Medical

A kitten let me pet it!!

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It’s just one, so far; the tuxedo.  My daughter tells me he let her pet him yesterday, too.

Progress!!! :-D

I was out for much of the morning, taking my mother to the hospital she will be going for surgery at, tomorrow, for her pre-op blood work.  We took her car, since it’s easier to get in and out of for her.  When we needed to replace our old van, I very specifically chose a vehicle that would meet my husband’s mobility needs, which are pretty much the opposite of my mothers. :-D  The trip went really well, and we got back early enough that we could go to church together, too.

When I got home, I noticed branches in the yard, so after lunch I went out to pick them up.

I got distracted by a Beep Beep, who really wanted attention!  So I sat on the side of the concrete landing at the door and started petting her. Her tuxedo kitten was out and, at first, he didn’t want to go near me.  Then, much to my surprise, he came over to snuzzle his mom as I pet her – and let me pet him, too!

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Then they both went behind my back and rolled around on the concrete.  I reached around to pet Beep Beep, and a kitten head pushed itself under my hand!  It was so awesome.

I tried reaching my phone over my shoulder to get some pictures of them behind my back and actually got a good one of the tuxedo. :-D

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I’m hoping, as the other kittens see him enjoying human attention, they’ll relax and start letting us pet them, too.

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The grey tabby, however, still won’t go near me.  I moved to a chair we have by the sun room, and he wouldn’t even go past to get to the food bowls.

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The teeny tabby used to come close and even let me touch, sometimes, but these days, he is acting more skittish for some reason.  He will, at least, go past me to get to the food.

His big brother, on the other hand, almost did, but when he heard me shift on the chair, he ran off again.

He has such a lion-like appearance doesn’t he? :-D

I even caught a glimpse of one of the calicos, dashing away.

I’m so happy.  I got some kitten therapy! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Sky on fire

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While tending the fire pit, burning away the rhizomes I’d pulled up earlier, I got to watch a lovely sunset.

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The photo does not do it justice.  It was as if the sky on the horizon was on fire!

I went over to the outer fence line (the cow fence. ;-) ) to get this shot, so there would be fewer trees blocking the sunset.

We had another hot and muggy day today, so I didn’t plan on doing any manual labour in the trees today.  Which worked to be a good thing, since my husband was able to reschedule a medical appointment from next week to today, so he could get updated prescriptions, and then fill them.  He was able to get an updated prescription for a CPAP as well.  He’s been without for almost a week, now.  Interestingly, after that first night without, he’s actually been breathing quite a bit in his sleep.  Granted, the incline of the hospital bed helps, but it’s no where near as bad as it was before he finally got the sleep apnea diagnosis.  Back then, he spent more time not breathing, than breathing, and had 0 REM sleep.  His case was so extreme, the sleep researcher that had his file, who was also a university professor, asked permission to use the test results and video for his classes, and his data for future text books.  In all his years as a sleep researcher, he’d never encountered a case as severe before!  So any improvement is a good thing.

This province does things differently when it comes to CPAPs, which is covered by the medicare system with a deductible.  We had to explain to the doctor that we were intending to just get a new one from cpap.com  In the end, it’s cheaper that way.  Even with the dollar difference and before insurance coverage (we have to pay in full ourselves, first, then submit the receipt).  It’s amazing how incredibly more expensive the machines and supplies are, when purchasing them from Canadian suppliers!  It makes no sense!  So by doing it this way, we are not only saving money for ourselves, but for our insurance company, too.  Also, since the machine we plan to get is an adjustable type, he doesn’t have to go through new testing to work out the settings, so it’ll probably be faster, too.  In the long term, though, it would be good to get him tested again, and see if he would be eligible for a VPAP (variable pressure, rather than continuous pressure) instead.  That is still covered by the system 100% here, too.  That will be discussed with the doctor another time.  The most important thing is getting a new machine quickly.  Sleep apnea is not something to take lightly!

The Re-Farmer

Dramatic skies, and apple tree down

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Yesterday, after picking my daughter up from work, the girls and I went straight to visit my awesome, amazing older brother and his wife for the evening.

