living with a disability

Beach Views and Power

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After dropping my daughter off at work this morning, I went by the beach and took a bit of a walk.

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I was able to catch a whole lot of seagulls, just as they were taking off!

This morning, our power was hooked up to the garage and barn.  Yay!

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In order to detach the existing line from the old pole, the old pole had to be pushed down.

Despite being broken already, it was not easy to do!  That core was still hanging on pretty hard.

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That platform that broke off the top of the pole once held a bird house.  My late brother built the birdhouse, then scrambled up the pole to install it, many years ago.  We didn’t have a ladder tall enough to reach all the way, so he climbed the pole itself for the top few feet – somehow bringing the bird house and the tools he needed at the same time!

The new pole is even taller, so no normal vehicle going under there will ever get caught!  And there’s almost no sag in the middle at all, either.

Then the power got hooked up to the barn, which meant new line from the main pole to a secondary pole, then to the barn.

So happy it’s finally done!

Unfortunately, there seems to have been an unexpected victim of the power being shut off twice while the work was done.

My husband’s CPAP no longer works.

It wasn’t on while the work was being done, but there is still power going to it.  Perhaps a fuse got blown?  No matter.  It’s dead.  And he just got replacement hose, nose piece and filters for it!

Thankfully, now that my husband is sleeping on a hospital bed, he can adjust it to sleep in an upright position; he should be able to breath that way until we can replace the CPAP.  We do have insurance that covers most of the cost, but we’d have to buy it first, then send in a receipt.  So that will have to wait a couple of weeks!

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Good thing we have two driveways

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We have ourselves another scorcher today.  I had hoped to mow the inner yard today, but I don’t want to risk the riding mower’s motor overheating in these temperatures.  So it will wait.  I was also thinking of doing the last bit of the clean up I had started doing around the storage house yesterday, stopping when it got just too hot to be working outside, but nope.  Not gonna happen in this heat!

Despite the heat, both cats are very cuddly.  DaBoy spends his nights upstairs, taking over the bottom of one of the girls’ beds.  You’d think, with his fur coat, the last thing he’d want to do is be in the hottest part of the house, snuggling up to warm feet, but he does.

At least his mom is doing it in the coolest room in the house; the master bedroom.

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She was using my ankle and foot as a pillow.

Being the suck that I am, I was “trapped” for some time by the adorable fur ball.

My husband has been having a very bad pain day today, so he asked me to go into town to pick up something to help.

It’s a good thing he did.  Otherwise, we would not have known until we were heading out for his medical appointment tomorrow, that we were locked in.

My younger daughter came along with me, and when the girls are along for the ride, they typically go ahead to the gate to unlock and open it while I get the van and drive through, then they lock it up again.  This time, I drive up to the gate, and she’s still struggling with the gate.

The lock is a combination lock; the only thing we had handy at the time my mother asked us to start locking the gate.  Of the 4 tumblers, three weren’t turning.

We tried using tools.  We tried oiling it.  Nothing.  Those tumblers would not move.

Thankfully, we have another driveway, and that gate has a key lock on it.

This other driveway is not normally used.  I’ve mowed a path to it, because we still need to rebuild the barbed wire gate and just haven’t gotten around to it.  Right now, the lock and chain are the only thing keeping it upright and closed.  It’s a rough drive to the gate, the the driveway itself is overgrown.  I knew the path to the gate was clear, because I’d just mowed it, but we double checked the driveway itself to make sure there was nothing that would blow a tire on us or something.  It was good.

So when we got to town, our first stop was at a hardware store.  I picked up a new key lock, plus heavier duty bolt cutters.  It was funny as we went to pay for them.  The cashier joked about using the bolt cutters to cut a lock, then replacing it with a new one.  We told her that yes, that’s exactly what we were doing!  Then we explained that our lock was a combination lock, and the tumblers weren’t turning.  I added in, “Either the weather got to it, or someone tampered with it.”

