In my last post, I wrote about the destruction wrought by our indoor cats. To counter that, here is a photo of an adorable little outside cat.
Meet Ginger, of the rubber spine!
He followed me around while I was doing my rounds, and kept flinging himself onto the ground in front of me, rolling about like some sort of Polychaete worm. Adorable!
Inside cat destruction is not, however, what fried my brain.
I call a call from my brother this morning, to talk about upcoming court dates. I’ve got my application for a restraining order against our vandal coming up this month, and the court date for his vexatious litigation against me in July. It took him a while, but my brother had managed to finally upload a file of phone messages our vandal had left with our mother. I already had the most recent ones. These ones were basically from the past year.
I just spent that last few hours transcribing them.
The transcription itself is it’s own challenge, with having to go back and listen to things repeatedly, trying to figure out what was being said. I’m pretty sure he was drunk for some of these calls, but in others… well, he just doesn’t sound all there, words and phrases are messed up, and there is some stuttering as he was clearly trying to find the words to say.
The other thing was, of course, the subject matter. Though my mother has no part in my applying for a restraining order against him, he keeps accusing her of trying to put him in jail. In fact, it’s a vast conspiracy of my mother, me and my siblings, and the RCMP, all trying to put him in jail. Because we’re evil. And my late father and brother are watching this from heaven in disapproval. Also, apparently, my mother has given the farm to me. All of it. Never mind that my younger brother has already inherited a third of it. And we only love my mother for her money (that apparently she had loads of. Somewhere). And did you know that there are people being killed and raped around the world, but here she is, trying to put him in jail?
This dude needs psychiatric help. I realize my mother got these calls over the span of a more than a year, counting the most recent ones, but I was listening to all of them, one after the other. And he is absolutely obsessed with me, and me being here on the farm, not allowing him on the property or access to all the stuff he thinks belongs to him. The fact that he was caught in the act of breaking the gate, then trying to break it again, on top of his pilfering over the years before we moved out here, never came up. Instead, he would say things like “why are you doing this to me?”
Yeah. Brain. Fried.
I need to go distract myself with something more sane.
We never took him to the vet, because we couldn’t find him!
I did see him this morning, and should have locked him up in the sun room, but I didn’t want him have him locked up like that for almost 6 hours. A couple of hours before we were planning to leave, we went looking for him. He was nowhere to be found!
So I called the vet and explained the situation. Whenever we manage to snag him, we are to give them a call and they’ll fit him in. Unless, it turns out not to be needed. I took some photos this morning, and offered to email one in, and they were good with that.
I still couldn’t see his wound this morning, but I can often get photos at angles that let me see more than I could manage otherwise, so I took a bunch of shots while he was eating.
You can tell from this first one, why the wound was so hard to see. If it had not been so matted and had dry blood in the fur, yesterday, I would not have noticed it. Today, it looked much cleaner.
This is the best look I’ve had of the wound itself, ever. It’s not actively bleeding, and does not appear to be infected. In showing the photos to my older daughter, she told me she had seen what she thought were puncture marks on either side of his leg, where the fur goes white, but I could see no sign of anything like that. Likely, they are small enough for the fur to hide completely.
He was chipper and active enough to follow me as I did my rounds, when he helped me demonstrate perspective on some tracks in the snow.
My brother’s dog has huge paws! :-D With yesterday’s warmth, followed by the overnight freeze, there were a lot of his tracks sunk deep into the snow during the warmth of the day, then frozen overnight. :-)
There were lots of other tracks. Mostly from deer. Probably including these ones!
I spotted them outside our north facing window. Only one of them went to the feeding station by the living room window, though from the lack of feed on the ground, I think the herd was leaving rather than arriving.
When my daughter and I went outside to try and find Potato Beetle, and he wasn’t in the usual places, we decided to do some noisy chores. If he were at my younger brother’s place, or the empty farm yard across the other road, he would likely hear us and come over.
He didn’t. Which tells me he went further afield. I suppose that’s good news, since it would mean he was feeling strong and healthy. My daughter, of course, was fretting that he might be hurt in a ditch somewhere.
We never saw Potato, but I did get this job done.
When the girls shoveled snow off the roof, before things started melting, the snow covered my path to the feeding station, and no one had a chance to clear it until today. After the melt and freeze we had, I ended up having to use a metal garden shovel, instead of our plastic snow shovels, because it was the only thing strong enough to break through the hard packed top layer. My daughter, meanwhile, used the ice chipper to clear the sidewalk. As things warm up, the paths will melt away and clear faster.
With all the chopping and scraping, we were making more than enough noise to attract curious kitties. Just not the one we were after!
I was thinking that, tomorrow morning, I could put him in the sun room with some food and water – I’m just not sure what I can use as a litter box – and we can keep him tucked away. I won’t be able to take him in to the vet tomorrow, because tomorrow I will be doing a big shopping trip. Not quite our monthly shop, since I will be using my mother’s car, but enough to stock up for at least a couple of weeks.
And why will I be using my mother’s car?
Well, I ran the van today, and it’s still making that whining noise that I thought was the serpentine belt, but now think is the power steering pump, next to the belt. I checked the fluid level, and it’s full.
So when I had the chance, I called up the garage and left a message about it, asking him to call me back.
Which he probably tried to do, but would have gotten a busy signal.
