Being Sunday, we were able to mostly make it a day of rest. I didn’t even do my full morning rounds, because I have a terrible habit of starting things and not coming in for a couple of hours. 😄 Mostly, I made sure the outside cats were fed, then went back to bed for a couple more hours, since it was still pretty dark out.
I did go into town this morning to refill water jugs, as we were on our last one, and picked up a few things my daughter requested and sent funds for. Then I went to the hardware store to find an epoxy to repair the crack on the garden angel my mother sent home with me, yesterday. The hard part was finding one that dried clear.
I was about to head home when my daughter messaged me – her timing was perfect. She ended up sending more funds and treated us to Dairy Queen. She had plans to roast lots of vegetables and do bread baking today, so she didn’t want to have to do more cooking or dishes before hand. 😄 Meanwhile, her sister has been in a lot of pain lately, so she’s been in recovery mode for the past two days.
I did check on the garden, as usual. The old kitchen garden needed a watering, but I’d watered the winter squash before we covered them last night, and never uncovered them this morning, so they would have been fine. Pretty steamy, actually. We ended up hitting 27C/81F today. For the past while, our daytime highs have been higher than predicted, while the lows have been colder than predicted (we dropped to about 5-6C/41-43F last night, instead of the 10C/50F we were expecting). The next few nights are supposed to be a fair bit warmer, so I might be able to uncover the winter squash tomorrow morning and leave them uncovered over night for a while. At this point, we should have at least one, maybe two, mature squash to harvest, if I can keep them alive long enough.
Speaking of squash…
The one pumpkin we have was on a dead vine, so I brought it inside. The underside of it was rather funny.
Can you tell that it was supported by a mesh sling? 😄
Later this evening, I had a chance to message with the new rescue. As the females we need to spay are mostly still nursing, I asked about being able to get help adopting out some of the indoor cats. I explained how we sort of ended up being a “rescue” ourselves, with cats needing surgery, a couple with amputations, or being sick, plus females that we managed to snag before they were old enough to go into heat. This rescue has just officially opened their doors, and I knew they were struggling to find fosters, so I made sure to tell them I’m not looking to foist cats on them. We need help with the spays and neuters with the outside cats, and with adoption, but we are already taking care of them now. I also made sure to say we want to avoid attention. They had started talking about going to the media to bring attention to just how many cat colonies there are out here int he boonies that need help. I was all, nope. Nononono. No media. That last thing we need it that sort of attention. Obviously, with our vandal, that’s an issue. I also explained I don’t want the RM or province involved, as that’s just going to lead to a whole lot of dead cats. What I didn’t mention is that, after many years of first hand experience, I simply don’t trust the media. They often either get even the most basic details wrong, or lie outright.
They ended up asking about the outside cats and kittens. How many kittens, how many adults, how many need to be fixed, how many males, how many females.
It was really hard to answer. I tried to do a head count of the littles this morning and counted 11, but I didn’t see Slick’s 6, and who knows how many others. We never see all of them at the same time. As for the females, I tried to think of how many we’re still seeing regularly. There are quite a few that have simply disappeared. Brussel, Caramel, Ink, Slick’s white and grey companion, and Magda, just to name a few – and Magda was spayed. There are a couple that are skittish to the point that we don’t know if they’re male or female.
I answered as best I could and, at their request, started sending pictures.
I think I sent them into a bit of a panic. There are so many!
…
I did eventually get a chance to say that, in our situation, we actually have a lot less this year. I’d already mentioned that we have more in the winter than, then they take off again in the spring. I told them that one winter, I was counting about 45-50 for a while. Then spring came and most of them disappeared permanently. I mentioned last year was the worst for kittens. Not just with how many there were, but how many I had to bury, including miscarriages I had to euthanize. Even this year, I had to bury a few, but nothing like last year.
As they are completely full, the woman that started the rescue has said she would contact some of the other rescues. There are some that will come out and trap. Which would be great, if we could get those mamas! Not while they’re still nursing, though.
If there was someone who could take Frank and her three, plus the fourth she’s been nursing as well, that would be fantastic. They are the youngest, tiniest ones, and winter is coming.
If that works out, and we end up with the outside cats trapped and taken in for adoption, that would be a huge help for us. Outside cats need more food than inside ones do. Especially in winter. The cost of cat food is built into our grocery budget, and there have been times where we’ve spent more on cat food than on food for ourselves.
I had just been hoping to get help with spays, in particular, and mostly adopt out some inside cats (I’ve been asked to provide photos and information on them). It would be amazing if we could finally get our numbers down. I’m not counting on it too much; it’s been really hard for all the shelters and rescues to get adoptions. Still, every little bit will help!
Anyhow. That’s my excitement for the day! 😄 I think now I might do something really radical, and go to bed before midnight. 😂
I had two main goals for today. The first was to take care of my mother’s morning med assist and do her grocery shopping. The second was to get more progress cleaning up in the garden beds.
My mother turned out to be having one of “those” days.
It actually started off okay. She was in bed and not wanting to get up. I can’t say I blame her! She told me she feels like she just wants to lie in bed all the time, these days.
I got her morning meds out. I took out her other type if inhaler, too – the one that home care workers aren’t allowed to give her. I’d already talked to her about the doctor removing it from her med assist list for home care, and she doesn’t need to take it anymore, but when I’d called last night to let her know I’d be coming over, she told me she decided she would keep taking it after all.
When I brought it out, I told her again, she doesn’t need to use it. The doctor removed it from her prescription list. The experiment was to see if she had asthma, and she clearly doesn’t. It won’t hurt her to take it, but it’s not helping her and she doesn’t need to.
Usually, my mother is all about trying to drop her medications because she doesn’t think they’re helping. If they were helping, why does she feel this, or that, or this other thing? when her meds are for completely different things. Now she has a medication that was a trail, it isn’t helping her, she doesn’t need it… and suddenly she wants to keep taking it?
I told her I’d planned to take it to the pharmacy for proper disposal, but in the end I just left it out of the lock box for her to take or not take. It only has 28 doses left in it, so 14 days of daily use, if she keeps it up.
She had not made her shopping list, so after she took her medications, I went through her fridge and cupboards and we talked about what she needed before sitting down and making her list with her. Then she gave me cash in an envelope; I always make sure that the change and receipt is put back into it for her to go over at her leisure, later on.
All of that went smoothly, and I was soon back and putting everything away for her.
My brain is already trying to wipe things out, but I think it was the spaghetti squash that started it.
This is what WP AI image generator thinks my mother looks like.
My mother no longer has a garden plot, officially, but she did grow a spaghetti squash along the fence outside her window, which produced for her a single spaghetti squash. She’d already eaten half of it, but struggles with the hard skin, so she offered the other half to me. I politely declined, saying I was the only one in the family that likes spaghetti squash.
That lead to a lecture on how we’re all so fussy, and that it just needs to be cooked right (she still thinks I don’t know how to cook), etc.
Then she offered me some of the seeds she’d saved from her spaghetti squash. Again, I politely declined (I just told her I’m the only one that likes it; why would I grow something no one else wants to eat?) and told her I have lots of seeds.
While all this conversation was going on, I started sweeping her floor and doing other little things, as I usually try to do for her. She kept going on about the garden, asking me about how our garden is. I had told her before that it was a messed up year, but I told her again, things were really behind this year. We had the spring with hot days in May, but too cold nights. Then we had drought conditions, heat waves, and wildfire smoke. So the garden really sufferred.
Oh, I’m the only one complaining about the smoke! No one else is! (I wasn’t complaining, just listing it among other things) I have two daughters to help me! I should have a big garden, etc. etc. etc. I should have so much food from the garden, etc. etc. I told her, we did have some, just not much, and even tried to show her pictures of the winter squash and said I have been managing to keep them from freezing. Freezing? she asked. I guess she forgot that we’ve already had frost, and that our nights are getting pretty cold.
Then she just flat out said: I’m a bad gardener
My response was, And you’re very rude.
She agreed.
???
It was around that time, when I’d just finished sweeping her floor and was about to start emptying all her garbage cans, that the door opened and my brother walked in! He’d been on the way to the farm and decided to swing past my mother’s place to see if I was still there. He saw a Caravan parked, and knew the courtesy vehicle I had was a Caravan, so he decided to pop in.
He barely walked in and gave her a hug hello when she started going at him, immediately asking about pictures of his grand kids. My brother has shown her digital pictures, but she wants something she can tack onto her wall. The problem is, the last time he gave her prints of the grand kids, the first thing she did was ask if one of his grandsons was Downs Syndrome or something. Which neither of them are, but she didn’t like how one of them looked and basically said he looked retarded.
Needless to say, he’s not eager to give her more photos of his grandsons.
I don’t even know if he has a printer anymore. My sister’s the one that’s into that stuff, so she’s got a high end printer. I think my mother even paid for it. Anyhow, I tried to distract her away from that, then continued into empty her garbage cans into one bag then, emptied her commode.
Which is how I missed the first part of what they’d started talking about. I didn’t get the straight of it until much later, here at the farm, as we filled in my SIL.
