life

A cute accident, and some updates

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We had some more snow last night. Checking the security cameras, I saw that the road was plowed. We’re going to have to dig out the end of the driveway.

I also started getting a lot of motion detection notifications from the garage cam. I never saw what was triggering it, though.

What I did see was this.

A pair of matching hearts in the snow.

Who made these?

So I started going through the history, checking both stills and video clips. They weren’t there on Sunday, but as I watched myself walking towards the gate to meet my SIL on Monday, there they were, slightly less snow covered, but also less visible in the diffused light at the time.

It took a bit of going over the files more, then remembering that the motion sensor is triggered by people (and the occasional cat or deer), but not vehicles. We haven’t been able to figure out why (this is one of my brother’s new security cameras, not one we got).

My brother and nephew were here on Sunday. I saw them getting into their care to leave, but the camera wasn’t triggered by the care as they backed up towards the driveway then turned to the gate.

These are tire tracks. After the snowfall and in the morning light, they just happen to now look like hearts.

Adorable.

Almost as adorable as these guys.

There’s at least three more cats in there that are not visible in the photo.

Somehow, they got one corner of the hammock off its hook. I haven’t been able to put it back as it can only be reached through the ramp door, which has the box sheltering it. A box that’s currently stuck in place with packed snow and ice.

I took this when I did the second feeding. My darling daughter did the morning feeding for me. It was -27C/-16F at the time. I don’t know what the wind chill was, but when I checked later and we had warmed up to -20C/-4F, the wind chill was -34C/-29F Thankfully, by the time I did the second feeding, there was hardly any wind, so it was just really cold, instead of brutally cold. 😄

In other things, my mother was successfully transferred to the temporary long term care unit in the town she had her apartment in, last night. My brother called them this morning and talked to the nursing staff before talking to my mother. She got there shortly after 7pm in a taxi handivan – and no, we are not going to be charged for that. However, a bag that contained, among other things, my mother’s Pepto got forgotten in the van, and the staff were trying to track it down. The other TCU always uses the same taxi driver for these transfers, as he’s so good with the seniors, so it would be easy to track it down.

As for my mother, once he started talking to her, she started railing about how things were even worse here than where she had just left. It took a while to get to what she was saying, and it seems she was still just rattled from the transfer. She does have a room mate, but she did say that this person was better (by which we understand she means, this is not a person with dementia trying to tell my mother to go away while claiming my mother’s bed was hers).

My brother gave me the proper numbers to call this TCU, though he didn’t have the room number. I tried calling as soon as I could. It went to voice mail so I left a message, but no one got back to me. I texted the contact info to my sister, though. After several hours, I tried again and got through.

I talked to the nurse, first, and asked how things were going. She seemed a bit hesitant in answering, as if she was trying to find the right words. My mother wasn’t quite happy and something my mother told her had her thinking she had been in a single room before. I told her that she had been in a single room while at the hospital, but at the first TCU, she had a room mate. I explained about the roommate having some level of dementia and her behaviour. The nurse was surprised because, while they do have single rooms, those are usually reserved (if possible) for people with dementia that shouldn’t be sharing a room because they might do things like that. She would have expected this other TCU not to place someone with dementia with a room mate. I told her, I didn’t think they had any single rooms!

I remembered to ask about the missing bag.

It turns out my mother thought it was missing because it didn’t go to her room. It contained her medications, which they never keep in patients’ rooms, and was at the desk (they would have a secure lock up for meds). She was even able to tell me some of the items that were in it.

After talking with the nurse, I asked to talk to my mother and got transferred to their cordless phone.

It was a… strange call.

My mother seemed out of sorts, but she was happy to tell me that my sister had come to visit. She was extra happy, because my sister had brought her “cabbage” (sauerkraut) and pickle juice. My mother has been craving something “sharp” to counter what she described as all the sweet she’s been getting. I have no idea what she meant by that. Some of her meals might have a dessert, but that would be something along the lines of canned fruit. Whatever. She’s happy with her “sharp” snacks!

She asked me about the truck at one point and I explained to her that they weren’t able to look at it yesterday, but were hoping to do it today (I’ve still had no word about it, and they are closing soon). That set her off. She started saying how I should “explain to them” that we need the truck. I told her, they know our situation. Oh, but if I just explain to them. I told her, they have appointments. They have to fit the truck in, in between appointments, and need at least a couple of hours to look at where they think the problem is. I then started getting lectures about how other people’s appointments didn’t matter, they should take care of me. Then she started saying how my brother and I need to get together to find a “good mechanic”. Because mechanic always cheat women. When she started to invent accusatory things about how they were cheating me, I had to put an abrupt stop to it and pointed out she had no idea what she was talking about (in regards to the problems we’ve had with our truck), and she shouldn’t start going on like that. We should talk about something else.

After that, I had dead silence. Apparently, if she couldn’t complain about things, she had nothing else to say.

I remembered about the bag that she thought was missing, so I told her that it wasn’t missing. That it had medications in it, so it when to the nursing station, not her room, explaining that they have to lock up the medications.

She didn’t believe me.

She then gave me this description of her the transfer last night, looking into the bag and what she saw in it, how the bag was on the seat of the van and didn’t come in with her. It was still in the van. I told her, the nurse said she had it. Her medications were in the bag, so it had to go to the nursing station, not her room.

My mother didn’t believe they had her medications, either.

…

She would have gotten at least her bed time meds, and her morning meds, by the time I’d called her.

No matter what I said, she refused to believe me that the bag was not forgotten in the van, nor that they had her meds. She finally said she would go to the nursing station and ask them, herself.

There really wasn’t much else to talk about after that. She did say she was glad for the phone calls from me and my brother today. She calls the calls and visits her “second medicine.”

She may still be out of sorts, but where she is now is definitely better than where she was. She did complain a bit about the small size of the rooms (I don’t think she gets just how fortunate she was to have the big room in the hospital, all to herself!) and that she didn’t know the place yet. I brought up that she had told me she’d been there before, to visit people, so I thought she would be familiar with it.

No, she’s never been here before, she insisted.

…

She told this to me not long ago. Even made out like I was stupid, or that I thought she was stupid, to think she didn’t know about this place being in the town’s hospital. Told me how she knew people there and had visited them. Now she’s telling me the opposite?