Her response was, someone probably tampered with it.  When I commented that we live in the middle of nowhere, she just nodded and said, yeah; that’s where it’s most likely.  Then she told us about her brother, who has a trailer out in the sticks, and someone had broken into his locked gate and stole a quad.

An unfortunately reality of living in the sticks.  You’d think it would be safer, but people know that chances of getting caught are much lower, and the police are at least half and hour away.

I couldn’t see any sign of tampering on our lock, but unfortunately, I can’t rule it out.  For it to suddenly stop working like this, it actually seems more likely to be the cause than weather.

After getting the new lock and bolt cutters, we finished our errands, then did a bit of quick Pokemon Go.  We paused to battle a gym at the beach, sitting outside at a picnic table as we played.  Oh, what a lovely breeze off the water!

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The temperatures were 28C, with the humidex putting it at 32C, but the lake it still quite cool, and it made for such a pleasant time outside.

We didn’t stay for long, though.  Once at home, we cut the broken lock off and put on the new one.  I’m going to have to cut copies of the key, so we all have one, plus an extra in the house.  I’ve kept the old lock and will see if I can find a way to open it up and see why it stopped working.

We did stop at the post office on the way home, and found a nice little surprise.  We got our reimbursement for our vehicle registration in our previous province.  It was enough to cover the cost of the bolt cutters, at least. :-)

For now, we keep cool inside.  Looking around in the basement, I found an oscillating fan that actually works, though it needs a major cleaning.  That’s what I’ll be working on, next.

While having lunch with my brother and his wife on the weekend, I found out about something I had been wondering.  In the old part basement, at the window that we used to throw wood through, is a platform.  I had no idea why it was there.  It turns out my brother built it to hold a fan.  There is a screen to replace the window that’s there now, and the fan was used for air circulation to help keep the house cool.  The basement doors would be left open to help cool the house down, but we can’t do that until we’ve cleaned up the new part basement so it’s safe if the cats get down there.  We talked about getting a cheap screen door in the short term, to keep the cats out until we can do that.  The door is a standard size, so we could actually do that.  Something to keep in mind!

My brother described the fan he had on the platform, and none of us could remember seeing it, so I went looking around today.  Which is why I found the oscillating fan.

No sign of the fan he’d built the platform for.  Like so many other things, it has gone missing.  Another thing that came up in conversation, since I’d mentioned my search for a pitchfork in the past, is that there had been about 6 or 8 pitchforks stored in the barn.  There is no sign of them, now.

It’s a good thing we are living here now.  Too many things disappeared while this place was empty. :-(

The Re-Farmer

I think I’m done?

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With today’s heat (we hit 32C today, and it stayed there for hours), I wasn’t able to get any work done in the trees and bushes until past 8pm!  Even then, it was about 28C when I first started.  As I write this, we’ve dropped to 25C, so it’s still quite warm.

I continued to work in the row of old lilacs I had been working on last, and I think I’m pretty much done now.  By the time I stopped, it was too dark to take pictures.  There is still clean up to do; the piles of what I cut and pulled away need to be cleared out of the yard, and the ground needs to be raked up of the many, many twigs and who knows what is in among the dead leaves.  I wasn’t too surprised to find the odd piece of garbage at the based of trees.  Things blow in from all over, and once caught, no one would have seen them to clear them out.  The oddest thing I found, though, was the tray from a Hungry Man dinner.  My dad loved his Hungry Man dinners!  But how did a tray end up buried in leaves in the bushes?  It’s not the first one I’ve found, either.  I found one buried in the tall grass when I was mowing along the driveway.  I can’t even suggest they came from the pile outside the yard that was being used as a garbage dump, because of how far it is, and the face that there are rows of trees and fences in between.

After this section, I will start working my way through the maple grove again.  I’ll be getting into clearing some big stuff in there!

But not tomorrow.

Tomorrow, the girls and I are planning on a day trip to the city to see some movies, to celebrate my younger daughter’s birthday – and to be in air conditioning!  Unfortunately, it’s going to be too long of a day for my husband to join us. :-(  We considered using the time for him to visit his dad, but that would just make a long day for both of them!

