Morning sadness, and helping elderly parents can be rough!

September 1, 2025 / Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

Today is Labour Day, a statutory holiday here in Canada. I was still set to do my mother’s grocery shopping, though, as she didn’t want me coming over on a Sunday. I knew the grocery store in her town would be open for short hours, though. With that in mind, I wasn’t planning to head out until 11.

Which meant the usual morning routine, plus I would have time to water the garden in anticipation of one more really hot day, before the temperatures drop significantly. First things first was feeding the outside cats.

I spotted this, some time later…

I had to zoom in from quite a distance so as not to interrupt. Lady Hypotenose does not look pleased!

The first thing I spotted as I headed out with the morning kibble, however, was a kitten laying half out of the new cat cave, clearly passed on. Then I spotted a second one in the box nest in the water bowl shelter!

I messaged my daughter and she came out to help find a place to bury them. Once the food was out, I gathered up the remains while my daughter dug a hole to bury them in. I was quite surprised by the one in the cat cave. This was the kitten with one sticky eye I’ve been washing. Other than a sticky eye, it was looking pretty strong! The second kitten was also one that I saw no signs of illness in. One thing in common, though, is that they both had a bout of diarrhea. Which is the same thing I found with the previous three kittens I’d found and buried.

Once that sad morning job was done, I continued my morning routine, then got the garden watered. I even had time for a late breakfast before heading to my mother’s. By the time I headed out, my brother and SIL were out by his tractor that he needs to fix. It’s outside, so he wanted to put a shelter over it, so he could work on it under at least some protection. Since I didn’t know how long I’d be, and they had to go back home today, I swung by to say hello/goodbye. While I was doing that, they told me they got a voicemail message from my mother saying that she’d been trying to call me, but there was no answer. ?!?! I told them I was on the way to her place to do her grocery shopping, but that our phone had not rung. My brother was planning to visit her briefly on their way home, so I was asked to let her know (and to let her know my brother was in work clothes, not dressed to the nines; my mother has suddenly started to criticize my brother for not dressing “civilized” because he was wearing jeans or whatever).

I was more than happy to wage interference for him.

As I was heading to the truck, I messaged my family to check the land line. When I got to my mother’s, there was a message waiting for me, saying the phone was working fine. When I came inside, I mentioned this to her, only to be told she hadn’t tried to phone me today. It was yesterday! That’s when I realized what had happened (and it was actually the day before yesterday that she’d tried to call me). When I saw the missed call (no message), I called her back and she told me she’d tried calling my brother and sister, too, but no one was home. Somehow, my brother didn’t get my mother’s message on his voice mail until today!

I did let her know that he was at the farm, working on a tractor, and that he planned to visit while on his way home – and yes, I did bring up that he’d be in work clothes, and probably dirty, so don’t give him a hard time! She laughed and said she wouldn’t.

My mother, however, was having a hard time. She said she was not feeling well, and hadn’t bothered to change out of her night gown. I tried asking questions to pin down exactly how she was feeling. She got frustrated and just repeated her usual litany. The problem is, she keeps saying she feels like she’s about to die, but… well… She’s already been to a doctor about these things, time and time again. For some things, like her legs swelling, something could be done – her water pill dosage was doubled, and she now takes it twice a day instead of once a day, for example. There are other things recommended, like keeping her feet elevated, or sleeping on an include. She’s been recommended for a hospital bed so she can do that more easily by me and my siblings, home care and her doctor, and she simply refuses. She won’t even put her feet up in her reclining chair. Eventually, if we ask enough questions, it comes out that she wants the doctor to “fix” her – but not give her more pills – somehow, like magic. And if a doctor isn’t able to do that, well, they’re just hiding something for her, or they just want her to die, or the doctor is [insert racial/sexist slur here] and not a “real” doctor, and she wants us to find her another one. This when we have a major doctor shortage and she’s lucky to have a doctor at all!

Anyhow. It’s frustrating for all of us, including my mother!

She had not felt well enough to make a list, so we worked on that together. I did have to go into her lock box to get a pen. All the pens on her table were gone. I found five in the lock box. Every time home care give her her medications, they have a form to fill out. Instead of using the pen that’s always there for them to use, they’ve been grabbing whatever pen is in reach on the table – then putting it in the lock box when they’re done! 😄

In making her list, she had a few items that would be picked up at the pharmacy. She had also mentioned wanting me to change her bedding, so I knew I’d be there for a while. I was expecting that.

I had some warning as to how things were going to go when my mother started going on about how my brother should really be the one doing this, not me. She “gave” him the farm, after all, and it’s his responsibility. I reminded her that I’m the one in the best position to help her. Oh, I have too much to take care of at home. I had my (disabled) husband and two “babies” to take care of.

Yup. My mother has got it in her head that we’re basically forcing the girls to live with us, and they do nothing. She just sort of invents scenarios on how we live.

As I was deflecting as best I could, she got weird and asked me if my daughters were born boys or girls.

*sigh*

With the way she treats them, my daughter have little interest in spending time with her, plus my older daughter works on her commissions at night, so she hasn’t even seen my older daughter in years. My younger daughter came with me not long ago, as we were on the way to somewhere else and she was coming along as my mobility assistant, really. My younger daughter has pretty severe PCOS, and the symptoms includes having a pretty rad beard. She can even make little braids in it. She gave up trying to shave it years ago, as shaving was damaging her skin, and frankly, it’s just hair. We’re more concerned about the more debilitating PCOS issues.

When I, rather stunned, said that yes, my daughters are female, she asked, why the beard? I told her, it’s a medical condition. My daughter is seeing a doctor and getting referred to specialists about it. My mother just scoffed and made a comment about how she thought I wasn’t telling her everything. I told her, correct. I’m not telling you everything because she just twists everything to be nasty, anyhow, plus my daughter’s health is none of her business.

At which point, my mother twisted what I said to be nasty.

*sigh*

I managed to get away from that conversation and get back to making her shopping list!

As we were talking groceries, she started going on about how bad she feels, but especially after eating. She loves to blame certain foods for anything, because of something she might have heard on TV (sometimes decades ago!) or read in a magazine. She was winding up to the conclusion that she should basically stop eating anything but “liquid”. So… I guess that’s why she waters down her instant oatmeal so much!

After hearing her describe how she was feeling after she ate, it triggered something in my memory about digestive issues with seniors, so I looked it up. Soon I was reading to her about how our digestive systems tend to slow down as we get older, causing various issues. Going through the list, there were only a couple of things that applied to her. One being the heartburn (that she was convinced were heart attacks for many years), which I’ve already gone over with her about, with what foods can trigger it and what can help. She already ignores that. I’ve made printouts for her in large letters that she can ready easily, and she just throws them out. Another was to eat more small meals instead of large ones; again, something that would help her heartburn. She reacted as though this were a revelation, apparently not remembering that we’ve talked about this before. Last of all was physical exercise – something she just doesn’t have the mobility to engage in, at levels that would make a difference.

Then she asked about dry mouth again. She is constantly bringing it up, even though it, too, is something she’d talked about, and she even still has the spray she was given while at the hospital earlier in the year. She used it at one point, thinking it was an inhaler that would help her breathing. It worked so well! When I realized what she was talking about and told her that no, the only inhalers she has are in her lock box. The spray was for dry mouth, she stopped using it.

She has decided her dry mouth is because she had diabetes, and asked me about her blood tests. While at the doctor, she said she couldn’t hear what the doctor had said. I told her what her A1c was (she is not diabetic), and repeated what the doctor had said; she’s sleeping with her mouth open. All she heard was that it was not related to diabetes and she’s not diabetic, so it was another revelation for her.

As you can imagine, it took a while to get her shopping list done!

Today was a Meals on Wheels day. I made sure to leave before that was delivered, so my mother could have her lunch without interruption. I was going to the pharmacy, first, only to find that they were closed for the holiday. I hoped I could find at least some of what she wanted (she was not out completely, thankfully) at the grocery store, but the only thing they did have was ridiculously expensive, so that didn’t happen.

In the end, if was a much smaller than usual shopping list. My mother did make a request for something she could eat with her medications. Some are not supposed to be taken on an empty stomach. She usually eats a few crackers, but I think she’s tired of crackers. She didn’t really know what she wanted, so I told her I would look around the grocery store for something.

I went through the (rather small) store three times.

What kind of snack was there that was “healthy” (as my mother would accept), that didn’t need any sort of preparation, was either shelf stable or could stay in the fridge for a while after opening, and was easy for her to chew, since she refuses to get her dentures fixed after having a broken tooth removed. Some of the things I saw that would have been good, healthy snacks were things I knew she would refuse to eat, because she heard somewhere that they are “unhealthy”. Others were things that she would have a hard time chewing.

I finally settled on some fruit filled breakfast bars. I knew she’s complain because they are “sweet” (as anything fruit filled would be), but it was something to try.

After I was finally done and the truck was loaded, I found a message from my SIL. They were going to be heading out soon, and would I be able to stay longer, while my brother was there? Of course, I said yes. My SIL no longer visits my mother, after my mother started going on about how she wasn’t really family, just my brother’s wife, and blaming her for my brother not being ay my mother’s constant beck and call. So she was going to be dropped off, while my brother was going to pick up some chicken, then meet me at my mother’s.

Once back at my mother’s and everything was put away, and I explained about the pharmacy being closed, my mother started going on about how her “pink” pills were now a different size.

She doesn’t have any pink pills.

My mother was convinced her pills were changed but this time, after asking some questions, she told me that they were different from what she was taking before they started doing bubble packs.

Which has been for at least five years.

I ended up taking one of her bubble packs out so we could look at them together. The “pink” pill she was talking about was actually orange. My mother’s eyesight is failing, so it’s not really a surprise that she sees colours differently, but she’s interpreting that as the pharmacy changing her meds.

As we went over what was in her bubble packs, I went through how the only change has been is the one pill that she’s taking twice a day instead of once a day. Then I talked about how different manufacturers might have slightly different colours or shapes (this was an issue in the past), but the important thing is the dose. The colour or shape of a pill doesn’t matter, as long as the dose is right.

We were in the middle of this when my brother arrived. While he went through to the kitchen with the food he’d brought, she started to tell him that he should look at the pills, because he’s the one that knows all about them.

…

My brother told her that no, I’m the one that knows the most about them now!

At one point, while I was again explaining to my mother about her medications and doses, etc. I realized my brother had started to record the conversation. Which would be a good thing, as it would be a record of how my mother can get.

It’s such a good thing her meds are kept in a lock box now. In the past, when she got it in her head the her meds were changed, she actually took her pills out of the bubbles and “sorted” them. I found the ones she had issue with a while back and had to take them to the pharmacy for disposal. There was at least 50 of these pills that she had stopped taking, because she thought they weren’t the same medication anymore.

Once her bubble packs were put away and my brother was taking the food out, I remembered seeing my mother’s water bottles were needing to be refilled. So I got my brother to pass them to me, then left for the tap her building has in the laundry room for drinking water (I think it’s softened water, but my mother can’t quite remember the explanation she was given to use that water for drinking, not her tap water).

When I came back, my mother was already at my brother.

It got…

Interesting.

In the end, what became clear is that my mother still has zero understanding of the thing she did a while back that stubbed my brother in the back, and the year. In fact, she doesn’t seem to remember what she’d done, and isn’t accepting that she is now facing the consequences of her own actions. She also seems to have forgotten that she has already prepaid for her own funeral, years ago – she basically accused us of planning to have her cremated, like the sons of an old neighbour of ours did when their mother passed. She was also going on about all the things my brother should be doing for her when she passes – things he will not have the legal authority to do, once again thanks to her own actions. She pulled every trick in the book. Guilt tripping. Gaslighting. Accusations. She even started calling herself and orphan, because we were trying to explain to her that she was asking for things that could not be done by my brother. She even brought our sister into it, and had some pretty unpleasant things to say about her!

It took some doing, but we eventually got her calmed down and to some semblance of understanding of how things were, not how she thought they were.