It turns out our vandal had showed up at my mother’s place on Tuesday. The day the mental health assessor was interviewing my mother. It seems he walked right into her apartment and immediately started ranting at her, right in front of a stranger, about how she gave the farm to me (????), then started saying nasty things about my one of my daughters, (getting them mixed up, apparently) that were complete fabrications. He hasn’t seen either of them in years. Someone, however, seems to be telling him things (like my younger daughter having a PCOS beard), and then he’s going from there and just making things up. He didn’t even use my daughter’s correct name! Whichever one he meant to be talking about, anyhow.
My mother, however, believed him. ?!?! She started saying that it was true. As if she knows any better?
I’d asked my mother before about how that meeting with the mental health assessor went, and she just brushed her off in disgust, saying she wasn’t any use, and had told my mother something along the lines of, “there are people worse off than you”. Which is true, but pissed my mother off. My mother did NOT mention that our vandal showed up.
Or that the interview was cut short and that the assessor left with our vandal.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Red flag time!
Now that we know this happened, both my brother and I plan to phone the mental health assessor. If I’d known earlier, I would have already phoned her by now!
Meanwhile, in the middle of all this, my mother found the time to ask us to take her angel here to the farm. Years ago, my brother bought her a resin garden decor angel that my mother just loves. She’s been doing a lot of “when I go up-up, who is going to take this? Who is going to take that?” After confirming that no one else among my siblings wanted it, I assured her it would go to the farm. It’s made to be outdoors, so I said I would set it up somewhere nice.
My brother and I then joked that we should set it up facing the gate, so our vandal would see it and maybe be reminded that the things he’s doing isn’t particularly Godly. Or whatever.
Today, my mother brought it up and asked if we could take it.
That was our cue.
My poor brother was there for less than 10 minutes, and got jumped all over right from the moment he came in. He didn’t even have time to finish giving her a hello hug before she started, and he was more than happy to leave right away.
In bringing the angel out, he noticed there was a crack under one wing. That led to a whole other thing with my mother, because she didn’t know it was there. My brother suggested it had fallen over, but she said it had never fallen. We quickly distracted away from guessing, though. Later on, my brother said it probably happened when her apartment was being fumigated, and someone knocked it over. She’s already convinced the exterminator stole things from her, so my brother wasn’t about to bring that up around her!
We headed out together, with me taking her garbage out and my brother carrying the angel to load into the van. I used the fob to open the rear gate for him before going out the other door to the building’s garbage bin.
As I came around, my brother was trying to figure out how to get the angel into the back. One of the third row of seats would need to be folded down. As he was looking around, I decided to open up the side door to try and see from the other side. I had the key fob in my hand as I did.
I accidentally hit the panic button on the fob – or so I thought. The horn started honking an alarm.
I tried hitting the panic button again, but it only changed the pattern of honking. I couldn’t see how to shut the honking off, and the buttons I pushed didn’t work! My brother has seen this type of square key fob before, so I showed it to him, but he didn’t know either. He just started smashing buttons, and it stopped.
Well, the entire neighbourhood now knew we were there!
In the end, I figured out that I hadn’t accidentally hit the panic button. I had tried to open the door, while it was still locked. I didn’t even know the van had an alarm, but with the rear gate open, I thought the other doors were unlocked as well for some reason. So I had set off the car alarm. I think it stopped when my brother hit the unlock button while button smashing!
At least it worked.
We then headed off here to the farm.
I brought the angel to the door, messaging a daughter to bring it in. Because of the cracked wing, it will need to be repaired and sealed before we set it up outside. Otherwise, water will get inside it.
I joined my brother and SIL in their “new” camper – it’s the first time I’ve been inside it – and we had a chance to catch up my SIL on how things went. My brother and I both needed to decompress, that’s for sure! There was more than what I mention here, of course. The main concern was our vandal showing up like that – and leaving with the mental health assessor!
After we had a visit, I left them to their work. They needed to winterize the camper and the trailer, and would only be around for a few hours. I headed in to grab lunch, change and get to work in the garden.
Which was very therapeutic. Part way through, my younger daughter even came out to check on me and make sure I was okay, after that visit, which was much appreciated.
My focus for today was on the beds with carrots in them, both winter sown and spring sown. I started on the East yard garden bed, removing the bamboo stake trellis that was holding up the radish bushes, first.
After the trellis was removed, I pulled all the remaining radishes – this bed had quite a few go to seed – and lettuces. Some of the lettuce were going to seed, so I broke off the tops and set them aside to collect the seeds later. Everything else went onto the compost pile.
While this bed had the same root vegetable mix as the high raised bed, it also had lettuce seeds added. Those grew so well, they became a weed and choked other things out. I was curious to see how the carrots did, under those conditions.
They’re mostly small, and some of the smallest ones at the end just got added to the compost pile, but it was actually better than I expected. There were even a few of the orange “Napoli” carrots in there. Those seeds were pretty old, so I wasn’t sure what to expect with them.
Once the carrots were harvested, I went over the entire bed, loosening the soil and pulling weeds, none of which could be added to the compost pile, or they’d start growing again!
There was one carrot that had gone to seed, so I gave it a support stake and left it to finish maturing.
The soil was pretty compacted and hard to clear. I know there’s still lots of weeds in there, but I plan to amend the soil before any winter sowing gets done, so there will be time to get more of them.
Again, I pulled the few radish bushes that were left in there, then started on harvesting the carrots. These ones were not crowed out, like the other winter sown bed was, and I could really see a difference!
A couple of those beets are supposed to be white, but they look more yellow than white. Then there are the teeny onions. I’d picked what beets we had, earlier, but these had no greens left (thanks to the deer), so I’d missed them. As for the onions, I’d included onion seeds in the mixed, but only a couple managed to form proper bulbs. With these ones, I could potentially use them as sets for next year.
Once again, I left a carrot gone to seed. It had branches sprawling all over, but now they’re held together in the support stake. I’ve already cut some of the seed heads off a while back, as they were fully dry, and now there’s more that I could probably harvest now.
The next bed to work on was the spring sown bed. Being in an almost ground level bed, it was easier. I could just go along each side with the garden fork to loosen the soil, first.
With these ones, we’ve been thinning by harvesting, as needed. That gave them space to get bigger… but they didn’t get much longer! These are supposed to be a deep red and quite long. Instead, we have light orange and stubby.
I didn’t continue cleaning up the bed, though. That’s for another day. This took several hours – my brother and SIL headed out before I even finished the first bed, it took so long – and it was time to stop.
Not before gathering the harvest and giving it a quick hose down, first.
A lot of them are pretty small, which will make them harder to work with, but that’s a pretty decent amount of carrots. Plus a few bonus beets!
I was glad to have the work to do. Physical labour goes a long way to working out any stress and, after being with my mother this morning, I had plenty of stress to work off!
Now, I need to head back outside. It’s getting dark, and we’re in for a cold enough night that the winter squash need to be covered again.
I’m not sure why CPP Disability came in a day early, but I wasn’t about to complain. I just took advantage of it and made a run into the city.
With the work being done on the truck, plus the door replacement (still no word on the new, correct size, door that was ordered), it’s going to be a tight month, and we will be skipping Costco. Instead, I did the usual Walmart and Canadian Tire run, then his a Superstore along the same route.
My first stop was the Walmart. This is what $168.62 looks like.
Yeah. Not much.
The most expensive item was a box of 150 puppy pads. The Costco box is 100, but the pads are the same size.
Then there was the 9kg bag of kibble. I got just the one, for the inside cats, because I was planning to hit the feed store for 40 pounds bags for the outside cats.
Then there were two cases of 32 cans of wet cat food. One is for the outside cats, but I only use one can a day, mixes with hot water and powdered pumpkin seeds, which I then used to soften their morning kibble.
Last of all was a package of toilet paper that was on sale. Oh, and a $2 donation at the till.
So… five times (not counting the donation) was over $150.
*sigh*
My next stop was the Canadian Tire. This is what $0 looks like.
I looked all over but couldn’t find the sump pump hose I was looking for. I finally snagged someone and asked. It turned out they should have been in an empty shelf I’d walked past several times. Because the labels were so low to the ground, I never saw them. After looking it up, the guy said he would get one for me from their warehouse. When he came back, he had three, so he could restock the shelf.
I was just walking away with my one in the cart when I decided I’d better get a second one, just in case.
While going through the checkout, I paid for two bags of litter pellets, where were set up in the exit vestibule, so I picked those up on the way out.
I use my Canadian Tire dollars to pay for the entire thing, so what would have cost $53.72, cost me nothing.
After the Canadian Tire, I hit a Domo to fill the tank. The price of regular was $1.299, but it was Thursday, which was 4¢ off per liter day. Grand total to fill was $76.34
Last of all was the Superstore. This is what $284.73 looks like… sort of!
There’s actually more in there than it appears, as the bread is covering some things.
Under grocery, there’s a large jug of cooking oil, a giant bag of elbow macaroni, some mayo and a packet of rice noodles for the girls. The Monster was for me to drink during the drive home.
Under dairy, there’s a flat of eggs, and large blocks of Old Cheddar and Mozza cheese. We used to be able to get blocks that size at Costco, but they don’t seem to carry them anymore. I got 6 pounds of butter (they were on sale, but with a limit of one, so 5 of them were regular price). In the frozen section, I got two big bags of potato and cheese perogies and a back of mixed vegetables.