When we lived in the area back in 2004, we didn’t think twice about hopping in the car and driving to the city just to see a movie.  My husband used to commute to the city every weekday.  Now, just getting outside is an accomplishment for him.  I had hoped that living out here would help him with getting outside more, but the pain just isn’t in control enough for him to manage.

Which really sucks.

The Re-Farmer

Yard work and home care visit

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Today was very much an outdoors day!

Thanks to the AWESOME riding mower my brother and his wife gave us, I was able to finish mowing the yard yesterday.  Which means that one of the goals of the day was to get out the weed trimmer to clear areas the mower can’t get close to.

A loud and messy job, so I waited until after our afternoon appointment with someone from the home care department.  This was a follow up on the last visit, with a different person.  So while we waited for her to arrive, I started working on cleaning up the flower bed on the west side of the house.

At one end of the flower bed, there is an unusual variety of lilac; it’s bushier, has tiny leaves, and masses of sprays with tiny flower buds right now; it’s blooming period seems quite a bit later than the other lilacs, which are near the end of their blooming period.

One of the problems with it is that there is a maple tree growing out the middle of it.

Plus, lots of dead branches.

So I started cleaning away dead branches and cutting away the many suckers at the base, just to get at the maple.  Where I found this.

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This is the trunk of the maple tree (which would have been self-sown), bent around a lilac stem.

I had to cut away more of the lilac before I could take out the maple, which had to be done in sections, due to the size.

It was very awkward work.  The lilac stems are surprisingly long and bendy, and many were wrapped around each other.  So much so, I found myself wondering if someone hadn’t done it deliberately at some point; perhaps they were overhanging the space between the house and the flower bed or something.

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Once the maple was out, I could see the damage it did to the lilac.

I’d already had to cut away a branch of that stem, and I’m not sure if I’ll have to cut the rest of it away.  Without being regularly pruned, the stems are so long that, without the dead and dying branches (and the maple tree) holding them up, they’re just sort of… flopping.

It was while I was working on this, that the woman from home care arrived.

While she was here, she went over her form questions, double checking my husband’s mobility needs and what we’ve got around the house.  She even took a look at our bathroom (higher toilet, bath chair, lots of arm bars in the tub/shower, and we made sure to bring the special hand held shower with us when we moved; you can shut the water off at the handle, rather than at the wall, and it has an extra long hose).  She asked about how he finds raising his legs over the side of the tub, and brought up that, if he ever needs it, there is a transfer chair available.  Which we already have, as my father needed one, and it’s still quite new.

She checked out the hospital bed as well, confirming that my husband is now able to get in and out of bed without losing his balance.  He’s really enjoying that thing, and finding it very comfortable to sleep on, too.

She also went through her list, asking about cooking, shopping, laundry, etc.  If the girls and I were not around to take care of this stuff, he would be able to get home care to come in to help.  As things stand now, it isn’t needed.

Which brought us to the only thing that we are hoping to be able to get; a ramp, to make it easier for my husband to get in and out of the house with his wheeled walker.  One of the things we learned is that, if we were to qualify for a ramp, we would need to get a contractor to give us a quote to pass on to them.  Qualifying for funding is another issue.  I had found out about the program online and read that there is an income cut off that can change, so they said to contact to find out what it is.  I’d sent an email and finally got a response.

Based on that, my husband’s disability payments put him at too high of an income to qualify. :-/

She’s still going to see if there are other programs available, but if we can just get someone to assess the location for us, and give us the information we need, then we will have something to go on to get it done ourselves, at some point.

So that meeting went well.

After she left, I headed back out to work on the yard.  I just cleaned up the trimmings I’d cut down earlier, then got out the weed trimmer – and the two 100 ft extension cords we’d been using to get power to the garage.  With those, I can reach pretty much anywhere in the yard.

While I worked on that, the girls cleared out the large pile of branches I’d cleared away from the maple grove.  The dead stuff went to the piles by the fire pit, but most of it was green.  The green wood pile by the fire pit is already getting big, so they decided to add to the pile I’d started outside the yard, when I cleared the back of the garage.