Meanwhile, my mother refused to eat the food my brother bought; not even a single piece of chicken. Because she had her Meals on Wheels (some time ago, by then). I ate only a bit, as did my brother, which meant my mother would have enough prepared food for herself, for at least a couple of days. Which is good, because Meals on Wheels is available only three days a week. She seems to be thinking that, because she gets those meals on those days, she shouldn’t need any other food for the rest of the week… because… she needs to slim down???

*sigh*

Finally, my brother said he had to leave, because he still had a long drive and needed to go to work tomorrow.

My mother immediately started to give him a hard time for leaving “so soon”.

*sigh*

I left at the same time and walked my brother to his car – then gave him a huge hug. I think he really needed it by then! He had come, expecting some sort of behaviour like this from my mother. The good thing is that I was there, which tempers her a bit. When he’s there on his own, she is much, much more difficult and downright abusive. I’ve flat out told her, she teats my brother terribly. Her response is always to justify her treat meant of him because she “gave him everything” by signing the farm over to him. She seems to have completely forgotten that this was done so that her will could not be contested by our vandal, and to take a burden off of her. Since my brother was already taking care of everything for her before then, she doesn’t even understand just how much of a burden it was.

*sigh*

No one has done more for my mother than my brother, and she has no understanding of that. Instead, she seems to actually hate him. It breaks my heart to see how much she is hurting him, and she has no clue. None.

*sigh* again.

After that, I was more than happy to come home and just decompress for a while. I still need to go out and water the garden; I’d gone out earlier, and it was still too hot to stay out for that long. I might not actually need to, though. We’re going from a high of 25C/77F – 28C/82F (depending on which app I checked) today, to a high of only 16C/61F tomorrow. Tonight’s low is supposed to be 15C/59F, but tomorrow’s low is supposed to drop to 7C/45F, and then down to 4C/39F the night after. On the weekend, we’re supposed to get a low down to 3C/37F, and then it’s supposed to warm up again. If the garden is going to have any chance to survive, we’re going to have to cover some things, even if there’s no frost.

This morning, I found and hand pollinated more winter squash. If I can find a way to cover that bed, they might survive the colder nights. It’s so unlikely, but I want to give them every possible chance to produce! As for the tomatoes, we’ll probably just have to pick whatever green tomatoes there are, and let them ripen indoors. Except the Spoon tomatoes. They’re so tiny, and have been nice and productive, we’ll probably just leave them be for the season.

We’ll see how it works out.

For now, I’m going to at least enjoy doing my rounds outside, get some fresh air, and get my brain space back to where it should be, instead of constantly going back to all the things my mother was saying today. Just writing about it here actually helps with that. Now that it’s “documented”, it’s easier to let it go.

I just really, really feel for my brother. He deserves so much better than this.

The Re-Farmer

Rescued! Also, I feel like an idiot.

August 30, 2025 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

What. A. Day.

I had a pretty sleepless night, with concerns about our foundling kittens. I kept checking the critter cam and had to chase out the raccoon family and a couple of skunks. The foundlings were set up in the carrier that has a lid in the roof, in hopes the mother, or one of the creche mothers, would go in to them, but none did. One of my daughters and I fed them kitten soup with a syringe again. They were very hungry, but it was a very messy way to feed the kittens! A couple of them preferred to either lick the food off my hands, or “nurse” on my hand while my daughter carefully squirted the food next to their mouths. Before returning a kitten to the sun room, I made sure to wipe down their bellies and tried to stimulate their neither regions, like a mother grooming them, with a cloth to get them able to eliminate.

The first picture is the kittens, after we found them yesterday, and the second is where we found them. Not the clearly visible mower on the right. We had to move that one out completely to reach the second one, barely visible on the left. That’s the one they were under!

With a couple of kittens preferring to lick at the food, we also place a small shallow plate in the carrier with them, in case they wanted to eat again during the night. It was empty by morning, but that could have been some other cat jumping in with them and eating it. When we fed them this morning, we left the plate with some food in it with them, again.

Meanwhile, I reached out to a stray cat group chat I normally just lurk on. After talking to the Cat Lady, I am a bit leery of being active on there.

I explained about the kittens, and that we had come to the conclusion that the mother is no more. I was hoping someone knew of anyone able to foster the kittens, as there’s no way we could keep up with the care they needed. Even just feeding them every 2 hours was not something we could manage, and we aren’t even in a position to bring them into the house. I estimated them to be about 3 weeks old but, after looking at some photos, came to the conclusion that they are less than 3 weeks old. Not by much, but definitely not more than 3 weeks.

After some discussion, my morning plans changed. I needed to go into town to pick up some refills for one of my husband’s injections. It was suggested I try the local branch of the humane society, so I looked up their hours. They had some very strange hours, but they were open today, for two hours starting at 8am, then again for two hours starting at 5pm. I left in time to get there just a few minutes past 8am…

… only to find a hand written sign saying they were closed for the “rest of” the day. “Rest of?” They hadn’t even opened at all!

So much for that.

My next stop was at the vet clinic to see if they had any kitten formula. They did, so I picked up a tin. Talking to the staff as I bought it, I got the names of two other rescues to try.

That done, I had half an hour before the pharmacy opened, so I made a stop at the grocery store to pick up a breakfast I could eat in the truck while waiting for the pharmacy to open their doors. My husband’s refill was already prepared, so that didn’t take long at all, and I was soon on my way home.

Throughout all this, I was updating various people, including the Cat Lady, keeping them up to day. One of the people on the stray rescue group started messaging me privately. She was in the city and ran a small cat rescue, and she told me that, if I couldn’t get through to any of the other places recommended to me, to let her know, as she would take them. As we were talking, I explained why we were in no position to give the kittens the level of care they needed. In the end, she told me to please bring them to her! All she asked was for me to include the formula for them, which I was more than happy to do.

I had not been home for long when that decision was made. I mixed up a small amount of formula and was going to feed them, before we worked out when I’d be heading out. The kittens were sleeping peacefully, though, so we skipped it for the time being. The kittens, however, were a real mess! They looked like they had taken a bath in the now empty plate of kitten soup!

When the time came to leave, I quickly grabbed a puppy pad to put between the kittens and the now messy cat bed that I’d put on the bottom of the carrier for them, then headed out.

I had my phone set up on the dash board holder with Google Maps giving me directions to where I needed to go in the city. I was almost at my mother’s town when my cell phone started to ring. I recognized the name as the woman from the group that had given us huge amounts of donated cat food last year. I should have been able to answer the call hands free, but it just wouldn’t work. I finally had to pull over and tried to talk more directly into the phone, but it still wouldn’t work. I could sometimes hear here talking, but couldn’t even turn on the speaker phone to hear her properly. All I could tell is that she was starting to get angry because I was … using up her minutes? Her battery? Something like that.

It was the Google Maps app that was messing up the call. I finally figured out how to stop it from trying to give me directions, even after I’d closed the app, and could finally talk to her on the phone.

She had called to tell me, don’t give the kittens to this women.

???

I asked why, of course.

She is overwhelmed. She takes on too many cats. She keeps asking for food donations. She was asking for ear mite medication. She had some cats with really bad ear mites… Her heart is in the right place, but…

Funny. When I was going to meet up with her about the donated cat food, I’d gotten a warning about her, too, saying “her heart is in the right place, but…”. In her case, though, her actions have gotten the province involved and resulted in colony cats being killed rather than rescued. To have her now “warn” me about this other woman with a rescue that said she would take the kittens was… intersting.

She again basically ordered me to not give the cats to this woman. I finally told her, I’m pulled over on the highway, on the way to the city, right now. Do you have somewhere else I can take them, or what? Because we are not in any position to care for such small kittens.

Oh, you’re doing a good job already…

She was making assumptions based on what I had been telling the group about what we were doing with the kittens. I did not, of course, tell them about other stuff, like the various disabilities and other health issues we are dealing with in this household.

When it became clear that I was going to this woman’s place anyhow, she seemed to get pretty angry at me again. She then told me to scope her very small house myself when I got there, and to only believe a quarter of anything she told me.

I thanked her for the warning, and continued on my way.

Thankfully, getting to her place was pretty straightforward. After parking as close to the house as I could, I messaged to let her know I was there, and what I was driving.

Which is when I saw the messages in the group chat, where the woman that called me was telling the woman I was about to meet that she should not take the kittens because she already had too many cats and had an ear mite issue. Both claims that she responded by saying it was already dealt with.

Before I could even get out of the truck, she was coming over with a box to transfer the kittens into.

She told me that she had already been to a dollar store and back to get puppy pads and other such supplies in preparation for the kittens – and she mentioned the woman that had told me not to bring the kittens! I told her that I had just read the conversation about it, and that I’d gotten a phone call, too. It turned out that the ear mite situation had already been addressed, and she was just looking for more meds to have on hang, in case she got more cats with ear mites again. The other issues had already been dealt with.

From all I could see, everything was looking fine. I had zero issues over turning the kittens over to her.

That done, I was soon back on the road and headed home.

By the time I parked the truck, I had received messages and photos. The kittens have been bathed, toileted, fed and set on a warming pad.

Here are the before and after pictures; the second one was sent by the women who took them in.

I took the first picture through the door of the carrier, after they were loaded into the truck. What a mess! that cat bed turned out to be just covered in spilled kitten soup.

The second picture is after they got bathed and fed, and there is a warming pad under the blanket they are on. She got all that taken care of so quickly!

Meanwhile, I’d kept the Cat Lady up to date. Once home, I let her know about the kerfuffle on the group chat and being ordered not to give the kittens to this person. The Cat Lady knew both of them and was honest in saying she didn’t trust either of them! It seems the cat rescue community if filled with all sorts of such antagonism.

No wonder she’s getting out of rescue.

The kittens, however, are now rescued and will be well cared for!

I am now more convinced that their mother was Brussel, though I’ve gone from about 10% certainty to maybe 25% certainty.

Note I say “was”. Once again, Brussel did not show up at feeding time today. By now, I don’t expect to see her again.

I was talking to my brother this evening and mentioned to him that, if I didn’t go outside, looking for a data signal during the power outage yesterday, I would not have heard the kitten crying. With no mother around, they probably would not have lasted long at all, and we would never had known there were even kittens in that old shed.

Serendipity, to be sure!

Speaking of my brother…

Not long after I got home, I got a message from my SIL, letting me know they were on their way out! I was not expecting to see them this weekend, but I guess their grandson was already returned home, and now they’re here.

My brother had a bunch of things he wanted to check out, including their riding mower that I told him I feared I’d broken, because it wouldn’t move anymore, though everything seemed to be fine about it.

Before I even realized they were here, my brother had already taken it out and checked it.

Then he wanted to check on my mother’s car, but it’s been sitting so long, the battery was almost completely dead, so he had to charge it, first. We parked it after I tried using it, and it started making a very alarming banging noise when I tried to drive it. I turned around and came right home, and it hasn’t moved since.

It also had a flat. I’d found it with two flat tires during at the end of the first winter it was parked. I used the compressor to pump them up and the rear tire has been fine, since, but the front tire was flat by morning, every time I pumped it up. So I eventually stopped.

Then there was the compressor itself, which had started to trip the breaker every time we used it. When that happened, I would have to get a daughter to come over with a small step latter to climb onto the counter against the back wall of the garage, to reach the breaker panel and switch it back on.

Today was a scorcher and I’d intended to water the garden this morning, but with all the kitten stuff, that never got done. I went out to water it last this afternoon, while my brother was checking and fixing things, and my SIL was already mowing the rest of the outer yard with their zero turn mower (which I won’t touch!).

When to got to where I was taking the hose to water the East garden beds, I suddenly realized my mother’s car was in the yard, as my brother hosed off the accumulated gravel dust it was covered with. I went over to talk to him and learned:

… the riding mower that wouldn’t go? Worked fine for him. He got it up on a ramp and checked under it and he found zero damage.

… the compressor was working fine. He’d even used it last weekend, with no issues.