The bulk chocolate almonds were to snack on, on the way home. It was a very small bag.
The only produce I got on this trip was two bags of avocadoes that were at a very good price.
In meats and seafood, I got fish fillets for the girls, chicken thighs and drumsticks, a large ham, a frozen pork roast, a package of pork ribs and another of pork tenderloins. I don’t know why it’s under “meal replacement”, but I also got a hot rotisserie chicken.
I also picked up a frozen turkey that was free with a purchase over $300, so I wanted to make sure I reached that $300 mark, even though I tend to round up when I keep a tally in my head.
In the bakery, I got a couple of loaves of light rye bread and a back of torpedo buns. I don’t know what it is about their torpedo buns (labelled as “buns Italian” on the receipt) but the entire family absolutely loves them, and you get a LOT for the $5!
When I got to the till, though, I discovered I had rounded up too much, and the total was under $300! No free turkey. After finding out how much I was short, I went to a display I’d been standing next to while waiting in line and got two different tins of moon cakes; one with double yolks. That put me over, and I got my free turkey – and a rare treat for the family.
I did have things go a bit weird while I was in line, though. Because the lines were so long, I pushed my cart forward in line, then stood beside it, so I wouldn’t be blocking the aisle. I intended to step around when it came time to move forward and unload.
An older woman then got in line behind me, pushing her cart forward and forward and forward, until the end of her cart was under the handle of mine. Strange, but okay. We started chatting at one point, when she commented that she has to watch her cart. She forgets how long it is and has a habit of bumping into people. !! Okay.
Then things moved along and I was able to move my cart forward to the belt and start unloading.
She pushed her cart right up under my cart’s handle again.
Once the cart was empty and the customers ahead of me were done, I moved forward to the cashier, giving her my loyalty card.
I’ve been using that card for years, but it came up as not activated. I’ll have to phone them to find out what’s going on.
Once I had my card back, I pushed my cart to the end and started reloading it (I bag my stuff at my vehicle) as quickly and efficiently as I could, so it wouldn’t build up on the belt. When it came time for the total and to ring in my free turkey, she let me know I hadn’t reached the $300 mark. So I decided to grab the moon cakes.
No one in the line was willing to just pass them over to me, so I had to squeeze my way past the old lady’s cart to get through and get them, then squeeze back again.
She made zero effort to move her cart closer to the till. I’m no skinny minny, but even a thin person would have had a hard time getting by.
Whatever. I got them, the cashier rang them through while I continued to put things in my cart.
The old lady had moved forward and was standing right at where I needed to be to pay.
Both the cashier and I told her I needed to reach the PIN pad. She moved back…
But pushed her cart forward.
In the end, I had to first move my loaded cart forward, then move the old lady’s cart to the end of the belt, where my cart had been, just so I could get back in to use the PIN pad.
The thing that made it seem weirder is that I got no impression that she was someone dealing with cognitive issues or some such, and her comment about running into people showed she was aware. She may have been older than me, but probably not by all that much. Maybe 10 years or so? I don’t like to guess, since I have a mother who’s 94 but could easily pass as being in her 70’s. It just seemed… almost deliberate.
Maybe I’m just too used to dealing with my mother, who absolutely would do stuff like that, deliberately.
Anyhow.
So I got all that, it came to under $300 total, and I got my free turkey!
That cart looks pretty empty for that much, but most of the meat in there is covered, along with all the butters.
Once that was all loaded up, it was time to head home. I took the route that would take me through my mother’s town, instead of my usual route from this location, because I knew I’d have to make a pit stop at a gas station just outside the city. I was well on my way when my cell phone started to ring.
There’s pretty much only one place that calls my cell phone, so I pulled over to answer.
Yup. It was home care.
There was a cancellation and they did have my mother’s med assists covered by someone else, but that someone else wouldn’t be able to get to my mother’s until 9:45pm for her bed time med assist. The scheduler was concerned that would be too late for her.
I felt she was right – and since I was on my way home from the city and would be driving through my mother’s town anyhow, I decided I would stop by. Home care isn’t allowed to do this, but I can get her meds out and set them up for her in advance. Her supper med assist would come as usual, but no one would have to come for the bed time assist.
That worked out and she was able to cancel the super late bed time assist. I then phoned my mother and – making sure she knew I was pulled over on the side of he road and couldn’t talk long – let her know I’d be stopping by soon. I also made sure she knew I had groceries in the truck and couldn’t stay long.
Yeah, I’m really looking forward to having a cover on the truck box again. I had the frozen stuff and all the cold meats in covered insulated bags in the truck box. Heavy enough I had no worried that they’d blow around or slide around, but it would have been very easy for someone walking by to just reach in and grab a bag or two, heavy as they might be.
When I got to my mother’s, I made sure to bring a bag along. After getting her meds ready and we were chatting, I went into her kitchen and started taking down the stockpile of Pepto my brother got for her, that made her so very angry, into the bag I’d brought. She asked what I was doing and I told her, I’m taking them because they are bothering her. She asked if I was taking them here to the farm, and I said yes. She then pointed out the obvious, that it made no difference if they were at her place or our place and I just said, they’re bothering her.
She started going into her spiel about how these are medicine, they don’t last, they need to be kept cool, etc. I looked at the expiry date and told her, these are good for more than two years (it’s actually a best before date, not an expiry date, but I wasn’t about to try and explain the difference to her). They don’t need to go into the fridge, because they’re a mineral. My daughter even has a piece in her collection. That got her curious, so I looked up pictures of bismuth – the only active ingredient listed in Pepto – to show her. They are such gorgeous stones, too. I think that sort of mollified her, but who knows for how long!
She did ask me to leave one bottle in her cupboard; they came packed in pairs, and my brother had one pair unwrapped, with the open one now in her fridge. I took the time to show her that the only difference between what my brother got for her and what I’d picked up for her from the pharmacy (after checking the labels to confirm) is that I had picked up extra strength, and the ones my brother got were regular strength. That gave me the opportunity to remind her to use the cup they come with to get the proper dose, instead of just using a teaspoon, like she usually does. I’m kinda hoping it sunk in, but it’s hard to say.
Then I headed home, with six bottles of Pepto, and my brother no longer has to worry that my mother will follow through with her immediate idea of selling the “extra”.
I just quickly looked it up. The twin packs of Pepto at Superstore, where my brother found some in stock, cost about $25 each, before taxes, and that’s a much better price that buying them in singles. My brother spent over $100 on Pepto for my mother, so she wouldn’t run out. I think, if she knew that, she probably would have gotten even angrier.
*sigh*
Anyhow, that’s our stock up shopping trip for the month. Anything else we need will be smaller trips throughout the month for fresh stuff. It’s a shame the garden had so little production this year, as there’s little to supplement, and nothing to freeze or can. Ah, well. As I finish clearing up the beds, I’ll be harvesting both winter sown and spring sown carrots. It should be interesting to compare!
I’m still holding out hope for at least a couple of winter squash before the cold kills them. My daughter and I headed out to cover them again for the night while I was still writing this. It’s not supposed to get as cold as last night, so we didn’t cover the summer squash, peppers or remaining eggplant this time. We’re actually supposed to warm up again, and even get pretty hot, over the next week, so there’s hope for those winter squash, still!
But I digress.
We didn’t get a whole lot on this trip, compared to a typical Costco trip, but I did find quite a lot of prices seemed to be better at Superstore. They also have more selection and variety.’
Plus, they have torpedo buns. 😄
I wonder if it’s worthwhile to try going to their Wholesale Club location. The last time I went there, the prices didn’t really seem to be any better in general, and some of their meat was looking… questionable… but they do have things there that aren’t in their regular stores. It would mean an extra trip to the city, though, and I just don’t like doing those like I used to! Plus, if we make them too often, the trips are no longer worth the cost of gas to do them.
I do have a trip to the city on Oct. 1, though. That’s my appointment at the sports injury clinic to possibly get an injection for my left hip. Then there’s another trip, the week after, as my daughter finally gets to see an endocrinologist. Ah, well.
I’m really hoping to be able to hibernate as much as possible this winter!
The Re-Farmer
Addendum: I completely forgot! You may have noticed that I got no beef at all on this trip. This is an example of why.
That’s three chunks of Oxtail. OXTAIL. At over $30/kg. They did have other packages that were less per kg, but they had no meat on them. This used to be among the cheapest of cuts. Even cheaper than stew meat or ground beef. Now, it’s right up there with steak. Crazy!
I am finally able to settle in to start this – though I’m also waiting for a phone call and might be making a trip into town, still, so we’ll see if things get interrupted!
My plan had originally been to drop the truck off this morning, then use the courtesy vehicle to do the stock up shopping in the city. CPP Disability came in yesterday, though, so I figured I may as well do that right away, and not have to worry about driving a strange vehicle in the city. I’ll do another post about the stocking up.
Once home and everything was put away, I grabbed a quick supper, then headed outside. I really wanted to get that bed cleaned up and finished.
Of course, it took longer than expected.