The storm warnings had returned, but the skies were clear at the time, if incredibly windy all day.  The winds died down enough that we were able to eat outside, then have a fire going to toast marshmallows.  It was so wonderful to just sit outside together, talking and enjoying each others’ company.  I just wish my husband had been able to come out, too, but if he had, he would never have been able to handle the length of the visit.

Chronic pain really sucks.

While we were outside, we did see some pretty dramatic skies!

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The clouds were moving fast, so we saw all sorts of interesting shapes passing by.  When it first started to rain, though, the sky above us was clear! :-D  After a while, though, it started to come down a bit harder, so we packed up and went in.  By then it was late enough to start heading home, which was about an hour and a half’s drive.

While we were away, my husband sent us some updates to let us know it was coming down pretty hard at home.  It was all done by the time we made the drive, but as soon as we turned off the highway onto the gravel road, we drove through a bit patch where the road was covered with twigs and branches from someone’s willow.  Some smaller trees along the road were downed.  (Interestingly, I later found out the my husband’s dead CPAP machine, which he has left plugged in, actually flickered to life during the storm.  Just a flicker.  Odd.)

When we got home, we decided to park in the yard by the house, instead of the garage.  As I drove in, the first thing I saw in my headlights was a branch on the ground.  So while the girls brought things into the house, I grabbed a flashlight and did a circuit around the house.  Nothing major, but it was clear it was going to be another day needing a wheelbarrow to clear up everything that came down.

Then this morning, as I glance out the north facing bedroom window, I see this.

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One of the apple trees had come down, too.

I don’t think this one was doing very well this year.   It never really bloomed, and I couldn’t see any apples on it when I checked it out.  Most of it had already been pruned away, before we moved out here.  I’m not surprised that this one came down.  I’m more surprised it was the only one.

Thanks to my brother, though, I have chain oil for my birthday gift – summer and winter oil, even, and enough to last a very long time! – so later today I will break it down and haul away the pieces.  When making plans to visit, I’d asked about what stores were near their place, after entertaining them about why I needed more oil so quickly (see link above), and my brother was sweet enough to pick some up before we got out there. :-)  That meant we didn’t have to rush to any stores before they closed, and could go straight to visiting.

I have awesome family!

Since it’s an apple tree, I will keep the pieces separate, so I can use the wood for crafting purposes. :-)

I will be sticking to just the necessary clean up for today, though, since I do try to keep Sunday as a day of rest, even if we haven’t found a church yet out here.  There will be more than enough to catch up on, later!  Things are supposed to cool down for the next week, so I’m hoping to be able to continue clearing out the rest of the maple grove and not risk heat stroke! :-D

The Re-Farmer

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

Ah, family

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One of the benefits of moving out here is that we are close to family again.  Both sides.  Which, of course, makes it much easier to get together and visit and spend time together.

Being close to family is a good thing.

Unfortunately, family is why we left in the first place.  Specifically, my mother.  That’s a long story that doesn’t belong on this blog, but after 14 years away, things have changed and the biggest reason behind our leaving doesn’t exist anymore.  Still, when my mother asked us to move to the empty farm and take care of it for her, we did have to consider certain relationship issues along with everything else.  My mother is an amazing woman in many respects; intelligent, brave, strong, and a real survivor.  There are just… other issues.

Today, I ended up having an unplanned visit with my mother, so we could lend her our scale.  She is going for surgery in a couple of months (yay!  Finally – though not for her knee replacement, yet), and the surgeon wants her to lose some weight.  She remembered that there was a scale here, under a dresser that was in the hallway near the old kitchen.  I told her that yes, there was a scale here, but we packed all that up.  She was surprised that the stuff was not in that corner anymore and asked what was there now.  The cat litter box, I told her.  Oh, no! she lamented.  She doesn’t like that we have cats, because then we have a litter box, and then there’s the smell and…

I had to remind her what I’d already told her about before; that when we moved that dresser, we found old cat litter (and more).  Oh, but that wasn’t while she was at the farm…  *sigh*

Okay.  Moving on.