… the banging noise I heard from my mother’s car? He found zero damage. There was nothing to make the noise. After charging the battery enough to start the engine, and pumping up the tire, the car was running fine. He was driving it around the inner and outer yard, leaving the engine running to keep charging the battery. No banging noises. Not troubles at all. We just have to make sure it’s plugged in, for the trickle charger.

… I told him why I’d stopped pumping the front tire and said it would be flat in the morning. He said that yes, it will be!

So there’s all these things that went wrong for us, but as soon as my brother checked on them, it was all working fine.

I told him afterwards, I feel like an idiot now.

He told me, that’s just how it is with him. Even at his work, it’s the same thing, People have troubles with something, he comes over to try and fix it, and there’s nothing to fix. Things just start working again for him, all the time!

So it’s not just me… 😄

I still feel like an idiot. All this time, and we could have had access to my mother’s car.

Well.

Not really.

Now that we have the truck payments, we don’t have a budget to pay for the insurance on two vehicles anymore, not to mention the extra gas. The insurance for my mother’s car, however, is just suspended, not cancelled. If we need to, we could get it active again, even if for just a short time.

Not until that tire is replaced, though.

Which means that we will still be needing the courtesy vehicle while our truck’s box frame is being repaired and the new cover installed, at the end of September.

So we almost have a back up vehicle…

Meanwhile, not only did today turn out to be another 30C/86F day, but tomorrow is expected to be even hotter. Tomorrow, I will do what I intended to do today; water the garden early in the morning, then again in the evening. Today, I used the rain barrel to water the old kitchen garden. The poor eggplants were seriously drooping in the heat! That garden got ambient temperature water, and I drained the barrel as much as I could, watering, watering and watering again! I got the other garden areas done with the hose. I even did the fruit trees and berry bushes. Everything was just so, so dry.

We’ve got just a few more hot days, and then it’s supposed to drop right down, and I’ll likely have to cover the more sensitive plants in the garden at night, in less than a week!

As for right now, I am so very tired. Hopefully, I will get a good night’s sleep tonight, now that I’m not concerned about the foundling kittens!

The Re-Farmer

Energy levels, low. Heat tolerance, lower!

June 29, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

My tolerance for heat as I get older is really, really dropping. Today was even cooler than yesterday, but I’m still feeling it!

We hit 26C/79F by this afternoon, and the temperature just does not want to drop. We are currently under weather advisories for possible funnel cloud development that specifically includes our municipality.

I don’t expect any in our area.

Last night, I did have an lovely visit with my brother and SIL. As I was walking over to their trailer, I discovered I was being watched.

Two of the possibly four feral kittens in the outer yard. Just look as those adorable little mouths!

Hopefully, they will get used to coming into the safety and security of the inner yard, and we can start socializing them.

I got to bed late. That nap did mess up my sleep cycle, but it was not the only thing. I did finally put together my June garden tour video, using clips I recorded on the 21st. I was so tired, though, I left it and will go over it again before I upload it.

With the heat, I’ve got a couple of fans going, including one aimed to blow air into the hallway from across the room. Which meant keeping my door open for the night.

Poor Butterscotch. At one point, I was sitting at the edge of my bed, spray bottle in hand, watching over her while she ate. For some reason, we have a couple of cats that will basically go after her, on sight. I just don’t get it.

In the end, it was more like I got a couple of short naps during the night. I was up early, though it was so bright out, it felt late. I was able to get all the garden beds watered, along with the trees we’ve planted, both in the future food forest and the outer yard.

I am so glad I pruned away those ornamental crab apple branches in the old kitchen garden, yesterday. My little herb bed was actually getting sunlight this morning!

Once the watering was done, I was going to lie down for about an hour and a half, then head into town in the afternoon. The tightener on the new clothes line started to slip while my daughter was hanging laundry on it. I wanted to go to a hardware store and pick up a metal one.

Well, that didn’t work out.

First was the realization that I forgot to eat breakfast. I clued in when I started feeling nauseous and dizzy, while lying down. So I made a couple of quick sandwiches, then tried to lie down again. Which is when the messages and notifications started coming in like crazy. I finally gave up and got up.

Not that I’m complaining. Some of those messages were from my SIL. My mother has been calling and leaving messages with my brother about something important she wanted to talk to him about, but any time he tried to call back, it was telephone tag. So he was going to take her out for lunch, thinking she would probably go to church, which is just across the street from her building. They were wondering if I wanted to come along, too. My SIL will no longer go there, after my mother declared she was just my brother’s wife, not family. My SIL has been nothing but kind to my mother, has defended her and stood up for her, without making excuses for her behaviour, many times. Yet my mother repaid her kindness with verbal abuse. It took many, many years, but my mother finally managed to drive her way. My SIL still defends my mother and stands up for her, when things call for it, but will no longer go there unless absolutely necessary – and only if someone else, like me, is there.

Knowing how my mother treats my brother, and that she behaves better when I’m there, too, I quite happily said I would come along. I remembered that I wanted to go to the hardware store, too, and my brother was willing to stop at the one in my mother’s town. It wasn’t until we were driving in that I remembered they close on Sundays.

Also, according to their car’s Siri, my mother’s town does not exist, and there are no hardware stores there at all.

???

My brother called Mom just before we got there. My mother had not made it to church, and someone had just finished coming over to give her Communion. So our timing was good.

Once there, my brother wanted us to go to the restaurant right away, but my mother kept stalling. The very important thing she wanted to talk to my brother about was an article she read in Women’s magazine, that the social workers leave copies of with her. The article was about US money, 401Ks, and banking, and about people finding lost bank accounts with money in them. She then dug out a letter that was sent to her back in 1971.

Yes, more than 50 years ago.

It was from a bank.

It seems that when her father died, her mother put some money in the bank for my mother. An inheritance of some kind. My mother didn’t understand the letter or know what to do about it, with her limited English of the time period. So she kept the letter, but never responded. The article reminded her of it.

She has no idea how much was deposited in the account. However, this is Canada. What probably happened is that they kept charging fees on the account before shutting it down as inactive. Or, if it’s still open, she probably owes them money, instead.

Neither of us bothered to try and explain any of that to her. She could not have understood, and it would have just made her upset. However, I recently had a conversation with her, trying to explain compound interest. She’s had a GIC for decades and every year, she would remove the interest earned to put into her regular bank account, so the amount never changed. I’d used a compound interest calculator with hypothetical amounts in it and, using 70 years (the minimum I’m sure of that she’s had such a saving’s account) and only 1% interest. The end result was over $23 million.

So then she read this article and now might be thinking something like this has happened. Which is highly unlikely.

My brother, having PoA, promised to look it up for her. Which is going to be a real pain. It has taken him months to prove he has PoA to various institutions. Plus, in the letter, my mother’s surname is spelled wrong.

Even bringing up the spelling mistake on her name, which my mother never noticed, was more than my mother could grasp as a potential problem. For all we know, that bank doesn’t even have a branch in that northern city anymore.

It was really difficult and confusing to get to the point of what my mother wanted. She kept trying to explain things and going off in different directions. Finally, my brother insisted we start heading out, because he was hungry.

My mother actually tried to get out of it, because of how hard it is for her to move. She had both of us to help her, though, so we did manage to get her to my brother’s car and off to her favourite chicken restaurant.

Before we even got there, she let us know she wanted pizza, not chicken. This place does have good pizza! My brother was surprised, though, as he always gets her chicken. She’s only ever ordered pizza when she’s gone out with me.

When ordering, my brother suggested she get a larger pizza, so she could take some home for later, which she was good with. My brother and I ordered chicken dinners and I ordered fries with mine. I’m not a big fan of fries, by my mother likes them, so I just ate a few and left the rest for my mother.

My mother turned out to be very, very hungry! For all her complaining and not wanting to go out, she very happily scarfed down half her pizza – and was more than happy to accept my fries to take home, too! So she will have supper tonight, at the very least, without having to do any cooking.

The conversation got strange at times. She asked us what we planned to do for Canada Day. It’s on a Tuesday this year. Neither of us have plans, and my mother started to complain about how there isn’t much happening and no one cares anymore. Basically, if she wasn’t aware of planned celebrations, they aren’t happening, and she was making up motivations for it. My brother pointed out that the town closer to us is having fireworks over the lake. They always do it over the lake, so there’s no chance of starting any forest fires.

Well, that got my mother going. She started blaming all the fires on “those people”, then started going on about how, in Europe, they take care of their forests and preserve their forests, and Canada is better than Europe, has more resources, so we could do better. She actually said that, if people weren’t out there setting fires, there would be no forest fires at all.

I finally brought up a map of Canada’s Boreal forest to show her, trying to give her a visual about how the forests in Europe are absolutely tiny compared to Canada – I think our boreal forest itself is bigger than all of Europe. Plus, they have a lot more people, closer together. They can do forest management that is impossible here in Canada.

She was too busy being impressed that I could use my phone to show her a map of the boreal forest in Canada, to get the point I was trying to make.

We managed to change the subject when she started to throw increasingly racist comments, only vaguely connected to the topic at hand.

In general, though, it all went rather well, and she really enjoyed her meal.

Once we got her home, my brother wanted to leave fairly quickly, as he still had things he wanted to get done around their trailer before they have to go back to the city. We did not mention that they were out here, as that would have triggered all sorts of conspiratorial type assumptions on her part. She did start to talk about the farm and get really agitated, asking my brother to promise to never sell the farm after she’s gone. Something she’s asked – demanded – of him, many times. She started going on about how she and my dad had worked so hard there and built it up and she didn’t want all that work to be “wasted” by being sold. My brother tried to point out to her what was already there when they bought the property. They even got a small herd of cows and a couple of horses included, though my dad modernized to using tractors instead of horses. My mother was all excited about all that, not understanding the point my brother tried to make. It was not just our family that built up this farm. It was another family, that sold it into ours. Even then, when my dad’s uncle owned it, it was really his wife that ran things, as she was part of the family that owned it before. Basically, what she’s doing is like the previous family that owned it, trying to tell my parents what they could or couldn’t do with the land.

At one point, we tried to remind her that the reason my brother has the property now is because of the trouble our vandal was causing. She actually tried to say, he’s got nothing to do with it. I happened to be facing my brother to see his jaw drop and his eyes practically pop out of his heat. Our vandal had everything to do with it! I tried to rephrase it so she could understand what we were trying to say – we were literally agreeing with her on most points – when she said, he (or vandal) didn’t own it, she did (at the time), so he was not part of it.

The irony of her saying that was completely lost on her. She doesn’t own it anymore, either, but still wants control. My poor brother is now saddled with this money pit, and she thinks she’s “given” him something that is worth soooooo much. There was no way to explain things to her, and she was getting really worked up, so we had to calm her down before we could say our good-byes. My mother keeps saying, she isn’t going to be with us much longer (I swear, she’s going to outlive us all!) and is obsessed with what’s going to happen with her possessions when she’s gone, and with the farm.

I am really glad I went along. My brother is a much better person than I am, and she can still hurt him. Badly. Which she does often. I can be a sort of buffer for him, and a sounding board for later, when he needs to vent.

By the time we got back to the farm, it was the hottest part of the day and staying there. I was falling asleep on my feet, so I finally had a chance to lie down for a bit, setting my timer for half an hour.

Then adding another half hour.

I finally managed to de-cat myself and get up – Fenrir did NOT want to get off my hip! – but I’ve been barely functional, since. I ended up getting the girls to do the outside cat feeding. When it cools down a bit, I will head outside to do the rest of the evening rounds. I still extremely sleepy – I’ve dozed off while writing this, several times now! I hope to actually get sleep tonight. Tomorrow, we’re finally going to do our Costco shopping! It’s the day before Canada Day, so it’s going to be insane, but maybe not so bad, if I leave early enough.

This heat is sucking the energy right out of me, and it’s not even that hot out (relatively speaking).

The Re-Farmer

Hello and goodbye!

June 27, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

So today ended up way longer than originally expected. But the, I originally didn’t have anything outside of home planned for today at all. I even offered it up as my one day that I could do my mother’s grocery shopping for her this year, and she said no, so I expected to have another day to work outside.

