our vandal

What a lovely day!

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It is just gorgeous out there!

We were supposed to reach a high of 4C/39F today. We’re at 7C/45F right now! It turns out we hit 7C/45F yesterday, too. The snow is melting away, and it feels like spring!

Before I go on, though, we must first have the cuteness.

Snorri is just enveloped by David! The Beast (aka: Tiny) is bigger than Snorri! He’s all fur, so he looks bigger than he really is. I have to be so careful at night. He has a thing for curling up behind my neck, or on my legs. He’s so light, sometimes I can’t feel him there at all, and I have to check if he’s on or behind me before I try to roll over.

He does have a thing for necks! If he can get at one, he’ll climb right up any convenient human and settle into a neck, purring.

Snorri’s eyes are still really leaky, but he’s most definitely getting better. I hope he’ll start getting some meat on those bones soon! He certainly has a good appetite.

When feeding the outside cats this morning, I did repeated head counts. I kept getting 37, though I did get 38 once. I think I double counted someone. All the usuals that sometimes show up later were there – Rolando Moon, Brussel and Sprout, Broccoli, the orange and white, both Adam and Driver, Judgement – plus the ones that are almost always here; the printer babies – all the white and greys – the orange tabby, Hypotenose, Syndod, this year’s lone calico and tortie kittens, etc. Then there are the black cats and the grey tabbies. We have so many gorgeous cats this year!

One of the places I put a bit of kibble is in the space the smaller cats use to get under the cat house. While trying to count, I spotted a little white face, eating at the opening. I could only see a bit more than the nose and mouth, so I couldn’t say for sure if it was one of our usuals. There is one white and grey among this year’s kittens that I thought it might have been, but when I went to count the cats in the sun room, he was there. I can’t think of any other small, white faced cat that it might have been. I also spotted a couple of tabbies that I wasn’t sure of. It’s entirely possible they’re from this year’s kittens that are just bigger, and we were bound to have kittens from litters the shier mamas kept further away, finally starting to show up on their own. These ones are adult sized cats, though.

Well, no matter. They are welcome to food, water and shelter! Even Sad Face has become a permanent fixture. The next time there’s a cheap spay and neuter day, I hope we can snag him!

How bizarre that the visiting tom we kept having to chase away because he was so aggressive to the other cats, is now more approachable than all the female yard cats. !!

With so many cats to feed, it’s no surprise that we were running low on kibble, so today I made a trip to Walmart. When I got there, I found that Black Friday sales have already started. Another bizarre notion. This is a US thing, since we have our Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October. Meanwhile, Black Friday doesn’t even happen in the US until the end of this week, but Canada has Black Friday, too, and the sales have started already.

I was able to juggle the budget a bit and take advantage of some of the sales. Along with the cat food I was there to get, I was able to get things like a case of 24 cans of tomato soup at 77¢ each – easily the best deal among the things I got, since those cans now cost closer to $2 each. One of the things on my list, however, was not on sale. Butter. Even their house brand butter is almost $7 a pound! It would be cheaper to buy whipping cream and make it.

I didn’t buy whipping cream, and got only 1 pound of butter. We’ll just have to use the ghee more often, until our next big city shopping trip. The next time we’re at Costco, I’ll have to stock up on more butter than usual. Another of their big buckets of ghee wouldn’t go amiss, either!

Once I got home and we unloaded the truck, I had to feed the outside cats early. I was just going back to park it in the garage when I saw a couple of cats under it; one jumping up into the undercarriage somewhere, and another jumping up onto a front tire!

Yes, I make it a practise to bang on the truck before starting it.

The sound of kibble was enough to get them away from the truck, though.

In other things…

I called my mother last night, and it was like talking to a completely different person. She went from yelling and raging at me the day before, to cheerful and pleasant. I asked how she was doing, and she went into her usual complaints about her breathing; this time, she tried to blame it on the macaroni she ate. *sigh* After she went on for a while, I more specifically asked about her mood. She was all ready to act like it never happened, and she was never angry or said all those horrible things to me. We talked about it for a bit, and I tried to stress with her that if our vandal starts calling her about me, it’s because he’s trying to cause problems between us. She did try to defend him again, saying he was just telling her what’s going on, and I had to tell her, he has NO idea what’s going on. She quickly changed the subject. She didn’t quite apologize, but she did seem to try and make amends, in her own way.

I told her about our plans to get the hand pump on the original well serviced, so that we can then change the well pump and have back up water if something goes wrong. It took some time to explain to her why the well pump in the house needed to be changed at all. It has been changed in the past, but that was more than 20 years ago. The foot valve in the well, however, is original and some 45 or so years old – I think it was dug in 1974, but it might have been the year before. She couldn’t remember the exact year.

So she’s happy with the plans. Her only thing was to tell me to talk to my brother about it first, and I told her, I talk to him about everything. No living person knows this place better than he does. He was old enough to actually do a lot of this stuff alongside my dad. My other brothers were still too young for much of it, and some of it was done before I was even born. My sister is older, but she wouldn’t have been allowed to be part of this stuff, even if she were interested, because she is female. My mother then started going on about how great my brother is, and what a good job he’s doing with the farm.

Just the day before, she’d yelled and hung up on him when he called her out for how she allowed our vandal to manipulate her and treat me like crap.

She was like a totally different person.

Meanwhile…

In checking the trail cam files, I could see our vandal trying to figure out what was going on. The day the guys where here to pick up the vehicles, I saw him pull into our driveway while the gate was open – but not far enough to be trespassing! – to turn around, then slowly back down the road, so he could better see through the trees to where we were. I even remember seeing a vehicle backing up on the road, while the guys were jacking the truck out of the dirt and putting tires on it. On the trail cam files, I saw our vandal go by again, later on. Then, after the guys were gone and the gate closed, I saw a different vehicle pull into our driveway and turn around. From another camera, I could see that the driver of this vehicle was a mutual friend he’d clearly gotten to check things out.

On today’s file check, I saw our vandal in the morning, slowly driving past our driveway, then slow down even more as he drove past the bushes, trying to see through them to the other scrap vehicles.

Needless to say, we are no longer fake locking the gate.

It amazes me how furious and possessive he is about the junk. Yeah, some of it was his, but he abandoned it years ago, and neither vehicle that was taken had ever been his to begin with. The ones he’d left are in such bad shape, they aren’t even good for parts. Just the scrap dealer. Which is why he dumped them here, instead of keeping them on his own property. He was using this place as a garbage dump.

So we’re going to have to keep an extra eye on things for the next while.

Something else we might be able to keep an extra eye on is the sun room critters. My SIL gave us a camera. It was a Superstore freebie for purchases over X amount of dollars, and they had no use for it. It’s one of those little security cameras you can link to your phone to keep an eye on things through a live feed. It is not an outdoor camera, but if we can set it up in the sun room, we should be able to confirm what critters (most likely racoons) are knocking things over in there during the night. If it could handle outdoor conditions, I’d want to set it up facing the cat, kibble and water shelters, so we can see what, besides cats, is eating all the kibble, and sometimes knocking the heated water bowl right out of the shelter! Having a critter cam in the sun room, however, would be a good thing! It mostly comes down to how the device is powered. If it’s USB, we’ve got nothing to plug it into in there. We just haven’t had a chance to even take it out of the box, yet!

Who knows. I might be posting critter cam pictures on here, soon!

The Re-Farmer

Need to decompress for a while!

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First, the cuteness!

The cats just love this upper level set up! Here we have Hypotenose, Syndod and the unnamed tortie. When I fed them this morning, I think I counted 35. Or it could have been 32. I never got the same number twice, and it’s way too easy to double count!

The day started out well. It was lovely out, and I think we exceeded our predicted high of 3C/37F.