When I said, she had told me she’d been there before, not that long ago, she just said, well, it’s a big place. So maybe she visited someone in a different ward? I dunno!

The good thing, though, is that she will start getting communion on Sundays from the church she used to go to, and they will likely be done by the same guy that had brought it to her after services at her apartment across the street.

So that’s where we are at with my mother’s transfer. Hopefully, she will settle in and be happier there. She did confirm that her transfer to the personal care home wasn’t cancelled. I said for sure it wasn’t; where she is now is all temporary. If all goes well, she will not be moved again until is to the specific nursing home she wants to be in.

How long that will be is anybody’s guess!

The Re-Farmer

Lots going on

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You know, for a day where I’m stuck at home, there was a lot going on that had nothing to do with home!

But first, the cuteness.

Toni and Ginger, our two tripods, snuggling while they nap.

On my very cat fur covered bed.

So the first thing I got today was a message from my brother, updating on the situation with our mother. He had called the main office and it was confirmed my mother would be transferred to the temporary long term care centre in the town her apartment was in. They still had to get things ready for her at the other end, and then arrange transportation. They couldn’t say when it would happen, but they wanted to get it done as soon as possible.

Almost immediately after, I got a text from my sister (who doesn’t really do Messenger anymore).

My mother had just phoned her, convinced that if we just talk to the right people, they would get her out of where she is. My sister talked to the nurse and they said they had told my mother, repeatedly, that they don’t know when she would be transferred.

I’m not sure what my mother is thinking is going on. Perhaps she’s interpreting it as not happening soon. Or not happening at all. It’s hard to say, as she tends to twist things around pretty severely, once she gets a conclusion in her mind.

In the middled of that flurry of messages, I got a message from the cat rescue, asking when I was expecting to go to the city next. I responded saying I didn’t know, since I currently have no transportation and don’t know when I’d be getting it back. Otherwise, it would have been tomorrow and Friday.

It turns out they have dry kibble for us! I was incredibly grateful to hear that. Especially with how much we’ve been having to spend on the truck for the past while, and now with an unknown hanging over us. I spent some time on that group cat, too. If we don’t get the truck back soon, one of them volunteered to drive the kibble out to us. !!! They are so awesome!

Then later one – while I was cooking and couldn’t stop what I was doing, of course – I got a phone call. It was from the TCU, so I called them back as soon as my hands were free and clean.

The TCU nurse started off by telling my my mother accepted the bed in the other location.

…

I’m not sure why that was still an issue, after all the calls between us all that were done yesterday. They only needed to arrange transportation. She had already called my brother and left a message.

Would I be able to transport her.

????

I said no, I have no transportation. My brother is at work and my sister would be on the way to work. We thought they would arrange the transportation.

Oh, we always ask the family first, as there would be no charge. If they do it, there would be a charge for it.

???

I told her that if there is, my brother, as PoA would be the one to pass that information on to, and told her I would message him and update him.

This perplexed me because, when my brother talked to him, I was sure he told me they’d said they would take care of the transportation, because they were the ones doing the transfer. Much like when my mother first went to the hospital by ambulance, she got a bill for it, but when they used an ambulance to transfer her to the TCU, she did not get a bill for it, because it was their responsibility.

I messaged my brother and it wasn’t much longer before I got word back. He had called them back and was told our mother would be transferred later this afternoon (she might be on the road now, as I write this) and they are arranging a taxi van, so they could fit everything. This would include not only her personal affects, but her walker and wheelchair, so that makes sense.

He also confirmed that he had been told previously that there would be no charge for the transfer, but when he called back today, it never came up. He said he would deal with that later. For now, we just need to have her moved!

So the first, and only, time any of us heard about being charged for transportation was when the TCU contacted me earlier today.

Between all of this, I found myself spending most of the day on the computer, messaging back and forth with two very different groups of people – plus texting with my sister and on the phone with TCU.

As the afternoon progressed, without hearing from the garage, I sent them a text asking about the truck. I mentioned that I’d looked up the part, just to see what it looked like, and saw the prices. I let them know that if it needed to be replaced, we simply can’t afford it. Hopefully, it will be something more minor!

A response came in while I was outside, doing the evening outside cat feeding. It was very apologetic. They weren’t even able to drag the truck into the garage at all today. They will look at it tomorrow.

I can’t say that wasn’t unexpected. I knew they could only look at it, in between appointments, and once a lift would be free for at least a couple of hours. They have three lifts, but each one is different and used for different purposes, depending on what they need to be able to access. One of them can only fit small cars.

So, one more day with the Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads.

On a completely different note, when I finished putting food and warm water out for the outside cats, I went into the old kitchen and discovered Bug on top of chest freezer! She snuck in while I was going out and I never saw her.

Unfortunately, she was nervous and spooked. Usually, I can at least pet her and sometimes pick her up, but this time, she ran off and hid.

She’s still there.

I’ve set out food, water and a squeeze treat, squeezed out onto a container, to lure her out. It’s way too cold in there for such a tiny cat (the old kitchen is unheated and seems to have no insulation at all – it wasn’t needed when it was an active kitchen and the wood cookstove was always in use!) so I set up a carrier that needs some work done on it, wrapped in a blanket, on top of the freezer with another smaller blanket inside. I’ve checked a few times and saw her snuffling around the middle of the floor, but she ran off as soon as she heard me turn the door knob. I found the container that has squeeze treat on it stuck against the door, licked clean, so I know she’d gone onto the freezer again and knocked it off while eating the treat. Hopefully, she will come back out again, soon!

Really hoping I can snag her and set her back in the sun room, where she has access to the heat lamps and warm bodies to snuggle with.

I’m also hoping my mother will soon me in her new temporary long term care unit. She’s familiar with this place, as she has visited friends there before, and I think it will be a much better situation for her.

Now, if we could just have some good news on the truck and have that back soon. I’ll finally be able to visit her, as well as do a whole lot of driving around that’s needed! Which included picking up what is likely a build up of parcels at the post office. My West Coast Seeds order has been in for almost a week, now!

Ah, well. It’ll all work out.

Oh! My husband just informed me that Bug is in the cave I created for her! Now, if I can just get into there without her running and hiding again…

The Re-Farmer

A better day

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For the past while, I’ve been having the hardest time getting going in the morning. It’s not just dealing with pain, or lack of sleep. I have to admit, the whole situation with the truck has really gotten me down. It’s just one more thing of many that have happened in the past couple of years. Normally, most things are just water under the bridge, but every now and then, it just gets to be too much.