Then I got the call from home care last night, saying there was no one to do a med assist for this morning, so that got added on. When I called my mother to let her know, she told me she had a grocery list started, so that got added on. Then I was in contact with the rescue that would be taking Poirot’s orphan babies, and that got added on, which would get combined with a trip into town to refill our water jobs.

I still expected to get things done at home.

Ha!

First off, my body let me know in no uncertain terms, I needed to back off. While sitting at my computer shortly before going to bed last night, I got hit with another Charlie horse. This time, the back of my right thigh. I managed to stand up and grab the tube of tei fu lotion, then stagger over to my husband’s room. My husband, darling that he is, caught on as soon as he saw my face, what was going on. Even with his door closed, so I could draw my drawers for him to work the lotion into my leg, my older daughter could hear me and came dashing over as fast as she could so see if I needed help. So she was able to assist me with getting around and eventually to bed.

So… definitely not a day to overdo things, today!

I found myself up at 5am, though, and unable to get back to sleep, so I did my morning rounds pretty early. The outside cats were quite happy with that. I got kitten food bowls set up on the kitchen floor before I headed out with the dry kibble and had a whole row of kittens already ready and waiting at the door, and went straight to the kibble!

While doling out the dry kibble, I had a little fuzzy surprise at the shrine!

Two, actually, but one ran off immediately.

Sitting on the box nest was a little orange baby. The one that ran away looked to be a tortie, but it was such a short glimpse, it was hard to be sure. The orange one ran off a short distance when I came to put kibble in the bowls. As I came around later, I found a white and grey, too!

From what I could see, the orange kitten and the possible tortie are Sprout’s babies, and the white and grey matches the feral mama with no name. They have finally brought their babies to the yard!

When I started setting out the containers with cat soup, I made sure to leave one under the shrine for the newbies. Later on, I saw both cats and mamas – and very round soon to be mamas *sigh* – enjoying it. Lady Hypotenose and Ink are both heavily pregnant now.

*sigh*

After the cats were fed, I did the rest of the morning rounds, and made sure to grab a carrier for Poirot’s littles.

Then it was time to head over to my mother’s for her med assist that home care wasn’t able to do this morning. I got there a bit earlier than they had her scheduled for. When I walked in, though, the first thing I saw was a laundry basket.

Her time slot on the shared laundry calendar is for Friday afternoon, not the morning.

Thankfully, the unit’s marked in for the morning were not using the laundry room today!

There was also a bouquet of artificial flowers. When she’d gone to the cemetery with my sister to leave fresh artificial flowers and family gravesites, they didn’t have enough, so her mother’s gravesite didn’t get any. My sister got more flowers and left them with my mother, and could I put those in the cemetery for her?

Thankfully, it was very much on the way for us, but I’ll get to that, later.

While doing my mother’s meds, she gave me the usual hard time about how I’m doing it instead of them. She’s angry at home care for calling me to do her meds, but she takes her anger out on me. Then she demanded I leave out her other two meds of the day, because on the assumption no one was going to show up for her two evening med assists. Which I refused to do.

I was able to get her to focus on her shopping list, though, and went over that before heading out. I was going to start her two loads laundry (there are only 2 washers and 2 driers for the entire building. It’s a small building) before I left when she told me there was something written on one of the machines she couldn’t understand. It turned out to be a hand written note saying the machine wasn’t working, and what it was doing that it shouldn’t, and that it was going to be replaced.

So that doubled the time for her washing.

*sigh*

Today’s errands included a stop at the pharmacy for a couple of things. She had called them about her refills and was told they weren’t ready, so she arranged delivery for Monday. Which is her last day of meds in the bubble packs. Her inhaler was also out, so she as getting a refill on that, too. So once at the pharmacy, I checked if her meds were ready first, just in case. The bubble packs weren’t, but her inhaler was. Since she was out completely, I decided to take that.

That little thing cost almost $200!!!

I paid for it myself, since that was more than all the cash she gave me for her shopping – and it was more than enough for the day’s needs. I made sure to call her before I went to the grocery store to let her know, so she wouldn’t be surprised by it when I got back with her stuff. She got all angry because it was supposed to be delivered on Monday, and why did I pick it up?

…

I told her, because you’re out completely! This way, she would have it for her last med assist of the day.

She was still upset even when I got back with her groceries. I think it was partly because she was going to pay me back with cash, and she’s been increasingly weird about that. After I put everything away, she started digging through her purse when I suggested a check, so I could do a mobile deposit rather than driving to the nearer city to deposit it, and she could hang on to her cash. She was quite happy with that suggestion.

So I stayed around for the next while, waiting on the one laundry machine to be done. As we were talking, things went back to the homecare situation. I ended up calling the case coordinator and, much to my surprise, actually got her instead of a machine! 😄 I let her know about the missed meds yesterday morning. She looked up my mother’s file, and there were no notations for that time slot. They’ve got some new people – but were still short staffed for this morning! The person that was on the printed out schedule they leave for my mother, with the names for each time slot, was not supposed to come that morning. A new person was. There were other issues related to the staffing changes, including shift confusion that lead to my mother having someone show up twice in the mornings.

After the call, my mother had her usual unfortunate things to say about the case coordinator, and the home care workers. She can’t understand that the case coordinator is not the shift scheduler, and they don’t all magically know everything about her file, including things they were not told by the home care aides!

*sigh*

Because of the broken down washing machine, I was still there when my mother’s Meals on Wheels was delivered. I used that time to go back to the laundry room, where I could fold things, though I didn’t have time to put them away.

Once the laundry was brought in, I soon made my goodbyes. My mother must have been seriously tired, because she made no effort to get me to stay!

From there, I headed home, but was soon heading out again, this time with my daughter and Poirot’s kittens in the carrier.

I’d been messaging my contact at the large animal rescue about the times, but they hadn’t seen the most recent one. My messages weren’t even being seen at that point. We brought the kittens, anyhow and swung by on our way out. My contact took the kittens, but not before I was able to get one last picture.

When we got there, they were in the middle of unloading a horse, so we didn’t stay long.

I’m going to miss those babies!

Our first stop after that was the local cemetery to take care of the flowers for my grandmother. Then we visited other family members laid to rest there. I noticed that my aunt and uncle did not have any flowers at all. My daughter ended up making a little bouquet of wildflowers she found nearby for them. That was very sweet of her!

From there, we went to the cemetery my MIL is buried in. We had tried to go there, at my FIL’s request, as he physically cannot visit the gravesite anymore, but never found the stone. My daughter had accompanied my husband to the funeral as his mobility assistant, but she was so sick that day, she barely remembered anything, never mind where it was. What we did find was a sign saying that, due to flooding that spring, some of the stones were damaged, so they had been removed for repair and would be returned another time. We figured that’s what happened to her stone!

So this time, we expected to be able to find it.

We didn’t.

I finally messaged my husband, asking if he could remember, and he gave me an area that I’d already gone through. Then he messaged her exact plot coordinates.

I had walked right past it and never saw it! It’s a very low profile stone, but I’d actually noticed the one next to it, because of the interesting solar lights around it.

My daughter stayed by the stone while I went back for the truck, which was parked at the opposite end of the cemetery!

We had brought a solar powers light up cross along with the flowers and vase we’d picked up and made up a pretty bouquet. While we did select the heaviest vase available, it was clearly not going to be heavy enough to stay upright with flowers in it. So we went into town to a dollar store – the only place that would have was we were looking for – and got several bags of decorative glass beads to weight it down. My daughter thought the bouquet was looking a bit sparse, so she looked at the floral display while I headed over to another section. I picked up a set of solar powered fairy lights, while my daughter got some greenery, then back to the cemetery we went.

Where we found the vase already fallen over!

Not broken, thankfully.

I helped my daughter with redoing the whole thing, as she added the fairy light string into the vase, then added some of the decorative glass beads, and kept on going. The light string was long enough for plenty to be inside the vase, and still have enough to be wrapped around the bouquet, as the pieces were put back in.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t test it, even to see if we had turned it on or not. It had a mode setting, too, but the solar charged batteries needed much more time before we could test it out. We’ll just have to come back later, when it’s darker and the batteries have had time to charge.

My daughter did a great job making it all look pretty.

At this point, I was realized I hadn’t eaten anything since my very early breakfast – and my daughter hasn’t eaten at all – so back into town we went, this time to get something to eat! Meanwhile, my husband had messaged me with a request, which meant going to a store across the street from where we eat.

Then, finally, we could get the water bottle refills we’d gone into town to do in the first place!

That done, we could finally heat home, with only a brief stop at the rescue to retrieve our carrier. The rescue is officially open to the public this weekend, so they were really busy, and we didn’t get a chance to see them where they were set up for now.

By the time we got home, it was well past time for the outside cats to be fed again. Once we were unloaded by the house, I went to do that, and was able to distract cats away from the truck so my daughter could park it. Sir Robin likes to run under the truck!

Once again, I made sure to leave a bowl with the cat soup under the shrine for the new kittens, though I when I finally did see one, it was just the orange one.

Around this time, I got a message from my brother and SIL, letting us know they were on their way here, to spend the weekend in their trailer.

With the new kittens in mind, I sort of skipped my evening rounds and instead focused on getting the isolation shelter out for cleaning. The plastic around the bottom for winterizing was removed, along with everything inside it, so I could start hosing it down. When building it, I tried my best to have it open and accessible enough to reach inside for cleaning. Some corners are still had to get to.

I was still working on that when my brother and SIL arrived. They had lots to set up so, I left them to it.

The isolation shelter is now set up near the shrine and catio. What I’m hoping is that the new kittens will discover it as a place with food and water and shelter (the beds and cat blankets were hosed down and will be returned later). Which would make it far easier to catch them, if necessary!

Once my brother and SIL had settled in, and I popped over for a good, long visit. While I try to keep them up to date with messages, when it comes to my mother, some things just need to be talked about in person. Especially with some of the things she sometimes says. It’s a good thing we keep the lines of communication between us as much as we do, because my mother has a habit of saying different things to each of us, and trying to play us against each other.

By the time I headed back to the house, it was starting to get dark. The yard light is nice and bright, though, so I could see where I was going…

… and activity in the grass!

Yes, I saw kittens.

There are at least four of them in total, and one of them appears to be a calico.

I get the impression Sprout and the other feral mama have been co-parenting the litters together, too.

Well, I hope they discover the cat isolation shelter.

Tomorrow, I was expecting to do our Costco shopping, but my younger daughter is dealing with a lot of pain right now and wouldn’t be able to come along to help me. My arm is much better today, but clambering in and out of the back of the truck would certainly not be a good idea! With the stock up trip we’ve already done, we can get away with waiting until Monday. That’s the day before Canada Day, so Costco will likely be insanely busy. We’ll deal!

Which means that tomorrow, I get to stay home. One of the things I want to do is set up a fresh litter box and clean cat beds inside the isolation shelter. I spotted Ink dashing around in a way that made me think she’s looking for somewhere to have her babies. If I can set up a nice, cozy “nest” for her in the isolation shelter, that would be idea! Well, not as ideal as having them in the sun room, but she’s too feral for that, I think.

We said goodbye to three kittens today – and said hello to at least four, by the end of the day.

I’m hoping things work out with this other rescue, with the one that’s been helping us shutting down, soon, and that Poirot’s babies will get lots of love and attention, and get adopted soon!

We shall see how it works out!

The Re-Farmer

Finally! Rain! or not…

June 22, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Plus an adorable photo shoot.

My daughter was able to get the most adorable Eyelet pictures when she joined me for the evening walkabout.

Eyelet really loves to be carried and cuddled. So does Sir Robin.

Now for the boring stuff.

I’m happy to say my left arm did rather well during the night. I was pro-active on the pain killers and getting my husband to rub the joints with the Voltaren cream, from my hand to my neck. Oddly, it was less painful on my arm to sleep on my left side, which seems rather backwards. I wasn’t going to complain, though.