Once it was agreed that I would just lend her our scale, so she didn’t have to buy herself a new one, we worked out that I would come over today and finally get a visit in.

It was actually a good visit, overall, which is always appreciated.  Plus, it gave me the opportunity to show her pictures on my phone.  So she got to see the kittens, and some of her flowers.  I showed her the progress in the old kitchen and some of the things I found. I also showed her pictures of different areas in the yard that I’ve been cleaning up.

It was so strange.

I get some very mixed messages from my mother.

We are here to take care of the place for her.  Which we have been.  However, we have noticed things that are a priority that she had never had to concern herself over, because my dad or my brothers always took her of them.  In her mind, the priorities are the things she worked on.  Like the garden.  Which we’ve not touched this year and is overgrown.   At one point, she told me that I was lazy, and that I was unintelligent. But when I would tell her about the work I’ve been doing around the yard, she would start telling me that I shouldn’t be doing it, I should get my oldest brother to do it.  The one that lives 1 1/2 hours away.  Because I, being female, shouldn’t be doing this stuff.

Today, I started showing her pictures of different areas among the trees I’d cleared out.  Not even all of them; just the most recent.  This included before and after pictures, of course.  As I showed her a few… then a few more… then a bunch more… she suddenly sat back, looked at me and said; “you need a man around!”

List of Emoticons for Facebook | Symbols & Emoticons*facepalm*

So, if I don’t do the work, I’m lazy, but if I DO do the work, I shouldn’t be doing it, because it’s men’s work (and let’s not even start on what she must think about my husband being disabled, in constant pain and unable to do this stuff).  I don’t think she even realized how insulting she was being, even when I told her flat out, that’s insulting.

There was no sense that she felt anything positive about what I’ve been doing.  I’d show her where I’d trimmed away from the storage house stairs and cleared her grapes a bit, and she demanded to know if I was watering them.  Was I doing this?  No, I’m focusing on that.  Well, what about this other thing?  No, I’m doing this, this and that, because they’re more of a priority.  What am I doing about those things over there?  Well, this is what I have planned.  Oh, she’d never do it that way, she did it this way and it was never a problem.  Gee, thanks, Mom.

It’s an odd position to be in.  I’m am glad that we moved out there, even with all the problems that came with the move.  I’m enjoying the work of getting things cleaned up, fixed up and cleared out, that hadn’t been done for so many years.  Every area we’ve worked on looks and feels so much better, even if there is still much work to do.  As I walk through different areas that I’ve cleared in the yard, it feels so much more open and airy and welcoming, and I can hardly wait to keep going.  Right now, I’m holding back until my birthday gift gets here.  Which was supposed to be delivered on Friday, but now when I check the tracking, there’s no date and it’s back to “in transit” at the city.  Turns out that we are “in a remote area where delivery does not happen every day”.  No kidding.  I should be receiving notifications now, though, if not a call, about delivery.  I might have to pick it up from a depot in the town my mother lives in, but we’ll see.  Until then, the clearing of the trees will wait.

The main thing is, while we are taking care of the place for my mom, it is becoming more and more our home.  My mother somehow thought that we could just leave everything behind and move into the house as it was, because everything was already perfect, and she’s still not understanding that no, it wasn’t perfect.  Not even close to perfect.  And we are finding things she knew nothing about that need to be dealt with.

I think, in a way, she never will.  And certainly I know that I will never be good enough, or do right, in her eyes.  But I do wish she would, if not appreciate the work that’s being done, stop telling me that I shouldn’t be doing it, because I’m female.

Ah, family.

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

Hmmm… foood!

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A quick post, before another storm moves in and I shut down the computer…

view of clinic

Photo by Daniel Frank on Pexels.com

It’s almost 6pm, and I have finally ingested my first meal of the day.

I’m not counting the meal replacement shake, because… no.

As soon as the earliest dental clinic in the next town was open, I called to see if they could fit me in – after checking to see if they did direct billing with our insurance company.  Which they did, and they could.  I got an appointment for the afternoon.  Yay!

I then spent the next while, doing work on the computer, and trying to figure out what we had that I could safely eat.  It wasn’t just needing soft food.  Even soft food getting in there could cause more of the tooth to break up.

