt

April 20, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

It is, however, done.

The plumber made it to our place today, to check out the leaks at the new well pump. I had checked it again this morning and, using a flashlight, could see that most of the water on the floor was coming from one of the pipes leading from the pump to the well (there are two).

Along with the leak at the well pump, I had also asked to have the taps replaced at the old laundry sink, install the shut off valve on the cold water pipe, plus repair an occaisional leak on the shut off valve on the hot water pipe.

I just checked the security camera time stamps. They were here for three hours.

*sigh*

They charge a base price, plus materials, for the first hour, so we’ll have two more hours of labour on top of that. I haven’t received the bill yet. It will be emailed to me.

We also got some bad news, but I can’t say it was unexpected. I’d already talked to my brother about this, but he had disagreed with me that it was a problem.

We’re going to have to replace our pressure tank. He hooked up a machine to the tank’s valve while it was still full. It had only 2.5psi! For this pump, the psi should be 28.

That will have to wait.

As for the well pump, he had his super bright light to check it out, and found both pipes to the well were also seeping at the fittings. This is on top of the small leak on top of the pump, at the pipe leading to the pressure tank.

He ended up replacing three sections of pipe, two brass fittings attached to the pump itself and two plastic elbows.

This, of course, meant we had no water while it was being worked on. I even had some water bottles available that he could use to prime the pump again when he was done there.

I already had new taps and a second shut off valve for the laundry sink. Getting the old taps off took quite a bit of effort – and a blow torch. The taps I got were designed to simply screw in place, but these old pipes weren’t threaded. Which is why he needed a blow torch to remove the old ones! Once he got those off and the copper cleaned off, he got the new ones on and soldered them in place.

As for the shut off valved, he ended up needing to add some copper pieces to get them to join right.

Once all of that was assembled, we ran the water in the laundry sink and full blast. There was SO much grit that came out, as well as a period where the water was rust colored and completely opaque.

One of the things he did after the well pump’s pipes were all back was use his compressor to bring the pressure tank up to 28psi. Hopefully, it will last a while, because it’s going to be some time before we can replace that.

After he was done and gone, I went to all the taps upstairs and ran the water until it was clear. The only taps left to clear is with the washing machine. We’ll run it through a tub clean tomorrow – then do a whole lot of laundry! I suppose the old taps in the basement that the washing machine had been hooked up to, before the laundry was moved to the entry, should be cleared, too. I leave a hose attached to the cold water tap there, for when I need to clear the floor drains to the septic tank

Here is the finished job.

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The first photo in the slide show is of the two pipes leading to/from the well; a suction pipe and a pressure return pipe. New lengths of pipe, new brass fittings at the pump and new elbows to the well. The second photo in the slide sow shows the new pipe to the pressure tank, which did not need new fittings.

The next picture is of the new taps at the laundry sink, soldered in place. I’ve put a short length of hose on the cold water tap again, and will look for another to add the the hot water tap. Without those, the water sprays quite a lot. I did have one set aside already and tried adding it, but it has a plastic rather than metal fitting, and it leaked. It’s just too old. We have old hoses around that I can scavenge later on.

Last of all are the shut off valves. You can see the copper fittings he added, to make up for how much pipe he had to cut away to ensure the Shark Bite valves had something to grip on and not leak. He ended up moving the hot water one completely over by a few inches.

There are two other pipes that have leaks; one at a shut off valve on the hot water pipe to the bath tub. The other in a really hard to reach spot in the cold water pipe going up to the bathroom, where it is now a PEX to copper join. It was so hard to reach into there to crimp the join. By the time he was finished what needed to be done, I wasn’t going to get him to do two far less urgent jobs. Those can wait.

With how long things took, and the time of day, I decided not to go to the town north of us today, to take care of getting our tax forms signed. I will do that tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I’d sent photos and updates to my brother. They are still in Spain doing their pilgrimage. With the 6 hour time difference, he was actually able to see them and respond to me. He’s still surprised about the pressure tank. He says it’s about 20 years old. Their pressure tank at the property they sold was over 30 years old and still working fine. Now that it’s at the right pressure, though, we will monitor things. We should even be able to check the pressure ourselves using a tire pressure gauge; it’s the same type of valve stem.