Today was the day the guy, and his son, who wanted to buy some scrap cars from us was to come over and pick them up. They arrived with a couple of trailers and four trucks altogether, as his son’s friends came along again, as did the guy’s neighbour, to help out.

It’s a good thing they had three big strapping young men along! What a job it was!

Their first goal was to get the pick up truck. They had to cut trees away first, then jack it up out of the ground it had sunk into, replace the two front tires, and put tires on the back, which had no tires at all. They were then able to use one of the trucks to pull it out of where it was parked, so they could load it onto a trailer.

That’s when things got considerably more difficult!

All four tires were seized up.

They dragged it far enough out, though, then brought the longer trailer around. Unfortunately, the ramps on the trailer turned out to be too narrow.

As all this was starting, we could hear cows. We’d had to go through the “gate” by the barn (it’s just an open part of the fence with a chain and the electric fence across it; I eventually found the barbed wire gate, mostly fallen apart and buried in tall grass). This meant taking down the electric fence, which ends at this gate, so that was easy enough to do. When the renter’s cows are here, that fence is live, of course, so when I heard cows that sounded awfully close, I went to the gravel pit, where there is water, in case a neighbour’s cows got in or something.

I found 3 cows.

But I heard more.

So I kept walking and could soon see the rest of the herd.

The renter’s cows are still here! I haven’t seen them – or even their tracks – in a while! He leaves feed for them out by the gate he brings them in by, so I guess they had no reason to go any further than the water in the gravel pit.

As I walked back, I took a closer look at where the renter sets up the battery and solar panel for the electric fence. I’d looked on the way out, but didn’t see anything.

It turned out the solar panel had been flipped upside down, on top of the battery, and was covered in snow. I’d say, high winds caught it. I’ve no idea how long it’s been out of order, since I didn’t even know the cows were still here!

Well, I guess it worked out, since we had to go through there, anyhow.

Yes, I have since let them know. At least I hope so. I sent direct message, but I might have to find their phone number and call them, if those haven’t been seen.

Anyhow.

On finding the truck could not be loaded onto that trailer, they took it across to the car graveyard. That car was also deeply sunk into the ground, but it did have all four tires and – amazingly – they were able to pump them up and they held air! Long enough to move it, at least.

The guys were so excited by this little car. I think it’s going to end up restored and driven again, rather than just used for parts! Its interior was largely gutted, but it still had its engine.

Mostly.

So that got loaded up rather quickly.

Next, they went to look at a third vehicle over by the storage shed. After cutting their way through the forest of burrs, they were able to open the doors and look inside.

Unfortunately, it turns out things are badly rotted out in there. After talking about it, it was decided they would not take that one. It was good only for scrap.

The other two next to it caught their attention, but they instead went looking at the tractor. The son still wants to buy that, but that won’t happen until spring. He did pay half as a down payment, though.

Then it was back to the truck. It took both the winch on the trailer, plus another truck with a tow strap, to drag that thing up the ramps and onto the trailer. The truck is so long, it barely fit! But, they got it.

So that was done, and the guy was saying he might be interested in some of the other vehicles, too. We shall see.

Now, with all this noise and commotion, I knew our vandal would be wondering what’s going on, since he tried to sue me for this stuff, among other things. The only reason I could even consider selling anything is because the judge threw it out. I know that wouldn’t change his mind that he is somehow entitled to all this junk, even though he had plenty of time to remove things if he wanted them, while the place was empty for two years. He certainly removed all sorts of stuff that wasn’t junk, long ago, so it’s not like he wasn’t able to. I wasn’t sure if he would suddenly show up and start screaming or something, but I didn’t see him. He’d still have heard things from our place and gone looking, though, so I knew I’d have something to deal with something, eventually.

Once everything was squared up and I was settled back inside, I started messaging my brother to let him know, and ask him how he wanted me to get the money to him. The vehicles are paid for, but the guy is going to look up the VINs and make up proper bills of sales for them, which my brother will have to sign, since he’s the owner. The truck actually had its old registration papers in the glove compartment!

While I was messaging my brother, which would take a while, since I knew he and his wife were on the road at the time, my phone rang.

It was my mother.

I knew it was going to happen, but I wasn’t expecting it that quickly!

I barely said hello, when my mother was yelling, what’s going on? What’s going on?

Yup. Our vandal had phoned her already. I don’t know what he actually told her – he would have been making things up, anyhow, since he wouldn’t know anything – but boy, did he have her wired up! It took some doing to calm her down but, as short as I can make it, my mother seems to have thought that this was some instant thing. As if some guys showed up, out of the blue, with trailers today, and I just let them haul stuff out. When I told her this was over a week in the making, she was incensed that I hadn’t told her earlier. I said, there was nothing to tell until it was done, and I was planning to phone her after I finished talking to my brother. Well, she just kept on yelling, going on about how we’re only after her money, she paid for the roof, and she is never going to pay for anything anymore… ???

As near as I can figure, going back to when she called a scrap guy to come out and look at the stuff, our first summer here, she is thinking that the money from selling the scrap would have paid for the roof, but she paid for the roof, so… we’re after her money? The thing is, when I told her the roof was leaking, she kept arguing with me, saying that they already replaced the roof (25 years ago), so it was fine. Perfect. Just like she thought everything here was perfect, as she tried to talk us into moving out here. It took years just to convince her it really did need replacing.

I eventually calmed her down and told her I needed to finish talking to my brother, and then I would call her back.

So I finished messaging him, telling as much as I could, but I knew they were probably driving and wouldn’t be able to see it right away. I even sent some pictures. I also told them about the call from my mother and the terrible things she was saying. Then I called my mother back.

*sigh*

It took some doing, but I was able to get it through that I had already talked to my brother about all this, because I can’t do anything here without him. We don’t own anything here, other than things we bought or brought ourselves. I would never do anything like that without talking to him about it first, anyhow. She made a big deal about how I wouldn’t know the value of things (because I’m female), and I had to explain to her that, by selling individual vehicles for parts, we’d get more money than selling them to a scrap dealer. I also reminded her that she’s been after us for years to get rid of all those vehicles. So that’s what I’m starting to do.

She went into some real mental gymnastics in both calls, constantly going back to how we’re just after her money (clearly, our vandal said that to her), how she was entitled to know what’s going on (she no longer owns own the property so no, she isn’t; we keep her in the loop out of respect), and demanding that the money goes towards fixing the place, because she paid for the roof, and she gives us more money than other parents do, and… on and on it went. She even tried to guilt me about how letting us live here was a kindness. I had to remind her that she begged us to move out here for years before we finally agreed, so our being here was helping both ways. She did, at least, agree to that!

I then told her I needed to let the renter know their electric fence isn’t working and got off the phone. Once I was done messaging them, I updated my brother.

His wife answered, telling me he was furious at her behaviour and was going to call her.

I ended up getting a call. He’d tried calling her several times and her line was busy, so he wanted to check if I was talking to her. I think she was probably talking to our sister.

Some time later, I got a call from my brother again. They’d actually pulled over on the side of the road to try calling our mother again. He got through to her and tried telling her she’d done the wrong thing by yelling at me and letting our vandal manipulate her, that she needed to apologize to me, call me and make it right. She, however, just kept yelling at him, then when he said she needed to make it right, she hung up on him.

Our vandal really made a mess of things with her, and she’s doing exactly what he wanted her to go; he’s trying to turn her against me and my brother (maybe my sister as well, but she’s not involved with the farm), and she’s letting him.

What chokes me is how she goes on about how badly we’re treating her, or how we’re just after her money, but is completely oblivious to her own part in all this. Like our vandal, she takes no responsibility for her behaviour, and if people actually stand up to her and call her out on her behaviour, they’re the ones that are treating her badly, and she’s the victim. She has also tried to control me, and our finances (including my husband in this) for as long as I can remember. The one person who actually does want all her money is our vandal.