Before I finally decided (I was leaning towards egg flower soup), I got a call back from them.  Could I be there by 11:15?  It was 10:53.  I could leave right then and there!

By the time I parked and walked in the door, it was just a few minutes past 11:15.  After the paperwork was done, I barely had time to sit down when I was being called to come in.

The hygienist got started on me with getting an Xray, as I told her about the history of the tooth, and the troubles the dentist who did the root canal had had with it, because of a bent root.  She got me to bite on the thing to get the Xray, but had to do it twice, just to get it far back enough.  The screen for the Xray was facing me, so we could both see the problem root.

Then, just before the dentist came in, I pulled out another piece of tooth.  Just getting the Xray taken broke off more.

I’d already told the hygienist that I was more interested in just having it pulled, but it turned out to not be a choice.  There wasn’t enough of it left to do anything else.  The dentist even had to break it apart to take each root out, individually.

As I knew would happen, because apparently I have some pretty massive bone density (this is not the first tooth I’ve lost), this took quite a bit of effort.

But that was okay.  I got to lie in a massage chair and watch You Gotta Eat Here on the TV in the ceiling.

Though requesting it be put on The Food Network was probably not the best of ideas, considering how hungry I was.  :-D

However, it was done, and because it was just a pull and not any major work, it actually cost much less than I feared.  Which is good, because I then had to go to the grocery store and buy more pain killers for when the freezing wore off, and food that I could safely eat.

I had to wait 4-6 hours before trying to eat, though I could drink water.  I have a gauze to bite on that needs to be changed every hour.  Starting tomorrow, I need to swish with salt water after eating anything.

I am, however, good to go for the big family dinner on Sunday, even if I won’t be able to eat certain foods.  I just have to bring my bottle of salt water with me.

So that is done!

On the home front, it was an indoor day. The girls kindly made supper, though I could only eat the perogies they made.  Very, very carefully.  Oh, I was so hungry by then!

It was too hot to safely do any yard work today, anyhow, and while it’s cooler now (a mere 26C *L*), it has quickly gotten very dark, and I can hear thunder and see flashes of lightning in the distance.  We’ll see if we get the sort of downpours we got yesterday or not.  Until then, I think I’ll just shut down the desktop computer, just to be safe!

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

One more thing, off the list

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

This morning, I took my younger daughter for her knowledge test to transfer her driver’s license to this province.

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Butterscotch, in command of the deer feeding station.

To recap: she did not have a full license; just the learner’s license.  She never had a chance to take her road test.  When she tried to transfer her license, once they saw it was a learners, she was told she had to take the written test to get a new license for this province.  Then, because we are past the 90 day grace period, they kept her license, because she cannot legally drive in this province with it.

After doing the online practice tests, my daughter was quite worried about this.  So many of the questions were unrelated to the rules of the road, or phrased so badly and without context, it was difficult to understand what was actually being asked.

We ended up leaving more than an hour early – and she was still worried about being late!  Ah, a daughter after my own heart. :-D  On the way, we stopped in the town my mother lives in to fill the gas tank.  This is the gas station we’d stopped at when we were bleeding coolant, and one of our regular gas jockeys had crawled under and found the broken pipe.  Well, he was there this morning.  When he saw us, he came over and asked how things went, so I entertained him with the story.  Turns out he was all worried about us, and was so happy to find out everything turned out okay!

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One, lone dark eyed junco, just chillin’

I really like this gas station.  They have such great people working there.    Plus, they have this section of home baked goodies that no one else has, because they’re baked by one of the gas jockeys! :-D  It’s become a bit of a ritual, that when we stop there for gas, I pick up some cookies (they are sold in twos) or a piece of Nanaimo bar as a special treat.

The city we went to is roughly an hour’s drive, and we’d left so early that, even with the stop for gas, we were an hour early.  Which worked out, because neither of us had had breakfast, plus it gave us the chance to find the place, first.  Which turned out to be incredibly easy to find.  We were told to arrive about 15 minutes early, so that’s what we did.