My daughters have been helpful. Lately, they’ve both been staying up all night, not just my older daughter as she worked on commissions. Since they are up anyhow, they’ve been taking care of the outside cats in the morning, letting me sleep in. I’ve never been a morning person, so this alone has done much to help.

The other thing is, I finally got outside to do some shoveling. My original intention has basically been to do the sidewalk to the gate, and maybe clear the cat paths. Once I got started, though, I just kept on going. The sidewalk, the cat paths, a path to the garage and in front of the doors on the storage side. My brother and nephew were going to visit my mother today, then swing by the farm to check on my brother’s truck, so I cleared it of snow, shoveled around it, cleared enough snow in front of the barn door that it could be opened, and a walking path. Since my brother had gone through a lot of this with the snow blower when we had to bring my mother’s stuff over, it was pretty easy shoveling.

Then I kept on going and did the paths to the compost pile, to the back of the garage, and a path from the house to the litter compost.

I also dug out the large cat trap my brother had given us and cleared it of snow. I set it on the landing with the door locked open, and it wasn’t long before I saw Bug going in to check it out. I set it back near the isolation shelter, so that cats can go in and out as will, and not see it as something to be afraid of.

Then I cleared the snow and ice off the catio and isolation shelter roofs. The isolation shelter took a bit more effort, as the warmth inside has melted the snow on the roof, even with the insulation sheets – those are pretty torn up by the cats! After clearing the snow, I tried opening the roof, but it was too heavy to lift from only one side. One realizing just how much ice was on there, I broke it up and got most of it off before the roof could be lifted and whatever was left could slide off.

I’m going to have to reinforce the back of the roof supports, so they all the supports can be lifted at once without any twisting around. I’ve just got some wood lath right now, which is fine in the summer, but they just popped free of the supports in places when I first tried to open it.

All that done, I did some clean up around the cat kibble trays. They have a lot of old kibble in them that the cats aren’t eating. the ones in the kibble house were getting too many bits of straw in them. The ones in the sun room were getting pieces of rigid insulation in them. There is insulation on the lower window behand the counter shelf, since that window is now a single pane. That cats have been scratching at it – the LOVE scratching that insulation!! – and there are tiny bits of insulation all over the place. Plus, even though there are litter boxes, these are outside cats, so there were messes frozen to the concrete floor that needed to be scraped loose. After emptying all the kibble trays and sweeping the floor on that side (I didn’t even try for the other side yet), I used all the scrap piece of insulation that’s been kicked around, laying it over the exposed concrete (most of it is covered already), including under the big aluminum baking sheet that they don’t like to eat from as much. I think it gets too cold. Now, there is insulation under all the kibble trays, and the heated water bowl.

The heated water bowls were in need of a good cleaning, too. Those all got emptied and scrubbed as best I could. They will get a more thorough cleaning in the spring.

With all that done, I set out fresh kibble and water early. The cats were vary happy! After putting the kibble out, I did a head count.

31

After doing the water, I counted again.

29 😄

I must say, getting all that done made me feel so much better. Better than therapy!

You know what else is good therapy?

Being able to pet Colby.

My daughter mentioned that she’s been able to pet him, so when he ran past me, heading out the sun room door, I tried to pet him as he went by. As soon as my hand touched his back, he stopped in his track and looked at me. He was so torn between staying for pets, and running away! Once my hand lifted for more than a moment, he was off again, but that was the most pets I’ve been able to give him, yet.

While I was working on all this, the cats were enjoying the gorgeous sunshine.

They really like that shelf shelter, with its clear wall! In the first picture, I zoomed in to get Colby, snuggling with his sister, Sprig. We still can’t get close to her.

In the next picture, you can see little Furriosa sharing that shelf with them, Collin below, and Fluffy above.

Then there was the sun room window.

That shelf was set up there just to they could use it and sun themselves.

There are 11 cats in that picture. Possibly more!

The down side is that poor Frank was being really harassed by Clarence making advances on her. I don’t think she’s even in heat anymore. I’ve even seen the boys going after Pinky today, and she is spayed!

Once inside, I sent a bunch of photos to the rescue. I’m pretty sure all the adult females are pregnant by now, but they also all would need to be trapped to get them to a vet. Even Frank, since she’s been quite the escape artist. Otherwise, she’s be spayed by now. Trapping will need to wait until things warm up, but the cats that went into heat the earliest will probably be ready to have their kittens by the middle or end of March – and we’re in the last week of February right now.

I did get to pet Frank quite a bit today, though. Still can’t pick her up – she doesn’t trust us after we tried our attempts to get her to a vet – but at least she allows pets now. She’s very nervous about them, but accepts them for a little while before running away.

After chatting with the rescue group, I decided to I wanted kluski for a very late lunch, finally using my spaetzle maker that I bought so long ago, for the first time. It worked great, but is surprisingly messy. Worth it anyhow, I think, for the more evenly sized and shaped results. It went very well with some leftover, deboned drumsticks in butter chicken sauce.

I was just starting to cook when my brother and nephew arrived. They did not stay long, as they mostly wanted to start my brother’s truck and check on it. It started fine. Then they went to check on their mobile and made sure all was well there. My brother ended up phoning me before the left. He was very appreciative of the shoveling. It turns out he had been thinking of lending us the truck, but it’s a “one wheel drive” and is temperamental in a way my brother and SIL understands, but really, no one else does. 😄 He was concerned that if I tried to drive it, I would have issues. I never even considered borrowing it! I thanked him for the thought, though.

Our truck should be done tomorrow (Monday), and my SIL has offered to pick me up and drive me to get it. I just don’t know when that will happen! I’m assuming they will want to get it done as quickly as possible to free up the bay it’s been taking up for days. If nothing else, they close at 5, so I know it’ll be before then. After that, I’ll pop across to the grocery store to pick up a few things we’ve run out of, but I’ll be doing our first stock up shop on Wednesday. Then Friday will be our Costco stock up trip.

If all goes well with the truck.

The thing is like a Sword of Damocles for us. I never know what’s going to happen next!

So I never did get to see my brother and nephew in person before they left. I messaged him later asking him to update me on how the visit went with our mother, once he was settled.