You’d think my mother was rich or something, with all this going on. She’s got next to nothing, and the only reason she has what she has is because my brother has been taking care of things for her. She also goes on about how she just wants us all to get along, but plays us against each other, every chance she gets.

Which reminds me. I need to email my sister and tell her what’s happened, thanks to our vandal.

*sigh*

I guess I should get that over with now.

The Re-Farmer

Zero motivation

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I’m just not feeling it today.

My daughters pulled an all nighter last night. Aside from my older daughter working on her commissions, they did the usual cooking and cleaning, and my younger daughter baked an amazing zucchini cake with cream cheese icing. She’d baked one while house sitting, using zucchini from my brother’s garden, but we had to buy zucchini for this one, since our summer squash barely survived the slugs and didn’t produce much this year. Oh, she also did laundry and ended up spending two HOURS taking care if this…

This happened while I was clearing bush to access the tree I needed to debranch and cut to size. These are tiny burrs from a weed that has the prettiest, daintiest flowers that become these horrible things. I’ve been pulling them up every time I see them, but once the flowers are done blooming, they’re really hard to see.

Turns out I missed quite a lot of them.

I’d tried to rub out as many as I could before putting them through the wash. Once through the drier, the tiny burrs are a bit easier to rub out, but I ended up putting them back in the washing machine, to be included in the next load. Which turned out to be my daughter’s bedding. She didn’t realize what was on them until she moved things to the drier. Rather than risk burs ending up all over her bedding, she instead started picking them out, mostly one burr at a time!!

I would never have had that patience!

They’ll need to be washed again to hopefully remove the last little bits.

Then, since they were both up anyhow, they let me sleep in a bit and took care of feeding the outside cats for me, and I could do my rounds a bit later. I had to change the batteries on the trail cams today, including the solar powered one. I’ve had to change batteries on that one only once since we got it, and that was because I accidentally left it on “setting”, which meant it spent and entire day and night draining power while waiting for buttons to be pushed. The solar panel would have kept it going during the day, but once it was dark and the batteries were being used, they were completely drained.

As for me, I was glad to have that extra sleep and, to be honest, I’m fighting the urge to go back to bed. It’s gorgeous out there and there is lots of work to do, but I’m feeling quite drained.

With yesterday’s chill, I was planning on getting some crochet done after having a late lunch. I was just settling in to eat in the cat free zone (the living room) when the phone rang. Of course, the living room handset wasn’t in the living room at the time, and I didn’t get to it before it went to machine. It was my mother, and telling me to call her back, and she did not sound good at all.

So I called her back right away and found out why.

Our vandal had just showed up at her place, out of the blue, and he was in a full rage, apparently, He was yelling at her at her door, so the entire building could hear, going on about how she “gave” me the farm. Where he got that notion, I have no idea, because the property was signed over to my brother, not me. This was directly because of our vandal harassing her to change the will and give it to him. With the farm off the will entirely, he would not be able to contest it. In some messages he’d more recently left on her machine, he went on about “squatters rights” and how the property now belongs to me, but Canadian law no longer recognizes squatter’s rights, and hasn’t for a very long time. Not that we’re squatters in the first place. We have an informal arrangement, but an arrangement nonetheless. I don’t know who got it in his head that the property now belongs to me (and just me; apparently, the rest of my family doesn’t exist), but that’s his current thing.

To my mother’s credit, she told him outright, it’s none of his business. He already managed to get what would have been his inheritance more than 20 years ago, but he wants more. He started going on about how he worked on the farm, too (as if my siblings and I didn’t??). He is absolutely convinced he’s somehow entitled to the property, and seems to believe my mother can somehow still give it to him? It makes no sense, but we’re not dealing with a rational person, here.

Also to my mother’s credit, she finally told him to never come back. Previously, she’s sabotaged our efforts to protect her from him by actually phoning him and inviting him for tea or to go out for lunch or something. There seems to be a huge guilt factor motivating her efforts to make peace with someone who used to be so close, but has become completely irrational. I think feelings of guilt are behind his behaviour as well. My late brother’s death really destroyed him. I think a part of him recognises how much he’d taken advantage of my late brother, and that they weren’t anywhere near as close as he’s invented in his mind since the accident. He’s been taking it out on my mother, in particular, and since my father passed, has been using both of their deaths to cruelly abuse and manipulate my mother. That he has failed just seems to eat at him and is causing him to double down. A newer manipulation he’s using on her is that he’s apparently dying of cancer one day, or can’t walk anymore on another (as he stands at the door, having walked into her building…). He likely does need hip surgery again, but how is that my mother’s fault? Oh, right. He’s blaming his hip damage on all the work he supposedly did at the farm. Back when we were still close, I was the one that advised him to keep at the doctors about how much pain he was in, after working aircraft maintenance, on concrete floors and crawling around inside the craziest of places, looking for hairline cracks. The doctors didn’t want to do it because he was “too young” and it would need to be redone every 10 years. Well, it’s been a lot more than 10 years, so he’s likely in a lot of pain right now. And now he’s rewritten his own memory as to the cause and using it against my mother for… what? What does he expect her to do for him? Probably give him what’s left of her money, instead of the land. Though he has vowed to use every penny, even to the point of homelessness, to sue my brother and I. For what, I’m not entirely sure.

My mother is the weak link and the soft target. He hasn’t been going after me anymore. Our restraining order is expired, but he knows that I am willing to go to such efforts to stop him, which seems to be enough to keep him from going back to his past behaviour. Mind you, we did have a trail cam stolen, as well as the old sign with my father’s name on it, while the restraining order was in effect, but he technically did not have to go onto the property to do it, and we have no actual evidence that it was him. Still, when I mentioned it in court during mediation while trying to get the restraining order (he was not present for that), his lawyer and the judge were both nodding along going, “yeah, it would have been him.” There’s simply no one else that would have done it. So far, I’ve only seen him on the trail cams driving by. He no longer gives the finger to the cameras, nor comes up to the gate to shout down our driveway, while clearly drunk again.

Anyhow.

My mother hadn’t actually wanted to talk to me about it. She wanted to talk to my sister about it, as my sister still has some civil contact with our vandal. Well. Her husband does, anyhow. She couldn’t get through to my sister by phone, so I promised I’d send her an email, which I did immediately after getting off the phone.

Then I messaged my brother to update him, and we ended up chatting for quite some time. There isn’t a lot we can do about it, but we need to be aware, in case this is a sign that our vandal is losing it again and might decide to cause us problems here on the farm again. As for my sister, she did get through to my mother, then sent our vandal a message that probably didn’t do any good at all, but I guess it was worth a shot.

By the time all that was done, my food was cold and my tea was tepid. I also had to move on to other things and never got to my crochet at all.

I still feel completely drained and have no desire to go outside and get work done. The chances of him harassing me from the road are next to nil, so that’s not the issue. I’m just tired. Mentally and psychologically tired.

Of all the struggles we have found ourselves dealing with since the move, our vandal turning from friend to foe is the one that is the most unfortunate and difficult. That he goes after my mother like that… Ugh. My mother may be pretty abusive and cruel herself, but that doesn’t justify his abusive behaviour towards her. Especially over something that is none of his business. Blaming the actions from both of them on mental illness – as accurate as that may be – cannot be an excuse to accept the behaviour.

So… that’s where I’m at now. I really need to get outside and get some work done, while the weather is good, but I have zero motivation and zero energy. I’m simply out of spoons.

The Re-Farmer

This is why I stay flexible

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When it comes to overall plans for the day, I tend to be very loosey goosey. Mostly it’s because I hate making solid plans, then having something else come up and disrupt them. Which happens.