When my daughter got called up, she had all her paperwork from the broker that started her file for her, ready to go.  The lady helping her just had to look up the file and continue the process.  She was really great about explaining the exam process, and how my daughter needed to get a minimum of 24 out of 30 questions correct, and so on.  Then she took my daughter to the testing computer.  The questions turned out to be MUCH more realistic than in the online practice tests.  They actually made sense, and were about the rules of the road.

She did 24 questions, then the test shut down, because she’d got them all correct.  So she got 100% on her knowledge test.  Awesome!

Then she had to do the eye test, were we discovered that she does NOT need her glasses to drive.  She will use them, because she prefers to (she gets headaches from eye strain if she doesn’t), but there will be no restriction on her license.  Cool!

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The Mothman makes an appearance!

When the final processing for her license was started, we hit a problem.

The system was asking for her to turn over her current license.

Which had already been taken.

It turns out, they shouldn’t have done that.  While my daughter could not legally drive here with it, it was still a valid license.  She could still use it in our previous province, plus it was her valid photo ID, until 2022.

Not only that, but when her license was scanned, they only scanned one side.  So even though the person helping us could find the scanned image on file, she had only the front information, not the back.

Now, the only reason this was an issue was a matter of credit for time driving.  If they could use her current license, she could go for her road test at any time, because she’s been driving on her learner’s license for more than 5 years.  If, however, they couldn’t use it, she would not be able to take her road test for at least 9 months.

The woman helping us called the broker where we’d started the process, to find out if they still had the license, but the person who started the file wasn’t available.  After some discussion, they figured it got sent away already to the department all returned licenses go to.  So she phoned there.

The license had arrived there, just yesterday!

Which meant they could scan both sides of the old license for the file.  The woman helping us, meanwhile, used a copy of the scanned front of the license already on file, just to be extra sure – and my daughter got a copy for her own files, too, just as I did with mine.

Because of when her birthday is, though, when she gets her plastic copy, it’ll only be valid until the end of August.  Which meant it cost less to process her license, since they only charged for the shorter time.

Cool.

As we were doing this, I told the woman helping us that I had some ID related questions for after it was all done.  I had shared some of the issues I’d had with getting my license during conversation.  When my daughter got her temporary license, I told the woman helping us about my husband’s attempt to get his license.

As soon as I said that his ID didn’t match his birth certificate, she knew exactly what was coming; he was told to get a legal name change.

Yup.

I brought up how this didn’t make any sense.  He’s already using his legal name.  It’s on his birth certificate.  Everything he’s got – save his old license in this province, for some reason – has the name he uses.  Even the Department of National Defense and the Government of Canada is good with the name he uses.

As we were talking, a guy came over and asked if he could join in, and he was able to give us more information.  What it comes down to is, it’s up to the Identity Unit.  Whatever they say, everyone else’s hands are tied, and they are basically the overseers of identity in this province.  We talked about the issues of identity theft and security, which I totally get, but it still doesn’t make sense to demand that my husband change his legal name to… his legal name.

At one point, he asked why my husband wasn’t interesting in doing the legal name change, and my response was basically, why should he have to go through all that process, when he’s already using his legal name.  In the conversation, I used as an example how it’s not like my sister, whose legal name is one thing, but the name she uses is completely different.  It’s not entirely even an English version of her birth name, since there really isn’t any English equivalent.  This is his legal name that is on his birth certificate.  Every other place has been fine with using his second name.  He has always used this name.  Sure, they can understandably change things now, but why should he essentially be retroactively held to these requirements?  It’s still his legal name.

Well, it turns out this guy completely understood not wanting to go the legal name change route.  He’s newly married, and his wife is in the process of legally changing to her married name.  The whole thing costs about $200, there are many hoops to jump, and one of those hoops is to go to the RCMP and get fingerprinted.

With the amount of pain my husband is in, that kind of running around is asking way too much.

In the end, he suggested we try calling the Ombudsman, explaining the situation, and asking for an exemption.  We even got the name and phone number.

I really, really hope this works out, because this whole thing is completely ridiculous.

They were both extremely helpful and awesome, and I’m so glad I asked them about it.