He ended up calling me before he had a chance to check his messages! He had just gotten a phone call from the TCU about my mother.

She has been moved to another room. Away from the roommate she told me has been telling her to go away, because she thinks my mother’s bed is her own bed. If there’s more to it, I hope to find out when I visit. I now know where her new room is. The nurse told my brother that Mom was in tears, thanking them for moving her. !!! Coming from my mother, that’s a big deal.

As for their visit, they were able to take Mom to a common room/family room to talk. Shortly after they got there, a woman came in with remote controls, wanting to use the TV. My mother started yelling at her to leave! My brother tried to help her with the remotes but they couldn’t get things working and she left. Only later did my brother notice that she’s switched the power off on the cable box by mistake. !! It’s unfortunate that my mother behaved the way she did. My mother has cognitive issues, but not dementia in that sense. She’s just like that and has been for pretty much as long as I can remember. The only difference now is, she doesn’t really try to hold back anymore. She’s old, so that excuses all sorts of unfortunate behaviour.

Anyhow.

My brother had quite a bit to go over with her, including the documents confirming her move out of the apartment and that they would no longer be charging her rent. After going through more things, he told me she seemed to start to realize just a little of how much my brother had to do for her in the background. Of course, she would never say anything positive to him about it, nor thank him or show appreciation.

My brother is such a saint.

Oh, and our vandal had visited her, together with his wife, just this morning.

*sigh*

At least she didn’t try to hide the visit from my brother this time.

Apparently, they’d been in town to do some shopping. I’m assuming my sister told our vandal where my mother is. Most likely, my mother made sure she did. Well, at least all visitors have to check in with the nursing station first, and the staff is aware of his abusive behaviour towards him. Plus, he was with his wife, and he behaves better when he’s with her. He told my mother he has stopped drinking (which I find highly unlikely, but whatever), and that they’ve already got his funeral pre-arranged. I don’t know if he’s still doing chemo, if the doctor has told him there’s nothing more they can do for him. My mother started going on to my brother about how she wants us all to get along. She just can’t accept that it’s all on our vandal to fix things. His hate for me and my brother runs so deep, I don’t see a reconciliation ever happening. Particularly since he’s managed to drive a wedge between us and my late brother’s children to the point where they want nothing to do with any of us anymore. We could never trust him again.

What a mess. And my mother and sister are oblivious at to how much they are making things worse by pandering to him, and how much harder it makes things for my brother, me and my family. Especially us, since we live so close to him. A relative statement, to be sure, but close enough that we can sometimes hear things from his place.

Ah, well. It is what it is. We just have to work with the hand we’re dealt with.

Well, that got off on in another direction!

In the end, the visit with my mother went rather well, all things considered, and now we have the good news that she is in another room. She will likely have another room mate, though, so we’ll see how that works out!

As for me, getting outside in the sunshine, doing the shoveling and getting so much done has made the whole day better. I’m feeling better than I have for a while now.

I will have to make sure to pain killer up before bed tonight, though, if I want to get any sleep!

I might even get to bed before 2 am for a change.

😄😄

The Re-Farmer

Being watched, and an update

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I just had to share this bit of cuteness, first.

Fluffer peeking through the bathroom window while enjoying any warmth coming through the screen.

In other things…

I called up my mother this evening. It ended up being a very challenging conversation. When I asked how she was doing, she switched to Polish and starting talking about the “Indianka” (Indian person) and her bed. At first I thought she was complaining about one of the staff somehow mistreating my mother while changing her bedding. She kept using Polish words I was unfamiliar with. I did figure out that the person she was talking about was in the room with her – and it was strange that staff would be fussing with her bed past 7:30pm.

After asking questions about just what the problem was, I eventually figured out that she was talking about her room mate. It seems this woman has been telling my mother to go away, and that my mother’s bed is her bed. There seems to be more as well, but my mother was having difficulty explaining to me. Once I figured it out, I said that this is something we need to talk to the nursing staff about. My mother said she’s already talked to them and they say there’s nothing they can do.

This is obviously an issue of someone with dementia. My mother has increased cognitive decline, but nothing like this. She said she told the nursing staff the people like her room mate should share a room with other people like her, while people like my mother should be sharing a room with someone more like her – this is in reference to levels of dementia. The problem with that is, there might not actually be someone there at her cognitive level. At least not another woman that she could share a room with.

Earlier in the conversation, while she was still speaking in English, my mother asked me if I knew about someone that had passed away recently. This person was part of a family that are “neighbours” out here, but I only know two of them – one of them was my elementary school teacher until 3rd grade, in the one classroom school our little hamlet used to have. Grades K-3 were all in that one classroom. It turned out that the person who passed was their mother. After getting a bit of a lecture about how I don’t know what’s going on, I pointed out to my mother that I’ve been stuck at home because the truck is in the shop; if I’m going to hear anything, it’ll only be if someone I know posts it on Facebook.

The truck reminded her to ask me when I’d be visiting her next. I explained to her the current timeline, and that it should be done on Monday. So am I visiting her on Monday? I said no, that’s when the truck is supposed to be done. I still don’t know how I’m going to get it. If anything, I’d be visiting on Tuesday.

When the conversation shifted to Polish and I managed to figure out she was trying to explain to me about her room mate, who was in the room with her while she was talking to me, she started talking about getting into the nursing home. It turns out the neighbour who passed away was in the nursing home she wants to go to. Which means a bed is now open.

…

We have explained to her that priority goes to people who are in the worst shape, but this was not the time to bring it up again.

As she continued to speak in Polish, she starting saying that my brother and I should go to the nursing home and explain my mother’s situation to them, and tell them she will pay them lots of money, every month, if they would just let her in.

So… she wants to bribe the nursing home staff.

I tried to explain to her again, that the nursing home staff have no control over it. It’s up to the government. The health department makes those decisions, not the nursing home.

I don’t know if she can’t understand this, or won’t. She is convinced that if we just ask and offer them money (she would be paying “rent” anyhow, so I don’t know what she’s thinking on that), they will let her live there.

I told her my brother had already contacted them and they confirmed this, but she kept on as if I never said a thing.