I didn’t think to take photos before I started with the weed trimmer in some areas.  After going around the house, I went around the east yard, including clearing a path to the Saskatoon bushes.  When I started working on the south west yard, I was finally able to go around parts of the “spare” house in the yard (I have no idea what my mother has in mind for that building; I did ask her, but the only answer I got was that it’s for storage.  !!  It was originally intended to be moved to one of the other quarter sections, for one of my brothers to use as a home), and the south fence line.  There had been a single mowed pathway leading to around the back of the other house.  There are several curved rows of spindly trees, planted close together.  I’d asked my mom about them, and she told me she planted them to be a “living fence.”

Personally, I’d like to get rid of them, as it’s really not a good place for trees.  I don’t think she really thought about what they will be like, at full size.

And that doesn’t even include the two rows of fully grown trees immediately behind the other house.

Very little of the area is mowable, and no one has tried to clear in between the trees, at all.  So I started clearing parts of it with the weed trimmer.  There isn’t much I can do behind the other house, until we clear away the junk and fallen branches, and random cinder blocks.  :-/  It’s a big job, and I wasn’t able to finish it today.  Weather willing, I’ll continue tomorrow.

Once done the yard work for the day, I decided we needed to have another cookout.  This time, though, I did baked potatoes.

I will post about those, separately. :-D

My husband was even able to come out and join us for a little while.  Not long enough for the potatoes of finish, unfortunately, but even a little bit is good.  :-)

After the fire was no longer needed to cook food, my younger daughter and I took advantage of it and started adding more from the clean up pile.  Unfortunately, we seem to be adding to it much faster than we’ll be able to use it for fire pit fuel! :-D

Since we were tending the fire, anyway, we also took turns cutting down some of the logs to fire pit size lengths.

We’re going to be set for wood for a good, long time!

We’ll just have to find lots of reasons to get the fire pit going, I guess. :-D

The Re-Farmer

So Green!

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We had predictions for a series of thunderstorms throughout the day, starting at noon.

It didn’t quite work out that way.  At least not in our area. The first rainfall (I won’t even call it a thunderstorm, though there was some thunder) didn’t start until late afternoon/early evening.

Which worked out well for us, since today was when one of my husband’s medical appointments was rescheduled to.  We left early enough to have lunch in town.  Ooooohhh… a date!  His appointment was for an hour, though, so it did make things a lot longer than was probably good for him.  Especially after pushing himself so much for the family dinner in the city on Sunday, which he would not have recovered from quite yet.  The specialist he was seeing cut the appointment a bit short, which was a good thing.  We still had to stop at the pharmacy, grocery store and post office on the way home, too.  My husband stayed in the van, with the AC going, by that point.  No sense in dragging the walker out for quick stops.

It’s been a hot and muggy day today; the main floor manages to stay pretty cool, but the upstairs gets really hot.  Just like, in the winter, it got really cold!  There isn’t even anything we could do about it.  Even if we got, say, an air conditioner, there aren’t enough grounded outlets to plug it in.

When the rains did come, it swept through in short bursts, with one big downpour.  We even lost our internet for a bit, which is something we can expect any time there’s more severe weather.  At least until we can get about 14 feet cut from the tops of the trees in the south yard.

It’s pretty amazing, how different things are looking right now!

This was our west yard, a month ago.

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This is what it looks like now.

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So much green!

We needed this so much!

After taking the above photo, I had some issues coming back into the house.

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Mom and son, with their noses at the bottom of the door, waiting for me to come back! :-D

The good thing is, when I open the door, they aren’t really all the interested in going outside.  They just become a tripping hazard. ;-)

At about 10pm, we’re still at 21C, and its expected to cool down only a few degrees as we get more rain overnight.  More thunderstorms are expected tomorrow evening.

I do wish I’d been able to mow the lawn before the rains returned.

Ah, well.  At least the girls were able to get most of the eaves troughs cleaned.