You see, I did something else today. I purchased and downloaded this year’s TurboTax and started the tax returns for myself and my husband. Because of our internet connectivity problems, I made sure to get the desktop version, not the online set up, like we used last year. Our returns are pretty basic, so I finished them this morning. Tax returns are easy when your incomes are “nothing” and “better than nothing”. I was able to file mine electronically, but when I tried to file my husband’s, I got a message saying I’d used up all the available returns and it wanted me to buy more. Considering the software I bought allows for up to 20 returns in total – and the checker even showed I still had 19 left – it should have worked. After several failed attempts, it was time to contact TurboTax!
After not being able to find contact information of any kind on the website (they route people to the community, instead), I finally went to their Facebook page and sent a message briefly explaining what was happening. While my daughter and I were outside making noise to try and attract Potato, I got a response with a phone number to call.
I made that call after calling the garage.
I ended up on the phone for about 2 hours.
Among the problems we had was the software simply not opening. It kept “not responding”. We were using a sharer, so the tech person I was talking to could see my desktop, and my computer decided that today was the day to get all sluggish on me. I ended up reinstalling the software and trying to open it again, and it still wouldn’t. After several more failed attempts, we tried restarting my computer.
Which stalled during the restart. I ended up having to do a hard shut down and trying again.
Once I finally got the computer itself started, I tried opening the software before linking up with the tech, only to have it want to restart the computer again, because changes were made.
*sigh*
Eventually, we did get it going. I was able to open the software, our tax returns were still there, with my husband’s ready to be sent, and the tech person could see my desktop. I tried to file my husband’s return, and it sat there, spinning for a while. On that one, I did assure her that it was our unstable internet that was the problem, this time!
The screen telling me I was out of returns popped up and she finally got to see what was happening. She got me to check a few things for her, she asked all sorts of questions, before finally settling in on her side to find a solution.
I was not at all surprised when she told me it was passed on to someone in Tier 2, and she was waiting for a response.
There was a lot of waiting. She was very apologetic. I told her I didn’t mind the wait. I just needed it fixed. Particularly since we have to more people who need to file! So I didn’t have a problem with the wait.
I ended up being put on actual hold a couple of times before we got to the end, and it was pretty much what I had suspected would happen.
The problem is going to the next level.
It’s a bug, and there’s nothing that can be done about it at our end. Someone will get back to me, possibly within 24 hours, as they fix the bug. I should be able to file my husband’s return tomorrow.
Well, I won’t be holding my breath on that, but we’ll see.
By the time I got off the phone I had no doubt that, if the garage had tried to call me back, he would have given up rather quickly.
So, tomorrow morning, I will try calling him again, before I head out. Hopefully, he won’t be too booked and I’ll be able to bring the van in, soon. Depending on how early I can get the shopping done, who knows. Maybe we can still get Potato Beetle in to the vet! Unless they look at the photo and say not to bother. It’s possible, I suppose.
As if all that wasn’t enough, I got a quick phone call from my older brother. He had just talked to my mother but was about to start a meeting, so he wanted to let me know that our vandal had called her today. Three times! She let it go to message, thankfully. So while he went off to his meeting (which will be 3 hours long!), I called my mother to see if she was okay. She did sound upset. Our vandal had said “the usual”, but I had to clarify that. There are several “usual” things he says. He had been ranting at her about “giving” the farm to me and my brother (why he still thinks I have any ownership of the farm, I have no idea), apparently brought God into it (he knows she’s deeply religious, so one of his things is to tell her she won’t go to heaven to be with my late father and brother, because she’s not doing what he thinks she should be doing). There was a new one in there – at least new to me, though it’s possible he’s used this before and my mother never mentioned it. Basically, he was telling her to talk to him – as in pick up the phone, rather than letting it go to machine. Of course, anytime she does try to talk to him, it’s very much a one way conversation, as he doesn’t let her get a word in edgewise. Then she ends up hanging up to him. We’ve been working on getting her to let calls go to the machine, unless she can see who is calling. If that means my siblings and I ended up talking to a machine and calling her back later, we’re good with that. Better this slight inconvenience than her being verbally abused.
I have no idea what triggered him to call her today. Especially three times! It does remind me that I should call the court office this week, and see if a court date for the restraining order I applied for will finally happen. It’s already been pushed back three times because of the shut downs. :-(
So… It’s been quite the day, today!!
If I were a drinking person, I’d be pouring myself a stiff drink right now! But I’m not. So I will brew myself a pot of tea, instead. :-D
Well, it’s done. I had my teleconference court date this morning.
What a waste of time.
I figured we would have one of two results. Either the judge would look at our vandal’s claims against me and my defense, and throw the whole thing out, or we would get another court date.
I don’t think a judge was even on the call. Just a moderator, going through the docket. She first went through those files that had lawyers, then the employer related ones, then finally the rest. Our vandal’s suit against us was top of the third list, so we were done relatively quickly.
We have a hearing date in July, in person.
Well, at least they think we won’t be locked down anymore by next summer, but who knows if that will change before then.