In other things, she mentioned my sister had visited. I told her I knew, and that she’s brought my mother the pickle juice she was craving. My mother was so happy about that. I think she just drinks a spoonful every now and then, but I honestly am not sure! I asked her how the food was, and she told me it wasn’t as good as at the hospital. Not bad, but not good, either. 😞

She went back to talking in Polish and saying she wanted to be out of there. Then began lamenting about how, in her old age, she now has no home of her own, no bed of her own. I told her, it won’t be any different in a nursing home, other than she’d have a room to herself. Oh, but at least she would be among her own people! She would be around Christians.

…

She still thinks the nursing home is run by the same people who ran it when she applied for a job there, 50 or so years ago.

Then she started telling me how she is afraid to sleep at night because of her room mate, and she doesn’t know what she might do. I don’t know what to make of that. One the one hand, if her room mate’s dementia is far gone enough, that could be a real risk. On the other, at one point of trying to figure out what the problem was, and my mother not being able to answer me (I still thought she was talking about a staff member at this point), I asked outright, is it because she is Indian? My mother answered, yes. So she might be fearing this woman because of her race. Or, more likely, it’s a combination of both.

Either way, my mother is not in a good situation, and there’s really nothing we can do about it. She’s in the system, and the system decides. My mother, however, insists that if we just talk to the right people, explaining her situation, and are bold about it, that system will be ignored and she would get to jump the que to get to the nursing home she wants to be in.

I’m really not impressed with this transitional care unit. I don’t have concerns with the staff or the measures they have to take. It really has more to do with the fact that they’ve got so many people in various states of cognitive decline, waiting to get into someplace else, in such a tight space and sharing rooms. This building is a converted hospital, but the TCU is only a small part of it. Too small.

I completely understand my mother’s feeling about wanting to get out, that’s for sure. Hopefully, she will get into a nursing home – even if it’s not the one she wants to be in, right away – soon.

Thankfully, my brother and SIL are back and they will be able to visit with her tomorrow. She will be very happy to see them. I suggested they might see about finding a private space they can wheel her to for the visit. There must be a common room or family room available. Somewhere that she can speak freely with them. I’ve already updated them on what my mother told me. Hopefully, they will be able to get more information from her, and will be able to talk to someone about it.

I honestly don’t know what we can do to make things better for her. She simply isn’t far gone enough for the system go consider her a priority when beds open up.

Plus, the system sucks at the best of times.

So very frustrating.

The Re-Farmer

A few more days

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First, the cuteness!

What a pile o’ kitties!

On the bottom, from the left, there’s Ginger snuggling Beep Beep, who is snuggling her boy, Potato Beetle.

On the top, from the left, there’s Ghosty, snuggling Tin Whistle, snuggling Shadow.

Also, my blanket is always covered in fur.

Another quiet day at home. It’s still been snowing, ever so lightly but for hours, so there’s actual accumulation by the end of the day. It looks like the next week to ten days will be the last of when we’re expecting daily highs colder than -10C/14F. By the end of the first week of March, we’re supposed to start getting highs above freezing, and staying there.

Of course, we could still get hit with one last blizzard around our anniversary in the beginning of April. 😄

We’ll be staying home for a few more days, too. Late this afternoon, I got an update from the garage. The part they ordered had just arrived at their second location in the smaller, nearer city. Not far from where my mother is right now, actually! Monday is when they’ll be able to install it. When I talked to the mechanic, I did tell him I would reschedule my medical appointment anyhow, so they didn’t have to do a rush job on it. They also know I don’t have a way to pick the truck up right, either. We’ll figure it out.

So, we are stuck at home for a few more days.

After hearing about a series from Lee Duigon’s blog recently, I have been binge watching Primeval on Amazon Prime and getting some crocheting done. I’m just starting season for, and working on bowl cozies sized and shaped for some particular soup bowls we have. I got tired of burning my hands on them. 😄 Once I get the size and shape right, I want to make a few more to match.

Boring live I’ve got going right now.

I’m quite enjoying that.

The Re-Farmer

Settled in

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Another quiet day today, starting out with the morning cuteness.

No word on truck status, yet.  Hopefully, the part came in today.  I expect to hear something late tomorrow afternoon.

So glad the pharmacy delivers out here.  My husband’s refills were delivered today.  Obviously, not something we could have picked up, ourselves, with our only vehicle broken down right now.

This sort of thing is why stocking up is so important!  You just never know when something happens.  My husband’s meds are the only thing we can’t get more than 30 days supply of.  Or, in the case of his bubble packs, 28 days.

Being stuck at home does make for some uneventful days.

I’m good with that.

The Re-Farmer

Finally full contact, and a bit of an update.

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First up, some morning cuteness – and a success!

This is Fluffer.

Until this morning, I’ve only managed to sneak pet her once or twice. Today, I took advantage of her being “trapped” in the corner of the shelf shelter, in what seems to be a favorite spot for her, and was able to pet her. She didn’t have anywhere to run away, really, so I was able to give her neck and shoulders some scritches, and even pat her back a bit.

She fur is so matted and full of burrs!!!

Not only was I able to pet her as I set the food out, she stayed in the shelf shelter, rather than running away as she normally would have done, and I was able to pet her again a couple more times as I passed by. So that’s pretty huge progress with her.

Note that I am saying “her” with confidence. With that long fur and her not letting us near her, we’ve never been able to see, one way or the other. I sort of assumed she was female simply because the most feral cats all seem to be female, while the males have mostly been easier to socialize. My confirmation was seeing her yesterday, quite obviously in heat, with a crowd of males around her.

She is no longer in heat.

*sigh*

Right now, we have I think 5 or 6 confirmed adult females that need to be spayed, all of them mostly feral. The only one that isn’t as feral is Old (young, actually) Blue Eyes, Frank, and she’s managed to escape her appointment with the vet twice now. Among the “kittens” (who are coming up on a year old, but are very very small still), there is another 7, I think, confirmed female. Bug and Blot are now both friendlies, but are both still way too small to be spayed. A couple others are just friendly enough that we might be able to get them, but also probably too small. There’s a tabby that is sometimes friendly, sometimes not, plus two more that we can’t get close to, that are probably big enough, though not by much.