My mother had mentioned to me that there was a hooked tool somewhere around that allowed for cleaning the eaves from ground level, though she said a hose was still needed to finish the cleaning.  She told me where she thought it was, but the only things there are long handled pruning tools (that I look forward to making use of!).  I mentioned it to my older brother and he knew exactly what she was talking about.  He’d bought it for my parents!  He said it was in the sun room.

So that’s what that thing was!  I’d seen it, tucked into a corner, and was wondering.

Turns out that it’s a hose attachment.  My brother had demonstrated to my parents how to use it, but he didn’t think they ever did.  This was before my mom moved to the senior’s centre, so we’re talking quite a few years ago!

It came in very handy.

It couldn’t clean out the eaves troughs on its own, though.  My younger daughter got up on the ladder with a stick to clear out some of the eaves troughs out, then got onto the new part roof through the 2nd floor window to clear the others, while my older daughter used the hose attachment to finish clearing everything away with water.

Thankfully, we do have some very long hose.

There’s still one corner on the north side of the house that needs to be done, but that will have to wait until we get another break in the weather.

With how much rain we’ve been having, I am sure the fire bans can finally be lifted, and I hope the fires around the province have been thoroughly rained on!

We’re basically getting the sort of weather we were expecting last month.  Which I suppose makes sense, since the winter weather came in about a month behind, too.

As long as the shift keeps matching all year, it should work out for the farmers and gardeners.

The Re-Farmer

That was quick. Also, deer!

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Early this morning, I saw a pair of deer coming into the feeding area.  Unfortunately, because we haven’t had them coming by in the last while, I hadn’t put any feed out the night before, so there wasn’t much there for them.  Still, I got a few pictures, even through the reflections in the window. :-)

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They are both looking pretty rough around the edges!  I do think they’ve been here before.

Notice the little antler buds on the deer in the foreground? :-)

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The female has some nicks out of an ear, and it looks like some scarring on her snout, too.

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Aside from the missing patches of fur on the male that can be seen in the first photo, he’s looking pretty thin, too!

Just before I went to put more feed out tonight, I spotted a single deer through our bedroom window, making its way through the maple grove to the feeding area.  The noise of me going outside would have scared it off, though.  I hope it comes back later.  :-)

This morning, my husband’s hospital bed was supposed to be delivered between 10 and 11 pm.  So this morning, we dismantled our king size bed, which has been resting on a pair of queen box springs until we could get a proper bed frame again.  The mattress just got leaned on the wall at first, and the box springs went into the dining room at first.  Then I went out to feed the cats.

Beep Beep stood up to say hello! :-D

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Then, with the help of one of the girls, the box springs got moved outside, just to lean on a tree until they could be taken to the shed.

The outside cats were very curious about this!

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Well, hello, again, Beep Beep!

I had to head out at 11:30.  My mother registered her vehicle, effective this morning, so I drove her car out to meet my brother at her place, as a surprise.  I was going to accompany them for a medical appointment in the city, which was also a surprise.

It turns out my mother doesn’t like surprises.

Ah, well.

It was a long and draining day for all, but we got the information we needed, then took the time to explain it again to my mother on the way back.  My brother, sweetheart that he is, drove me home before driving the 1 1/2 hours back to his place.  It was a VERY long day for him!

While I was gone, much to my surprise, someone from the electric company came out to check the power lines!  I was told they’d have someone out within 2 weeks.  I wasn’t expecting someone the very next day! :-D  I will have to phone them again to find out what their assessment was, since not a lot of information was shared while the guy was here and my daughters were buy hauling box springs to the shed and cleaning up the yard.

As for the hospital bed, it did finally get delivered and set up, several hours later than expected. Once that was done, my daughters got the king size mattress out – I have no idea where we’re going to store that thing! – then set up the spare twin bed up for me.  I had had other plans for it – plans that can’t be done with the king size bed – but… oh, well.  Thankfully, the master bedroom is quite big, and there’s more than enough room.  I hope it works out better for my husband.  At least he won’t be losing his balance trying to get in and out of bed anymore, since he can adjust the height to exactly where he needs it.