Among the things the moderator told counsel for the previous files, that applied to everyone else as well, was instructions on what to bring for the in person court dates. This included all documentation, including printed out photographs (no bringing a laptop for a photographic slide show), in triplicate – one copy each for themselves, the judge and the opposing party. Which means nothing gets filed in advance, as would normally be the case. Which means no one gets to see the documentation in advance and respond, or prepare, appropriately. Even the judge will be seeing this documentation for the first time, in session. For those with audio or visual presentations, they were asked to bring the equipment necessary to play or display the files.
As for the hearing date, our vandal was asked if he would have witnesses, and he said he would have two. ??? When I was asked, I said I had no idea that was an option, but that I could bring up to two witnesses. I probably could bring three, but that would include my mother, and it would be just too much for her.
And that was it. Our part of the call was done.
Once I finished with the call, typed up my notes and printed them off for my files, I sent an email to update my siblings, then phoned my mother to update her. She was frustrated, too. She also asked if she could be there in July. !!! I told her that yes, she could be present as an observer if she wanted, but that would depend on what restrictions are still in place. It would also depend on her own health and mobility, and if she physically feels up to making the trip, but she acknowledged that from the start.
Then I made a call to my LegalShield office and am expecting a return call from my lawyer either today or tomorrow. Unfortunately, the office is not in this province. If I did want to have a lawyer representing me in court, they would find a local one for me, but we don’t have the money for a lawyer. All of our “un-allocated funds” in our budget has been going into improving things around here (including trying to set aside funds for a new roof), or fixing vehicles!
It blows me away that our vandal is going through with this, and has found people willing to go along with it. I can make a pretty good guess as to who his witnesses are, and I am guessing that it has to do with my defense that included a list of all the things we know (or that my brother could remember) he’s taken from the farm, totaling over $45,000 in estimated value. Which is fine. I’m not counter suing him, since he didn’t take those from me. He took them from my mother. If he wants to waste his time trying to prove any of it belonged to him, all that does is bolster my own defense. Which, simply put, is that I don’t own, nor claim to own, anything here, and that I had already told him that he could take what was his, if he could prove ownership. Of the stuff he listed that he claims are his, which he thinks is worth $13,000, he’s claiming things that aren’t his, and of the stuff that he actually does have some claim to was abandoned here so long ago, they have rotted away to the point that they’re barely worth anything even as scrap metal. Especially right now, when the scrap metal prices are so horrible. Other things he’s claiming are his (they aren’t) are just plain petty squabbling. He was also claiming things that he’d never claimed were his until I saw them on his list.
All this because I filed a restraining order against him after catching him trying to break the gate again.
I look forward to any advice my lawyer gives me.
With the cold we’ve been having, I have been negligent in switching out the memory cards on the trail cams, but after this call, I figured it needed to be done.
Though it was later than usual, it was still about -32C with a wind chill of about -42C (-25.6F/-43.6F).
The heated water bowl had a thick layer of frost and ice on top!
The kitties were out and about, including Creamsicle Jr., but I was unable to get a look at his face to see how his eye was doing.
I very quickly realized that, in my rush to get outside, I forgot to wear two pairs of pants. There wasn’t much of a wind, but at these temperatures, it was still brutal!
I brought the cameras inside, one at a time, to change out their batteries and switch the memory cards. I knew the old camera’s batteries were already getting low, so they were due. The status bar on the new camera had showed full, the last time I switched out the memory cards and had to use my hands to warm it up so I could see the screen inside. With this cold, however, I decided to switch the batteries, anyhow, and just hang on to the used ones to switch back again the next time I have to do this.
Even with being able to warm up by bringing each camera inside, by the time I finished putting the new camera back up, the cold was really hitting me! Butterscotch had joined me while I was putting the new camera back, and was just begging to be picked up! I carried her back to the house and she was just rubbing her face all over my chin, loving the ride! The poor things are so chilled – and yet, they’re still going out in the cold, and not just for food and water!
Though the temperatures are still expected to be extremely cold for a few more days, after the call this morning, I would not be surprised if our vandal still decided to show up and cause problems, so I felt it was really important to have the cameras in good working order.
I had a surprise when checking the files, in that there actually were files! :-D The old camera died after a day, which I expected, considering the batteries were already so low. Much to my shock, the new camera, which has stopped working outright in colder temperatures before, actually kept on going and even recorded files while I was carrying it to the house! All in hues of pink. When the camera gets cold, all the files are overcast in pink! :-D It even got some night shots, though with a bright red low battery warning. Stills only, no video. Which is better than nothing, that’s for sure!
So I’m increasingly happy with the new camera again. Some of the files showed an internal temperature of -25C/-11F which is well below when the camera stopped working completely, before. Interestingly, when I switched memory cards, this time it did NOT ask me to reformat the new card. Which makes me suspect that it might have nothing to do with the card needing formatting (I’ve tried using different settings when formatting the cards on the desktop, to no avail) and more to do with the cold making it harder for the camera to read the card. Once inside and starting to warm up, it could read the card fine.
We shall see how things go. Hopefully, the cold will keep our vandal indoors. I would not be surprised if he starts calling my mother and siblings again, like he did after he saw the defense I’d filed.
As my mother put it when I talked to her this morning, “we need this like a whole in a bridge” (translated from Polish). At least we could get a laugh over the Polish and English versions of conveying the same frustration!
For now, it’s time to move on to more pleasant things. Which my next post will be about!
Today was a nice and quiet day, so maybe it was as close to the life of our cats as we humans can manage! :-D
Just look at Keith!