I started working my way down the unfinished side from the North end, closer to the trees. Almost immediately, I could feel I was hitting something not rock with the garden fork. I kept working my way down and around it, but it was a while before I could actually uncover it and start moving it around with my hands.
In the first photo, I’d worked maybe 8 ft down the side before I could uncover it and not have the soil immediately fall and cover it again. The further down I went, the more I could get under it and loosen things up around it.
In the next two photos in the slide show, I’d finally reached a point where the root veered off to the side and out of the bed.
Yes, Sir Robin was helping me the entire time. He was really, really interested in where I was digging!
One I cleared a bit more of the root into the path, I went and got the loppers to cut it. With all the digging I’d already done, it was pretty easy to pull the rest up. It didn’t all some out, though. About a foot or so from the end, it broke free. I think this was actually a piece that branched off an even bigger root, further down!
Before we planted potatoes in this bed, I trenched it. That root was not there in the spring!
Given how far I got before it veered into the path, I can certainly see why I was finding so many tree capillary roots at the south end of the bed.
I got the bed done, though – with another bumper crop of rocks – and used the landscape rake to level the soil and make it all niche and even, as much as I could.
I then hosed it down before I got my second package of painters plastic drop sheet. It’s 10′ wide and 25′ long. It was really calm at the time, so I was able to open it up, then fold it in half, lengthwise, so it was only 5′ wide. Then I covered the bed and made sure to get everything as tight and snug as possible, with the excess length folded over at the south end. I took boards that were around the carrot bed to weight down the ends, rolling the boards in the excess plastic and pulling it tight again, before using the remaining boards I had to weight down the sides. The plastic has good contact with the soil surface, which means it should solarize properly, unlike when I’ve tried to do it over less level beds, or over areas with grass stubble on it. Well. Maybe not “properly, but at least better!
As you can see in the next picture, taken with flash, it was dark by the time I was done.
I stayed out longer to cover the winter squash, summer squash, peppers and remaining eggplants. The overnight low they were predicting had changed again, and we were to expect 5C/41F.
I am so glad I covered all the beds.
We dropped to 3C/37F last night.
The last picture in the series was taken this morning, while I was doing my rounds. It was still too cold to uncover them, though, so it got left until later.
I then headed out to town to drop the truck off at the autobody place for the insurance repairs. Before taking the courtesy vehicle – a 2020 Caravan – we did the necessary paperwork, and I signed an insurance waiver. If I were to get into some sort of accident or damage the vehicle, I’d be responsible for a $750 deductible. Or, I can sign the waiver and pay a little under $8 a day to cover that.
I’ve got the van for four days, or one day. Looking at the time as I write this, I’d say, four days. There was the possibility that they’d get the frame repaired and painted today, to a point that I could bring the truck home while it cured. I would then bring it back on Monday and they’d install the new cover. I would get a phone call before they’re done for the day to find out. I’m pretty sure they close at 5, and it’s past 5 as I write this, but maybe they close at 6. I can’t remember.
I was warned about some unusual things on the van. The first, I misunderstood. She was telling me where the shifter was, and I thought she meant it was behind the steering wheel on the column, like our truck, instead of in the front of the console between the seats, like my mother’s car.
It was neither. It’s behind the steering wheel, on the dash.
It also has a “square” key, which I’d never heard of before. Instead of a metal key, it has a plastic square that gets inserted, just like an ordinary key. The disorienting part of that isn’t just the shape of it. On one side of the square is the bright red panic button!
After spending a bit of time figuring out where things were and adjusting my seat, I headed off to the town to the north of us to pick up more 40 pound bags of kibble. I had just parked when I got a call from the autobody place.
The tech working on my truck, on seeing the condition of the rails that would be painted (only the rails, not the sides and fenders, as that would not be covered by insurance because of the rust), he wanted to know if I preferred to have it done with flatbed paint, instead. There would be no extra cost, and he felt it would give more protection to the rails. After talking about it for a bit, I agreed. It should be interesting to see how it turns out!
I then went into the feed store and paid for four 40 pound bags of kibble. The woman who processed my sale then came and helped me grab the bags. I’d mentioned it was the first time I’d driven this vehicle and, as we came out with the first two bags, I realized I didn’t even know how to open the back of the van. Was there a handle, or would I have to use the key fob, which I would not be able to reach without putting down the bag of kibble?
There was a handle. 😄
Once the bags were loaded, I tried to close it manually, but it didn’t want to close until it got past a certain point. I looked around later, and could see no buttons or anything to make that easier.
When I parked in the garage and took the key out of the ignition, though, I accidentally opened the back of the van! I did figure out how to close it using the fob, at least.
I couldn’t bring the bags in right away, though. It’s been a while since we had to store that many bags of kibble, so I had to organize and make space in the old kitchen, first. Which I did, after finally having breakfast.
Much of what I had to deal with was cardboard. Some was meant for the garden. Others had glossy coatings on them, so they needed to be sorted out. Normally, they would have gone to the burn pile, but we haven’t been able to do a burn in over a year. Between things like the weather, or fire bans, I already had quite a mess to clean up recently. I plan to take it all to the dump, but I won’t be doing a dump run until we get the truck back.
After sorting that out, it was back to doing clean up in the yard and garden. The garden beds got uncovered, though high winds made that a challenge! Then I started working on things like taking down the wire that was used to trellis the peas, and to protect the Arikara squash from critters.
For now, I’ve been putting all the garden stakes, poles, ties, netting, etc. in one spot, before they get a final organizing and bundling and putting away for the winter. I’d put the bent up wire supports that failed to hold up netting under the weight of playing kittens. One of the things I’d done as we emptied the sun room was hose down a cat cave that kept collapsing. I ended up rolling down the sides to try and make it into a sort of nest, but it keeps getting bend out of shape. The “cave” itself is basically around, thick bag with a drawstring cord to close up the top.
Those bent up wires might not be useful for holding up the netting, but I decided to try something with several of them. It’s a heavy gauge wire, but still flexible enough to bend into shape, and keep the shape.
I ended up using three of them to make a wire support for inside the cat cave. Two were formed into rings, with the top ring slightly smaller than the bottom, and a third was wound and bent and wound some more, to hole the top and bottom rinds apart. Then I stuffed it into the cat cave and closed up the drawstring top.
With the top ring where it is, the to can’t close completely anymore, but that’s okay. The sides are now being held up.
The ultimate test will be what happens when the kittens decide to climb all over it. So far, it’s holding!
I’d used three of the wire supports to make that, but had brought four, just in case.
I found a use for that one, too.
Yesterday, I’d picked up replacement sump pump hoses to replace our broken one.
The hose runs along the base of the house to drain into the old kitchen garden. That bend to go to the side instead of straight out (which is how it used to be, before I replaced the old one) was enough to finally break the hose.
Taking off the broken bit and replacing it was easy and fast enough, but I wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again. If only I had something strong, yet flexible, to brace the hose at the bed…
Enter that fourth wire support, some wire cutters and electric tape.
In the last picture, you can see that I set two lengths of the wire on either side of the hose. I taped it to the piece coming out of the wall, first, just to secure it while I worked. The lengths of wire were give a gentle bend, then got taped into place. Only then did I give the hose, which was already stretched along the base of the house, I final straightening out and setting it in place. The new hose is slightly longer than the old hose (which I’d bought from a different company). Which will come in handy in the spring, if it’s wet enough to trigger the sump pump. It reached the rectangular garden bed in the old kitchen better. I’ll want to make a larger, longer, opening under the logs at the end of the bed, and it can then be set right into the opening to drain under the bed, instead of running down the paths, and water whatever gets planted in there from below.
Aside from that, there was just a lot of small things that got done around the yard. It was so incredibly windy, it limited some of the things I could work on. Thankfully, the winds seem to have died down a bit since then.
My daughter, meanwhile, has been going all out on cleaning the sun room – way more than I would have done, I’ll be honest! She even got a household step ladder and a small hand brush to get into less accessible areas. When it comes time to bring things back in, she plans to scrub, then oil, anything with wood. Since we can’t take the cat cage out without dismantling it, she floor can only be washed one side at a time. With the cat cage going on top of interlocking mats, to protect from the cold concrete floor, it has to be thoroughly dry before things can be moved over and the other side can be done.
While she was working on that, I took the hose to pressure was the larger plastic shelves that supported the platform above the cat cage. The bottom shelves, in particular needed a thorough cleaning.
We need to figure out some way to keep critters from using the corners of the room. There’s no room for litter pans there.
Oh, I just got the phone call I was waiting for – and it came after they closed!
We’ve got the van for the weekend.
I also got a final tally on what it will cost. There’s the $500 deductible, of course, but the “betterment” will cost $193.92 after taxes. Add in the waiver I signed, as extra insurance should I get into an accident with the van, there’s another roughly $35 on top.
That’s a solid Costco shopping trip right there. 🫤
It will be so good to have that fixed and a cover on the truck box again. I hate having things in there without a cover, when driving at highway seeds – even though I know that there’s nothing I put back there that might blow away! It’s more that things can be seen and walked off with. Granted, it would take some effort for someone to walk off with a 40 pound bag of litter pellets, but not so much for a 9kg bag of kibble.
So there’s all that caught up with!