A lot.

This morning, I was able to get out while it was still cool to do my morning rounds, sex up some squash flowers, prune the tomatoes and harvest a few carrots.

I only picked a few to add to a chili type dish I plan to make. I intend to leave the rest in the ground for as long as I can, to get bigger. These are the Naval carrots that we made seed tape with. There’s a bit of damage on a couple of them because I had to use a digging tool to loosen the soil enough to pull them out without breaking them. For all the amending and mulching we’ve been doing, compaction remains a huge problem.

It was getting quite hot and muggy by the time I came in. I ended up having my breakfast… er… lunch… in the living room. Partly to enjoy the cool of the AC, but also because I usually eat while working at my computer, but the kittens have started to try and get at my food when I do that! We have a Roku set up on our TV, so I got to enjoy my lunch while watching The French Chef on Tubi.

I was just finished up and planning to head outside again when the phone rang.

It was my mother, wondering if I could come over and help her with shopping.

😄

When we spoke on the phone a few days ago, I specifically asked about when she would need to go shopping next. She told me she was done, well stocked up, etc. She then spent the next while listing off what my sister had brought her from her garden, and that she had going to the grocery store to pick up a couple of things for her, and she had this, and that, and this other thing…

My response was, so… why don’t we plan on it for Friday?

Nope. She didn’t want to set a date, because she’s well stocked…

Today is Friday.

She almost sounded sheepish when she asked if I could come over!

So I changed out of my grubbies and headed over to her place. We had a bit of a visit, first. Of course, she found ways to criticize and insult me within minutes, because she’s like that. Apparently, it’s a complete shock that I was wearing socks. It’s summer. Why am I wearing socks? There was also something about hose. As if she thought I was wearing panty hose, until I lifted my pant leg to figure out what she was talking about.

We ended up talking about the new steel toe shoes I was wearing, instead of the boots I usually do, which lead to me telling her (again) that I’d injured my feet long ago, by being over active so that’s why I have to wear really good shoes all the time. My mother, of course, just had to make a dig about how it (my foot injuries) was because I was fat. She is utterly obsessed with my being fat, and always finds ways to point out how this is some sort of moral and personal failing, the cause of all my problems, and that if I just did what she told me, I’d be skinny. Or something. I reminded her that I injured my feet before I got fat, and it’s why I started getting fat. Well, that and childbirth. All the woman in my mother’s side of the family got fat after having babies. They also all lived to hale and hearty old age, while all my skinny ancestors died young, but that’s a conversation beyond her ability to understand. Yes, my mother is fat. She’s been fat for as long as I can remember and, for all her hypochondria, astonishingly healthy at 92 years old. Anyhow, I called her on her behaviour, and her habit of finding sly ways to point out how disgusting she finds me. She, of course, tried to gaslight me, going on about how I shouldn’t be so upset (pointing out her behaviour is always translated as being angry or upset, or otherwise out of control; typical of gaslighting), or that I was the one attacking her, and when that failed, she started talking to the picture of Jesus on the wall.

It didn’t work.

Eventually, my pointing out that it was her own behaviour that was the cause of the problem, not my inability to accept her verbal abuse, got her to a point where she couldn’t find a way to twist it around and make it my fault anymore.

At which point, I went back to says, yes, I wear socks with my work shoes in the summer.

After that, the visit went really well! 😄

I helped her run her errands, going to various places. She is really struggling to get in and out of the car these days. She would have just given me a list to do her shopping for her, but there were things she wanted to look at and choose herself. What I used to do at the grocery store was bring a cart for her to use as a walker, but now I insist she use the walker while I push the cart, so she has something to sit down on if her knees start to give out on her. And she’s taken advantage of that!

What was funny is that after everything was put away and we were sitting for a brief rest and visit, she actually “kicked me out”, saying she wanted to take a nap. Usually, when I try to leave, she tries to guilt me into staying longer, and how this is my “holiday”, and the girls can take care of things at the farm, and she’s not going to be around forever, so I should spent more time with her! Nope. Now, she’s tired. Time for me to go!

I’m quite okay with that. I was tired, too!

Not too tired, though. When I went to get some gas, I saw the farmer’s market was open, and my cousin’s truck was there. It’s been ages since I got honey from him! Last year, the weather destroyed most of his hives. Usually, we would get a 5kg bucket of honey from him, but not this year. I was able to get one of his large 1.5kg jars, though.

I also picked up some fresh baked sourdough bread and strawberry rhubarb pie!

I would never pay those prices at a grocery store – the pie cost more than the honey! That size jar – the largest he had available – was only $13. I also checked out, but skipped, a booth with fresh vegetables that looked really good. Just not vegetables we typically eat, or stuff we have our own of. Lots of people thought they looked good, to. There was an actual line up of people waiting to pay for their selections.

Small farmer’s markets like this are hard for me to go to. I want to support all of the vendors! Even if I’m not entirely sure what it is they’re selling. 😄

One of the other things I did while at my mother’s was to clean up her answering machine, saving the calls from our vandal that she’ still getting. I recorded them and sent them to my brother. We are very perplexed by some of the things our vandal has been saying. My vandal has been leaving me alone, but he recently called and left messages with my brother, and also called my mother, saying some very strange things about me. One text message he sent to my brother was so bizarre and disjointed, I honestly wondered if he had a stroke or something.

It did give me a chance to talk to my brother, though. Normally, I hate talking on the phone, but not with him! I think we spoke for about an hour or more!

Then I forgot about this post in progress. Oops.

Well, at least I sexed up some more squash flowers, watered the garden, added more supports to the melon trellis (we have baby melons!), got the slow cooker going, started laundry and had my supper in the living room with Marlee, to give her a break from the kittens!

By the end of the weekend, though, we will be down a kitten. The Cat Lady and her family are in the area, and she will swing by to pick up Ghosty, whose eyes are starting to get all sticky again, when they are on their way back to the city.

Soon, we’ll have to get some good photos of the other kittens and Decimus to send to her, so she can pass them on to her contacts and hopefully get them adopted out when they are weaned.

The kittens are sweet and adorable, but I’m going to be happy when they’re gone!

Not as happy as Marlee, though.

The Re-Farmer

An eye rolling surprise, and some cuteness

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I paused what I was working on to help my daughter get some old bikes out of the barn hayloft. She and my husband have been looking at the one I got for $10 at a garage sale, and I’m told it would cost more to fix it, than get a new bike! Given the price of new bikes these days, I don’t think so, but it needs a lot of work.

There are old bikes strewn around all over the farm, and my daughter had already brought a couple over. For the ones in the hay loft, the won’t fit through the opening in the floor, where it’s accessed by a ladder. There is a pair of doors on the side facing the house that haven’t been touched since the girls went up to secure them, after they were blown open during high winds.

Except… it turned out someone else had been up there.

In the fall of 2018, we discovered our vandal had boarded the barn doors up to try and prevent us from accessing stuff he felt entitled to. It never occurred to us that he would have gone up into the hayloft and boarded the doors up from the inside! It took my daughter quite a while to get them out, without damaging the doors more. The screws were driven deep into the wood, with two of them so deep, she didn’t even see them at first. He’d done that same thing with the main doors, with one driven so far into the wood, I never did get it out. I had to break the screw – something that was not an option for my daughter, today. The second door is still attached somehow, but she could not see where. One door open was enough to fit the bikes through, though. The floor up there is increasingly unsafe to walk on – I can’t go up there at all anymore – so she very carefully grabbed 4 adult size bikes that were up there (there are also a couple of tricycles!) and lowered them down with a rope. I would remove the rope and set the bike aside, while she got the next one.