He is such a calm and quiet cat. We brought him indoors to better treat his eyes; they were never as bad as his brother David’s, but they were not really getting better. Even as a kitten, we could tell he would have a sweet and calm disposition as an adult. We probably would have brought him in much earlier, if his cousin Cheddar hadn’t impaled himself with a stick through his armpit and needed to recover indoors from surgery.
I still have that cheese stick, in it’s vacuum sealed container. LOL
One thing out of the ordinary happened today. I had a conference call with my siblings and mother – a technical feat my brother pulled off involving cell phones, land lines and speaker phones – to get us all on at the same time, and able to hear each other!
The topic of conversation was our vandal.
A few days ago, while I happened to still be near the end of our driveway while doing my rounds, I saw a vehicle turn onto the road. As I usually do, I waved at the driver as he went by. Only then did I realize it was our vandal, driving one of his other vehicles, so I didn’t recognize it at first.
He very studiously looked away from me as he drove by.
I thought nothing of it, but I should have made a point of calling my mother to let her know. Sometimes, when he sees me, he ends up calling her and going off on a rant. He hadn’t done it the last few times I saw him, though, so I didn’t think of it.
The next day, I got a call from my mother, asking me if anything had happened – if I got anything else in the mail regarding our vandal’s ridiculous suit against me, or something. I told her no, I only saw him drive by the previous morning, then immediately asked what happened.
He had called just her. She made the mistake of answering without checking call display first. He, as usual, launched into a tirade. He kept asking her things like, why is she trying to put him in jail (he’s been saying that since I laid charges against him, after catching him damaging our gate), but never giving her a chance to speak. She finally hung up on him. He called back immediately, and she answered again, quickly said that he was putting himself in jail, then hung up again.
The whole thing left her quite rattled and it took her quite a while to calm down.
So today, my siblings talked about what happened, and a few other things that have gone on over the years. I found out that, among the things ranted about at my mother, our vandal told her that I said – to him – that my mother shouldn’t attend her sister’s funeral.
My aunt is living but, as you can imagine, that freaked my mother out a bit, since she is in a nursing home.
Of course, I haven’t spoken to our vandal since I laid charges against him, two years ago, so this claim of his was just another thing he invented, like so many other things.
I learned today that when he had called my brother at work a few months ago, he ranted so loudly, everyone in the office could hear him!
The question is, what do we do about it?
Unfortunately, not much. I’m already doing the only things I can. Anything he does to my mother, she has to do herself. We can help her, but we can’t do it for her. The only way someone else could do it for her is if she were medically declared not of sound mind, and she is still far from that.
The frustrating thing is that, with our province extending the lock down again, my restraining order application’s court date will likely be delayed, yet again. I need to phone the court office closer to the date they gave me when I last called about it, so I will be calling next week. His civil suit against me is by teleconference, so there’s no delay in that. As you can imagine, it is extremely frustrating that a criminal matter is being delayed in the courts because of government shut downs, but civil cases can go ahead by phone. For us, so far, he’s only tried to destroy property and screamed verbal abuse as us, but what about people who applied for protection orders that fear for their personal safety? These lock downs have already caused a spike in domestic abuse, as so many tried to warn about. It’s hard enough for people to get the protections they need to begin with. Now, with the courts closed, they can’t get any at all.
The other frustrating thing is that our vandal is angry at me, for being here on the farm and actually standing up to his abusive behaviour, but it’s my mother that he takes it out on. He seems to still think he can get her to give the property to him, even though she no longer owns it, while at the same time, still seems to think she has given it to me. So… he thinks she can “take back” ownership from me, when I don’t own it, and give it to him?
That this makes sense to him is just a reflection of his state of mind. What is more confusing is how he managed to convince other people that this makes sense, and willing to even leave anonymous notes on my mother’s door – in spite of her building being locked down to visitors – telling her to give the farm “back” to him.
Bizarre.
On the plus side, my siblings, mother and I are being a lot more communicative and drawing around my mother to protect her as best we can. That we have to do it at all is just sad.
I never got around to making a new post yesterday, so I’ll start with what I intended to write, yesterday!
While doing my morning rounds, I noticed the step ladder we’d left leaning against the storage building was no longer there. So I trudged my way through the snow, dug it out of where it fell and was half covered by snow, and set it aside in a better spot.
The space under this building is one of the places the cats like to go for shelter, with a well worn path in the grass from there to the yard.
The one in the snow is also well worn and…
… kind of drunk looking! :-D
There are deer tracks all over.
It looks like they found something to dig for under the snow!
This morning, while doing my rounds, I had a whole crowd of kitties following me. I thought it was 6 at first, then a 7th one popped out of the snow at me! :-D
There are three up them, watching me from under the garage door. :-D
There was some odd stuff going on yesterday.
For starters, my breathing issues have lessened… for now. I haven’t had those “gasping for breath” moments I had while driving to and from the city. It’s not gone; while I’m sitting at the computer, for example, my breath does feel slightly restricted, but I’m not suddenly gasping for air like I was earlier. Which is good, but leaves me wondering what the heck is causing it. When the clinic reopens after their lunch break (they don’t book appointments and stop answering the phone for 1 hour, every day), I’ll call about making an appointment for myself and one of my daughters.