All in all, I’m really happy about how quick things got followed through on, both for the bed, and with the electric company.

The Re-Farmer

A Social Call

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Yesterday evening, I was able to take a walk up the road; just to the half mile mark and back, so a short walk.  It was the perfect temperature for a walk, and the skies were just beautiful.

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Alas, those were not rain clouds.  We really need rain right now.  With so little snow over the winter, and no rains all spring, everything is tinder dry.  Farmers will be planting soon, and the conditions are not good for that right now.

Today, we were able to make a trip into the city for a pure social call – a visit to my father in law.  This was the first outing for my husband that wasn’t for a medical appointment, since before Christmas!  Just three of us, though, as my older daughter volunteered to stay home and hold the fort.  It was a fantastic visit, and my FIL very generously gifted us with a box of “almost perfect” chocolates.

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What you’re looking at is a box with 2 kg of chocolate.  That’s about 4.4 pounds.

I need to find out where he got these.  I don’t particularly care if chocolate is ugly.  :-D  The last time we found a place that sold imperfects was in Richmond, BC. almost 20 years ago.  We found a chocolate factory that had a store open to the public.  I don’t know how much was paid for these, but in a store, the unblemished chocolates would have cost about a dollar a piece.  There are at least 3 layers of chocolates in this box!

While it was a wonderful visit, it was very hard on my husband and his pain levels.  Still, we’re hoping to be able to make the trip in to visit at least once a month, now that the snow is gone.

For all the unexpected hassles we’ve been having since moving out here, his being able to see is father again makes up for that a lot!

The Re-Farmer

Hello, Shaggy Friend

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Heading to town, I paused on the side of the road to get a picture at one of the neighboring farms.

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Until today, we’d only seen them way in the back, in a corral. This farm has been raising bison for many years now.  I was happy to see they still are.

I like our shaggy friends. :-)

Today, we had a visit from someone in home care.  As part of my husband re-establishing the medical and other specialists he lost in the move, we was referred to home care for assessment.

As far as direct home care services, nothing is needed at this point.  Not with three adults in the house to help him.  He will, however, be getting a hospital bed.  Some time within the next two weeks, though it could be as early as Friday (two days from now), depending on the delivery drivers.

Which means it’s now urgent to get my mother’s dressers out of the master bedroom, and we have to figure out what to do with the king size bed.  At least we’ve got a spare twin, so I’ll still have a bed.

Unfortunately, we are now all sick.  Though I am recovering from the cold quite a bit, I’m still coughing a lot.  My oldest daughter seems to have gotten over the worst of it, while my younger daughter is just getting into the worse of it, and now my husband is starting to come down with it, too. :-(

Which means that, at the moment, it looks like I’m the healthiest person in the house!

As we spoke with the woman from home care, I brought up about wanting to put in a ramp outside.  It turns out Occupational Therapy assesses for stuff like that, so she will start that process for us.  OT has been here for my dad before; that’s why there’s arm bars all over the place.  Though my dad did have a wheeled walker, he usually used a non-wheeled one.  At least for inside.  His wheeled walker had a seat on it, with storage underneath.  He kept his tools in there, so it was handy around the yard. :-D

We still have that walker.  I intend to hang on to it, should I ever need one.  I’ve been doing really well, as far as mobility goes, and haven’t needed to use a cane in ages, but I never know when something will suddenly dislocate again, or a knee will bend sideways.  Better to be prepared, just in case!

Anyhow.  A ramp wasn’t included in the mobility improvements done for my dad, though one of my brother’s had intended to build a ramp for him, himself.  Instead, my dad ended up in the nursing home, so it never happened.  She’ll put in the paperwork for OT to come and assess the house and confirm if we qualify to have a ramp put in.  Even if it can’t get done this year, at least we’ll have the information we’ll need.

Tomorrow, however we are feeling, we have to start hauling things to the shed and get those dressers out of the way, so the hospital bed can be put in.  The delivery company will assemble and install it.  We just have to make sure the space is open.  We have been forewarned that it comes with a basic hospital mattress, so we might want to pick up a mattress topper for it or something.