All day, I was practically crawling out of my skin, wanting to do stuff. It was a gorgeously cool day out, and it would have been perfect for so many jobs that need to be done around the garden beds and yards. I kept having to stop myself. I had to get my older daughter to do most of the work with feeding the outside cats; basically, I passed the kitten food bowls out to her. I didn’t do my full rounds, but we did walk around the garden beds closer to the house.

I’m glad we did because, as we were in the old kitchen garden, she spotted something odd about the pink rose bush. The stems, in between all those thorns, were covered with little bumps. They were the same colour as the stems, so I didn’t really see them, but she realized they were bugs.

There were so many of them, the rose bush was starting to droop, and the roses that have started to open were showing browned edges on their petals.

We weren’t too sure what to do about it but, just to start, we got the spray bottle of soapy water and sprayed it down.

It was still quite early when we headed back inside, so I tried to lie down again.

That didn’t work.

I finally realized I was getting light headed, so I got up and made myself something to eat. While I was doing that, I started getting some messages from my SIL. I knew my brother was coming out today, so she said she’d find out when he planned to be here.

He already was.

He went into ninja stealth mode and left without her even hearing him – then got here shortly after my daughter and I came in, so we never saw him drive in! He parks by their trailer, which is blocked from our view by trees.

As soon as I could, I headed out to say hello. He was still unloading from his car and hadn’t have breakfast himself, yet, so once everything was in, we chatted in their trailer for a while, as he ate. It gave him a chance to show me the new security camera he picked up for the gate, along with a wi-fi booster.

Over the next while, he plans to do here what he used to have at their house that they sold; add security cameras all over the place. The main thing, though, is the main gate and driveway, since that’s been our vandal’s primary trigger for rage and vandalism. Now that they have so much of their equipment here, our vandal can see bits and pieces of it from the road, and it’s driving him bonkers that he can’t come onto the property to see what’s going on and help himself to things. So I’m quite content with my brother wanting to set up more security cameras!

My brother had lots to do, though, so as soon as he was done eating, I left him to it.

I did head back out and harvested some things from the garden and put them together in an insulated bag for my brother to take home. I finally harvested the garlic scapes, so there was plenty for them, as well. I was also able to pick a couple of turnips, lettuce and chives, with blossoms for them. My younger daughter had cleaned up and smoothed out the stuff she made in her blacksmithing workshop. She set aside her two best ones as a thankyou gift for my brother and SIL for the gifts of that workshop, and I was able to add that in, too.

My brother wasn’t at his trailer, though, so I left it on the step for later and headed back in.

Which is when I got the phone call.

From home care.

*sigh*

Yup. For the third day in a row, no med assist for my mother. Yesterday (Saturday), it was the two evening visits, which get done by the same person. The day before, it was the morning visit. Today, it was the evening visit again.

During our family chat about how things went with my mother, my brother said he was planning to visit my mother, so if it happened again, he could take care of the med assist. Which is great, but I really wasn’t expecting us to have to cover med assists, three days in a row! Yes, we’ve had that happen before, but what was because someone was sick. These visits were all different people.

Before calling my mother, I went to talk to my brother. He wasn’t sure if he would be finished before her first scheduled visit – he had a lot he needed to do before the predicted rain hit. So when I called her, I told her that it might be either me or my brother, but one of us was going to cover her med assist tonight.

My mother wasn’t impressed (none of us are). The weird thing is, she got a double visit on Saturday morning. She had mentioned it to me while I was getting her supper meds out. The last time she said this happened, when the second person came in, my mother said she’d already taken her morning pills – but her morning pills were still in the bubble pack. So I checked, and that was not the case this time, and promptly forgot about it with all the other stuff going on.

As we talked on the phone, my mother was able to tell me when they’d showed up and who they were, though she can’t quite remember the name of the second person.

Then she told me about the 17th, and things got confusing. I thought she was still talking about her double visit, but it was about something else entirely. She said that someone had given her her meds for the 18th instead of the 17th.

???

So she kept her morning meds from the 18th, and stashed them away for the next time no one shows up in the morning.

???????

What I was finally able to get from her is that, when the second person came in for her med assist on the 17th, she noticed a mistake the morning person had made in the form they have to fill out. She had marked the date as the 18th, when it was the 17th.

Which my mother has concluded means that she got the wrong day’s medications. Or something. She’s been furious at me or the home care workers for not giving her the medication from the days that that were missed for some reason, so it’s not really getting the medications from the “wrong” day that bothers her. Basically, she thinks her medications were messed up, even though it was just the date that was wrong.

So when she got her morning medications on the 18th, she didn’t take them, and the home care aid left without making sure she took them.

She then started going on about how we are worried about her messing up her meds (she did that quite a bit), meanwhile the home care workers were the ones messing up her meds…. Except they didn’t. Someone just wrote down the wrong date in their form.

A lot of this was new to me, so I couldn’t get into it too much with my mother at the time. I needed to get off the phone and write it down, while I still remembered the details!

So all that got passed on to my family.

None of us is happy, and my SIL is planning to write a letter to the provincial government, which runs the home care system, about it. I don’t expect that to make any difference. This sort of thing has been going on for as long as the system has been around.

That taken care of, I spent some time doing some research, then tended to a rose bush. From what I could find, the first recommendation for dealing with scale is to prune away the infected branches. Which would cut away too much of the bush. We can cut it back severely in the fall, and it’ll come back, but not this early in the spring.

We don’t have anything like Neem oil or other suggested sprays, but one site I looked at mentioned dish detergent.

Well, we already started that.

A few other options came up that were not of any use to us, but apparently, using an old tooth brush to take them off can work.

So that’s why I tried.

I then spent the next while searching the rose bush, wetting it down with the soapy water, and using a tooth brush to get rid of the scale. This rose bush is a mass of short thorns, so I used a scrap of rigid foam insulation to stabilize the sections I was working on. The thorns could get pressed into the foam and stay in place, while also protecting my fingers from being ripped to shreds!

Once I got them all (that I could tell), I sprayed it down with a hose, then gave it another dousing with the soapy water.

I’m hoping this actually works.

The other thing we need to do is get that ornamental crab apple tree cut back. Sunlight is another thing to help prevent scale!

While all this was going on, I could hear the sounds of power tools being used. My brother had installed a post near the stand I have our trail cam on. He told me he was going to put in a post, and I was thinking “fence post”. Instead, he dug out a 4×4 post from some of their lumber that they brought over before the house sale, and set that in.

The camera is something like 10 feet off the ground.

He even added a few extras, some decorative, some practical – like a little roof over the camera to keep snow from building up on it. The camera itself is solar powered, and the solar panel could be mounted separately from the camera, unlike my solar powered trail cam, which can just pivot slightly to get a different angle. The solar panel is now mounted at the top of that 10′ or so post.

Which means we don’t need to have our trail cam at the gate anymore!

I’m thinking we can move it to record the cat shelters. I want to see how many “visitors” we get (as I have the critter cam up and have used it to chase out a racoon).

But not now, when I can only use one arm!

My brother was rushing to get things done before the rain started, but the rain wasn’t starting. I kept getting weather warnings on my phone about how, the rain will stop in about half an hour, or the rain will start at… but at most, we got spit on a bit.

Which was driving me nuts, because the garden needs to be watered, but I didn’t do it because we were expecting rain. In fact, we were supposed to get rain from about 1pm to about 2 or 3am!

We didn’t.

Later on, when my daughter and I were walking around with Eyelet, it did start to finally rain…

…only for it to stop soon after we got back inside.

I’ve just been itching to get outside, and watering is really about as much as my arm can handle right now.

Currently, we’re now expecting to get a thunderstorm between 7 and 9 this evening. It’s past 6:30 as I write this, and I see now sign of a storm. All of that seems to be passing to the south of us.

I did manage to finally try out those biscuit mixes I picked up at the dollar store. I ended up using two of the four packets. With the first one, I added a lonely piece of Prosciutto, chopped fine, and a garlic scape, also chopped fine. It was so fast, while the first batch was in the oven, I got another one going – this time with cheese to go with the garlic scape – waiting to add the water at the last minute.

I got enough biscuits out of the packages that I was able to bring a bunch to my brother. He was using the big riding mower, trying to clear the tall grass closer to his equipment, and could neither see nor hear me, so I just tucked it into the trailer for him.

When we did finally connect, he told me which app I needed to download and what I needed to be able to log on.

By then, he really had to hurry to finish and get to my mother’s. There was lots more he wanted to do, but they have decided they will come back next weekend – both of them – and stay the weekend to catch up. My brother was telling me what he really wants to do is to stay here, full time, for 6 months so he can get things done.

I’m practically swooning at the though. There is SO much we simply can’t get done, but he can, he has the equipment for it, and if he doesn’t, he has the ability to get it. With the stuff we’ve got going right now, we’re barely treading water and going into debt to pay for necessary repairs. Stuff like this is why we have credit in the first place, but to have so many things expensive things needing to be done, all at once, is good at all.

Well, we’ll see how things go. While I was at my mother’s, yesterday, she started talking about how she’ll pay to get her car fixed up. Which is great, but we can no longer afford to keep two vehicles insured at the same time. Our insurance has actually gone down, thanks to my excellent driving record (which will not be affected by our insurance claim due to wind damage), but everything else just keeps going up and up and up. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind selling the car, so we can use the space it’s in, in the garage. My brother thinks he can fix it.

Ah, well.

My brother is probably still at her place as I write this. He always goes over her banking with her in detail, leaving the printouts for her, all of which she promptly forgets as she throws away the printouts. She’ll keep some political party donation request letter from 5 years ago, but she won’t keep last month’s bank statements. Which is really, really frustrating for my brother!

Meanwhile, I’ve tried to log into the new security camera, and it says it’s offline, so I think I should go check on it.

Tomorrow, my husband has an appointment at the new pain clinic that’s closer to us. I think my arm will be fine for driving, but I might have issues getting his walker in and out of the truck!

Hmm. According to my weather app, it’s raining right now.

It isn’t.

I should ask my daughters to water the garden while we’re gone. Tomorrow is supposed to be a lovely, cooler day, but no rain.

Well, what we get, we get. Not much we can do about it.

*sigh*

It sure was great to see my brother, though, and we can look forward to seeing them both, next weekend! Yay!

Meanwhile, time for some more painkillers, then one last walkabout outside… and maybe cuddle a few kittens in the process.

The Re-Farmer

Productive!

May 24, 2025 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Wow. It’s amazing how much can get done in a day, when I can actually stay home for the entire day. Thanks to my daughter doing the mowing yesterday, I could actually focus on the garden! I got enough done that I will actually break it up into several posts.

For now, though, the cuteness!

I had a surprise, yet not surprise, when I went into the sun room to start feeding the yard cats.

After all our attempts to get Poirot and her babies into the cat cage, giving up and upgrading her carrier nest to a larger carrier she seemed happy with, she moved her babies.

Into the cat cage!

Which I was really, really happy to see. They will be much safer there, as they become more active.

In a way, I wasn’t surprised that she moved them, though. When I set up the larger carrier for her, I made a nice bed inside with puppy pads. The past couple of mornings, though, I’ve noticed they were really messed up. I tried straightening them out in the front, over the frozen water bottle I’d tucked into the entry to help cool things down, but realized it was completely bunched up. The kittens were lying on the hard bottom. The puppy pad looked like it had been dug at and pulled from the outside. Which suggested that other cats, or even a skunk or a racoon, had gotten up there and was trying to find a stray piece of kibble or something. At least, that’s my theory.

Whatever her reason, though, Poirot put her babies into the nice, soft cat bed in the cat cage. I was even finding her enjoying her space on the blanket in the other cube, where she could still keep a close eye on her little grublings.

Today was a great day to be outside. Our expected high was 19C/66F, we did actually pass that by a degree or two, depending on which app I look at. We reached our high in the early afternoon, and are only just now, at barely past 7pm, starting to cool down ever so slightly. This morning, however, we had a low of only 3C/37F, and tonight we’re expected to drop to 5C/41F. The highs for the next few days are supposed to keep getting hotter each day, so I was glad to be able to get as much done outside today as I did!