I talked to my brother about what our van has been doing. His thoughts lean more towards something restricting air flow, rather than it being the powertrain control module, which is what my thoughts were leaning towards. He’s had critters make nests in his air filter that caused his vehicle to stall. That it’s happening when the van is loaded down makes him thing something might be blocking the exhaust.
I looked around the van yesterday, and plugged in my OBDII reader.
It wouldn’t connect to the ECU.
It hooks up to my phone app with Bluetooth, and that was working fine. I could also look at the “live” readings, with its animated gauges, so I could tell that data was being transferred. I simply could not do a scan for any error codes. It couldn’t talk to the onboard computer.
*sigh*
So I will have to call the garage, probably next week, about bringing it in for a quick look see.
Until then, we will use my mother’s car. Tomorrow I’ll be using it to take my mother out for her errands.
Which leads me to my final odd thing.
My mother got a strange call, yesterday, from a former neighbour. She and her husband used to own one of the quarter sections adjacent to one of ours. Our vandal has been using her as an example of what my mother should be doing with the farm, rather than willing it to my brother (now that she’s transferred ownership already and the farm is no longer part of the will at all, he still seems to think she should give it “back” to him, and that she’s actually given it to me… ???).
Apparently, this woman recently drove past our driveway on the way to visit her sons, saw a camera, and called my mother to ask why there were cameras.
Well, first of all, that’s none of her business. Who cares if there are cameras on someone else’s property? Second, there is no way she saw either camera while casually driving by. They’re close to the gate, but not that close! Someone would have to stop and be actually looking well past the gate to find them. The new one’s camo colours aren’t as good as the basic grey of the old one, but it’s still not that easy to spot unless you know where to look.
My mother knew immediately that our vandal had talked to her and told her to call about it.
The cameras where not the only thing that came up. Apparently, everyone is laughing at us, for taking our vandal to court.
Of course, this person had no idea what was really going on. So my mother told her about the vandalism, and how he somehow feels entitled to the farm and everything on it. This person did help my parents a lot, and we were very close in the past. My parents were also very generous to him, even as his behaviour became more erratic and abusive. They owed him nothing, and considering all the things he’s helped himself to before we moved out here, he owes my mother more!
At the end of the conversation, this former neighbour said she would call our vandal and talk to him.
Well, wouldn’t you know it, my mother got a phone call from him soon after. He had the audacity to start by saying how much he loved her. She called him on the BS, and when he started ranting again, she hung up on him.
*sigh*
And things had been so quiet, here. Unfortunately, what we’ve learned is that the quieter he is, the more likely he’s coming up with nefarious plans in the background. Like filing a suit against me.
One thing these calls my mother got has confirmed for me: our vandal is busily slandering us to whoever will listen, making himself out to be the victim instead of the aggressor. Since most of the people here have known him for decades, and we’ve been here for only a few years, they probably have no reason to doubt him.
Ah, well. We just have to work with the hand we’ve been dealt.
And now that our internet is back, I’ll see if I can post this before it cuts out again!!
What a gorgeous morning today, while I was doing my rounds! The ground looked like it was covered in frost, but it wasn’t frost. We were having an ever so slight snowfall, and it was making the very air glitter and sparkle!
I couldn’t resist trying for some shots of snowflakes on spruce needles. My phone can take some very good photos, but it doesn’t do zoom very well. Unfortunately, zooming in was the only way I could get right in there without creating a shadow. This one turned out pretty good, though!
I waited until shortly after noon before heading out to the court office to file my defense against the lawsuit our vandal has made against us. Well. Not “us”. Just me. Which I’m good with. I doubt he even remembers the names of the rest of my family well enough to spell them.
The last couple of times I was there, I had some minor issues with the mask mandate. The first time, there was no one in the lobby, and I just told the clerk in the office that I was medically exempt. The second time, there was a pair of sheriffs on duty and, while my exemption was accepted, the guy I spoke to clearly didn’t believe me. So this time, I put my face shield on before going in, just in case, even though I shouldn’t have to wear even that. The mandates say nothing about face shields.
There were no sheriffs in the lobby this time. I am pretty sure this is because court is in session only in the mornings. The chairs were even back in the lobby!
There was already someone in the office, and someone else in a chair (three chairs, right next to each other… no attempt at physical distancing at all!). It was an older gentleman, filling out some paperwork, with his mask under his nose. :-D I took advantage of the wait and made a quick dash to the bathroom. When I came out, the first guy in the chair was in the office, and there was a different older gentleman sitting in one of the other chairs, filling out paperwork, with his mask under his chin.
It looks like the court office is being more reasonable about things.
When it was my turn to go in, the clerk seemed to do a double take when she saw me, but said absolutely nothing about my shield. I think she just didn’t expect it. The face shield is shielding me more from being hassled, than anything else!
I had pretty much everything ready before I came in, so all I needed to do was sign and date the form in front of her. She double checked everything was in order, did her own stamping, dating and so on. It took hardly any time at all, even with her having to disappear in the back to check on things. She apologized, explaining that she was still new to the job and wanted to make sure of things. Which was just fine by me! Then she made a couple of copies; one for me and one for me to serve our vandal with. She also gave me a declaration of service form. We talked a bit about that, because I wasn’t quite sure how I was to do that. Since I plan to serve via registered mail, I just need to keep an eye on the tracking number online. Once it shows that our vandal has signed for it, I can fill out the form (I should be able to print out proof of pick up), then go back and file it.