There was one bike on the lower level she hadn’t noticed earlier, but I’d seen it while scavenging through the various piles of stuff back there. I dug it out for her and, in the process, discovered a couple of piles of ceramic tiles. Maybe about 30, altogether. They weren’t the usual used salvage, either, but look like none of them have ever been used! I’m sure we can find something to do with them. 😊

Anyhow.

After we got the bikes down, my daughter looked around for anything else worth taking out. There’s a lot of stuff there, including the ubiquitous stacks of old tires, with and without rims. She ended up passing down to me some wood that looked like it was still in decent condition. Four or five 2×6 boards that are all about 12 feet long! I say “about” because they all have rotted ends, just like the other salvage lumber in the barn we’ve been making use of as best we can. There’s more lumber up there, but it’s all pretty rotten.

After we finished up and my daughter secured the doors from the inside so they wouldn’t blow open, I headed back to the house with a few things, while she started bringing the bikes closer. We now have a collection of 8 bikes out there. We’re hoping to be able to cobble together at least one that will work!

As I came to the house, though, I was thoroughly distracted by an adorable, squished kitty!

We keep this bin under the laundry platform bench, on its side and weighed down with bricks, as a place to keep the bucket of clothes pins out of the weather. The cats love to squish in the remaining space. Adam had been asleep when I came by, and does not look at all impressed that I interrupted his nap!

It looks like he’s been getting those burrs out of his fur, little by little. I managed to sneak a pet of his back while he was eating, recently, and didn’t feel the lumps I’d felt before. His long haired tuxedo brother, Driver, still has them in his tail and won’t let me get them out, but the ones on his body seem to be gone. Even Decimous, the little black and white, is looking like he as fewer mats in his fur. That leaves Brussel for the long haired cats, and she’s so stand-offish, we’ve never been able to tell if she’s getting matts or burrs in her fur. I’m just sort of assuming there are burrs in there. Even the short hairs cats have been having problems with them!

I do wish we could socialize all the outside cats! It would make it so much easier to take care of them!

They do make life more cheerful, though, just by existing! 😊

The Re-Farmer

A bit more updating

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I think the outside cats are very happy the roof is done!

I think I actually counted 28 this morning, including two of the bitties that were under the cat house!

We have been having almost rain, almost snow, lately. Many trees look like they’re covered with hoar frost, but it’s actually a layer of ice.

Something I had to deal with when switching out the memory card on the gate cam!

The entire front was covered with a layer of ice! The camera lens has a plastic protector in the front cover. I spent some time trying to melt it away with the heat of my fingers, then trying to scrape it off. Then I use my palms to try and melt the ice off the solar panel. There’s not much I can do for the divots in front of the infrared flash lights. At least not without some kind of tool that can get in, but from the looks of the file, enough light is getting through that the night vision still works. At least as much as possible, when the lens itself has a layer of ice over it!

I went around the house this morning, taking pictures from the ground (not getting very good angles in most places!) of the new shingles, and moving a few things back that got missed.

This is what’s left of the chimney! A lot of the bricks are broken, but that’s okay. We will likely use these to make paths, and broken pieces can be used mosaic style.

While they were working on the roof, I’d burned a pile of wood over burnable garbage, adding a few old and rotten pallets I’d cleaned out of the yard in the process. This morning, I found this on the banked ash pile.

I’d seen these by the house while they were working and was wondering if they were going to keep them or not. It was too funny to see they’d added them to my burn pile!

They didn’t stay there. There’s some salvageable wood in there! I moved them to the barn. The bottom one was a bit singed by hot spots in the ash pile, but that one also has more broken pieces, of it was better for that one to be singed than the one that is in better shape. 😊

I got a message from my brother saying that he wanted to come over again – not as early as yesterday, though, thankfully! I told him I was leaving to meet with the cat lady, and thought I’d miss him entirely, but he was here when I got back. So I stayed outside after the cats and other stuff was unloaded into the house. There isn’t much I can do to help him, but I still wanted to be available!

I also took advantage of the daylight and walked around looking for “flyaways”. They cleaned up as best they could in the dark, but there was bound to be stuff they missed. Especially the clear plastic strips that covered the adhesive under the shingles. Those are hard to see, even in daylight, and are so light, they were blown around all over. There were also pieces of white plastic, on white snow, that were very easy to miss. I expect we will be finding more bits and pieces when the snow melts in the spring!

My brother sent me a picture of Dishy – after he secured it to the roof! It was held by only one screw. We figure they lost the other two while working around it.

My brother also tarred around the new anchor bolts he’d put in for the antennae wires, and checked the septic stack vents. There are two of them, and they were pretty blocked with debris. Not from the roofing job, but just from years of exposure. These vents are there to ensure no vacuum forms in the pipes as water drains to the septic tank. Now that they’ve been cleared, we should notice water draining better, throughout the house. He had a chance to talk to one of my daughters about it and, now that they know, they will include checking the vents when they’re up on the roof to clean the eavestroughs. They’d cleared those before the snow fell, but my brother found the downspouts were all full again!

Oh, and I had to laugh when I came outside this morning. Do you see the roof of the kibble house, behind the satellite dish? With something in the snow?

It is a forgotten can of A&W Root Beer! One of the guys must have put it in the snow, where it wouldn’t slide away, and would stay chilled, then forgot it there. 😄

There is one thing that we found – or should I say, didn’t find – that my brother is not happy with.

The parts and pieces from our old satellite dish that was still up there. Also, the remaining supports from the one that is now stored in the basement, that we’d left in place rather than leave screw holes in the roof.

I think they got taken to the dump. Those were not supposed to be throw away.

My brother will see if he can find out what happened to it when the company contacts him with the bill.

Oh, and he remembered to tell me something our mother had said when he visited her yesterday. She was complaining that none of the roofers, or someone from the company (I still haven’t figured out who she thinks it should be) came to visit her. Then she started saying that if they did any extra patch jobs on top of replacing the shingles, she won’t pay for it.

As in, if they found and fixed any rotted areas.

So… while talking to me, when I said they’d found no rot (only later did I find out they’d found and fixed one small patch of it), she was upset because she didn’t believe they’d recognise rot when they saw it, and/or that they would have put new shingles on top of rotten wood, rather than fix it, and the roof is gong to collapse like she saw on the news, who knows how long ago.

But in talking to my brother, she’s saying that if they DID fix anything beyond what was included in the estimate, she won’t pay them… for repairing the damage she doesn’t think they’d competent enough to recognise, and/or too corrupt to fix, therefore the roof is going to collapse.

My brother and I both know that she will try to go back on her word to pay for this, so he didn’t say much, or she’d get mad at him and use that as an excuse to not do what she promised she would do.

We will both be very relieved when the bill if finally paid!

Meanwhile, as my brother was up on the roof today, and I was picking things up around the house, he noticed a dark SUV suddenly slowing riiiiiggghhhttt down as it drove past on the main road. Slow enough to almost be stopped on the road.

It kept going until we could no longer see it through the trees, then I saw it going down the road by our driveway, as if it had driven around the other way. Which, since there is a “missing” road at a one mile mark, meant driving around an extra section (which is 1 square mile) to come back from that direction.

We both recognized the vehicle as one our vandal owns.

We saw it again, driving very slowly the other direction.

With the roofers coming, but not knowing when, we’ve had the gate wide open for quite some time. I went over to close it, but I looked down the road first. From our driveway, we can see open road for about 3/4 of a mile, but there was no sign of the SUV. I should have been able to see it. For it to be gone, it had to have turned into a field, and there are only two driveways into fields out there – one of them being part of this property, that is rented out. The other is a barely-their driveway that, as far as I know, doesn’t even get used in the winter.

I closed up the gate, then started walking back when I heard an engine coming.

Sure enough, it was the same SUV. Wherever it had disappeared to, it had turned around and come back, again driving ever so slowly.