We now have two larger traps, including one with a “back door”, that we can use to try and get the ferals. It will still have to wait until things warm up a bit, because we have no way to monitor a trap constantly, and we don’t want to risk a critter getting caught and then getting too cold before we can check the trap. I’ve considered the possibility of setting one of them up in the catio shelter. It has been warm enough in there that the unheated water bowl hasn’t been freezing during the day, and even on some nights, it’s only partially frozen. Once overnight temperatures become milder, I could remove the box nests and crushed self warming shelter that’s in there to make room for a trap. Even then, we couldn’t do that until the rescue can make arrangements with a vet for us, because once we’ve caught a feral, we wouldn’t be able to let them out, even into the isolation shelter, until after they’ve been taken to the vet.

We’ll figure it out.

Meanwhile, I was able to talk to our mechanic about the truck. His brother, who towed the truck, had passed on what I had described to him. I went over it again with him, in more detail. I mentioned that, while I couldn’t see anything, it felt like it was the front driver’s side tire. He told me that while the truck was being winched onto the tow truck, his brother had noted that the passenger side tire seemed to be “sticking”. All I can say is that, from where I was sitting at the wheel, it felt like the driver’s side tire, but I really don’t know. There was just nothing to see to tell me, either way.

So they will check it out, and will use a hoist to get it into the garage. No one is going to try driving it until it’s been checked. We didn’t even talk time lines, though, as this is something they’ll have to find time for, in between actual appointments. Chances are, once it’s been hoisted into one of the bays, they wouldn’t want to move it again until it’s been fixed, if that’s an option. I haven’t heard anything since, which is what I expected.

In other things, I got a message from my sister. My mother had asked me to pass on that she wanted a visit from my sister, which normally would have happened tomorrow, on her day off. There’s a storm coming in tomorrow, though, and my sister’s farm is further south enough that they would be affected by it more than we are. So she visited today, before heading to work.

My mother, it seems, has been craving pickle juice. !! 😄

Looking at the forecast, it’s supposed to start snowing in our area tomorrow at about 7am, and it now says we’ll be getting snow pretty constantly through to Thursday night, with a total of about 10cm/5 or 6 in, of snow in total. The temperatures are still supposed to be relatively mild and we’re not expected to get particularly high winds, so it should just be snow accumulation we’ll need to deal with.

Thankfully, we are well stocked because, even if we still had transportation, we probably wouldn’t be going anywhere for the next couple of days, anyhow.

So that’s where we are at for now. Hopefully, we will have news on the truck tomorrow, and it won’t be anything too major!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: onion, eggplant and pepper seedlings, plus an update

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I got a little bit of garden therapy in, while checking on my seed starts.

I also remembered to get a picture of how the onions are doing in the seed snail experiment.

I’m actually debating whether it’s time to “pot up” the onions. That would involve unrolling the snails, adding more soil (at this stage, I would be using potting soil rather than seed starting mix), then rolling them back up into thicker snails. I made sure to have plenty of excess foam packing material being used here to accommodate extra thickness. I think I might wait a bit longer, though.

You might have noticed the tips of the onions look dry and shriveled. I think that’s from getting too close to the shop light before I raised it higher. Currently, they have the shop light on for part of the day, but for 12 hours on a timer, they are getting full spectrum light from the larger new lamp I picked up.

In the next couple of pictures, you can see new seedlings from the pre-germinated seed starts. Well… almost see! The row at the bottom of the picture is the Caspar Eggplant, and three seedlings have broken ground. In the middle is the Sweet Chocolate Pepper, and five seedlings have appeared, a couple just barely visible through the vermiculate. The top row is the California Wonder pepper. It took some searching, but I did see the curved stems of seedlings just barely visible through the vermiculite.

In the last picture, you can see the largest of the Sweet Chocolate peppers.

I turn the shop light on for part of the day for these, too, but they also have full spectrum lights on for 12 hours. I’ve got two lights fixtures with four light strips each, and I’ve got them set up so that five light strips are over the full tray, then three strips are over the celery and luffa in the other tray. The strips with the herbs I recently sowed are off to one end of the tray, closer to the heater that I have set up to blow warm air over both trays.

I have the full spectrum light strips quite close to the surfaces of the trays. As the seedlings get larger, I can raise each strip individually, as needed. Right now, for example, the container with the celery is lower than the Red Solo Cups the luffa are in (still just the one seedling in those), so it has its own light strip that’s lower than the two that are over the taller Red Solo Cups.

I’ve made a point of spending time in the basement to have the heater on. Usually, that’s my time to do my steps (I have a step counter on my phone), but I also go over my notes. I have lists of things based on how many weeks before last frost they should be started. What I have so far has been started early, based on a June 2 last frost date, though the newly revised average has our last frost date in a range of dates at the end of May, potentially adding as much as a week to our growing season.

Looking at the calendar, I made sure to write down when the next batches of seeds should be started, though I can get away with some, like the herbs and the marigolds, to be started early. Some of them are things that could be grown in pots indoors, and are more flexible. I am mightily resisting starting tomatoes! Those are next on the list but, if I were to go by calendar dates, they shouldn’t be started until the middle of March. Being short season varieties, I could theoretically wait even longer.

I don’ wanna wait that loooonnnggg!!! <insert childish whining> 😂🤣😂

Still, spending some time with the plants and thinking these things through, even for as little time as it was, was enough to make me feel better than I have been for much of today.

In other things, I phoned my mother today. In the TCU, she can’t have a phone in her room. I call the nursing station and they transfer me to a cordless phone that they take to the person being called. They tried transferring me four times before it finally worked!

My mother was very, very happy for the call, and said she had been thinking of calling me. I reminded her that, where she is now, it’s a long distance call.

She really wants a phone and was asking if we could get her a phone, like other people have. Meaning, a cell phone.

Now, there’s no way my mother can handle a Smartphone. She could barely handle the new phone my brother got for her at her apartment, to replace her old set, and it was actually simpler than the one she had before. Still more bells and whistles than desired, and things were in slightly different locations, and that was enough to give her a hard time. My brother tried so hard to find the simplest phone set – a corded phone with an answering machine, plus two cordless phones for her dining table and bedroom – that he could, but everything has bells and whistles these days.

I do know there are cell phones made for seniors out there, so I plan to do some research later today and see what’s available here in Canada.