This is for a February teleconference court date. I have my own court date with him in 4 days, and that will be in person. It looks like I’ll be going to that building 3 times in one week. I suppose I could file the declaration of service on the same day as court, but I wouldn’t want to wait that long if he, say, picked it up tomorrow (which is not assured; we drive in to get our mail only once or twice a week, and I think that’s pretty common out here). Plus, I know that once the court session is done, I’m unlikely to have the sanity points to deal with anything else! I expect him to fight the restraining order, of course. Likely, that will mean a trial date will be set. However, the judge may decide to make a decision right then and there, too. Considering the type of restraining order I am applying for includes “fear of property damage”, which he has already done, there is no ambiguity for my concerns on that part, so it is a real possibility. It would certainly save the court time.
It’s unlikely but, after seeing my defense, it’s entirely possible he’ll drop the suit against me. Especially with the list of things my brother could potentially sue him for, topping an estimated $45,000. Replacement value would easily double, possibly even triple, that amount. The fact that he was already given the opportunity to remove anything he could prove was his, more than 2 years ago, is probably all a judge would need to throw it out.
Ah, well. It will be what it will be.
I’d come prepared with an envelope, so as soon as I was done at the court office, I got our vandal’s copy ready and went to the post office to mail it. I’ve already checked the tracking number, and can tell that all the postmaster had to do was print out a pick up card and tuck it into his mail box. I had some concern that it would have to be sent to the city for processing, first! :-D Actually, I had more concern that I might run into him at the post office, which has happened before.
I am sorry that this has all had to get to the level of the courts, but now that it has, I really hope this will finally put a stop to the things he’s been doing. A restraining order is just a piece of paper, but it’s better than nothing, and gives the police more authority to act, if he does something stupid again.
I made a much delayed trip to the post office (using my face shield for the first time).
There were several packages waiting for me, including one that had these – being guarded by a Susan!
That gouge will allow me to carve much deeper than the curved blade of the sloyd knife in my carving kit. I have a couple of practice pieces in mind before I try carving a cup or small bowl, with some maple and apple wood pieces ready and waiting to try.
Besides the gouge, there is a sharpening kit for curved blades, including polishing compound. The other side of it has a matching recessed area, and the sandpaper can be affixed to it using 2 pieces of wood that slide out.
I look forward to using it to sharpen my sloyd knife!
Then there was the other thing in the mail.
The thing I had to sign for.
The return address was our vandal, so I knew I was being served… something. But what could he come up with?
When I opened it and figured out what it was, all I could do was laugh. What an abuse of the court’s time!!!
Our vandal is claiming a number of items around the property, in the amount of $13,000. I actually can’t tell if he’s asking for the stuff, or if he want’s the money. Probably the money. I’ve already sent a copy of it to my lawyer. (My Legal Shield membership, paying off again!)
Here’s the thing.
We don’t own the property or anything on it. When we moved here, my mother said we could use anything on it as if it were our own, but also made it VERY clear, that she was still the owner and called the shots. I’ve also gone out of my way to make that line of owner ship clear, even as we talk generically about “our house” our “our place”. It’s “ours” in that we live here, but we do not own any of it.
What’s on the farm, belongs to the farm, so now that the property belongs to my brother, it’s his. We have the same deal with him as we did with our mother. He knows this, because he contacted my brother to get written permission to go onto the property for “lumber” he says he paid for. Except there is no “lumber”. Unless you count the scrap and salvaged wood, all of which is damaged in some way. Lumber is one of the things listed. I have no idea what he believes is still in that barn!
On top of that, with a number of things listed, I don’t even know what he’s talking about. Others, it could be any of a number of things. It’s pretty vague. Still others are just laughable. Like the TV. He’s never claimed ownership of the TV before. I supposed it’s possible that he bought it for my late father, but if he did, it was a gift, and ownership went to my mother when my dad died.
So he’s demanding (most likely) $13,000 cash from me, for mostly junk, when I don’t even claim ownership of any of it in the first place. Besides, if I had that kind of money, we’d have a new roof by now.
There is, however, one final kicker. I have an email I sent to him, more than a year and a half ago, where I told him that if he wanted to take stuff he was claiming (some of which I already confirmed was never his), he could do so – after providing proof of ownership. He never responded. He couldn’t. He has no proof of ownership.
There is a court date, by teleconference, in February, but I’ve got 20 days to file a response.
I had to bring the van to the garage for 9am, so I was outside, doing my rounds, earlier than usual.
I usually wait until it isn’t dark anymore, but of course, it’s staying dark much longer now.
That didn’t stop the kitties from coming out for an early breakfast, though!!
Things didn’t quite work out at the garage, though. When I got there, I asked if it was okay if I could stay in his office/waiting area. With all the restrictions, there’s no place to just sit, and it’s too cold to stay outdoors.
It turned out, however, that he somehow double booked. My appointment wasn’t written in his schedule! He remembered what I was booked for, but he had someone else scheduled.
On top of that, the lift he needed to be able to access my tires was occupied by a truck that was supposed to have had only hours of work, but has instead been there for days.
Considering he had my mother’s car on a lift for almost a month, I could only appreciate the situation.