While it was still cool this morning, I refilled the leaking rain barrel and, while that was filling, watered the new transplants, as well as the mulberry, sea buckthorn and highbush cranberry. I don’t water the silver buffaloberry, mostly because there are so many of them, and they look like they are doing just fine as they are.

I did some other watering in the main garden area, before pausing to have breakfast, then getting to work on planting and bed preparation. That area gets full sun, so it didn’t take long to start feeling way too hot!

My brother and his wife came by later in the afternoon, so I used that as an excuse to take a hydration break and say high. My brother had a lot of stuff he wanted to get done, though, and I had to get back to the garden, so I left them to it.

One thing about my brother bringing all his equipment out here is that there are some big jobs that can now get done. My SIL took one of those on and has been using their big riding mower to do the outer yard, including the completely overgrown area where the Korean Pine and walnut trees are (though we still have to plant the rest of the seeds). I headed out to see after I finished in the garden, and am just blown away. This is one of the areas I gave up on trying to keep mowed because it was so rough, and I got tired of breaking lawnmowers.

What a difference having the right equipment makes!

We’ve been using their smaller riding mower, and have permission to use the big one, too. We’ll just have to learn how! It’s a zero turn mower, so it doesn’t have a steering wheel.

My brother and his wife selling their acreage is going to change a lot for us. We are going to be seeing them a lot more often, which is always awesome, but with my brother’s help, we’ll be able to start getting things done here that we simply haven’t been able to, mostly because the tools and equipment that should have been here when we moved in had disappeared. That’s one of the reasons my mother originally asked us to move out here, when she still owned the property. They’ve got plans for things completely outside our scope, too. For the past few years, I’ve been feeling like we have been falling behind so much, simply because things are breaking down and wearing out faster than we can do anything about them, even if we did have all the tools and equipment. Add in various health issues of our own, taking care of things for my mother, vehicle issues, etc., and it felt like a losing battle, and I was feeling like I was letting my brother down. Now, I actually feel hopeful again!

Best of all, though, is just being able to see them more often. They’re just really awesome people, and I thank God for them both!

I also thank God for today being such a productive day. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to get so much done in a day! It won’t be much longer before we can safely start transplanting and direct sowing things that have to wait until after or last frost date, and there is still much to prepare!

Which I will go into, in my next post…

The Re-Farmer

Productive

May 19, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

It was a perfect day to work outside! We reached our expected high of 15C/59F, there was a bit of a breeze, and a lovely mix of sun and clouds. Not too hot, not too cold… It was juuuuust right!

Most of it involved clean up.

I headed out to open the gate for my brother, only to find he was at the gate and opening it for himself. 😄 We said our hellos, then he set out to get their push mower out of storage (there was a lot of other stuff in front of it) and get it going. My first task was to get the wagon out and start going through the yard, picking up all the fallen branches and sticks I could find. We hauled away any large branches that fell right away, but there’s always tonnes of smaller ones that we leave until a day like today.

I worked my way around most of the yard before stopping near the septic tank to switch jobs. The tank was still covered with an insulated tarp, folded in half, and the pipes and hose for the emergency bypass was still set up over it. A few things needed to be moved so I could get the tarp off. That got dragged to the south yard and stretched out to full size, so I could hose it down, then flip it over and hose it down again. Then I went ahead and got the sun room broom and used that to scrub the entire surface before hosing it down again, then leaving it out in the sun. Then it was back to the septic tank area.

It’s remarkable how much survived being under that insulated tarp. In fact, some things had even started growing into the fibres!

The rigid pipe is being left where it is for now. I don’t have any way to store it properly right now (I’m wanting to find a way to store all the parts and pieces right near the tank), and the pipe that sticked out through the wall still needs a cap. I don’t want any dirt – or small critters! – getting into there.

I brought the back hose over and used that to spray down the inside of the flexible hose. It’s quite long, to it took a while to get enough water flowing through it. A number of bricks, rocks, boards and pieces of Styrofoam insulation were used to create a slope for the fluid to drain away, though some low spots were still inevitable. I gathers all those up to store against the house for now, the rinsed the inside of the flexible hose some more before finally dragging it all in, making sure water continued to drain away. Then that got curled up into a pile near where the boards were sticks. Then, since my next job was going to be weed trimming around the house, I pulled in the garden hose, too.

By this time, I could hear my brother’s lawnmower, so I went over to see how things were going. He showed me the particulars of how to start and run the mower (it has a choke that shuts itself off!) and his own modifications to it. He was mowing a lane to the barn, and around his stored equipment beside it. He had other stuff he needed to do, so I took over with the push mower and ended up finishing off most of the area in front of the barn. It was all being cut at the highest level, so I’ll be going over it again, likely with the riding mower, soon, to get it cut lower, little by little. The area is so dense with dried thatch mixed in with the tall grass, it would easily be too much if the mower were at the height I would want to cut it to.

I’m going to have a lot of grass to use as mulch, soon!

Once that section was done, it was time to get back to the inner yard.

Which was shaded quite a bit by these.

No, those are not leaves. At least, mostly not leaves. Click through to the next picture, and you can see that these are seeds. The Chinese Elm are absolutely thick with seeds right now, and they’re blowing everywhere. Pretty soon, they’ll dry up and drop like a storm.

I’m not looking forward to that. We’ve got so many of these trees in the south yards alone!

I then spent the next hour or more with the weed trimmer. Aside from doing the edges and areas too small or awkward to use a mower in, I went hunting for the rocks and roots in the lawn that stick up high enough that, if I’m cutting to the height I want to, would get hit by the mower blade. I’ve run over these by accident in the past. Bad enough when using our own equipment, but I do NOT want to damage my brother’s equipment!

In the end, I was able to get the south east yards done before I had to head inside, pausing only to find my brother and touch base with him. He was up on the roof of their trailer! 😄

While I was outside, my daughters were busy inside, and I came in just as one of them was making dinner. I actually needed help getting my boots off, before I could change out of my grass covered clothes, take some pain killers, and rest for a bit.

I had company.

A bowl full of Ginger on my bed!

I also had Butterscotch all over me. She has started to become aggressively affectionate when I sit or lie on my bed.

After having a lovely supper my daughter made, I realized I was hearing a mower running outside. By then it was time to feed the outside cats, so I started doing that. My brother, I discovered, had taken out the riding mower and was mowing around their trailers and RV, and in front of the storage shed. Something to be very careful off, as that area has some really rough spots! Leveling things off around there is something they have plans to do, once they can get some of their equipment going.

Unfortunately, he was done and gone before I was finished feeding the cats!

I wasn’t going to be doing more weed trimming today, but I did get a chance to weed the retaining wall blocks.

I was joined by a little Sir Robin the Brave.

He joined me while I took a quick break on the bench, too!

What an adorable face.

The last thing I got done was to flip the insulated tarp, hose, scrub and hose it down again.

Unfortunately, it has worn out holes in it, so water gets inside the tarp. I’m not sure how to address that, Ideally, I’d hang or drape it somewhere, but it’s quite large and surprisingly heavy. Especially with any water inside it! For now, it’s just going to say on the grass for the night. Hopefully, we don’t get any high winds to blow it away!

Tomorrow, the tarp will need to be moved away, and then it’s back to weed trimming. Particularly around the cat shelters and the portable greenhouse.

The kittens are not going to be happy with all that noise!

Once that’s done, though, I’ll be able to use the riding mower. With the amount of mowing I did today with the push mower, plus all the trimming, I’m in quite a lot of pain, even with taking painkillers. There’s no way I’d be able to do push mowing two days in a row.

While the overnight temperatures are still too low to set out the transplants, there are some things that can be direct sown. I’ve decided to take advantage of the boards protecting the sugar snap pea bed, and plant more carrots. I do see carrots coming up in the winter sown beds, but I’d like to have more! There are a few other things that can be sown now, too, once I get the beds prepared for them. We’ll see how it goes. The rest of this week will have some good daytime temperatures for that sort of work. Next weekend, things will start getting hot again.

The forecast for freezing overnight temperatures, with rain and snow, that I was seeing for the end of May, beginning of June, this morning is gone. Now the forecast is calling for overnight lows of almost 10C/50F! What a difference!

Of course, by tomorrow morning, it’ll probably be completely different again.

As for me, I’m heading to bed as soon as I’m done posting this. Well… after I take more painkillers, that is. Today is a day to max out the prescription dose, that’s for sure!

We shall see what tomorrow brings!

The Re-Farmer

Kitty status, garden status, and a lovely outing

May 17, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Last night, things did drop to freezing, so I’m glad we brought the transplants in from the portable greenhouse last night. When I headed out to do the morning rounds, it was only about 1C/34F, but it was just below 10C/50F in the portable greenhouse, so they got moved back in this morning.

After I did some repairs.

The garbage can I’m using as a heat sink doesn’t have a lid, so I’d been using a square of leftover 3/4″ rigid insulation as a lid, weighed down with a brick, and holding the thermometer. With the tears at the bottom of the door zippers from wind damage, cats can get in and out. They don’t jump up onto the wire shelves much; the wire forms 1″ squares, and I don’t think it’s comfortable for them to try and walk on. They do like to sit on the insulation, though.

Well, I came out one morning, and the insulation was broken in to, fallen into the garbage can, along with the brick and the thermometer. I haven’t spotted where it’s leaking yet, but it was less than half full at the time.

Looking around for something else to cover the garbage can with, the only thing I found that was large enough was one of the old window screens we used for things like curing onions in the fall. The smallest of the screens is still a pretty long rectangle, but it cover the entire top of the garbage can, so I gave it a try. Unfortunately, for the last couple of nights, I’ve been finding it knocked off the garbage can. This morning, it was knocked off again, in spite of my efforts to stabilize it, and this time a corner tore through the back of the plastic cover on the greenhouse.

*sigh*

I taped it up as best I could with clear duct tape. For now, I’ve tried covering the garbage can with overlapping bin lids and the broken pieces of rigid insulation from before.

Most of the transplants are too call to use the lids on the bins, so we can’t stack them all like we could before. Being able to use lids on just two of the bins to stack on top of is the only reason we can fit all the trays and bins on the chest freezer in the old kitchen. So the transplants got to spend the day in the relative warmth of the portable greenhouse for the day, but we’ve already brought them in again for the night. From the forecast, we’ll probably have to do it again for one more night before we can safely leave them in the portable greenhouse overnight again.

The winter sown bed that has a plastic mesh cover on it seemed to handle the overnight cold just fine. I can see there are some carrots coming up, and the others whatever radishes, beets and turnips that survived the winter. The radishes should grow the fastest, so we should be able to identify and harvest those earliest. That will make more space for the other root vegetables in the process. For now, though, I have no real clue what is what!

In the next photo, you can see the plastic over where we’d winter sown flowers was torn badly by the wind. All it took was a small tear at one end, from the tip of one of the bamboo stakes set across the top, and this morning, it was all wrecked.

There are a lot of seedlings coming up in there but I recognize them from when we grew pumpkins and gourds here, last year. They are all weeds.

This bed will be replanted with flowers, soon.

In the last photo, difficult to see against the soil, is a potato sprout! Some of the potatoes we planted already had pretty long sprouts on them, and one of them broke through the soil rather quickly.

The mesh over this bed is good for keeping the cats out, but the mesh isn’t fine enough to keep the Chinese Elm seeds out! The seed development hasn’t anywhere near its peak, yet, and already there are seeds everywhere.

I so look forward to when we can get rid of all the Chinese elm. They cause way too many problems!

After I did my rounds, I had a quick breakfast, then headed out. Before I get into that, though, I must share the cuteness!

In the first photo, if you look carefully, you can see there are 7 kittens, from 3 litters, mashed into that cat bed! The only one “missing” is Sir Robin, who was already out and running around.

The next photo was taken while I was gathering the bowls out of the cat house entry, for the evening feeding.

I was able to get a good photo of Poirot’s three this evening. The black on (Inspector Japp) looks like it’s got a sticky eye that will need washing. The mostly white one – Miss Lemon – is getting pretty active, and I’ve actually seen it fumble out of the carrier briefly, then scramble right back on. The white and grey – Captain Hastings – is also pretty mobile but, so far, has not gone all the way out of the carrier door. Once they get too mobile, Poirot is going to have to put up with them being brought down to floor level!