Next, we’ll take a look and what my stock up shopping trip looked like for the money.
Well, I did get some more stuff done in the garden, even remembered to upload a couple of photos – then completely forgot about the post I meant to write! 😄
Anyhow…
I decided to harvest most of the eggplant, just pruning the entire plants at their base so I could reach the fruit better.
In the end, I left three plants. In the next photo, you can see the green eggplants on one plant. On another plant, I did find a few tiny green eggplants, and on the third, I couldn’t find anything at all – that’s the one that was the most damaged by cold – but I left it anyhow. After removing the extra cages and doing a bit more clean up, I moved the jugs of water in between the remaining three plants to act as heat sinks on nights they’ll need to be covered. I did a bit of clean up in the rectangular bed as well, then gave everything a watering from the rain barrel.
Today was supposed to reach a high of 24C/75F, but we ended up hitting 26C/79F. The over night low is supposed to be around 12C/54F, so I didn’t cover the winter squash, but I did give them and the summer squash a thorough watering, too. It was starting to get pretty dark by then, which is when both my daughters came out, looking for me. They’d messaged me, but I never heard the notification, so they were coming out to make sure I was okay! That was sweet of them. :-)
The end of the day was a lot calmer than the start.
This morning was my telephone appointment with my mother’s doctor, so I did short rounds so that I could be close to the phone during the 1 1/2 hour time frame I was given for her to call. Thankfully, she called closer to 8am than 9:30!
We talked about my mother’s inhaler being out, and about her refusal to spend to much money on the refills (the one inhaler cost almost as much as her bubble packs). We also talked about how it really wasn’t helping her breathing, anyhow, and I suggested it get dropped from her med list. The doctor asked about my mother’s breathing issues, and I told her she does still have problems, particularly at night, and described her situation.
In the end, she agreed to drop the inhaler from my mother’s meds, which would require a letter to home care. I could hear her typing it as we spoke, so she was right on that.
After that call was done, I called the home care coordinator. It’s actually a different one, in another region, as the one for our area is on holidays. When I told her about the call with the doctor, and that she could expect the letter, she told me she’d sent a note to the doctor, yesterday, asking for her letter to be sent to her office in another town, since there’s no one to check emails at our local office. I don’t think the doctor had seen it before she called me.
It will take some time for the change to my mother’s med assist instructions to go through. Once the home care coordinator gets the letter from the doctor, it gets sent to a nurse. Only a nurse is allowed to make the actual med assist instructions. Once that is updated, the revised instructions will go into my mother’s file that the home care aids have with them, when they do her assists.
Until then, the coordinator can let the home care aids know the change is in the works. Since my mother is out of that inhaler, anyhow, it will be as if it’s gone through, already.
That done, I updated my siblings in our group chat, then phoned my mother. By this time, it was past 9am and I knew her med assist should have come and gone for the morning.
When I mentioned to my other that I spoke to the doctor, she told me that doctor had already called her! She must have called right after talking to me. She had asked my mother, what can I do for you? My mother wasn’t expecting the call, so she told her that she was having her breakfast just then – and then the home care worker arrived to give her her meds, so they finished off the call. Then my mother asked me, what should she tell the doctor?
???
I told her that we’d been talking about her inhaler not helping, getting it off her med list, and that I had told the doctor she was still having breathing issues. My mother knew I was doing this for her, but I guess she forgot all about it.
As for having the inhaler removed from her med list, you’d think she would have been happy, as she’s always complaining that she is taking soooooo many medications and keeps wanting to drop them. Nope. She just told me that the home care aid that had come in this morning – her favourite one – had actually used one of the other brand inhalers in my mother’s lock box. Which, technically, she should not have done, but it’s what the hospital has been using with her and given her a prescription for. She had prescriptions for two different types of inhalers at the same time, for a while.
After I explained to her that it might take a while before the home care aids officially have a change in her med assist instructions, they will be told the inhaler is being dropped, so they don’t have to fuss about her not having the one on their list anymore.
We were just finishing what had been a pleasant conversation when she remembered the Pepto.
The eight bottles of Pepto my brother had bought for her so she wouldn’t have to worry about running out. It’s one of the few things she takes where she can actually notice she feels better.
She started off saying, she never asked him to get it for him. As if this was somehow his “fault”. I was eventually able to say that I was the one that mentioned to him and my sister that I hadn’t been able to get any for her, so she didn’t need to ask him.
Then she started ranting and railing. It’s too many, it’s up high in her cupboard, and it’s such a terrible thing that he got her so many bottles. I told her, this is a good thing. This is a helpful thing. She should have enough to last her a year! It’s something she takes regularly.
Oh, no, she told me. She only takes it when she needs it.
…
I told her, I didn’t mean that she was taking it every day, several times a day. Just… regularly.
What I was eventually able to figure out is that my mother thinks that they will go back. Because they’re medicine. They’re liquid. She’s not stupid.
…
I told her, they are fine. This is not like a prescription medication. They’re not like food. They last for years.
It does explain why she insists on keeping her open bottle in the fridge, though.
After I told her, several times, that they will be fine and won’t go bad, telling her that we keep ours in the bathroom cupboard with no issues, she said that she would see; she would ask a “professional” about it. A doctor even. They will tell her.
I told her, she’ll just be told the same thing I was telling her. Then I told her to call the pharmacy. Talk to the pharmacist. He’ll tell her.
Which got her to asking where my brother got them from, the pharmacy? (meaning the one in her town). I told her no, he got them at Costco (which turned out to be wrong; I later found out they were out at Costco, and he found them at Superstore).
Her response?
Oh, from China, then.
?????
I told her, it’s the exact same brand that I get for her a her pharmacy. It’s the same.
Oh, you know there are so many scams out there, she tells me.
…
I told her to stop making problems up where there are none.
She kept on ranting that my brother should not have gotten her so many. I told her, he was being kind to her. “It was “too much” kindness”, she retorted. Like she was being sarcastic, except meaner.
During this, it occurred to me that I might just take the bottles and bring them here to the farm to store until she starts running out again. I wasn’t going to bring that up at the time, though.
I did remind her to use the little cup to take a full dose. She usually just throws them away and uses a teaspoon. As in, a spoon for tea, not a measuring spoon, so the actual amount she’s taking is probably less than a third of what the dose is supposed to be. Apparently, that’s all it takes to help.
By the time I got off the phone with her, my brain was pretty fried. It can get so very hard to follow what she’s saying, to get to what she actually means. I completely forgot to ask her how things went with the mental health assessor, yesterday!
I did make sure to update my siblings again before I started forgetting details. Which happens very quickly, with how convoluted conversations with my mother can get.
My poor brother. Every time he tries to do something nice for her, she gets weird about it in some way. I think it bothers me more because if it were our vandal getting something for her, she would be singing his praised for years. Which she actually does. No matter how horribly he treats her, she makes him out to be a saint because he did something nice for her, 20 years ago. But my brother has been taking care of her and her affairs, diligently and with great care for her, often seeing what she needs long before she sees it herself, and he just can’t do anything right by her. Something as simple as getting her a supply of something she has made a big deal over how much better it makes her feel has been blown out of proportion into this huge drama as if he’d done something nasty to her.
My heart aches so much for my brother. He deserves so much better. And she still doesn’t understand just how badly she stabbed him in the back, some time ago. She’s fortunate he’s a good man and a good son, and hasn’t simply cut her out of his life entirely.
*sigh*
Once I was done with the calls, I needed to take some time to wind down and decompress. I had to go into my mother’s town – something I did NOT mention to her at all – to hit the feed store for more kibble, which my daughter generously paid for. The bag of donated kibble was a 7kg bag, so it didn’t last long, and we were down to dregs by this morning..
A forty pound bag of the brand we get, which is more expensive (not even the outside cats will eat the cheaper brand if they can avoid it), comes out to $62 and change, after taxes. Forty pounds is just over 18kg. That works out to about $3.44/kg after taxes.
Locally, a 9kg bag costs $45 and change (or more), before taxes, which is about $5/kg. At Walmart, a 9kg bag costs about $35, before taxes, or about $3.88/kg. The Costco Kirkland brand of kibble is a better price, but not by much. There is the other feed store, to the north of us, that has a brand that cats like that has a slightly better price, but the drive is longer. Worth it, if I’m getting more than one bag.
All of that, including a trip into my mother’s town, and it was barely noon when I got home.
It felt like it should have been several hours later!
Speaking of later, I just realized what time it is! It’s past 1am! When did that happen?
😄😂
Time to get to bed! There’s lots of work to do outside, while the weather is good!
My brother and I visited with my mother today, at her request. We were there for almost three hours, with my brother ordering and picking up a lunch for us.
I’m not even going to get into it much, but she was all over the place. From getting mad at my brother, instead of grateful, because he picked up enough Pepto (which she says helps her so much) that she won’t run out again for probably a year (she actually said that she might sell some of them, before my brother even finished taking them out of the bag!), to talking about our vandal like he was some kind of saint for “helping” my dad so much before my dad went into the nursing home (he was actually pretty abusive to my dad, and his abusive behaviour towards my mother is why she moved off the farm in the first place), and so on.