He asked if I could come back in the afternoon, but with my needing to go to the court office, it wasn’t an option. I could have gone in the morning, but I had no way of knowing how long it would take. I might not have been able to get back in time.
So we re-booked me for Monday. A quick stop top
pick up breakfast at the grocery store, then the gas station before driving the 30-40 minutes to the small city it’s in. While I was inside, nowhere near anyone, waiting to pay for my gas, a masked customer came up to me – so much for physical distancing! – telling me that there was a sign at the door saying we had to wear masks. There is no mask mandate in this municipality, but I just told him I was medically exempt. He slunk away with a snarky “isn’t that convenient” type of comment. I told him, “… and that’s harassment.”
At least he had the decency to seem embarrassed.
The clerk behind the counter wasn’t wearing a mask, either.
A tree, keeping watch over my van in the parking lot! :-D
When I got to where I needed to go, the court itself, in a different area of the building, was in session, so there were two security guards in body armour at the door. Though the mask mandates were supposed to expire two days ago, they got extended (is anyone surprised?). The guards were wearing cloth masks that matched their uniforms. I got questions about why I was there, if I had any symptoms or have been around people who tested positive, etc., and about masking. They accepted my exempt status, though I don’t think they believed me. I was the only person I saw, anywhere in the building, without a mask. Since I had everything prepared and needed only to have things signed, witnessed and to swear on the Bible, that part went by quickly. The lady behind the counter was surprised by my typed affidavit, and I explained I was told I could do that, so she accepted it. I then had to wait outside the doors until someone came to me.
The chairs had been taken away since I was there on Monday, so I tucked into a little cubby in the wall next to the pay phone, opposite the security guards. Which was… interesting.
One of the guards, who was wearing thick cloth gloves, kept pulling at his mask and adjusting it. Because of this, I could see that it wasn’t even layers of fabric, but little more than a single layer of interlock knit (t-shirt material) over his face. Cloth masks are confirmed as being the most useless type of mask to begin with, but this was about as flimsy as could be! Still, they satisfied the mandate. :-/
Then I saw him repeatedly use hand sanitizer.
On his cloth gloves.
It was the strangest thing!
I think I waited for about an hour before someone came out and handed me some printouts.
The application was denied.
The letter explained why. It came down to two related things; one of which I might have been able to dig up old emails to meet their standard of evidence, but the other… I just don’t have it. Since I’ve cut communications off with our vandal, I am not in a position to know those sorts of details. At least not to the extent they need.
So that is that. Unless/until something else happens, I will not apply again. As much as he needs the help and won’t get it himself, there is a reason these mental health applications are hard to get, and I do appreciate that. Too many people already abuse the court system for their own personal vendettas. To force someone to have a psychiatric evaluation, the application absolutely must have the evidence to back it up.
I really should have done this when it was first recommended to me, 2 years ago, when the worst of it was still happening.
Ah, well. Live and learn.
One thing that helps is, my family is very supportive of me in all this. When I got home, one of my daughters made lunch for me. As I spent time writing related emails and making a call to get legal advice (I love my Legal Shield!) for the court date, my husband and I had a chance to talk about it, and I updated my brother. As he now owns the property, what our vandal is doing is against him as much as against us! Later, my daughters put together a charcuterie board for us to share for supper, as we watched an episode of The Edwardian Farm. That did get cut short when my lawyer called back. We didn’t talk for long; he asked me to email him copies of the court form about the peace bond, will do some research, and get back to me next week.
Among the things I need to talk to him about is that our vandal has been dropping hints for some time that he’s planning to sue… someone… not sure who. When I first heard of it, it was in a voice mail directed at my mother, but now that my brother is the owner, perhaps that who he plans to sue? Of course, we are “making” him do this but I have no clue what grounds he thinks he has that he can sue any of us for. He apparently still thinks everything has been “given” to me, and by “everything”, he means all the stuff on the farm he feels entitled to because he helped my parents, way back when. It seems he honestly believes he owns it all. When we moved here, my mother expressly stated that we were to treat everything and use everything here as if it were our own, and my brother is on board with that, too. Even so, the stuff that’s here belongs to the farm. It’s not “ours” any more than the farm or house is. It’s a sort of package deal. :-D Of course, there’s more to it than that, which I can’t get into here.
What a mess!
With all the stuff we’ve discovered since moving here – like needing a new roof and a complete renovation, possibly needing a new well, not having the tools and equipment we should have had had to take care of the place, and so on, in the end, this is really the only major problem with living here. In the end, that’s really not too bad. It’s still better than what we left behind.
There’s even two of them tucked under the kibble house. :-) I’m glad they like being able to do that!
Since we are not using the sun room as a cat shelter this winter, we will not be putting the rigid insulation against the windows inside again. With the doors now closing properly, we can get away will keeping the light, and any passive solar we might manage to get this winter, instead.
Which means we can re-purpose some of the insulation. There should be several large enough that we can cut one to fit under the floor of the kibble house. It won’t do much for insulating, but it will make things a bit less wiggly. It would be nicer on their little toe beans to have the insulation on top of the floor, but the cats just LOVE using this stuff for scratching, and can tear it apart rather quickly!
After that, I can look at whether I still need to put something across the front, to keep the kibble containers from being knocked out. They’re not being knocked out every day, so I may not need to.