Last of all is the crowd inside the isolation shelter. I left things plugged in today, for the heat lamp, and it seems they really appreciated it!

Today was too cold and wet to get much done outside, so it was a good time to run some errands, mostly at Walmart. I did get a start on one wet and potentially messy job, though. The new septic ejector is working great, now that it’s no longer frozen, but with the excavation, there is now a lower area at the end of the metal sheet we have to divert the fluid away from the ejector. Normally, it would have naturally flowed towards a low spot nearby, but now it forms a sort of pool. I headed out with a garden hoe and used it to create a small trench to drain the fluid towards the low area, but to get the pool to drain, more small trenches had to be made, because it is all so uneven. In some places, I was able to use the hoe to move some of the clay/gravel nearby, into the lower areas around the edges. What it really needs is for the deepest parts to be filled, but that will be a job for another time. For now, I just want more of it to drain away. The last thing we want is for a small pond to form so close to the ejector. That will prevent the saturated ground around the ejector from drying out, and it’ll just freeze again, next year.

Of course, I sent progress photos to my brother and his wife, so they were up to date about it.

No, I’m not going to post pictures of pooled septic greywater here! 😄

When I did as much as I could and headed back to the house, I made sure to hose down my rubber boots. So much clay was stuck to the bottom of my boots, they felt a couple of pounds heavier, each!

Once I was cleaned up and changed, and had a quick breakfast, I headed out. My brother and his wife aren’t too far away from the Walmart I was going to so, before I left, I messaged them where I was going and asked if they wanted to meet for lunch or something. It turned out their schedule was open, so we made arrangements to meet at a restaurant near the Walmart I was going to.

I got there early, so I went to my other intended stop first; the dollar store nearby. I wanted to pick up more ground staples – can’t have too many of those! – as well as packages of shorter stakes. I got two packs of 25 bamboo stakes, which I am thinking of using to around the snap pea bed to support whatever I find to set around it and keep the deer from eating our peas. I also picked up four 2 packs of 2′ metal stakes. I am thinking to use them to support the hoops intended for the two 4′ square beds. I will probably cut them in half, though. We’ll see when the time comes.

Once done there, I made my way to the restaurant and met up with my brother and his wife. We had a lovely visit. They also talked about some of the things they are planning to do here at the farm, that we aren’t able to do. One of the things that is badly needed it to get more gravel on our driveway. My brother, however, remembers that the last time my late brother used gravel from our own gravel pit, it turned out to make a real mess when things got wet. Likely because there’s so much clay mixed in. They are thinking of buying crushed limestone, or even slag. Slag would be ideal, as it compacts to form a sort of concrete surface. They covered their own driveway on the property they sold with slag, and were very happy with it.

They also told me that they will have a push mower for us to use! We already have permission to use their riding mower, which is currently being stored in the garage near our truck. They’ve actually used it themselves, around where their trailer is stored, but that area is way too rough. Once they can access the tractor stored in the garage again, they’ll use their big rotary mower to cut that area, and my SIL wants to harrow it to level it somewhat.

With our “new” push mower (it’s just a couple of years old) in the small engine shop still, as they try to find the parts needed to fix it (which is highly unlikely), my brother told me about my mother’s old lawnmower that I had talked about wanting to bring in to get fixed, instead. I know it needs a new prime pump, along with general servicing, after sitting for so long. It turns out this mower was actually theirs, originally. They’d bought another push mower for my mother, but the self propeller was too fast for her, and she couldn’t understand that if she let go of the bar, the self propeller would stop and she would just push it. This lawn mower’s self propeller wasn’t as fast, so they ended up trading, and she was very happy with that! My brother told me not to bother taking it in to be serviced. He said he would look it over and could probably fix it himself.

Which means he would be doing that here.

Which means my daughters and I will have the chance to watch and learn, and eventually be able to do it ourselves!

I look forward to that!

After a very enjoyable lunch, we parted ways briefly. They needed to shop at Walmart, too, so we crossed paths a couple of times there, too!

One of the things I wanted to do was look at the garden centre, but it was too cold for the plants to be outside. Instead, the shelves were all jammed around the outdoor furniture displays, and not really accessible. Aside from being crowded, there was a group of people that were just hanging out around the display furniture, while their kids ran around. I didn’t actually need anything, so I moved on.

The main thing I needed to get was more kibble for the outside cat and canned cat food for the inside cats. My brother had gifted me with one of his vehicle hands free devices, so I can take calls while driving. After checking with the girls at home to see if we had an extra USB-A charging cable, I ended up grabbing one for the truck. It took me and a saleswoman quite some time to find one! They only had two, and I picked the longer cable. So I can now link my phone to this device and it will automatically pick up calls for me. My brother is pretty much the only person who calls me on my cell phone – either him, or home care to say there’s no one to cover for my mother’s med assist – so I don’t expect to use it often, but it’s good to have. I never, ever, touch my phone while driving. We’ve lost friends to people talking while driving.

The shopping done, I had a much more pleasant drive home than the drive in. When I left home, it was rather nice, but the further south I drove, the worse the weather. At first, it was like there was a mist all over. Then I saw precipitation, but couldn’t tell if it was rain, or snow! Then it became very clearly snow, and coming down pretty heavy. It all melted on contact, though, so there was no accumulation anywhere. Just poor visibility!

Then it was done and gone, like driving through to the other side of a wall!

The drive home, however, was warmer and dry, which was nice. Once home, the girls helped me unload and they put the groceries away while I did the evening cat feeding, including wet cat food for the kittens. I was able to close up four of the bigger kittens in the sun room, so they could eat their fill. With the bowls that get set into the cat house entry, it’s more of a hope that they and their moms will get a chance to eat their special food (for inside the cat house, I include kitten kibble, too) before some of the other adult cats eat it all. Once they had a good long time to fill their little bellies with wet cat food, I opened up the sun room again and a daughter helped me do my evening rounds, then bring the transplants in for the night.

We’re at 5C/41F as I write this, just past 8pm. It is supposed to very slowly keep getting colder all night, reaching our expected low of 2C/36F at about 6am. That has been the coldest time of the night for the past while, too. Our daytime highs are supposed to warm up nicely over the next few days, but the overnight lows aren’t expected to get much better for some time. At least the days will be warm enough to get work done outside. Including our first mowing of the lawn, once we get the wagon out and go over it to pick up all the smaller branches that have been coming down all winter. The temperatures will be perfect for getting some manual labour done!

So overall, today has been a very good day – but then, any day when I see my brother and his wife is a very good day! 😊😊😊

The Re-Farmer

It’s done – and we still have an outhouse!

May 3, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

My brother and his wife are amazing. Incredible. Awesome. Especially my brother, who took on a very physical, long and dangerous job that took about 6 hours.

Wow.

As for me, I wasn’t much help this time, even if I had been physically up to doing more. It really was a mostly one person job, but I was still recovering from a very rough night. I over did it yesterday, so my plans to start digging holes to plant the walnuts went out the window. I always take painkillers before bed, just to be able to sleep, but I also made sure to treat my legs and hips with Tei Fu lotion, and got a daughter to do my left arm, shoulder neck and back.

It wasn’t enough.

Aside from the usual stiffening of joints that happens whenever I am sitting or lying down for any length of time, I got hit with a Charlie Horse. I had just gotten up to go to the washroom when it hit. My left thigh went completely out of control. Very painfully so. I had no choice, though; I had to walk on it. I did manage to grab the tube of Tei Fu lotion, though. Thankfully, the way the house it laid out, I had a lot of things I could use to support myself as I made my way to the bathroom. The girls must have heard me struggling, because I soon heard a knock at the as my older daughter asked if I was okay. At that point, I was very carefully massaging the while sitting on the toilet – there are body parts you really don’t want this stuff to come in contact with! I told her what was happening, and she waited at the door for me.

As I was struggling to walk out of the bathroom, my thigh muscles suddenly released. Like some sort of spring giving out. It only lasted a few moments, but those few moments of relief were amazing. Then it was right back to struggling my way back to bed, this time with my daughter helping me along, then helping me get more painkillers – I couldn’t take any more of my prescription ones, so it was just extra strength Tylenol – before helping me get back into bed. She even made sure I have my phone close to hand so that I could message her for help, if I needed to. Thankfully, by then, the cramping had pretty much stopped. My left leg is still feeling weak from it, though, and it’s been almost 20 hours. Short but vicious! The rest of the night was heavily disrupted, but at least no more cramping.

Which meant any plans involving physical exertion today went out the window.

I still found myself getting up early, because the inside cats were getting rambunctious. So they got kicked out of my room so I could feed them, then feed Butterscotch and Freya separately in my room.

I wasn’t the only one who had a rough night. We have discovered another food that makes my daughter sick, but we can’t figure out why, since none of the ingredients are problematic. It’s just stuff chicken breasts. We’ve tried different fillings, and every one of them make her sick. So she was up all night in pain and wasn’t able to finally fall asleep until about the same time I was getting up – and she usually gets up earlier than I do!

Anyhow, I very slowly did my morning routine, which included lots of attention from these guys.

Kohl has forgiven me for the bad haircut!

My morning rounds now includes splitting a can of wet cat food between the extra little food and water bowls I got for the traps and setting them where the kittens can reach them. Even the bitty baby has started to eat, though I think she would much rather be nursing! Brussel has been leaving them more often, even if it’s just to hide on top of the cat cage, under the platform. The white and grey mama still hangs around, but won’t go in if I’m around – and we still have no idea where her third kitten is. Or if it’s even still alive, to be honest. I’m just assuming it is hidden away somewhere, and mama’s dividing her time between her secret next and the sun room.

While putting the transplants into the portable greenhouse – and leaving the door tied open, as it was already getting quite hot in there – I figured I could use the black garbage can heat sink to refill the watering cans.

Well, I now know why the heat sink wasn’t been working much.

There was just a couple of inches of water left in the can.

I don’t know where the leak it, but it’s obviously a very slow leak. I refilled the garbage can, along with the watering cans, then checked it later in the day, and it was still looking full.

Once my rounds outside were done, I managed a breakfast, and that was it. I knew my brother and his wife were planning to come out, but I just couldn’t stay awake. I figured I could lie down for an hour and be good.

Two hours later – just past noon – I finally woke up. I found a message from my SIL, letting me know they were here. I still needed to do a dump run, but made sure to go over to their trailer to say hello. My brother was already bringing tools and supplies to the tree on the outhouse.

I had one bit of a surprise, though. Before heading outside, I decided to test the septic ejector again. (I noticed we have water seeping into the old basement, and the sump pump reservoir is getting full. Time to set the fans and blowers up again, soon!) I turned the pump on manually and it seemed as if the fluid was swirling actively in the filter, as if it was actually draining. I couldn’t be absolutely sure, though, so I shut it off (making sure to set the valve back to the diverter) and went to check the ejector. I figured if it did start draining, it would be wet on the sheet of metal we have to divert the flow towards the low area.

What I found was the cap completely off of the ejector! Did it somehow get blown right off? I was sure my brother had screwed it back on after he’d added the thawing fluid.

Then I found them sitting on the old oil drum he’d set up nearby, so use as a table.

As I was heading back to the house, I saw my brother carrying a ladder from the barn and he came over. He told me he’d poured more of the thawing fluid in – after confirming the stand pipe and venturi pipe were still full of ice – and had left the cap off so the sun could warm it more. The fluid level had dropped from when he’d poured it in, though, which was a surprise. He topped it up again.

After that, he returned to setting up by the tree on the outhouse, while I brought the truck to the yard and loaded it up for a trip to the dump. I also grabbed our empty water jugs, so after going to the dump, I then went to town to refill them and pick up a few groceries, including the ingredients I needed to make a chili.

By the time I got back, they were both at the outhouse, setting up straps and trying things off around the tree. My brother wanted to cut the top of the tree free high enough above the roof that it wouldn’t hit the roof as it feel. It was secured at the top, so it wouldn’t hit the ground, either. He still had lots of set up to do, though.