Hopefully, it will be a long time before we need to call a plumber again!!!

On a completely different note, after doing my morning rounds, I took my April “garden tour” videos. I got one of those “X years today” things in my FB this morning, this time from 2023. It was a photo of the snow we got on April 19 of that year. We had a storm with winds high enough they knocked over the gate trail cam’s stand again. That was when I finally found something heavy I could set across the legs at the base. It hasn’t fallen over, since!

We are now entering a very warm spell, and the forecast has changed, yet again. Last I looked, we were to get 4 very warm days, followed by a major drop in temperature together with rain in the day, snow in the night. Now we’re looking at only one evening, later in the week, with possible rain. We might actually be snow free before the end of April! Wouldn’t that be nice!

Meanwhile, I need to do some editing and upload the garden tour video. My project for this evening!

In between checking on the pumps and tanks in the basement throughout the evening, just to be sure there are no more leaks!

The Re-Farmer

Well, now

April 18, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

That’s not supposed to happen.

It’s a good thing we’ve already arranged for the plumber to come back next week.

One of the things he instructed my daughter, after the new pump was installed, was to keep an eye out for leaks. Which is a bit difficult partly because there tends to be a lot of condensation on the pipes. That well water gets really, really cold!

This is definitely not condensation.

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That’s how I found it this morning.

As this basement was built before weeping tile was a thing, it’s pretty normal for there to be water on the floor in the spring. Sometimes all summer. We have oscillating fans and blower fans to try and keep it down, and switch the winter window to the summer screen window for air circulation. That frequent wet is part of why the well pump, pressure tank and hot water tank are all on an elevated concrete slab.

I am starting to see water in the floor drain, from the weeping tile under the newer basement, but for now, the concrete is dry. This is all from the pump. One spot, where I can feel a drop of water under the brass fitting, seems to be the only leak. The steel screw clamps are tight.

The plumber is coming out on Monday or Tuesday. I had mentioned the leak at the pump, plus the cold water tap at the laundry sink. He will be replacing both taps for us, since the hot water tap started leaking long ago and we could only install a shut off valve to stop it. He’ll check on the leak at the well pump as well.

Otherwise, the pump is working just fine.

In other things…

I made it out to visit my mother, though I had to turn around and come back. I had some stuff she asked for ready in bags and forgot them at home. Thankfully, I remembered before I reached the highway, and messaged my daughter to meet me at the gate with them.

When I got there, my mother was sitting on her walker in the hall as her room was being cleaned, so we went to the common room. It was a pretty quiet and calm visit. My mother had complaints, of course, but nothing unreasonable, really – even the ones that turned out to be based on her not understanding something she’d been told. I stayed until she was done her lunch, then talked to the nursing station for a bit – an opportunity to clear up one of her misunderstandings – before heading out.

From there, I drove to the town we usually shop in. My husband had a list and his own budget for me this time. Some of what he wanted I wouldn’t have been able to find at the grocery store in my mother’s town. It was a fairly short list, so it didn’t take long before I was done. Then I had to get more gas before heading home. That part was painful.

Throughout all that driving, I’m happy to say the truck behaved. After what happened with the differential, there were a few times on the highway where I was second guessing things, but it seems I was just driving headlong into the wind and being buffeted. More importantly, that oil pressure gauge was having normal readings. Hopefully, the mystery readings are now at an end! The real test will come with city trips, though, and those probably won’t happen for a couple more weeks.

For now, though, I feel ready to drop. For some reason, I just couldn’t fall asleep last night, and I can only partly blame the cats or pain levels. I was mostly just… awake. It was past 6am when I messaged the girls, asking them to take care of the morning routine for me. I did finally get a few interrupted hours of sleep after that. Enough that I was safe to drive, at least. I headed outside to do the evening rounds not long ago, and felt like I was ready to fall asleep the whole time. Now, I am just crashing.

It’s not even 4:30 as I write this.