So I started walking up the driveway towards the gate. Basically, I wanted our vandal to know that we could see him stalking around the property. When he saw me, he started driving faster, turned towards his place and didn’t come back.

Since he stayed on the road and never stopped, I don’t think he could be considered in breach of the restraining order we have against him, but he sure was on the edge of it!

My guess is, he noticed the new roof and was wanting to get a better look at what was going on, since he still seems to think he has some sort of claim on this place.

Which reminds me.

It turns out he’d called my mother again, though I’m not sure about the timeline of it. He said he wanted to come and visit her. She told him, sure, and started laying out the conditions of behaviour if he did. He’d responded by saying that he was going to be there on his own terms!

My brother asked her, why are you even wanting him to come over at all? What do you think he’ll do? She told him he’d probably do the same thing he always does; make demands, rant and rave, without letting her get a word in edgewise. So my brother asked again, why do you want him to come over? She started making excuses but, my goodness… if she knows he will only continue to be verbally abusive and coercive towards her, how does she think letting him come over will help?

So we’ll have to keep an eye out on my mother, in hopes she doesn’t self sabotage again.

Meanwhile, it looks like we’re going to have to make sure to keep the gate closed and locked again. I was hoping to be able to leave it open for the winter. There isn’t much snow right now but, last year, when the snow got so deep it was hard to open and close the gate, we left it open – which our awesome neighbors took advantage of and cleared our driveway for us, before we even knew they were there! It’s just a lot more convenient to not have to be constantly locking and unlocking the gate, either for ourselves, or for when we are expecting things like prescription deliveries, etc.

I’d hoped, after things had been so quiet for so long, our vandal was finally letting go, but it looks like he’s still watching us.

Just one more reason we want to plant lots of berry bushes and trees, as privacy screens! Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about the driveway.

I am really hoping we won’t have to apply to renew the restraining order when it expires, but I strongly suspect we might have to go through that all over again.

Ah, well. We will deal with what comes.

My brother managed to find all sorts of little things to do while he was here, going up and down the ladder many times, and in many different areas. While I was still gone, he even carried the step ladder up the ladder so that he could use it to get to the second level roof! I was very happy to be there so he could lower it down to me, rather than try and climb down the ladder while carrying the step ladder!

It was starting to get dark by the time he was done, and he still had errands to run. He just never seems to stop!

I love my brother, but as much as I appreciate all he does for us, I wish he would take a break sometimes! He’s burning the candle at both ends.

It’s all done, though! All that the roofers were responsible for, plus the extras my brother did.

This should make quite a difference! I’ll have to remember to ask the girls, over the next few weeks, if they notice a difference in temperature upstairs. It wouldn’t be much; it’s not like insulation was added, but those extra layers of plastic barriers under the newly laid shingles might be enough for a noticeable change for them.

The Re-Farmer

Possible trigger?

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While waiting for the RCMP to call me back, a thought occurred to me, so I went to the post office.

Sure enough, I found what may have been the trigger for this.

In the mail was a letter from the Court of Queen’s Bench. The judge’s decision on our vandal’s civil suit against me.

It was dismissed.

He now owes me $500 in court costs.

I expect him to appeal. He would have picked up his mail as usual on Friday, and had the decision festering in his head for a couple of days, so it could easily have triggered him to get drunk and do something stupid last night.

I don’t know that I’m happy with why the judge dismissed the case, though I suppose she had to respond to his claim, not my defense. She basically said that he did not provide a comprehensive list of items (noting that he’d said there was “too much to list”) with a market value, such as an appraisal, included. Basically, if he can come up with a list and attach dollar amounts to things, he can include that in his appeal.

In the papers he presented to the judge, he had photos of vehicles he claimed were his (one of which is already on his property, and at least one other was given to my dad by my brother, and is not his), and they were older photos. Photos taken while many of the vehicles still look like they’re worth something. They don’t look anywhere near that good anymore. Even as scrap value, the longer they sit there, rusting away, the less they’re worth. In his picture of the post pounder, you can’t even tell what it is, because it was covered in junk. I’m the one who cleaned it up and have been trying to protect it from the elements. That was built by my late brother, so there is no market equivalent.

Still, I can see our vandal sitting there, stewing, coming up with a list of everything he thinks is his, or believes is here, and how much he can say I need to pay him for it. He could have found a way to prove things were his, and I would have let him take it. Heck, I would have been good with claims being corroborated by my brother or my mother, but in trying to do so, I found that he was claiming some things are his that they say are not. But he doesn’t actually want the stuff. He wants the money – and to destroy me.

Ah, well. I guess I “won”, but I don’t think it’s over.

Whatever he ends up doing, I can easily see the decision being enough to put him out of control, getting drunk, and deciding to do something about the one camera he could actually reach. I honestly can’t think of any logical alternative to how the camera disappeared, and I’ve been trying. I would really prefer to believe that some animal dragged it off, but… no. That just doesn’t fit.

No matter.

I called the RCMP again. It’s a good thing I did, because the clerk isn’t in today, so no one saw my message. I’ve filed a report, but there’s really nothing they can do about it. There are no witnesses, and the only evidence would be in the missing camera’s memory card. It’s not like I have a camera on my camera!

But it’s reported and on file, so there is at least that. Who knows. When the clerk comes in and gets my message, I might still get a call from a constable later.

On top of that, I got a call from the tree guy. The chippers will not be coming today, as we are expected to get rain this afternoon. Possibly heavy thunderstorms. Which I don’t expect to actually hit us, but we’ll see. He will call me again, the next time they have a few hours available.

On the plus side, I got a wonderful surprise in the mail. A big, heavy box was waiting for me.

M, you are such a sweetie! Thank you so much. The cats will love the treats and, as soon as I’m done this, I’m going to start going through those old books! 🥰 You are awesome!

I have the best friends. 💟💟

The Re-Farmer

Apparently, I”m a “ringleader”

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Oh, what I day.

At least I got to start it with cows!

When I went to unlock the gate, the renter’s cows (and bull) were in the old hay yard. The grass is too high to see, but it looks like there is still water in the low spot where you can see a bunch of them gathered. They did seem to be drinking, rather than grazing.

I just love the renter’s cows. They make me smile!

I left very early for my court date with our vandal today. I did forget on detail until I went over the paperwork again last night. He’s not suing me for $10,000. He’s suing me for $13,000.

I’m glad I left as early as I did. Aside from stopping to get gas on the way out, when I got to my usual route to a place I knew I could park without time limits, I found the road was torn up. There was only 1 lane of traffic, away from where I wanted to go, and it was several blocks before I was able to take a turn back to the main road and go around another way.

When I got there, I did have a bit of a heart attack when the security guard told me there was no court today. ???!!! The court office was open, though, so I went in to ask. At first, it was confirmed: no court today. Then I showed her my case file and she said, “oh, yes. There’s court for you.”

🤯

Because this was a civil suit, it’s Court of Queens Bench – a federal court, not a provincial court. When I filed for a restraining order against our vandal, it was all provincial, and in a different court room. The court rooms are just down the hall from each other, though. There are some benefits to small city courts!

After some time, I could hear our vandal’s voice, talking to the security guards at the door. When he and his witnesses came around the corner, they saw me sitting by the doors and just stopped, taking seats at the other end of the hall.

He had said he would have two, then four, witnesses, but three were there. His wife, of course. A mutual friend whose voice I recognized, and another guy whose voice I could not recognise at all. They had bright windows behind them, so I couldn’t see him. In the end, it turned out to be a neighbour of ours that we both grew up with. Not someone I would have expected to be there, though.

No matter.

Because he was the claimant, when we finally got before the judge (about 15-20 minutes past the scheduled time), he got to talk first, with an opening statement, then calling in his witnesses, one at a time.