When she started on how wonderful our vandal is, I figured that was a good time for me to take out her garbage. I just had to get out of there. A part of me understands that here’s some sort of guilt association on her part towards him. Considering how she treats those who are actually kind and helpful to her, and how she treats someone who was abusive towards her in between “helping” (because he thought he would get this property for it), really doesn’t sit well with me. Truthfully, though, theirs was a mutually abusive relationship.
We never got around to talking about her car at all, nor about her possibly helping us with the cost of replacing the door and frame, but she did bring up some “grand” ideas that would have completely messed up her own finances, which my brother, thankfully for her, has been keeping in order for her.
At least she was grateful, sort of, I think, for the cordless kettle my brother got for her. I had no idea she was worried about using her stove top kettle. Now she has a kettle that will shut itself off. We made sure to get it set up and tested out for her, and made sure she knew how to use it.
By the time we left, I was honestly feeling the most depressed and psychologically exhausted I have in ages – and this was a “good” visit!
I’ve moved that blue tray into the portable greenhouse so it wouldn’t get rained on. A lot of the kittens like to hang out in there, so it didn’t take long for them to find it!
The size difference between these two was just too adorable. They look like they could be father and offspring! That’s Stinky, though, and he’s neutered, so they’re probably half-siblings, instead.
This evening, I did take recordings for the September garden tour video. I started and restarted several times before I could get into it, just because my head space was still messed up from the visit with my mother. I don’t know why it’s bothering me so much today, but I’ve been finding myself on the verge of tears repeatedly, since I left her place.
On another topic, Eyelet has settled in quite well at the foster’s. Meanwhile, I’m going to be meeting up with the woman who started the new rescue tomorrow afternoon. She has some cat food donations for us! That is so very appreciated. Plus, I’ll finally get to meet her in person!
For now, I should start editing the garden tour video. Hopefully, that will help my mood, somewhat. 🫤
First, a quick update with the home care crazy from yesterday. The plan was, if the guy didn’t come back to do my mother’s bed time med assist, as he said he would, by 9pm, I would drive over to do it.
My mother called me at 8:50 (the actual scheduled time) so say, no one arrived. I wasn’t 100% sure she was scheduled for 8:50, and sometimes they come late, which is why I asked her to call me if no one showed up at 9. I asked her to wait a bit longer and if he still didn’t come, let me know and I’d go over.
My other told me to not bother. She would just take some Tylenol and go to bed. She would be okay.
*sigh*
I hated to do that, but I also really didn’t want to drive to her town, in the dark, in the rain.
This morning, after I did my rounds (it was still raining), I gave her a call.
In which I will pause to share the cuteness! The first picture was taken last night, the second this morning.
Seeing Colby on top of his sister like that is adorable!
She needs a name.
Anyhow… back to calling my mother!
My mother told me she’d had a great night.
Then started going on about how the Tylenol helped so much more than her medications did.
Red flag time! My mother has done this before. Basically, she’s convincing herself that the medications aren’t doing her any good, because she has these other problems. How can she be taking all these medications, but still feel have all these other things? This time, because Tylenol did such a great job with her pains, to her that meant it was working better than her medications.
I have explained this to her before, but I did it again. NONE of her medications are for pain. They are all for different things, and I mentioned a few of them. Unfortunately, I could hear in the tone of her response that she was basically not believing me.
It’s a good thing she gets home care med assists, or she would start skipping her meds regularly, or picking and choosing which ones to take. Again.
To distract, I then asked her about her grocery shopping. She said she was only out of milk and hadn’t started a list. She was in her night gown and didn’t feel like getting dressed. I told her, don’t bother getting dressed, and I’ll help with the list. She was quite happy with that arrangement!
Since I was going to be dropping Eyelet off in the early evening, I wanted to get to my mothers a little bit earlier than usual. Once there, I first focused on her meds. I found a pill organizer and took the meds out of her “orphan” bubbles; last night’s bed time meds and a Monday morning bubble that’s been carried over to new packs for a couple of months now. I made sure to write down which meds they were and tucked the note in one of the organizer spots and tucked the whole thing away. My mother has strict instructions to leave them, unless there’s an “emergency”. I also prepared her bed time meds for tonight – I brought another of the tiny tagine sauce bowls to keep them in – and set up another note with it, setting it aside with the note facing where my mother sits at her table.
That done, we started working on her shopping list. It was mostly her usual items, but we did remember to include things we’d forgotten last time, like the instant oatmeal that makes things so much easier for her. Some things were just “see what looks good” type stuff. When she gave me cash for the trip, she included a bit extra, asking me to keep an eye out for anything else I might spot and know she would like.
Which worked out well. I was able to get her extra fruit that she likes but normally wouldn’t get. Today, they happened to be on sale. Her favourite bread was on sale, so I got extra for her freezer. That sort of thing. As I put things away, I always go over what I got and what changes I made, and she was very happy with the selections. Before putting the milk carton in the fridge, I made sure to open it for her, and I’m glad I did. For some reason, every now and then, they just don’t want to open. If it’s difficult for me to open, that would make it almost impossible for my mother to open! I do wish her grocery store still had their 2L milk in jugs as well as cartons, as jugs are so much better for people with mobility issues in their hands.
That done, I made sure to give her floor a sweep before heading out. One of her neighbours that has a garden plot has been sharing their bounty of tomatoes by leaving them in the common room for anyone to take. My mother keeps taking some, even though she already has, and is supposed to avoid acidic foods like tomatoes. So she gave me an ice cream bucket full to take home! We still haven’t finished off the last bunch she gave us!
Once I was in the truck, I started messaging my family to let them know the status of things. Which is when I started getting messages from the woman I was to bring Eyelet to. She was wondering if I could bring him to a different address, as she’d forgotten she was supposed to go there after her work this evening. It wasn’t far from her own address, so that worked out okay.
We continued our conversation as I got home when she asked when I was planning to head out with Eyelet. I told her, but mentioned that I was flexible, now that I was done with my mother’s grocery shopping. She asked if I could bring him in right away. The new address is for a foster that already had a room ready for him and was home.
!!!
I was back on the road with Eyelet within 10 minutes. My daughter went looking for him as I got a carrier prepared. Finding him was easy. He was napping in the sun room.
He did not appreciate being awakened, then stuck into a carrier!
I grabbed a donated carrier that is triangle shaped and opens on one side, which makes it easy to take cats in and out. It is, however, not our largest carrier.
Eyelet was not happy!
So not happy, he stress pooped in the carrier during the drive out.
*sigh*
He went back and forth between trying to claw his way out of the carrier, to just lying down calmly, and back again, which meant he got messy in the process.
When I got to the address and the woman came out to greet me, I made sure to let her know! I then followed her in to Eyelet’s new home for the next few days.
What a set up! An entire little bedroom, all to himself, with several beds, including one at a window, a cat tree, toys and, of course, a litter pan and food and water. He was enough of a mess that she brought a cloth to wipe him off a bit before taking him out of the carrier.
He did, however, start purring as soon as she touched him! He was very open to pets in general.
I’ve since gotten an update that he has settled into his new digs very well. I’m not at all surprised. The set up is pure luxury compared to the yard cat life!
The best part is that this was all done well before I was originally scheduled to deliver Eyelet. It even stopped raining shortly after I got home.
It was an awesome rain, too. Almost 24 hours of constant rain. Nothing too heavy, either. The sort of rain we could have used so much of over the summer!
Meanwhile, my brother came out today. I didn’t even realize he was here until I left for my mother’s and saw his car. He’s been busy preparing their trailer for the winter, including driving it out to where the tanks can be emptied. When I got back from delivering Eyelet, he was able to come over and tell me what he’d been able to do for my mother’s car. There’s still more to be done, but it can wait. The priority was to deal with that tire that keeps going flat. He just used the spray stuff in it, then made sure to drive it around, and even put it up on a jack to just spin the tire, so it wouldn’t cure in a puddle inside the tire.
Tomorrow afternoon, he and I will be going to my mother’s tomorrow, and her car is one of the main things she wants to talk about. She says she wants him to get it all fixed up, and that she would pay for it, so that we have a second vehicle, and one that she can get in and out of. It might be better off to sell it, or maybe trade it in for a newer vehicle. My brother is in a better position to make recommendations on that than I am.
So we’ll see how that works out.
Weather wise, next week is looking to be warmer again, and dry. That will be when we seriously need to get the sun room cleaned out. That requires basically emptying it, so we can wash the concrete floor. The cat cage can’t fit through the door without being dismantled, so the room has to be done one half at a time. It’s going to be a big, messy job. I’m going to have to stop storing most of my tools and garden supplies in there. The cats, skunks and raccoons get into it all and make such a mess – and make messes on top of things!
With the rain, I’ve made little additional progress in cleaning up the garden, but tomorrow is the 21st, which is when I’ve been typically doing my garden tour videos. It also happens to be the first day of our new average frost date range. Instead of one day, they now have a range of days. Which isn’t how an average works, but whatever. They now say our average first frost days is between Sept 21 and 30, from the previous Sept. 10. Of course, this year, we had two frosts before Sept. 10! Well, it’ll be another 30 years before they do the math again. I’m still sticking with Sept. 10, when I work out when to do things in the garden, and what the length of our growing season is. It was 99 days before. Now it’s supposedly 125-150 days, since the last frost date has changed, too.