I explained to her that she would have to buy a phone and have a monthly phone bill. Her response was, she has money that’s just sitting in the bank, not doing anything, so she doesn’t mind using it. She currently has no idea what’s going on with her banking right now, as my brother is taking care of it for her. None of us have tried to explain to her that the hospital back dated their billing for her stay there, which was charged daily. Plus, her rent for February was taken out, but as my brother explained my mother’s situation and why he wasn’t able to give them a month’s notice, it will be refunded. Until then, she’s being double billed for the month, which she would not be able to understand and would freak out over if we tried to explain it to her. My brother is the best person to be taking care of all this for her, and I assured he, even though he’s still out of the country, he’s on top of all this and taking care of things for her.

Then I told her that I had going to mass yesterday, where prayers were said for her health, which she was very happy to hear about. I then told her I had been on the way to visit her when something went wrong with the truck, and I had to get a tow truck. She immediately said, I need a new vehicle. *sigh* As if we don’t know that! So I told her about my BIL driving me home in his truck, and that he was planning on selling it in the summer. If we can come up with $5000 by then, we will buy it from him. It took a while before I realized she didn’t know who I was talking about at first, so I said my BIL’s name again. Oh! You mean… and then she said his Polish name (his family are also from Poland). 😄 So she was pretty keen on the idea of our getting a truck from him.

We talked about a bunch of other stuff for a while. She’s not liking where she is right now, and I can’t blame her one bit. Not only is she now in a smaller room that’s being shared with someone else, it’s very close to the nursing station, which is right next to the entry doors. Lots of traffic, lots of noise. I explained to her that everyone else there is waiting to go somewhere else, like she is. Her response was, I don’t care about anyone else. I just care about me. *sigh* I said it meant that she would be seeing a lot of changes in who is there with her. She is doing a lot better, as far as care needed, than many others and that’s part of the problem; people with higher needs are going to get beds in nursing homes faster than her, typically. I reminded her that, when it came to nursing home spaces, we’re basically waiting for people to die, as that’s pretty much the only way beds get freed up. She thought that we could talk to people about getting her into a nursing home faster, because where she is is not good for her health. I told her, where she is now is the first step, but in the end, it’s the ultimately the provincial government that decides. So she said we should tell them to build an addition to the nursing home she wants to live in.

…

*sigh*

I didn’t even try to explain. Our province certainly needs more beds for long term care and assisted living, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before that happens.

Our conversation went all over, and she gave me messages to pass on to my siblings. I mentioned again that it’s long distance for me to call her now, but not for my sister. She was all surprised by that (not sure why; my sister lives only 15 minutes away, at most) and started saying my sister should phone her more often! She’s not understanding that it’s harder to do that through the nursing station where she is than how it was before. Then she wanted to know when I would be visiting her next. I reminded her, the truck was at the garage and we have no idea how long it will be, before we have transportation again.

Oh, so you want me to give you money for the truck now?

?????

I said no, I was just letting you know that it might be a while before I can visit and why. That’s all!

I can give you a check…

????!!!

I told her again, I wasn’t wanting anything like that. I was just letting her know why I might not be able to visit anytime soon, but we just don’t know right now.

But the money is just sitting there, not doing anything… I can write a check.

???!!!

Finally I deflected and said, we can talk about it the next time I visit. She happily agreed with that and we dropped it.

I wasn’t going to ask, but I’m not sure if she was offering to pay for the repairs, or to give us funds to buy the truck from my BIL! I fully expect her to forget about it long before I’m able to visit her again, and I will certainly not bring it up again! The offer was totally out of the blue and not at all what I meant by telling her about the truck. That’s the sort of thing our vandal was constantly doing to her and my late father for many years, which might be why she thought that, by telling her about the truck, I was actually asking her for money. I do appreciate the offer, but I will not ask or bring it up again.

Over all, for all that my mother is not liking where she is, she did sound happy. Even when, at one point, she started rather playfully referring to herself as an “orphan” for being there. She told me to make sure to pass that on to my sister, so she will call and visit more often. 😁

I really hope my mother isn’t there for very long. Still, it’s the first step to getting her where she wants to be, at least.

Meanwhile, I’ve got my homework assignment, and will start seeing if there is some sort of phone out there that will work for her and where she is. That won’t be easy!

The Re-Farmer

A quiet day

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Not much to talk about for today. Yesterday seems to have caught up with me. I’m feeling exhausted. Mentally exhausted, not physically. I’m just so tired of so many things going wrong.

So I’m giving myself a rest day. Just doing the basics and not trying to go beyond.

It’s a gorgeous day out, though, and the yard cats have been absolutely loving it. The critter cam facing the isolation shelter has been going off so often, I had to adjust it so that it was at least no longer triggered by cats jumping around in front of the main doorway.

Down side: the feral ladies have all been going into heat. Today, I saw the cat I named Fluffer, because it looks like Fluffy, except for the white chest. With the long fur, we couldn’t confirm male or female. Today, with all the males chasing after her, I suppose that’s confirmed female. *sigh* At least Fluffy is spayed, but we’ve never been able to get any more adult females in to the vet.

Yesterday morning, I found something odd in one of the paths to the catio shelter.

Odd because everything is buried under snow, so where did this mess come from?

Then I identified part of it as an old bird’s nest. Which meant the cats had to have been climbing pretty high up and far out on the closest willow tree. This tree has been trimmed a few times, to keep the branches away from the power line to the house. That means any branches above are all pretty small and thin. Given the noises we’ve been hearing, I’d guess a cat got chased pretty far out and disturbed things enough to knock down the nest.

It’s been warming enough that this morning, I gave the cats a treat and started pre-soaking their kibble with a blow full of cat soup dosed with lysine. Usually, I toss the dry kibble in lysine, but only so much sticks, and the food trays have lysine power all over the bottom. It’s not something we’ll be doing every day, yet, and only in the morning, so they have a chance to eat it before it freezes. The sun room thermometer was at about 11C/52F, even though our high for today was -2C/28F. As I write this, we are at -3C/27F, but the “real feel” is 1C/34F

And yet, we are under a weather advisory right now! A low pressure system is moving in, and the south end of our province is looking at possibly 15-25cm/6-19in of snow by tomorrow evening. Our area is on the outer edge of the system, so we wouldn’t be expecting that much. We are expected to get as much as 9cm/4in of snow on Wednesday, with another possible 2.4cm/1in through Thursday morning. The temperatures are still expected to be mild, though the highs are supposed to drop below -10C/14F by the weekend.