It should be interesting.

This afternoon, I figured I was feeling well enough to start working on moving the wood piles in the garden.  I started in the area I wanted to put the wood, near the fire pit.  There were already dead trees and branches I needed to clear up, so I’ve started one pile for logs and larger branches, and another for the small branches and twigs for kindling.  While working, I kept seeing beyond into the maple grove, with all the dead branches and trees, and was just itching to start cleaning up in the yard.  Unfortunately, my mother has been obsessed with getting the garden area plowed.  I don’t want it done, and it’s far from a priority.  I can’t help but feel a bit angry, because I’m having to focus my limited energy working on the garden, instead of cleaning up around the yard, which needs it so much more.  But it’s her place, not ours, and two out of three of my siblings agree with her, so we’re outvoted, too.

With the snow completely gone, we can finally see the condition of the garden area itself.  I had been told it was very rough (another one of the reasons some family members are insisting it get plowed; it hadn’t been done properly last year, so for some reason, it’s now really, really urgent to do it this year).  Like so many other things, it was even worse than I expected.  Not so much because of how rough it is, but because of how full of rocks it is.  I spent many years helping my mother in the garden, and while there have always been rocks, I don’t remember there ever being THIS many!  Unfortunately, plowing it is just going to dig up more rocks.  Geologically, we’re on the bed of an ancient glacial lake.  This entire area has shallow soil, with lots of gravel, clay, sand and rock below.  What I want to do is build the soil up, not tear it up even more.  I much prefer to use no-till techniques, for many reasons.  Plus, if we do get chickens, they will be kept in the garden area and can help keep the weeds down and build up the soil, too.

So we will continue to work on removing the wood pile from the garden (thank God I was able to prevent it from being turned into a bonfire!), before we start cleaning the yard itself.  There is a lot of work to be done, that’s for sure.  I don’t mind.  I miss the manual labour. :-D

I didn’t get too much done in the garden before I had to stop.  Instead, I started working around the fire pit area.  There are three maple trees in a group with an old awning under them, among other things, that has been sitting there for many years.  I wanted to get the dead branch that’s overhanging the fire pit, which meant clearing that stuff out.

It took some doing to get it out.  It turned out to have been there long enough for soil to build up over the bottom of the frame!

After moving it, I found this…

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… in between two of the maples.

I wonder how many years it’s been there?  Probably longer than the awning.  That’s been there long enough that my daughters used it to get into the trees when they were little, so we’re looking at probably around 20 years.

At least it wasn’t another fridge or freezer! :-D

I did get part of the dead branch down.  I basically just reached up and pulled.  It’s been dead and dried up for so long, it broke quite easily.  Now, there’s just half of it, and it’s too high up to reach, so it’ll wait until we bring over a ladder.

I found another odd thing while working around the fire pit area.

Old cow poop.

I found it in the area where I’m putting the wood piles, but I was also finding it around the compost pile, as I cleaned up what had fallen out as the snow melted.  These are two very different areas of the yard.

Now, the farm has been rented out and the renter rotates his cattle here, but this is a fenced yard.  They should not be getting into the yard.

Also…

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That’s not cow.  That’s horse.

The only person I know of with horses nearby, is my own brother.  I don’t know if the renter has horses, but even if he did, why would they be with the cows?

So both cows and horses had gotten into the yard at some point, and not that long ago, either.

Oh, along with cow poop around the aluminum ring that contains the compost pile, I was finding small branches and twigs in the pile itself.  Plus a plastic container of the kind sour cream or cottage cheese comes in.

I seem to remember that the wood pile in the garden had originally been put on the compost pile, and one of my siblings was going to burn the whole thing until another said not to.  I don’t understand why anyone with do that, since the compost pile itself is right next to trees.  Burning the pile means burning the trees.  That would explain why there’s so much wood in the compost pile.

*sigh*  Even our compost pile is in worse shape than I expected!  And why would anyone burn it, when it’s right next to trees?