It’s a gorgeous day out, though. We’re just below freezing, but it’s bright and sunny, and things are melting. The current forecast has us going from a high of 0C/32F tomorrow, to a high of 14C/57F on Monday! We no longer have a high of 20C/68F before the end of the month, though. That’s been pushed back until May. Still, I should have a few days next week to take the mulch off the exposed pre-sown beds and get them protected from critters. The garden beds in the main garden area are still fully covered with snow.

I’m quite looking forward to getting at it!

Hopefully, with more fresh air and sunshine, I’ll be sleeping better, too.

The Re-Farmer

Here’s hoping!

April 17, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

It feels like it’s been such a long day!

But first, the…

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… cute sneak thieves!

The cheeky buggers! Both raccoons and skunks are now regularly seen in the sun room. While the camera didn’t catch them last night, I know they go into the isolation shelter, too.

*sigh*

The storm system that hit yesterday hasn’t been too bad, over us. Our weird climate bubble has rescued us again. We got a bit more snow, and it was still snowing this morning, but that’s it. The town my mother is in got pouring rain during the night! So did the city. The highways group I’m on had many reports of poor driving conditions on the highways.

My younger daughter came along for our errands of the day, with our first stop being the post office to pick up a parcel. The paved roads near our little hamlet were already starting to melt, even as more snow was falling. As we got closer to town, however, the road conditions slowly got worse. I found myself doing about 80-85kph/50-53mph all the way, instead of the 100kph/62mph speed limit. It was very messy and hard to see where the lanes were, the closer we got to the lake, which is pretty typical. I’d heard of one road, just before town, being washed out and we could actually see the damage as we drove by! Still, I’ve driven through much worse.

Our first stop in town was to drop off the truck at the garage. We’d left early, knowing it would be slow going, and ended up only about 15 minutes early instead of the half hour early it normally would have been, in good driving conditions. I just had to drop off the keys, and then my daughter and I – remembering to grab canes – started walking.

First thing we did was get a breakfast, since neither of us had eaten before we left. We took our time about it. My appointment was a drop off time, not a scheduled work time, and it looked like it was just the owner in today, so I knew it would likely be quite a while. We did have other errands to do, but not until after we got the truck back.

We decided to walk over to the second hand store, just to see what we could find.

Treasures. We found treasures.

Specifically, there were a couple of hand crank meat grinders. One looking very much like the one I found in the old kitchen that I remember using when I was a kid, which has missing parts now. The second hand one we were looking at even had a spare mincing plate, though both were coarse grind plates. There was a second one, much smaller, that had two spare mincing plates, and was the same price.

After hemming and hawing, I finally decided to go ahead and get the bigger one.

Then we started looking around and I got a few more things, the most expensive costing $2. My daughter admired a couple of items that I ended up getting for her, including a matcha bowl and saucer set, and a fabulously retro pitcher. For myself, I got a serving bowl, an old Mennonite cookbook, and a couple of books with plans for making things like furniture and garden structures. My daughter got herself a DVD and a couple of novels.

One thing we both spend quite a bit of time looking over was an old China cabinet, selling at only $80. The set up we have for our dishes, serving bowls, etc. was great when we first moved out here, but we now have a lot more cats. The shelves are open in the front, and that’s become a problem. That cabinet would actually solve a lot of storage space problems we have right now. What we couldn’t figure out, however, is how we would get it home. Yes, it would fit in the box of the truck, but none of us are able bodied enough to load and unload it.

We didn’t get it.

Once we paid for our stuff, we were then stuck with carrying them around! The meat grinder alone is cast iron, and weighs about 15 pounds. It got its own bag. The rest all together weighed more. Not normally a big deal, but we were both caning it and, with my right elbow still messed up, I could only carry the grinder with my left arm.

We’d already done a fair bit of walking by then and needed to sit down, so we headed over to a donut shop for drinks and a donut each. It was a place we could hang out for a while and not be taking up needed table space.