Yeah… I don’t think so. Not a chance, where we are.
Gosh, though… having a 125 day growing season would be amazing. 150 days would be heavenly! There’s so much more we could grow with a season that long!
Ah, well. A girl can dream but, in the end, we have to deal with what we’ve got in our local climate, not what a map of averages says.
Time for me to head outside for my evening rounds before it gets dark, and see examples of that along the way!
Their right hand doesn’t know what their left hand is doing!
This is what WordPress’ AI image generator thinks I look like. 😂
I was just sitting down with my supper when the phone rang. I recognized the number as the home care scheduler.
*sigh*
She was very, very apologetic, but they had cancellations and there was no one to cover my mother’s bed time med assist for tonight and tomorrow night. Other visits are covered.
Bed time only?
Yes, she confirmed.
This confused me because her supper time and bed time meds are always done by the same person. If someone cancelled, how does it work that only the bed time assist wasn’t covered, and for two nights in a row?
She explained that they had to pull for a client.
…
I asked what that meant.
It turned out that the cancellation wasn’t one of my mother’s scheduled home care aids. It was someone else. Someone that did not have anyone that could over for them (like I do for my mother). So she had to pull people away from other clients that did have people to cover for them, like my mother. She was able to find someone that could do her supper visit instead, but not her bed time visit.
…
So… I would be covering for someone so they could cover for someone else, that was covering for someone that did not have anyone to cover for them.
It took me a moment just to worth through that verbally and a while longer for her to work through what I’d just said and…
Yes. That’s exactly what was happening.
Well, at least I had time to finish my supper before I had to leave, since my mother’s suppertime med assist was covered.
First, I updated my family and my siblings, then I called my mother.
She was in a great mood when she answered, telling me she was just finishing her supper and “a very pretty boy” had just left after doing her med assist.
So I told her that he wouldn’t be coming back, because I was going to be coming in.
This confused her. Before he left, he had assured her he would be coming back. Around 8, she asked (I believe she’s scheduled for 8:50), and he said yes.
…
I told her I would call the scheduler back and find out what’s going on.
The problem?
It’s now outside office hours. It went straight to voice mail. Their message gave a bunch of information, including that no one would be listening to any messages during evenings and weekends.
Any message I left on a Friday night wouldn’t be heard until Monday.
*sigh*
Very quick update message sent, and I called my mother back. I explained that I wouldn’t be able to get through to the scheduler and confirmed again that he said he would be back.
Yes.
So I told her that, if no one came by 9pm, let me know and I would go over to do her meds. I would also leave her meds for tomorrow’s bedtime assist, just in case. If she didn’t call me, I would know that he showed up and everything was okay.
It’s the noon hour as I start this, and it’s already been a day!!! It feels like it should be evening by now.
Morning was pretty typical. I had to get my daughter to help me with getting into the sun room as kittens swirled their way through the door under my feet. My main focus is to not step on anything while holding the kibble bowl high so I can see. Once I got some food out, my daughter was able to put a food bowl of fresh kitten soup into the cat cage, was wasn’t able to take the old one out, as she was in a vortex of hungry kitties! By the time I got back from adding food to the different feeding stations in the yard, things had calmed down. My daughter and I had the chance to snag Frank’s two babies that had sticky eyes – one had both eyes stuck shut, the other just one eye – into the bathroom to wash their eyes until they could open again.
Then I could do the rest of my rounds and check on the garden bed. I’m glad we did water it last night, as the predicted storms and rain we were supposed to get yesterday fizzled out and we got no real rain at all.
The first photo above is of the blooming luffa. One by one, male flowers in different clusters are blooming. Still no female flowers. Not that it matters at this point. It’s the middle of September. Under normal circumstances, we’d have fully developed luffa gourds right now.
I had a surprise when I got to the trellis bed. The one sunflower seed head that was opening up has gotten much bigger, just overnight. This particular sunflower also has multiple seed heads, two of which just exploded open overnight! I tried to get a picture of all the seed heads that are starting to open along the stalk and did get most of them. In the third picture, you can see four along the stalk, but there’s a fifth one hidden by a leaf at the bottom that is also starting to open.
In the next picture, you can see our first aster flower bud has finally opened! The package of memorial seeds these are from had a mixture, if I remember correctly, so I expect different colours from the others I see forming buds.
In the last photo, we have our “just for today” harvest. There was a handful of beans to pick this morning, along with a single zucchini. I decided to go ahead and harvest the last of the kohlrabi. The remaining plants don’t seem to be forming their… bulbs? … at all. I also grabbed a few Swiss Chard leaves.
There was one wonky purple kohlrabi that I decided to use right away in my breakfast, along with the chard leaves and stalks and a small Turkish Orange eggplant that I’d harvested previously. Those got stir fried to go along with some leftovers.
I didn’t peel the eggplant, partly because I’d picked such a small one. I did find the peels to be a bit on the bitter side.
My older daughter had used one to include in her stir fry last night. I’d gone to bed before she was done, so when I was talking to my younger daughter this morning, I asked how it turned out.
She told me, her sister had had to throw it away.
????!!!!
They may her lips go numb! They were the only new thing in her stir fry, so they were the only thing that could have been causing it. We’ve eaten eggplant before and she’s never reacted to any of them before, but those were the more typical purple varieties. The Turkish Orange is very different. Being so different is why I got the seeds to try.
I had no such reaction. I just found the skins bitter. Very strange! It does mean that we won’t be growing this variety again, though.
As I was setting down with my own breakfast, I noticed I had a phone message.
From home care.
Thankfully, it was NOT a call for me to come in. My mother’s med assist for this morning was scheduled for 8:50, and I was getting the message at past 9:30. The message was to let me know that there had been a last minute cancellation. They did find someone else to cover the med assist, but it would be much later; perhaps 9:45.
I called my mother right away to let her know. When she answered, she mentioned she was making her breakfast at the time, but didn’t say anything about no one showing up to do her meds. I told her about the message I got and when to expect someone to come. It was almost that time, so it was a short phone call.
That done, I finished my breakfast and was starting to upload the photos for this post on Instagram when my younger daughter came over to talk about what to work on today. She decided that this would be the day to do work on the yard and garden tools. So, for the next while, she got her supplies set up on the bench under the canopy tent while I gathered the various things that needed to be worked on. Some needing repairs, as well. It’ll probably take her a couple of days to work through them all.
After she was all set up (and we paused to wash kitten eyes again!) and working on cleaning and sharpening various cutting tools, I headed back in to work on this blog post. I got a message from my daughter who remembered there were some tools in the basement that needed to be worked on. Since I hadn’t started writing yet, I headed down right away to look for them. I knew I’d put all the ones that needed work into one container, but couldn’t find the container – in fact, I couldn’t even remember what container I’d put them in (it turned out to be an old plastic lunch box. 😄) – when the phone started ringing.
I was expecting an important call, so I started heading upstairs, promptly losing my slippers as I rushed up the stairs. The answering machine picked up before I got to the phone, and I heard my mother’s voice starting to rant at the machine.
I picked up the phone while she was doing that. It turned out she had tried to call my sister, first, and there was no answer, so when she called me and it went to machine, she was really upset. Was my sister gone on holidays already? She’s supposed to be gone for two weeks… I told her, I knew nothing about this. (This is the time of year for her church’s harvest feast – one of only two “Biblical” holidays they’re allowed to celebrate – but she’s not mentioned anything about it to me.)
My mother then started telling me how badly she was feeling. She was dying. She’d used the life line and talked to the responder, who asked her what she wanted them to do. She said, they kept asking what she wanted them to do until she finally told them to just leave her alone.
…
I told her, the proper response would have been to have them call an ambulance if she were feeling that badly!
She didn’t want an ambulance. She didn’t want the hassle (I can’t blame her for that!). She would need to someone to get her bag (her prepared hospital bag), her purse, and if she’s in the hospital “they” will come in and steal her stuff.
???
I told her that if she’s really feeling that bad, have the Lifeline call an ambulance (911 seems to be too much for my mother to grasp), and the paramedics could make sure to grab her prepared bags.
No, she doesn’t want strangers. She needs us (me and my siblings). She needs someone around her all the time. She relies on us…
I told her, we can’t live with her! What did she want me to do for her?
She had no answer. She just kept on about how poorly she is doing, how hard it is to do things, and her breathing. She needs someone with her. She needs to be in a nursing home.
But she doesn’t want to go to the hospital. She relies on us… then she started trying to rag on about my brother; he doesn’t call, he doesn’t visit. They’ve actually just gone through a rather scary health emergency with my SIL while she was out of province, but they don’t want to tell my mother about it. My mother handles such information very badly and can be downright cruel. They just got back home today and my brother immediately had to go to work to take part in a couple of important meetings. His job is in internet security at an international level. This is at a level even I have a hard time grasping, it’s so above my pay grade, so to speak. Not something my mother can even begin to understand. I did tell her that he was at an important meeting right now, but added that we did arrange to come out to her place on Sunday, as she requested. I’d forgotten to mention it when I called her this morning.