Hopefully, tomorrow, the garage will be able to take a look at the truck and see what on earth happened to it. Messaging with my brother, he suggested the differential, but that got a leak repaired on it just a few days go, so that’s unlikely. His other thought was the CV joint. At which point we’re looking at possibly over $300 for the part, and another $200-$300 in labour, from what I can find online.

Well, we’ll find out soon enough, I guess.

*sigh*

Yeah, definitely feeling mentally – and emotionally – exhausted at this point.

The Re-Farmer

I’m home now

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Well, it’s done. The truck has been towed to the garage.

My BIL, sweetheart that he is, skipped the lunch my sister, who was going to work later, was making so he could come out and find me before the tow truck reached me.

Thankfully, I was able to pull over next to a very large and open company driveway, making me both easy to find, and easy to get to, while on the side of a busy highway.

The tow truck actually arrived later than expected. He had a call ahead of me that only needed a winch, but ended up pulling two people out of the ditch before getting to me.

My BIL, meanwhile, had already arrived and we were sitting in the company driveway, talking, when the tow truck arrived. The tow truck was not only from our regular garage, but the driver was the owner/our mechanic’s brother! That gave me the opportunity to describe exactly what happened, knowing our mechanic would actually get the information.

The truck had been running so well. Since I’d gone to church in town first, which is right on the highway that goes to the city my mother is in, I took that route through all the little towns along the lake again. I had the radio on when I started hearing/feeling like something was rubbing on a tire. This continued for maybe a couple of minutes before it felt like something dropped. Suddenly, the tire was shuddering, like something was caught up in it.

Of course, I pulled over right away, got out and checked.

I could see nothing. I even popped the hood and tried to look from above. Nothing.

I got back in the truck and started to move, but the shuddering was immediate. I stopped after less than 5 feet, I’m sure.

From there I contacted my family and even sent a quick message to my brother (he’s out of the country still) before contacting CAA. I phoned directly rather than using the app, because I’ve never quite managed to get the app set up and working, and I don’t know what’s wrong. The last time I tried, I was at home and ended up using my desktop, instead. Not an option this time!

So I phoned and started going through the automated system, which uses voice responses to questions. That worked fine as long as it was yes/no questions, or when I said I needed a tow, but then it asked what was wrong. I didn’t know what was wrong, so I said, I don’t know, something is wrong with my tire.

It decided I had a flat tire and asked if that was correct. I said no. It tried again and I tried to answer a different way. It still thought I had a flat tire. Finally, I pressed 0, hoping that it would get me to a human. It recognized that I wanted to talk to a person but then said the automated system would likely be faster and started over again in asking what was wrong with my vehicle.

*sigh*

After a while it gave up and sent me to a real human being.

… and put me on hold.

Thankfully, I was the “next caller” and didn’t have to wait too long.

It was a bit confusing in trying to say where I was. Thankfully, I was next to a company driveway that had all sorts of signs and their physical address number right next to me. What I wasn’t sure of was whether the highway had a different name while in town. I also wasn’t sure if I’d crossed the border from one town to the next, as these two towns are butted right up against each other. Still, we got it figured out.

The tow was arranged to take the truck to our regular garage, and I soon had a call from the towing company. I had to laugh when I saw the name of our garage on the call display. I had seen new signs at the garage showing that they did towing now, but I didn’t realize they did CAA calls, too. On confirming the company driveway I was next to, the drive knew exactly where I was.

After that, I just had to wait. When my BIL arrived, he pulled into the company driveway, and I didn’t even recognize his truck – he’s gone through at least two since I last saw what truck they had. I think the last one I saw was an F250. This one’s an F150.

He has a very nice truck – very new looking truck, even though it’s a 2008.

Since I was on the side of the highway, we sat in his truck to talk. I told him about what happened, and he was aware that we’ve had other issues, too. He started telling me about his truck and work he had done on it – including getting a new engine, because apparently it was easier and cheaper than the fix needed. So the engine has 30,000 km less on it than the rest of the truck does. I’m amazed he found a 2008 truck with only 30K on it! It’s got 170K on it now, which is about 100K less than our truck had when we bought it.

Oh, and he was planning to sell it in the summer.

!!!

I asked what he was looking to sell it for, and he said about $5000

…

We might actually be able to come up with that before the summer.

When the tow truck showed up, I went out to talk to the driver and explained what happened, as far as I could tell. He said it was good that I didn’t try to keep driving it, just in case. I told him, there was no way I was going to keep driving with what it was doing!

He also told me it was a good thing I had CAA. The tow would have cost $200, without it!

Today is Sunday, so the garage is closed, but tomorrow is a holiday. That means Tuesday will be the earliest anyone can look at it. I mentioned I was just there on Thursday! They didn’t see anything wrong while working on the differential. I’m at a complete loss. My BIL thinks it might be the transmission. If it’s something big like that, it might not be worth fixing. *sigh*

After that, the tow truck driver didn’t need anything more from me, so my BIL and I headed out. The tow truck was blocking my BIL’s truck, but that nice big commercial driveway had plenty of room for my BIL to move around and back out.

It was a very lovely ride, I must say. As we were talking, he told me about some other things he was planning to sell before selling the truck. I told him, if we can come up with the money, I’ll buy it!

We just need to keep this truck running for a few more months. Assuming whatever broke isn’t too expensive to repair in the first place.

After I got home, I mentioned to my brother that our BIL was planning to sell his truck in the summer, and my brother suggested that if we can buy that, we could possibly sell this truck on consignment. We still have lmoast 3 years to pay it off, but might be able to get a decent return on it to take care of that. At least partially.

I don’t think I’ll be getting that large greenhouse with my tax return, after all. 😄 That’s okay. I should still be able to something. Just not a hard sided one.

…

Had a break from writing this to talk to my daughters. My younger daughter was asking me about the chicken coop we got and I mentioned that’s one of the reasons I wanted to get a greenhouse or polytunnel – something to overwinter the chickens in, coop and all. We were looking at some of the designs I was finding on Amazon – risky to purchase from there, and a lot of them have very mixed reviews. They are far more affordable, though. Especially the polytunnels. It’s cheaper to buy a full kit than the materials we’d need to build one, if we could even find some of the materials needed in the first place. On seeing the prices, my daughter thought they were something that, between us, we could manage to afford.

In the end, though, a lot depends on what happens with the truck. I pray whatever broke on it will be a relatively cheap fix!

The Re-Farmer