By the time we were done there, enough time had passed – about 4 hours altogether – that I figured we could head back to the garage, even though we hadn’t been texted yet. The walk was slow going. My poor daughter was in so much pain, I could see she was fighting not to cry. 😢

When we got to the garage, the truck was still up on a hoist and almost done, so we went into the office to sit down. I made sure my daughter sat in the normal sized chair by their desk. They have other chairs, but they are much lower. Hard to get in and out of when your knees or back are shot, but I was having an easier time of it than my daughter was.

It was past 2pm by the time we got to the garage, though. The original plan once the truck was done was to do a quick stop at the grocery store, then a gas station, then drive to the town north of us to the tax preparer. I had my form to sign, but we’d then have to take my husband’s form home for him to sign, then I would drive it back. Then we were going to go back to town again, as my older daughter wanted to treat us to take out and sent funds for it. Altogether, it would have been an extra 3 1/2 hours of driving, at least, and the tax preparer’s office closed at 5.

We were both already in too much pain, so I called them up instead and said we weren’t going to make it today. I was assured that was all right. We’ve got until April 30 to sign the forms!

I’ll do it on Monday.

It wasn’t too much longer before the truck was done and it was backed out of the garage. My daughter took our stuff to the truck while I settled the bill – just pennies over $388, in the end. Hopefully, that will solve the problem and we won’t be back again for some time!

I know where my tax return is going.

*sigh*

As we were talking about it, he told me that, if I don’t come back for anything until after June, they won’t be there anymore. They are moving locations! They are going from about 2,400 sq ft to about 35,000 sq ft, in an industrial park – and he bought the building, so no more renting! That is so awesome! They opened a second location last year, and are doing well enough to expand locally, too. I congratulated him, of course. I’m so happy that they are doing so well. There are a surprising number of garages in this town, so for him to have enough business that he can expand like this tells a lot.

That done, I went to the truck – then had to get my daughter to go behind me to guide me as I backed out, as there were a couple of vehicles making for a tight space. While we were doing that, the owner came out to get one of them, to drive it into one of the bays. He was chuckling a bit when he saw what we were doing, but it did give me a chance to quickly talk to him. The check engine light was still on. I figured it should turn off on its own in short order, now that the new sensor is installed, which he confirmed for me.

Once parked at the grocery store, my daughter stayed in the truck, as she was in too much pain for more walking. We only needed a few things, but I went through the whole store to see if there was anything I was forgetting. Of course, there was, so I’m glad I did.

From there, it was to the gas station. I put $50 in the tank, which gave me a quarter tank at $1.799 *sigh*

Next, we headed to the Dairy Queen for take out – and the check engine light was of by then. My daughter came in with me, so she could choose for her sister and herself. For treats like this, we order a combo meal each, plus an extra burger each, so it took a little while longer for it to be done! I even remembered to bring in a hard sided grocery bag to make it easier to carry the hot food. My daughter ended up with the tray of drinks on her lap for the drive home.

Unfortunately, while the road was in better condition by then, and almost completely clear of ice and snow, it’s a rough ride. The road needs resurfacing. She didn’t get splashed too badly, though! It got smoother once we were on the gravel road again.

Once at home and unloaded, it was late enough that I went straight to feeding the outside cats, making it safer for my daughter to drive out of the yard and park the truck in the garage.

During the drive home, I’m happy to say that oil pressure gauge was right were is was supposed to be, the whole way. Here’s hoping that new sensor will keep working properly! It’ll take a bit more driving before we know for sure.

Tomorrow, I should go visit my mother, at the very least.

Now that we’ve got this last bit of work done on the truck, we have quite a few things to catch up on, little by little. Plus, I’ve got my eye appointment next week, which my daughter will have to drive me home from, and FINALLY, my third attempt at a doctor’s appointment in the beginning of May. If all goes well, I won’t have to cancel any of that!

Here’s hoping!!!

The Re-Farmer

Finally getting things done

April 14, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

First thing I just have to say is…

Oh, wow, that new well pump is so QUIET!!!!

For 8 years, I’ve been hearing that old pump going off, never knowing what “normal” sounded like. Just that this one was sounding worse and worse as time went on. Now that it has finally been replaced, it actually feels weird to just barely hear it when it goes off.