Ah, well.  Little by little, we’ll get it done.

One thing’s for sure.  By the time we are done cleaning up all the dead trees and branches in the garden area, yard, spruce grove and maple grove, we’ll have enough fuel for dozens of wiener roasts!

I’m hoping I didn’t push myself too hard, too soon, by working on this stuff today, but gosh, it felt good to finally be doing it!

The Re-Farmer

Rough

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Rough night.  Rough day.  Ugh.

I didn’t get a single photo of the critters out the window today.  In fact, it’s almost 9pm, and I still haven’t had my first cup of tea!

I did get a photo last night to share with you.  Nasty Crime Boy came to the window upstairs for attention again. :-D

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“Touch me, now. Don’t touch me or I’ll scratch you.  Touch me, I said.  No!  I’ll scratch you!  Touch me.  I batt at thee!!!”

He didn’t really let my daughter pet him.  He kept batting at her hand while still wanting her to reach out to him.  Too funny!

I ended up awake until about 5am, unable to sleep.  My chronic cough is tickling again, and I spent much of the night listening to my trachea squeaking.  Inhale.  Exhale. squeeeeeeeeaaaaakkkk.  Inhale.  Exhale. squeeeeeeeeaaaaaakkkkkkk.  Inhale.  Exhale.  squeeeeeeaaaaakkkkk.  All night.

Then I woke up to this, over my head.

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Good Morning.

It was another really bad pain day for my husband, too.  He’s have a very rough time right now. :-(  I did make it into town to pick up prescription refills for him.  Then I tried to stop at the department store to see if I could find him some new undies.  There is one basic store in town, with clothing, shoes and accessories.  There are a couple other stores that have clothing, but that’s not their main thing, and one of them caters more to the touristy, trendy stuff.

I just about choked when I found the men’s underwear.  A single pair of briefs in his size cost $15.

We’re talking your basic gitch, here.  Not some name brand, fancy-shmancy stuff.  The next size up cost $17.

For one.  Just one.

We walked around the store some more and saw things like an ordinary t-shirt – something I’d expect to find at Walmart or the like – for $50.  Even the higher quality T’s in Walmart cost less than $10.

I realize that it costs more to run a business in smaller towns, where it takes more resources just to GET inventory, but this is ridiculous, even for here.  My daughter and I wondered how anyone could afford to shop there, and how they stayed in business.  Then we realized that some people might not have any other choice.  Which is a rather depressing thought.

We tried going to a discount, kinda-like-a-dollar-store-but-not, store, thanks to my daughter remembering that they had clothes, too, and while they had better prices (we could get 3 pairs for $15), they didn’t have the size I needed.

So that’s going to have to wait until the end of the month, when we can finally get to the city to shop.

After we got home, I had to lie down for a much needed nap.  Which is really going to mess me up for tonight, but I just couldn’t stay awake.  Still ended up lying there, listening to my squeaky breathing, but I was tired enough to fall asleep.

So our daughters took care of things around the house, and my younger daughter even had a chance to block a project she recently finished.

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Beautiful, but frustrating.  She has made several lacy projects from this one crochet pattern book, and they’ve all turned out about 1/3 of what the finished size should be.  My daughter does stitch more tightly than I do, but she also checks her gauge, and so on.  Her stitching is meticulous and the stitches are always perfectly formed.  It doesn’t seem to make a difference.  Instead of a full sized shawl big enough to tie in front, she has a baby shawl that, before blocking, looked too small to even be a cowl or kerchief.  It would have been the right size for her sister’s 18″ Josephina doll.

Blocking is making a big difference, but it’s still a fraction of the size it’s supposed to be.  This particular piece is made in three sections; the 2 side triangles, then the middle strip, which is then used to join the side triangles together.  That middle strip is actually about the size it should be, so it’s not just a matter of her stitch tension.

She plans to try again, using a larger hook and thicker yarn.

For now, it’s getting late, but I’m going to have at least one cup of tea before bed, dangit! :-D

The Re-Farmer