The first thing the judge asked him, though, was how he came up with the $13,000 he was after. He rambled about how much he thought things were worth, and that some things had sentimental value, but in the end it came down to “that’s what I think it’s worth”.

As for his opening statement, my goodness, he rambled on. Then stopped. Then rambled some more. Then stopped. Then rambled some more. The judge was good at keeping a poker face, but even she was starting get that “are you done yet?” look.

In a nutshell, everything is my fault. I am the “ringleader” in trying to destroy his life. I have cameras because I want him in jail. I locked the gate because I want to keep him from his stuff. I call the police on him, over and over and over, and the police came to see him, like, THREE times, and he was fingerprinted and everything. I pressed charges for no reason (his vandalizing the gate was him “opening” the gate). I applied for a restraining order for no reason. I was using the police and the courts against him because I’m so very mean and don’t want him to have his stuff. The farm’s ownership went to my brother “behind [his] back” and “in secret”. He still seems to think he has some sort of claim to the land itself, not just the stuff he claims is his. Lots of rambling about how he and my late brother did SO much to take care of the farm, and how he went to auctions and stuff to buy things that were stored on the farm because he didn’t have room out of the elements to start it, etc. My other siblings did nothing. It was just him and my late brother. And I’m mean for not letting him onto the property.

Then his witnesses came in, one at a time, and basically said the same thing. He did lots of stuff on the farm. He helped my dad a lot. He had lots of stuff on the farm. My dad wanted the farm to go to him. !!! He should be able to go onto the farm and take “his” stuff at any time. His wife even tried to make it sound like he brought his own tools over here and left them, if my father didn’t have a particular tool. Which is hilarious, because when we moved here, all the functional tools and supplies were gone.

Funny. Other than passing mentions, it was as if my mother, who actually owned the land when we moved here, didn’t exist.

The witnesses really didn’t make his case. But then, he doesn’t have one.

When I finally got to respond, it was pretty basic. I don’t claim ownership of the property or anything on it. It was my mother’s, and now it’s my brothers. He has submitted additional documentation that I wasn’t able to go over in full until later, but it didn’t add to his case. I submitted the Statement of Declaration, sign by myself, my brother and my mother, explaining why we moved out here and what my role here is – and that includes keeping things from disappearing. Because of some of the things he said, I included the transcript of a phone message he left with my brother that basically admitted he took all that stuff, and that he was going to keep suing us, even if it meant he had to sell his farm and be homeless. With lots of swearing. I also had a transcript of my dad leaving a message with my brother, shortly before he died, saying he wanted my brother to take over the farm.

My affidavit included an old email I’d sent back in 2018 to our vandal and my family where, among other things, I’d told him that if he could take stuff if he could provide proof of ownership. He never responded.

I also had the chance to say what he actually did to the gate, and that I had cameras because we found locks glued shut and the barn doors boarded up. I mentioned I have a disabled husband, and if we needed to suddenly go to the hospital, that would be a major issue. I also had the chance to mention I have no income; we live on my husband’s disability, so what does he think he can get from me?

There was lots more, of course. As expected, without someone there to keep him on a short leash, he stepped in it a few times. One of them was when he said I was using the police and courts against him and got away with it with a sob story that had the “judge wrapped around [my] fingers”. That was one moment where the judge’s poker face broke, ever so fleetingly.

Oh, one other time I think he stepped in it. He started rambling on about how this farm is apparently “worth a fortune”. And the house, too. Ha! The numbers he threw out wouldn’t even buy a “handyman’s special” house in the city. His own place, and all the stuff he’s got on it, is probably worth three times as much, if not more.

Also, apparently I have ruined him financially, because I pressed charges against him and riled a restraining order, and he had to pay a lawyer $4000. But he’s “financially ruined” because of me? Even on his pension, not to mention the golden handshake he got, he’s probably bringing in more than my husband’s disability payments, and if it isn’t, his wife’s job certainly is. But he was clearly very obsessed with the monetary value of this property, and that fact that I “control” it.

We used to be so close, years ago, but now his hatred of me is palpable. It’s remarkable.

What’s done is done, though. It’s now up to the judge. She will make her decision and we will get it in the mail within 30 days.

I am glad for that, as it means she’ll have a chance to go over all the documentation. Even after going over the stack of papers he submitted (and it was quite a stack, though mostly of photos), he still doesn’t have a case. It all comes down to the fact that 1) I don’t claim ownership over any of it and 2) he had plenty of opportunity to take his stuff, and he didn’t. It’s not like I gave him a time limit on that.

She explained at the end that if she rules in his favour, it would be for the $13,000 plus potentially the court costs, and did he want to include that? He asked what that meant, and it could be up to $500 more.

If she rules in my favour, she asked about court costs, and I said yes, too. So I might get awarded up to $500 if she rules in my favour.

It should be interesting to see what her ruling will say. Whichever direction she goes, if we don’t agree with it, we have up to 30 days to file an appeal.

*sigh*

I find myself wondering how it ever got to this point, but then I see how he still sees himself as a victim, taking no responsibility for the consequences of his own actions, and realize… it got here because for the first time in his life, someone actually stood up to him, and he can’t handle it. So he escalated it.

I think the judge could recognize that, though. We shall see.

The Re-Farmer

Taking a sort of break

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I just need to take a brain break for a moment. Writing this is my brain break! :-D I have just spent the last hour or so at the local cemetery, with my mother and sister. It went well, overall, but things are always a bit stressful with my mother around.

Photo by Brett Sayles on Pexels.com

I actually started my day with a telephone appointment with the doctor to talk about my mother. One of the things that he will get the ball rolling on is to have the home care department call my mom for an assessment, so see what sort of help she needs, if any. They can’t do that until my mother deals with her bed bug situation, which she is still treating as a big joke. She will be getting a phone call first, though, and hopefully they will talk to her about it. The doctor had questions about my mother getting infections or rashes from the bed bugs, but there is nothing he can do beyond that; it’s all on my mother to make the call to get her place treated.

At the same time, he had the results of my bloodwork and updated my prescription. It’s handy having the same doctor as my mother! So as soon as I got off the phone with him, I called the pharmacy. My husband called in his own refills to be delivered today, so I told them they would be getting a fax with my updated prescription, and asking them to include it with the delivery. I ran out of mine months ago, but without being able to go in to do my bloodwork, I was only getting 30 day refills. Each time it ran out, the pharmacy would have to contact the clinic and wait for another 30 day refill prescription to be faxed to them, so I didn’t bother calling in anymore. When I mentioned that to the doctor, he was a bit startled and assured me I’d be getting a 90 day prescription. In 2 months, I need to get more bloodwork done to see if anything needs to be changed. Meanwhile, my husband and I will be seeing the doctor in person in a couple of days.

My sister made the trip to my mother, to bring her out to the cemetery. She tries to manage it at least once a year. We met in town to have lunch at our hamlet’s single restaurant. I left a bit earlier, before the store with the post office closed. I’m happy to say, my PAL finally came in! I can now legally buy non-restricted guns and ammunition. Not that we have the money for it right now, but at least it’s an option.

So we had a nice lunch, and I let my mother know about the call she could expect from home care, but mentioned that they can’t come out until she gets the bed bug situation dealt with. She just smirked about that. I don’t know how to get through to her about her need to do this! Otherwise, her behaviour was pretty good, up until we were getting ready to leave, and she called the two staff over and started telling them to take away the “ugly” picture on the wall. There are paintings and photos from local artists for sale on the walls, and this one happened to be a portrait type painting of an old First Nations man, with slightly disheveled hair. She said a few tactless and somewhat racist things – things she gets away with, simply because of her age! My sister and I still called her out on it, so that didn’t last too long, at least. The staff handled it well, at least.