The other thing I’m appreciating, in a still stressful way, though, is not having to worry about the truck’s oil pressure sensor triggering alarms. The alternative, until the OEM sensor comes in, is no sensor at all, but I’ve had to drive it with the gauge at 0 before. The check engine light is on now, of course. I’ve driven with that on for quite a while this past winter, until it warmed up enough and it shut off on its own. That was the O2 sensor and likely caused by the polar vortexes that his us freezing something in it.

Still, I’m going to be nervous driving the truck no matter what. We’ve had so many crazy things break down, that’s really to be expected.

Today, however, the dump is open from 9am to1pm, and we were seriously overdue for a dump run. The last time I managed a dump, I ended up needing a tow.

My younger daughter, sweetheart that she is, offered to come with me to keep me company. 😄

We loaded the back of the truck after the morning cat feeding was done. We had so many garbage bags, including from the sun room and the garage, to load, there was room for only one bag of recycling. The recycling can wait. The temperatures are warming up, and the garbage bags no longer freeze in the old kitchen, so they needed to be gone!

When we got to the dump and started making our way to the pit, my daughter got out to walk ahead, looking for anything that might puncture a tire. There was a pick up truck parked on the side, and we hadn’t realized someone was in it! It was one of the staff having his lunch, I think. He could tell what she was doing and I could see he was assuring her it wasn’t necessary. We got a chuckle out of that after she guided me in backing up to the pit and she told me what he’d been saying. He had even asked if we needed a hand unloading!

After we were done and driving out, I stopped at the truck to thank him. I mentioned to him about being paranoid, having gotten a flat after doing a dump run once. He told me that he’s been hearing stories like that from many, many people, so he has been making sure to keep an eye out and to clear in front of the pit if he sees anything that could cause damage. I made sure to tell him how great of a job they’re doing; the place hasn’t looked this good for a long time! I wanted him to know how much it is appreciated.

From there, it was a quick stop at the recycling bins, then then we made our way to the town north of us. I’d brought our files to drop off at the tax preparer. Our taxes are about as simple as can be; the only change this year is that I no longer am going to get the Caregiver Tax Credit, but now qualify for the Disability Tax Credit. We gave up trying to do taxes ourselves; the last time I picked up the software, it had changed so much, I could barely navigate it. I even got another company’s software, and it turned out to be just as useless. My husband has T4A slips – the slips for persons on long term disability. One brandy’s software didn’t even recognize the A, nor could I find where we could claim the Disability Tax Credit and the Caregiver Tax Credits. When it came to claiming my husband’s medical expenses – just his prescriptions, usually – it became impossible. There simply wasn’t any way to input his data accurately. I gave up, took it to a pro, and we’ve been doing that ever since.

After dropping the files off, I asked my daughter if we needed to get anything while in town, and she informed me we were out of milk, so we went to the grocery store.

Good grief.

I got a 4L of 3% milk instead of our usual 2L. A 4L of 3% is usually just over $5. In this town, one brand was over $8, and one was just under. That happened to be the brand we usually get, so we got it again.

We went through the store to see if there was anything else we needed. Most of the prices were just insane. The exception was beef prices. I saw a couple of big beef tenderlions that were just over and just under the $100 range. Those same beef tenderlions cost almost $300 at Costco! Still, it wasn’t something we were ready to get today, and ended up just getting snacks for the ride home. My daughter picked up a package of donuts to share with her sister. I don’t like cake type donuts much, but she said she’s been craving a good donut.

Then she grabbed everything and snuck ahead to pay for it for me! 😄

Later on, she came to me, very disappointed. The donuts turned out to be terrible. The same thing happened the last time we picked up some mini donuts about a month ago. They looked so good, but tasted horrible!

After we got home, I remembered to phone my mother. I usually remember too late in the day to actually make the call.