That mollified her somewhat. She told me that she would “be brave” and hold out until Sunday.
*sigh*
What I told her I would do is call the home care office for her town as soon as I got off the phone with her. I’d let them know that my mother’s condition is deteriorating. All the home care coordinator can do, however, is update the files with this information and send it up the chain. It’s another department that makes the decisions on whether someone can go into a nursing home or assisted living facility. I had to remind my mother about how shocked her doctor was that they hadn’t already approved her for a nursing home.
I wish I’d thought of it at the time, but if my mother did decide to go to go to the hospital, that might be just the thing that would finally get her into a nursing home, like she wants. That’s the typical way it works; a person ends up in the hospital with a broken hip or something, and only then do they get to go to a nursing home from the hospital. My father was an exception. He was getting home care three times a day, but his care included things like helping him use the toilet, bathing and even eating. A hospital bed was set up in the living room next to the window, so he could see outside, with a commode nearby, because he could no longer take the two steps between the old and new parts of the house to get to the bathroom. It was the home care aids that said he’d reached a point where they could no longer provide the care he needed, and that got him into a nursing home right away. Six months later, he passed away.
It is so incredibly frustrating. My mother should not be living on her own. She insists that she can still cook and dress and bath and toilet herself, when I really don’t think she should be. Every time home care offers what they can for her, she turns it down.
Among my siblings, none of us are able to have her live with us and give her the care she needs. None of us have accessible enough housing, even if we did. She is struggling, but refuses to make the decisions she needs to be making. She expects everyone else to make those decisions which, in many cases, they aren’t even allowed to make on her behalf. This is not a new thing; she’s always been one to deflect responsibility to others. It’s just gotten more extreme as she gets older.
Anyhow.
After telling my mother I would call the home care coordinator as soon as I got off the phone with her, my mother kept me on the phone for another few minutes. I finally had to get almost rude to get off the phone so I could make the call!
By then, it was past noon, and she was probably on lunch. I got her voice mail and left a message about my mother’s condition deteriorating.
That done, I updated my siblings on our group chat, then went back to looking for the tools my daughter had asked for – and retrieve my slippers. The box I was looking for turned out to be on a shelf right at the bottom of the steps. I’d put it there specifically so it would be easy to find!
So I brought that out to my daughter and updated her, since all I was able to do was sent a message that I’d gotten a call from my mother and needed to make more calls.
Updating her also gave me a chance to catch my breath.
Now that I’m almost done this, I’ll soon be going into town to pick up prescription refills for my husband. I’m still half expecting a call, but if it hasn’t come in by now, it probably won’t. While in town, while I’ve got a strong data signal, I’ll have to try and set my phone up for Wi-Fi calling again. I can’t even get text messages right now. Which is a pain when I try to log into my bank account on my desktop. They don’t do it on my phone, but if I use my desktop, they always want me to input a code. Every. Time. I try to log in. The problem is, by the time the texted code gets to my phone, the log in session is expired. Sometimes, if I go outside and walk around the yard, it’ll come in faster, but I’m not always in a position to do that.
My daughter’s t-shirt is appropriate. It reads “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” It’s actually an old design by her sister.
With so many kittens figuring out where the food comes from in the morning, it’s getting really difficult to get into the sun room from the old kitchen, while holding the kibble bowl, going through two doors, trying not to step on any kittens and trying to stop them from running into the old kitchen. There’s one kitten in particular that is so incredibly tiny, and so determined to get underfoot! He loves to be picked up and help, but hasn’t learned to stay away from feet!
So my daughter has been joining me to help with the doors, catching kittens as they try to run inside and then, once I’ve distracted cat enough by filling the kibble trays in the sun room and starting to do the ones outside, put a bowl of kitten soup into the cat cage. So far, the littles have just sniffed at it, but their mama can at least enjoy her own special treat when she comes in to nurse them.
My daughter has also been able to help with eye washing. One of the kittens she’s holding in the photo had one eye stuck shut, and we’d just finished washing it. Aside from the occaisional stickiness, Frank’s kittens are looking really strong and healthy. More so than some of the older littes!
Today turned out to be another day of going to my mother’s place. I almost forgot that it was arranged for me to pick up her bubble packs at the pharmacy. The pharmacy opens at noon on Sundays in her town, and I knew someone was going to be bringing her communion after church, so I was shooting to get to her place closer to 1pm. Since I was there anyhow, I made sure to pick up the Tylenol and kitchen garbage bags I hadn’t been able to get at her grocery shopping trips. I figured she probably forgot that I was supposed to pick up her medications today, so I called her before I left the pharmacy, but got her answering machine. When I got there, she was in the common room, enjoying the view out the window, and was very surprised to see me!
Even though we talked about it before, my mother was a bit ticked off that her got her refills so “early”. She had the equivalent of 8 days left in her lock box, and she still has the mindset of not getting refills until the last minute. They make up their bubble packs on Saturdays only, and I had told her I talked to the pharmacist to push her refills back a week so there would be less chance of her running out before they make the next refills. I don’t think she remembered the conversation, but that’s okay.
I remembered her telling me that my sister hadn’t taken out her garbage yet, because she was out of garbage bags, so I took care of that – and found that she did still have a few garbage bags left. The box was hidden behind the garbage can. 😄
My mother was very happy that I’d picked up more Tylenol for her. That was something she was almost out of.
After I came back from taking out her garbage, my mother started getting some cash out to pay me back for her stuff. Which reminded her of something she had meant to talk to me about.
The next while was very confusing, as she first started asking me about if the front door had been replaced yet, and how much it was going to cost. Then she started talking about her car, and “using that” to pay for it. Now, the last time she talked about her car, it was to tell me to go ahead and sell it. At first, I thought she was suggesting we get her car fixed up to sell and use the funds to pay for the door, except she wasn’t talking about the door anymore. I did get a chance to tell her my brother had checked the car out and tried to explain what he’d found, but she wasn’t interested and got annoyed that I was telling her this, even as she was telling me she wanted my brother to get the car fixed.
After much confusing and questioning, I finally got the straight of what she was wanting. She wants my brother and I to sit down with her and talk about the car and her money that she has in a tax free savings account. She wants my brother, with his Power of Attorney, to use that to get her car fixed up and running, because I need two vehicles, and she can’t get into my truck anymore. When I told her, now that we have truck payments, we can’t afford to pay the insurance on two vehicles anymore, she said she would pay for the insurance. She then started saying some other things and…
I’m not going to count on this, because of her history on such promises in the past, but I think she was offering to cover the cost of getting the new door installed. Considering we’ve had to go into debt to pay for it, on top of the truck repairs we had to do (having to replace the front tires, the MAF sensor issues, etc), that would be a huge help for us. Her comment was, the money is just sitting there, may as well use it.
!!!
Once I finally understood what she was trying to tell me – half the time, she talked as if I could read her mind, or she thought she’d already told me some things – I told her I would pass that on to my brother. She insisted, no talking this out on the phone or messaging or whatever. She wants us to both be at her place, in person. Which is the slower way to do it, but I do understand why she wants that.
She also insisted that we not be in a hurry to leave, but to spend time with her. The only problem with that is, her idea of being “in a hurry to leave” can change pretty dramatically at times! I’ve been at her place for hours and, when I finally had to leave, she accused me of being in a rush, etc. Other times, I’ve been at her place for less than an hour and she’s all but kicked me out, because she was done with company! 😄
Like today. I asked my mother if there was anything else she needed help with, and offered to make lunch for her, but she said she was fine, then told me I could leave, now. 😄 I think I was there for maybe 15 minutes. Twenty, at most.
Once I was done, I had to make a side trip. I’d used my card to pay for my mother’s stuff and she paid me back in cash. Our bank that we have our main accounts in used to have a branch in my mother’s town, but it was closed some months ago, so I can no longer use a bank machine to deposit the cash. The nearest branch of our bank is now much further away, so I decided to go to the town nearer to us where there’s a bank I have my own personal banking in. I’ve had an account there since I was in my teens and just never closed it when we moved and moved and moved again. I could deposit the cash there, then do e-transfers to pay off what I used on my card.
I had just reached town and was slowing down for a stop sign when something strange happened.
The check engine light started blinking.
It didn’t just turn on. It was blinking. I’ve never seen that happen before.
Then it went away.
So now, after all the weird stuff we’ve had going on with it, I’m absolutely paranoid about the truck.
My brother and I had been talking about selling my mother’s car, as she originally wanted us to do. The truth is, we really do need a second vehicle, and that sudden blinking light on the dash just reminded me of why.
Tomorrow, I need to remember to hook up the OBDII scanner and see if it picks up anything of concern. I’m also due for an oil change within another 1000km, so that will give the guys at the garage a chance to check it out.
I’ve already passed on the message to my brother and we’ll be visiting my mother together next Sunday. We can work things out if my mother backs out on helping us again, but if she follows through with it, and my brother is made responsible for taking care of things, the help would be much appreciated. So we’ll see how that goes!
At least she no longer rants at me about how the house was perfect, everything was perfect, when we moved in to take care of it for her, so why are there all these things that we need to fix? It took a few years, but now she’ll say things like “nothing lasts forever”. 😄
The Re-Farmer 