After lunch, I transferred some framed pictures my mother asked me to get out of storage – I’m glad I was able to find them at all! – into my sister’s car, then we headed to the cemetery.

It’s a very tiny cemetery connected with a church that has been closed for years now. It’s off the beaten path and tucked away among the trees. A very lovely spot. It was a bit of a surprise to see vehicles already there, including one I recognized.

It turns out our vandal had volunteered to cut the grass, and was doing it today.

He’d already used the weed trimmer around the half of the cemetery we needed to go into. When he realized I was there, he quickly packed up and left, in compliance with the restraining order. Meanwhile, my mother was there, calling out to him to come over. *sigh* I tried to explain to her that he couldn’t, and not to get him in trouble, but I don’t think she understood. Or maybe just didn’t care.

Since the grass had just been trimmed, it was all over the graves and stones, and he hadn’t had a chance to put things back. So I got a snow brush out of the van and started sweeping around the family graves.

There’s quite a few of them.

My sister, meanwhile, had brought a brush to scrub away the bird droppings, and water and rags to clean off the stones. They’d also brought a whole bunch of artificial flowers, so once everything was cleaned up and decorations returned, we set flowers out as my mother directed. She kept getting mad at us when we would ask her if she liked a particular colour grouping of flowers, but hadn’t finished setting them in place yet, because we hadn’t set them in place yet. !!

It took a while.

Then, after she said some prayers, she wanted my sister to get pictures of her by the freshly cleaned up and decorated family graves.

That was my cue to go. I suggested to my sister that she text our vandal before they left, to let him know I was gone and he could come back and finish what he was doing.

The whole thing went over pretty well, as far as such things go, but I’m mentally exhausted. It’s also the hottest part of the day, now, so I lost my productive time in the garden. I just talked to my daughters about it, and we’ve decided I need to have a “day off” from the garden. I’ve been pushing myself hard, and am in a lot of pain for it, so I really do need to back off a bit. My older daughter is going to do as much commission work as she can today, so she can take a day off work tomorrow. We’ll make a big push to get the last of the garden planted. Even if we don’t manage to get the A frame trellis supports in place, that can be finished after things have been planted. We just need to get the last stuff into the ground! I am just so incredibly tired right now, to the point it’s hard to think straight as I’m writing. Lack of sleep is part of the problem. It isn’t helping that Nosencrantz is determined to have access to the window ledge again, and keeps knocking out the window fan, leaving it dangling by its cord and bounding off the wall.

Usually at around 4:30am

It’s now doubly secured and, when I got home from my outing, I found it shifted out of place, but still on the ledge, so it’s working so far.

So, I think I’ll try and get some rest (and pain killer up!) today, and we’ll make the big push tomorrow.

Once the garden is in, we’ll celebrate with my younger daughter’s birthday pizza. It’ll be early, but her sister plans to get her some celebratory Taquitos and beer, cake and ice cream, closer to her actual birthday. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Budding

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I was so distracted by a conference call I had to make this morning, I completely forgot to schedule today’s Recommended post! I will post it tomorrow and be back to Mondays and Fridays after that.

I did make sure to feed the critters before the conference call, since I had no idea how long it would be.

The cats are much more laid back out the food and take their time coming out, even though the kibble trays were empty. Clearly, they are no longer as hungry as they were when it was still cold out. I only saw 8 cats in total this morning, which means we are “missing” about 10 cats. I know some, like Potato Beetle and Broccoli, will come by later, but others have not been seen in weeks.

After the conference call was done, I went back out to do the rest of my morning rounds. One of the fun things now on the list is checking on the tulip patch. Look what showed up overnight!

Whole bunches of them now have flower buds!

We will have to keep a close eye on them. This is the stage last year, when something ate all the flower buds. We still have some rope barriers and distractions, like bells and spinny, sparkly things, around it that seems to be keeping the deer away (I can see their hoof prints in the mud, going past it), but there’s nothing to stop any small critters.

It’s a chilly and overcast day today, and the crocus flowers are mostly closed, but I was seeing more of the purple ones again.

The first wonderberry in the sun room has started blooming again, and the younger two are covered in clusters of buds. I gave up pinching off the buds; there were just too many to keep up with! We still haven’t even found a spot for them, yet. As they readily self seed, it has to be someplace they can be treated as perennials.

I did try to peak into the cats’ house to see the babies. What I saw were two adult cats so wrapped around each other that, aside from their heads, I couldn’t tell one from the other. It did seem that both were nursing kittens, but I couldn’t really tell. I’d love to be able to get those windows cleaned on the insides; they are quite smeared from the cats rubbing up against them all winter, but we aren’t going to open that roof right now.

As for the conference call, it was to set a new trial date for our vandal’s vexatious litigation against me. It turns out the previous date was cancelled because the judge got sick. When it was cancelled, we received an email with alternate dates; three early ones, two in May, one in June, all in the city, or three late ones, one in November, two in December, at where we have been going for my retraining order application against our vandal. The only time we had to go to court in the city was for court mediation. I left something like an hour earlier than necessary, and still ended up late. The area is a disaster to navigate. Meanwhile, our vandal didn’t even show up. Just his lawyer was there.

He doesn’t seem to have any lawyer for this one. He has no case, so I doubt any civil lawyer would take it, though when it came up during court mediation, his criminal lawyer did say he’d be willing to represent, if asked, but he hadn’t been asked.

These conference calls run through a docket and, in the past it has taken a while, but this time we were the first ones called. After clarifying that we were there to set a new trial date, and asking if we wanted to attend in person or by video call (which neither of us can do), the clerk spent some time searching and found one date in August. After clarifying that it was at our usual location, I said I was good with any date at that location. Our vandal, as I expected, jumped in and asked if it could be done in the city, and brought up the date he’d chosen before – which he knew I couldn’t do. He said he just wanted to get it over with. Ha!

Anyhow.

The clerk told him it had be be where the “cause of action” was taken, and couldn’t be done in the city unless one of us lived there, or if we both agreed to it. He said he hadn’t known that. Then she said that the August date was the ONLY one that had an open slot we could take. So he had no choice but to accept the date the court gave us. Which is pretty much what I’d suggested be done when I tried to take the November date in the original email exchange, because I knew he’d never accept any date I chose. For me, it wasn’t so much about the date, but the location, so of course our vandal tried to choose the other location! With so many files being delayed over and over, the next available date likely would have been next year.

The main thing is, it’s done and we have a new date. Barring more crazy stuff happening, as it has since all this started back in late 2020, I look forward to a judge throwing it his case out in August.

At this point, even if we were able to do a May date more locally, I still wouldn’t be sure if I could make it. Our vandal may have vehicles that can get through the washouts, but we don’t, and those washouts might just get worse. The predicted rain started while I was writing this, and was coming down pretty hard for a while. We’re still getting weather alerts, and now they’re saying we might be getting 3.5 – 5.5cm (about 1 1/2 – 2 inches) at times. The Overland Flow Flood warning now reads:

High amounts of rainfall occurring in a short period could create overland flooding in these areas which may impact low lying areas, roads, and properties. As the ground is extremely saturated, a sudden rise in water levels could occur in some waterways and creeks Residents along these areas are cautioned about the potential sudden rise of water levels. Follow all directions by local authorities. Listen for updates and take all necessary precautions to stay safe.

We aren’t near any waterways, unless you count the municipal drainage ditches, but the washouts we already have will likely get worse. We’re supposed to get a couple of warm sunny days next, then two more days of light rain again. At least now, the 14 day forecast shows a week of sun before we are supposed to get rain again. For us, around the house and the inner and outer yards, that mostly just means more mud. The areas low enough to collect water are not a threat to any buildings we’re actually using. We are okay. I’m concerned about some of our neighbours, though. :-(

The Re-Farmer