*sigh*

I asked how she was doing, and she started to complain about being in pain, but when I asked what kind of pain, she just started going on about how she’s been there for three months, and the doctor has never seen her. She told me that when she tells the staff that she wants to see the doctor, they just tell her “he’ll be here tomorrow” or “he’s on holidays”. She’s conflating responses. He was on holidays over Easter, but he’s been back for awhile now. She still claims they’re saying he’s on holidays. I tried to explain again that yes, he has (briefly, to be sure) seen her, but that he’s only there 1 day a week, and it’s to go over the staff reports, not necessarily to see individual people. She cut me off and told me she didn’t care

She did ask me if I’d heard from my sister and my brother. I told her, it’s been a few days since I’ve heard from my sister and got a lecture about how we need to stay in communication. I told her, if we have nothing to say, there’s nothing to say! Then I told her I’d heard from my brother yesterday, and how they’re now in Spain, after walking 190km, with another 90km to go. She told me, she didn’t care about kilometers, and how all she knows is that my brother has basically run away from his responsibilities and is hiding overseas. I told her, they are on a pilgrimage. Following the paths of saints. She brushed that off.

She’s asked what was new with us, so I told her about the well pump. I knew she wouldn’t care, but I figured it would stave off any lectures on why I hadn’t visited her. I told her the pump had stopped working on Sunday, so we had no water, which seemed to confuse her. Then I said we called plumbers, and she started demanding I call a guy she remembers my father hiring in the past that lives not far from us. I said no. I’m going to call a real plumber! Plus, he’s tight with our vandal. The guy actually is a plumber by training, but hasn’t worked as a plumber in years. He’s been on disability for years. I had to cut my mother off from demanding I call him to say, it’s already fixed. We got a plumber in and, thanks to my brother, we already had a pump, so it’s done. We have water again.

Oh, that’s your problem.

…

At that point I told her, don’t ask me what’s new with us, if you don’t care to hear about what’s new. I had to repeat it a few times before she got what I was saying, then tried to blame it on how bad she’s feeling.

She never did tell me exactly how she’s feeling bad, other than generic stuff. She started off talking about pain, but finished by saying she thinks it’s her digestion that’s causing problems.

The real problem is, my mother is someone that is 94 years old, has lived a life of great physical hardship, including surviving starvation and a war, but somehow thinks she would be feeling perfectly healthy – and any doctor that can’t just fix her (without pills, though, because she’s already taking so many and she’s still in pain…) is not a good doctor. I have tried to get her to explain her expectations to me, and she never quite answers.

It was a frustrating call.

She had been about to go for a nap, though, so I didn’t keep her on the phone for too long.

Meanwhile…

It’s been a lovely day, but one where I’ve been fighting sleep all day. I’m just drained. Still, I made sure to do the evening cat feeding, just to get outside and enjoy the sunshine and warmth. We hit 10C/50F today, and it’s been so lovely!

This morning, my daughter had helped me return all the carriers for storage in the sun room, with the doors open so cats can go in and out. After doing the feeding, I got some puppy pads to set inside the carriers in such a way that they would also keep the doors from closing all the way.

This promptly happened.

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That’s little Flopsy on the left. The one on the right is an unsocialized cat we haven’t named. Can’t get close to it, but it is quite content to go into a carrier and use it as a nest!

It was so nice out, I took the time to grab the snow shovel and do some clearing. I shoveled in front of the old kitchen garden retaining wall, clearing more than enough space for the assembled chicken coop. Now that there’s no longer over a foot of snow on the area, the layer of ice left on the grass can melt away and the area will have a chance to dry out faster. We won’t get chicks until the end of May, and they won’t be big enough to go into a coop for weeks later, but the earlier we set up the coop, the better. It will give us time to determine if that area will actually work, or if we need to try somewhere else. We don’t have a lot of level areas, anywhere.

I’m really, really enjoying the warmer weather! At this rate, it won’t be long before I can remove the mulch on the sown garden beds, so the soil can thaw out faster. Not in the main garden area, yet. That’s still completely covered in snow and will take longer, but the slightly higher raised beds in the old kitchen garden and in the east yard are already mostly free of snow.

Looking ahead, we are going to have a few days where the highs will dip below freezing again, but after that we’re supposed to start getting highs above 10C/50F, and overnight lows staying above freezing, regularly.

I can hardly believe April is almost half gone already.

Time is just flying by!

The Re-Farmer

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