This morning, I was able to give the outside cats and extra treat with their breakfast; the pan juices from some pork we roasted, including some much needed fat to help them build up their reserves for the winter.
Yes, we’re careful about what’s in those juices, and I make sure not to cook with anything that might be harmful to the cats when I am planning to give them the meat juices.
This picture was taken as I was finishing my rounds and heading back in, well after that initial mad rush when the kibble is first brought out. :-D They are a lot more peaceful and contented at this point!
Peace and contentment is what I’m hoping we’ll get for today, but I don’t know what to expect, really. Chances are, our vandal will get served for the court date regarding the restraining order today. I also sent an email – a group email, that included family members who need to know what’s going on – pointing out the escalation of his behaviour, and telling him he needs to get help. Long ago, I had to tell him to not only stop coming here, but to stop phoning and texting. Email was the one method of communication I left open, even if it’s through his wife. Yes, she was included in the group email, too. I don’t know how much she knows of what he’s been doing.
Things can go one of two ways, at this point. Either he’ll back off completely and keep playing the victim. Or it’ll trigger him into doing something stupid, and he’ll still keep playing the victim.
Meanwhile, we’ll maintain higher vigilance. Thanks to Silk Cords‘ comment, I decided it was worth adjusting the security camera on our garage. I have had it zoomed in and focused on the gate, as much as possible from that angle, since the gate itself has been such a physical target. An obsession, really. Now I’ve got it zoomed out and adjusted so that, in my live feed, I can see the driveway inside the gate, the old hay yard and most of the barn. It’s unlikely he’d go in through the barbed wire fence to access the barn, since he’d need to bring a vehicle in to take what he wants, but who knows what he’d do if he gets triggered. Between all the cameras, we have his key targets covered.
If all goes well, they will all be completely unnecessary.
Let’s start with some adorable kitties, having breakfast!
They’re just a great way to start the day! :-D
As for the rest of the day, things were just… tiring.
I got a phone call early in the day. Well, any phone call at all is unusual for us. ;-D
It was my older brother, letting me know he got a phone call from our vandal. My brother was at his work office, so he didn’t answer, but once he heard the message, he wanted to let me know about it, right away.
Amazingly, after making some nasty digs about not being allowed in the property anymore, he had the nerve to request written permission to come on the property.
There are some 2x4s in the barn, and he’s building a shed, so he wants them.
Unbelievable!
My brother was able to send me the file and I got it transcribed before I had to head out. So that was helpful, though ultimately, I never made use of it.
My first stop was at the garage to get the broken shield on my mother’s car fixed.
The tip of it was broken off. The shield had been held in place with a plastic clip that was still holding the tip in place. Since the length was changed, he ended up having to drill and screw into a new hole.
The whole thing, including the time to drive the car in, use the lift, fix it, then drive it out again, took 5 minutes.
I offered to pay, but he wouldn’t bill me anything for it.
What an awesome guy!
Since it took so little time, I was able to drive to the nearer small city and go to the court office to apply for a restraining order and involuntary mental health assessment for our vandal.
The municipality the court is in is under a mask mandate, so I had to go through the usual questioning about my not wearing one, but there were no issues when I said I was medically exempt. I explained why I was there and got the two forms explained to me, but I had to leave the space to fill them out, since the area around the counter was small, and they could only serve one person at a time. I ended up standing at a garbage/recycling station to have a flat surface to work on. Which was fine by me.
I wasn’t able to pass on any of the printouts I brought, but I was glad to have them, since as I filled out the forms, I could use them to get exact dates and remember key details. Not that there was room for much.
After passing the completed forms back, answering a few questions, swearing on the Bible (which was in a clear plastic bag, and got sprayed with sanitizer first) and getting my signatures witnessed, it was back out the door to sit and wait.
Surprisingly, it was the mental health order that was dealt with faster.
Someone came out to talk to me and, in a nutshell, she could not grant the mental health order. She did, however, tell me exactly why and what I needed, then gave me a new form to take home, so I could reapply. The biggest question was whether or not he’d been told to get help, and refused it, very recently – as in, within the last 24 hours or so. I’ve certainly told him to get help before, but I haven’t had direct contact with him in ages for a reason! All in all, she was very helpful. I think, even with how little I could fit into the form, she could tell that this was a real issue.
Then I had to wait about the restraining order. When I got called in for that, I was given the sheet that would go to the police to go over; after some details were corrected, I signed it.
I now have a court date in November.
He will be served by the police some time soon. Which means we will have to double down on keeping an eye on things, because this is likely to trigger him.
The whole time I was there was very stressful. I’ve actually had to go through some of this before we moved, but it’s very different when the person is not someone you used to be close to. My body was so tense, I had to go to the bathroom three times, just because of how much my abdomen was cramping up. My hands were shaking so bad, I could hardly write, and I felt like throwing up, all from being so physically tense. And yet, I was actually pretty calm about the whole thing, mentally. There is still that physiological response to stress, and I just had to push my way through it.
I am glad to have at least been able to get the process started. I have steps to take, and can try again with the mental health order once I get those ducks in a row.
The next while is going to require being on high alert. I thought I knew this person very well, but now, I have no idea how he will react once he’s served with the court date.
It has to stop. The process, however, is so very slow.
The Re-Farmer 