After unloading the truck, I headed back out in time to see my brother was in the process of using a chainsaw to cut loose the top of the tree. This required cutting wedge shaped chunks out. There were ratchet straps and ropes all over to ensure the tree couldn’t fall onto the house, couldn’t roll to the side, and securing his ladder. Once he reached a certain point, the job was finished by pulling on some ropes to get it to crack the rest of the way, before it was finally free.

We did pause in between things for something else entirely, though. While I was in town, my brother got a carrier message notification. There’s only one person that this message could be from; someone who’s phone number is blocked on my brother’s phone.

Our vandal.

We took a break so my brother could play the message back for me.

Wow. Just… wow.

He had some new ones in this message. Apparently, my brother has broken some sort of dude code by letting us live here and not allowing our vandal to come onto the property. The code! He broke the code!!

He just wants to walk on the property, he said. Because he spilled his blood taking care of the place… Then he went on a rant about me and my daughters. He won’t use our names, even, but just calls us the “fatties”.

He hasn’t seen my daughters in years.

He had plenty more vile things to say about us. Nothing new in that part.

What caught all our attention, though, is his comment about my brother having sold their property. According to our vandal, that makes my brother a millionaire now. ???

The question is, how did our vandal find out about the property sale? The only person that could have told him is my mother – and we know he’s been dropping by her place unannounced a lot more frequently. It now seems like he goes there after every chemo session in the city? Which would explain some of the horrible things my mother said about my brother, the last time I was with her. Our vandal is poisoning her mind, and she’s letting him do it.

He brought up that he was dying of cancer, of course – then said that he was going to beat the cancer, and there would be retribution.

*sigh*

My SIL thought he sounded drunk again. Which wouldn’t surprise me. His mental state seems to be getting worse in general, though.

After that listening to the message, it was back to work. For me, that meant going inside and getting a chili going in the Instant Pot. It’s the first time I’ve used it that way; usually my daughters use the rice cooker function. Once it was set up, I was able to go out and give what little help I could. My brother had cleared away a number of branches, so I dragged those over to the burn pile – which we can’t burn, because of the seasonal fire ban. In the process, I found he’d cut away some of the poplar saplings that had sprung up since I’d last clear the area.

Some nice, straight and flexible lengths. I’d actually been eyeballing them before, and had intended to harvest them to use in wattle weaving.

I set those aside. After I’d cleaned up the rest, and there was nothing I could help my brother with, I pruned off all the twigs, trimmed them, then sat down with a knife to debark them. I noticed some of the poplar we used in the wattle weave bed actually started to grow, so I wanted to make sure that couldn’t happen again!

I didn’t finish stripping the bark on off of them, though.

By this time, my brother and his wife had gotten the top of the tree free, and it was hanging from the straps holding it near the top, where it was stuck on another tree that kept it from crushing the outhouse entirely. He had been trimming things and working to lower it down to fall in a certain directly, only for it to slip a bit – and catch the chain saw. It’s just a little battery operated chainsaw, so it stopped running on its own right away.

Getting it free, however, took at least another hour, a stack of old tires with their rims, and a jack-all to lift the weight.

Eventually, though, he got it free.

During this time, they did stop for a meal and hydration, at least, after they had gotten the bottom of the tree down to the ground.

A frustrating thing while doing on this is, we’ve spent the last year + dumping the stove pellet litter behind the outhouse to compost. I chose that location because it was out of the way and mostly out of view behind the outhouse. The tree that the fallen spruce was caught on is basically coming out of the middle of the pile. An older part of the pile, at least, so it was more compacted and starting to decompose, but it still meant my brother had to walk over, set ladders over, and work over, a big pile of sawdust full of cat mess.

*sigh*

Anyhow, after much effort, many trips up and down ladders, and much trying to figure out how to safely get things done – and this really was quite a dangerous job – it finally got done.

The tree is down.

The first photo above is the part of the tree that was handing and took so very long to get safely down. It’s actually the middle of the tree – last weekend, my brother was able to cut the very top off, and it’s still standing on its end, leaning against another dead tree. Basically, it was brought down in roughly thirds.

In the second picture, you can see the bottom of the tree. That section alone probably weighs about 300-350 pounds.

The last picture is what the inside of the trunk looks like. This tree has been dead for many years, so there was time for this rot to start hollowing out the trunk from the base. It took two very wet springs, which standing water flooding the area behind the garage and all around the outhouse, for it to weaken enough to get blown over in the wind.

Of course, now I’m thinking, what can I do with it? There must be something useful that can be done!

The trunk does have a crack running the length of it, though, so that limits things.

My original plan had been to have this tree taken down, leaving a stump tall enough to use to support a table and seats, like some of the stump benches I’ve already made. As we were cleaning up, my SIL and I took a break and found ourselves sitting on the trunk and I realized, having a bend there really would be very handy. I could use the wood to make a rustic bench. I’ve seen some photos of benches made from logs that might actually work. It depends on how bad that crack is, really.

All in good time, though.

I’m just to happy the tree is finally down – and we didn’t have to sacrifice the outhouse! We had intended to repair the roof before this happened, anyhow. Considering I was basically going to remove the moss covered and rotting shingles, then laying plywood down directly over the original roof surface to make a larger roof with more overhang, not a whole lot of my plan needs to be changed.

By the time they were done, it was coming up on 8pm, and they still had lots of packing up to do before heading home.

There are so many things they could have been doing on their weekend, but instead, they spent the last two weekends working on getting that tree down, without destroying the outhouse.

They are just so awesome!!!

I am so glad they are out “landlords”. 🩷🩷🩷

The Re-Farmer

A huge job!

April 26, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Before I get into the progress we got done while my brother and his wife were here, I must share the cuteness!

The kittens had all been asleep, curled up around each other, but my trying to take a photo woke up the little black and white kitten. Who looks huge compared to his adopted sister!

I love that little black chin.

While my daughter and I were heading to the city, my brother and his wife were heading her to the farm! Along with stuff they had to do in their stored areas, my brother checked on the septic ejector. We’d had to use electric tape to fix the heat tape to the portion that is above ground, and my brother had to take it off before he could open up the cap and check inside the stand pipe. Using the copper pipe we kept nearby, he later told me that he was hitting ice about 4 feet down. No chance of being able to switch over from the emergency diverter right now! He had looked for the de-icer we used before, but it just isn’t available this time of year. He found something else meant for RVs and poured that into the stand pipe. Hopefully, that will get things thawed out faster. He wrapped the heat tape back around the stand pipe lower down, so that we can still access and open the cap if we need to. It turns itself on and off depending on the temperature, so he wants to leave it for now.

I had some concerns about how loose the soil around the new ejector is – plus, a portion of the old ejector’s stand pipe was still sticking out of the ground, about 10 feet away. Once the renter’s cows are rotated to this quarter, they could easily sink into the soil/clay/gravel around the excavated area and injure themselves, or even break the new ejector, as it’s so much shorter than the old one was. My brother cut away the piece of the old stand pipe that was sticking out and filled the buried portion with soil. He also went into some of his supplies that they brought from their sold property to here, putting in some fence posts, then using some of their rolls of snow fencing around the entire ejector area, including the metal sheet we have to direct the flow towards the low area, away from the barn. He secured it as best he could for now, but I will need to go back there with more twine to secure it more thoroughly. Plus, there is a gap that cows could easily get through. I need to find something I can put across there that can be easily opened like a gate. It will be some time before we have cows out here, so there’s no hurry on that, but I’d rather get it done sooner rather than later.

That was not the big job, though.

The big job was working on that dead tree that fell on the outhouse.

My brother had also been thinking about how to get that off, without destroying the outhouse. It does still get used, even with the tree sitting on it!

Part of the problem is that the top of the tree fell on top of another tree, and is stuck. That’s the only thing holding it up and keeping it from crushing the outhouse! So it’s a good thing, even though it makes it so much more difficult to get the tree off.

One of the first things my brother wanted to do was cut off the top of the fallen tree, on the far side of the tree that’s holding it up, to get some of the weight off. He set up a ladder against the tree holding the fallen tree up and, after trying several other things first, ended up using my little electric chain saw. He cut through only until we could hear it starting to crack. It was too dangerous to try and cut all the way through while on a ladder. Once he got that far, he climbed back up the ladder with a rope to toss it over the top of the tree, using a hammer as a weight, on the far side of the cut.

The next while was spent trying to get the top of the tree down with the rope. At one point, my brother and his wife were pulling the ends of the rope together from the same side, which caused the entire tree trunk to sort of roll, rocking the outhouse in the process! The rocking even caused the door to pop open. In the end, they went one on each side of the fallen tree, trying to pull it down. The problem was that the tip of the tree was on yet another tree, eventually getting caught between a branch and the trunk. This other tree, however, was also quite dead. When the top of the fallen tree finally gave out at where my brother had cut it with the chain saw, the heavy end dropped straight down, and the tree it was hung up on fell and broke in several places, hitting the ground in pieces. The top of the tree on the outhouse, however, ended up standing on its end, up against yet another tree – and it’s still standing there now!

The next thing to do was to start cutting away branches. Some, my brother could cut away using his extended pole chainsaw/pruner, but with others, it was back up the ladder with our electric chain saw. He got as much as he could, while my SIL and I grabbed and hauled away the branches.

There was only so much they could get done tonight, though.

In the first image above, you can see where the branches above the outhouse roof were cut away. He even took a chain saw to the sticky-outy-parts of the roots at the base of the tree.

My SIL noticed something interesting, though, as he was up there.

If you look at the next couple of photos in the slide show above, you can just see that the tree is no longer in contact with the outhouse roof! There was more damage done to the corner of the roof when the tree was being rocked while the top was being pulled down. While my brother was on the ladder, cutting, my SIL could see that the trunk was rolling slightly, back and forth, with each cut.

That tree it landed on is holding it up off the outhouse roof completely, now!

With the top and most of the branches removed, a lot of weight has been taken off of the fallen tree. We now have to figure out how to keep that weight off the outhouse while trying to get it down. They’re thinking of using rachet straps and another tree.

It will have to wait, though, until the next time they’re able to come out here and work on it.

Today has been a VERY windy day, and the entire time we were out there, we could hear squeaky noises from other dead trees in the spruce grove, rubbing against each other. There is one dead tree close to the house that died after we moved out here. It needs to be taken down as soon as possible, as this one could potentially fall onto the house. At least with the direction of today’s winds, if it did fall, it would have been away from the house. The problem with all these dead trees that need to be cut down is that we’re often far too windy to do so safely!

I am so grateful that they were able to come out today and get so much progress on this tree. It’s still possible that, in the process of trying to get that tree down, it could end up destroying the outhouse, but at least now there is some hope of saving it. We’d fixed up the inside of the outhouse already, and had plans to fix up the roof and replace the moss covered shingles with some of the metal roof pieces we still have lying about. More repairs will need to be done now, of course, but that’s okay. If we can salvage it, we can get a few more years out of it. Hopefully, we’ll have the outdoor bathroom with composting toilet we are planning to build done well before this outhouse is no longer useable! The location I have in mind for it needs to be kept open for a while longer, though, as we’ll be dragging dead trees through there for some time, as we harvest them. They will mostly be used to build more raised garden beds.

Lots of work to do, that’s for sure! It’s going to be a lot easier, now that my brother’s equipment it out here, though. My goodness. We’re probably going to be able get more done whenever my brother is able to come out on the weekends, than we’ve been able to do in the 7 years we’ve been living here, just because his tools and equipment will be available.

What a concept.

The Re-Farmer

The Re-Farmer

Sometimes, you need to go back, to go forward.

my brother is the best!

Morning sadness, and helping elderly parents can be rough!

Rescued! Also, I feel like an idiot.

Energy levels, low. Heat tolerance, lower!

Hello and goodbye!

Finally! Rain! or not…

Productive!

Productive

Kitty status, garden status, and a lovely outing

It’s done – and we still have an outhouse!

A huge job!

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