Before we left, we paused to use the bathroom before I left.  When I came out and my daughter took her turn, the woman that had been helping us asked, was my sister in law’s last name XXX?  Why yes, it is, except she’s my sister, not my sister in law.

When I had used my sister’s names as an example, and she started talking about the names issue with a co-worker, it occurred to her that she knew someone by that name – and it’s a very uncommon name.  So she figured she’s ask me when I came out of the washroom.  It turns out that, not only does she know my sister, but they are cousins, by marriage!

That was so funny!  I ended up staying and chatting with her for a while, with my daughter joining us as I told her about our move back to the farm and all the “fun” it’s been, dealing with my parents’ things, the state of the house, and all the interesting things we’ve been discovering.  That led us to talking about how, especially in our parents’ generation, there was such an insistence of doing everything themselves, instead of paying someone else to do it, even when in the long term, it would be cheaper to pay someone else to do it!  Or to buy new instead of second hand, etc.  She knew first hand what it was like! :-D

It wasn’t until we were walking to the van and my daughter asked about it that I realized she’s missed the part about how this woman was related to her aunt.  Ah, what a small world it is!

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Trüllbus the Crime Eater, coming through!

After we finished there, my daughter and I headed to the nearby Walmart.  Our monthly shopping plans have had to change, with my husband’s newest medical appointment, so we did most of our non-Costco monthly shopping today.  Normally, we’d wait until the last business day of the month, when his disability payment comes in, but today is when the much smaller CPP Disability comes in.  It’s enough to do the monthly grocery shopping, at least.  Plus, I really wanted to finally pick up some new underwear for him, what with either not being able to find his size in the style he wanted, or only being able to find them at $15 for a single pair, with only one lower end brand available.

Amazingly, not even the Walmart had his style in his size.  There were 4 or 5 different brands, and NONE of them had it.  In fact, they only seemed to have them in two sizes; small and medium.  What the heck?  Is there some sort of embargo on briefs going on I don’t know about?  I finally got a package of 4 in the closest to the style he wanted I could find (at least the price was good!), but I can’t believe I still couldn’t even find what he wanted at a WALMART, in a city!  Yeah, it’s a small city, but still…  Sheesh!

Since we were there anyways, we paused to look at some of the summer stuff that’s out now.  It occurred to me that I have yet to see a garden hose anywhere around here.  I still want to check the garden shed, but there is no way my dad didn’t have garden hoses!  If they’re not in the garden shed, then they found some legs and walked away.  Along with too many other things around here. :-(

We’re also interested in getting a weed whacker – preferably an electric one – so we priced those out, too.  Pretty reasonable.  We are also looking to get a battery operated chain saw, though not at Walmart.  We’ve got at least 4 chain saws in the garage and, as far as I know, none of them work.  One could probably be considered an antique!  I have no interest in hauling around jerry cans of fuel anymore, and the modern electric tools are just as powerful as the ones that run on fuel.

So we got the small grocery shopping done, including stocking up on distilled water for my husband’s CPAP.  That done, we had one more stop to make; back to the town closest to home to pick up some prescription refills.  As my older daughter has caught my cold (I’m still coughing myself, but at least I’m feeling better) and was feeling really awful today, we also made sure to pick up some “medication” for her.  At the liquor store, in the form of a nice, spiced whiskey.  :-D  We rarely drink, so when we do, it’s at least a decent quality! :-D

Hopefully, we’ll all be healthy again soon, and can start manhandling the last of my parents’ stuff we need to move to the shed.  The snow is gone and the ground it dry.  It’s just that 2 out of 3 of us are too sick to do the physical labour. :-(

While in town, we took the time to play a bit of Pokemon Go, and at one point we were parked next to an arts and crafts store, which is also part of a used book store.  I haven’t been there since we last lived in this province, so we decided to take a look.

I don’t know why they advertise as an arts and crafts store.  They had basically nothing.

But we did come out with a whole pile of Brother Cadfael books. :-D

After all the running around, we were so glad to finally get home.  Now that my daughter has her license, that’s one more thing to strike off the list!  Next up is for my older daughter to get her ID transferred.

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer