packing

Brutal… but it’s done!

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It was white knuckle time at the end, but we did it.

My mother’s apartment is now completely empty.

At our end, things started after my brother got here and started working on their truck. Which he had to dig his way to. After clearing the barn door enough to open it to access their shovels, etc. He was able to plug in the block heater and left it to warm up before getting their snow blower out.

When I saw he was here, I went out and checked on the truck. It started fine and, at first, that oil pressure gauge was actually in the normal range, which was encouraging. After backing it out a bit, I found a single drop of fresh oil under the truck and that was it. Oil levels were fine. Yay!

Then I caught up with my brother and we worked things out. He would continue with the snow blowing and getting their truck ready, and I would go to my mother’s apartment, where my SIL was already at work packing.

There were a few little delays as he remembered to load up a cart to help carry things to the truck, and so on. In that time, I noticed…

The needle on the oil pressure gauge was dropping again.

*sigh*

It dropped to the same level it was at when I drove the truck home yesterday, then didn’t move. Not that I could focus on it much during the drive in. While today’s temperature was a lot warmer, the wind was insane. It wasn’t even snowing yet, but there was so much blowing snow on the highway that I was hitting white outs, even without snow kicked up by oncoming traffic. Once I was parked, I took a picture of the oil pressure gauge and texted it to our mechanic, as described how things had gone. Then I headed inside.

My SIL had been very busy. We were all shocked by how much was left. My sister didn’t take everything she was supposed to. I think she misunderstood and thought she was to take the things she wanted to keep, plus the stuff my mother specifically wanted her to take, not help empty the place.

There were boxes packed and ready, though, so I immediately started loading up the truck. It wasn’t long before I had as much as I could fit, so I headed back home, messaging my daughters before I left, so they would be prepared to assembly line things into the basement.

I also got a response from the garage. He found what was going on very strange. He said it could be two things: a problem with the engine, or the sensor – and the engine checked out fine when he was working on it yesterday. Which means, it is the sensor. Yet another common issue with our make and model of truck.

Definitely not going with GM again in the future.

I asked him if the sensor was still on warranty – it was replaced maybe a year ago – but whether it is or not, I asked how soon I could bring it in to be fixed. He will check on Monday and get back to me.

So, basically the truck is fine. Which is good, because I did a lot of driving today!

When I got home, I found my brother had gotten the snow blowing done, including clearing a path to the storage house that they could back their truck up to, when it was time to do the furniture.

The boxes, however, were going into the house. I unloaded the truck to the door, one daughter grabbed whatever I had, then passed it to her sister at the basement stairs. This was rather awkward because of how the doors are, and the need to make sure they got closed before any cats made a run for it.

Sir Robin did manage to get into the house once!

My poor brother, meanwhile, was having plenty of trouble. Aside from the huge job of snow blowing vehicle-with paths to their trailer and the warehouse they are beside, just in case we needed to put stuff in there – the truck was having issues. In spite of having a solar powered trickle charger all this time, the battery was dead. He had to boost it (thankfully, he has a booster pack) and had gotten it started by the time I unloaded, then went to talk to him before heading back. He was trying to drive it out, but there wasn’t enough turning radius cleared in the snow for a truck the length of his. He ended up having to dig it out manually.

After connecting with him, I headed back to my SIL. This time, loading the truck was more awkward. I needed to get the commode in, as the medical device department of home care will be picking it up from our place some time next week. It was too tall to fit under the box cover, but I managed to get it into the back of the cab, by setting it on one end. There were more boxes to put into the box, but most of what I had to get in was odd shaped stuff, including a large framed picture that my sister had left behind. I was able to get some smaller pieces of furniture in, at least.

The truck was packed about as much as I could when my brother arrived. Neither of them had eaten since breakfast, and it was well past lunch time, so we took a break for food. My brother, out of habit, shut his engine off when he meant to leave it running, and it wouldn’t start again! Thankfully, he brought his booster pack along, just in case, so he was able to get it going again. He did leave it running the entire time we were at the restaurant, and we even sat at a table where he could keep an eye on it, through the window!

We had an excellent lunch.

Since my truck was already loaded, once we were done, I headed home to unload while they went back to the apartment to start loading some furniture. This time, I was going to stay at home until they got there. The winds were still insane, though at least this time, it was at my back, so the drive was at least a bit smoother! It was still pretty hard to see the road at times – yet I still had vehicles passing me!

It wasn’t too much longer before they arrived with the first load of furniture. By this time, it was getting quite dark, and they were unloading into the storage house, which has no power. I brought out a camping lantern we now have – thanks, M! It sure came in handy! – and my brother found a place to hang it in one room, while a second large flashlight we have was used to light up the room we had to go through at the door.

My brother pretty much picked up and carried all the different pieces of furniture in, himself! He’s amazing!

Once that was done, we headed back to the apartment one last time. I was following them, but was soon left behind. The weather had gotten worse, and it was white knuckle driving quite a few times! It was bad enough that, when I got there, I brought up the idea of renting a motel room and spending the night, once everything was packed. They were going to do that drive, though. If I’d been on my own, I would have stayed in town overnight, but I was willing to do the drive, at the same time as them.

With the cap on their truck, they could fit everything left except for the mattress and box spring, both of which will be taken to the dump. That went into my truck. Unfortunately, I have a shorter box on my truck. A whole 2 inches shorter than the mattress and box spring! I do keep rachet straps in the truck now, though, so I was able to strap them down and leave the tailgate open.

After that was loaded, we went back in for one last check in everything, while my SIL took pictures and video of the empty apartment. Then, we locked it up one last time and headed out!

The road conditions were even worse. The only saving grace was that we had the wind at our backs, so the snow kicked up by oncoming traffic wasn’t quite as bad. They followed me this time, and managed to stay in view the whole way, even when we had people passing both of us at the same time! I just don’t get it. The road was barely visible, and a few times I found I had wandered into the other lane, because the road had disappeared under the swirling snow, and people were passing in this? Good grief.

Once back here, I parked the truck in the garage, since it wasn’t going to be unload this time. We got my brother’s truck unloaded – this time, he carried an entire loveseat, up the stairs and into the storage house! I was able to help with that one a tiny bit, at least.

That storage house is so jammed with stuff. We haven’t gone in there all year, and have made no effort to trying and clear it out. So much in there just needs to go to the dump! Now, we have almost all my mother’s furniture squeezed into there.

*sigh*

The boxes the girls and I got into the basement are going to have to be gone though soon. We’ll unpack what will stay in the house, but the rest will need to be repacked and taken into the storage house, somewhere, before spring, when the basements start getting wet.

After the furniture was unloaded, my brother and SIL had to transfer a few things out of it to their car or their trailer, before the truck could finally be parked back in its spot by the barn and they could finally head home. I’m still waiting in anticipation for a message telling me they arrived home safe and sound! I’m really hoping the winds have started to die down. It had started to snow lightly before it got dark, and will continue to snow, off and on, throughout the night.

Meanwhile, I’m just glad we finally got it done. It was brutal – especially with the weather! – but it’s done.

With our not being able to get our city stock up shopping, though, I’m going to have to go into town tomorrow (Sunday) and do a smaller shop. Which means we’ll have to take that mattress and box spring out of the truck, so I can close the tailgate. The dump won’t be open again until Tuesday, so that’s the earliest we can get rid of them. Unless the garage is able to get us in to get that sensor fixed/replaced. I’ll find that out on Monday.

I am so tired of winter.

According to the long range forecast, we’ve got another week of relatively milder temperatures, but then we’re supposedt to start to get highs above freezing more often than not, for the rest of February!

I can’t believe it’s already the last day of January. Where has the month gone???

I am so tired.

The Re-Farmer

It might not wait

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Today, I finally made it to my mother’s apartment. My brother and SIL had already done a huge amount. My focus was on stuff that I needed to bring here, that WON’T go into the storage buildings. Antique books. Kitchen supplies, some of which are part of sets still here on the farm. Lots of fragile stuff.

On the way out, my first stop was actually our post office. My husband’s disabled parking permit expires next month, so we had to mail in a form and $15 for a new one. With that taken care of, it was off to my mother’s apartment, which is typically about a 25 minute drive, with good road conditions.

Road conditions were good, but I was watching that oil pressure gauge slowly dropping, the drive in. By the time I got to my mother’s, it was right on the line between “normal” and “low” ranges.

Crud. With a day like today, I don’t think I can blame a cold sensor anymore.

Once at my mothers, I brought in a whole bunch of hard sided grocery bags, as the things I would be packing would be unpacked fairly quickly. Putting them in the grocery bags ensures we won’t procrastinate, since we’ll need them for our stock up shopping!

The next while was spent going through things, packing things into the bags I brought, going through a couple of boxes my brother and SIL packed and switching things over (I’m the only one in the family that has any interest in my mother’s antique crochet and embroidered items, most of which were made by her aunt). I also found some remotes, one of which I was to bring home, the other my brother needs to grab.

While I was there, someone started to come in the door – while I was in the washroom, of course! – calling out. It turned out to be the social worker from the Senior’s Centre. Perfect! She was able to take the flat folding walker they’d loaned my mother. It turns out, they also take care of the Lifeline equipment, which my brother had carefully packed all together. She took that and would take care of cancelling the account. I told her it was already suspended, so my mother wasn’t being charged full price.

After a while, I headed out to the truck with a couple of bags, then took the time to check the oil level.

It was low. Very low.

!!!

After the issues we had before, I now keep several bottles of oil and a funnel in the truck. There was one that was about 3/4 full, so I added that. I checked the oil after, and the level was in range.

Over the next while, I packed more things and took them to the truck, in stages, I ran the engine every now and then. Pressure seemed okay for a parked vehicle.

Along with packing, I was able to empty the fridge completely, and did as much cleaning as my wrecked knees would allow. Then I popped the stove’s to up so I could scrub underneath, where there was an old burned spill. Last of all, I gathered up the old prescription medications that were found, so I could take them to the pharmacy for proper disposal.

In the end, I was there for about 4 hours. I packed the truck with three boxes my brother and SIL had packed that I’d added to, plus another 7 hard sided grocery bags.

We’re doing to have to store this stuff in the basement until we can figure out what to do with them! A project for later this evening, since we need to unpack those grocery bags. I’ll need them, for our city stock up shops.

The first of which was supposed to be tomorrow.

Not going to happen.

I stopped at the pharmacy to drop off the old meds and let them know they would no longer be doing my mother’s bubble packs. So that file will go from being suspended to being cancelled, though of course we can still access her records, if needed.

Then I headed home.

Watching that oil gauge slowly dropping, the whole way.

I’d already texted our mechanic about the oil level being low and adding 3/4L, and asking about the possibility of bringing it in to look for a leak. Also, about that Journey he had on the lot he’d mentioned to me, yesterday…

I don’t know that we can wait until spring to do the trade in.

When I got home, he’d responded, asking me to keep an eye on the oil levels for the next while. I answered saying that I was home, telling him the pressure was dropping the whole drive back, and that I would check it again after unloading.

After unloading, I pulled half way into the garage, so I had room to access everything.

The oil level was low.

Just barely touching the “fill” line.

I added another half liter.

I messaged the garage before heading inside then phoned him once was was settled in.

I now have an appointment to bring it in on Thursday morning for them to see what’s going on. I won’t be doing any city trips until this is figured out.

As for that Journey… it actually does look right for our needs, though obviously there are things we can do with a truck that it can’t do. It’s a 2017 and high mileage, but anything that’s in our budget is going to be high mileage.

Its selling price is actually lower than what we still owe on the truck, I think.

Of course, I kept my brother and SIL in the loop, and my SIL wondered about using my mother’s car as a trade in.

I will need to confirm that possibility with my brother, since my mother owns half the car with me and, as her PoA, he will be the one to deal with. He might simply transfer full ownership to me to make it easier. My mother has been telling us to sell her car for years, so that would work for her, too.

Of course, no decisions are going to be made for a while, but we need to think about it. I don’t even know if we can get refinancing, though if we have two vehicles to trade in, with one owned outright, that would help. We simply can’t afford the truck. They did the best they could to get us an amazing price – I’m convinced it was sold to us at a loss – but once the taxes were added, that kicked it over, and the monthly payments have been higher than what our upper limit was. We had no choice, and it really has been hurting us financially. Not just the payments, but all the sometimes bizarre issues that have come up with the truck that have cost so much.

Speaking of which, that check engine like turned off on its own again.

I love the truck, but I will never own a GM vehicle again! Not even the Uplander gave us more grief, and the dealership screwed us over on that one. Still, I was able to buy the Uplander using my debit card. Beggars can’t be choosers!

Well, we shall see.

Tomorrow, I won’t be going anywhere. Hopefully, my sister will be able to make it to my mother’s apartment and take the things intended for her place. On the weekend, my brother is going to have to dig his own truck out of the snow and see if it starts! Depending on how things go with our truck on Thursday, we might be relying entirely on his truck to get my mother’s furniture out.

For now, I’m going to stop writing this and enjoy the supper my daughters made. 😊

Then we need to set up a sort of assembly line to get the boxes and bags into the basement, and away from cats!

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: old kitchen – clearing the stove

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Yesterday, while working on packing stuff in the old kitchen, my focus was on clearing the wood cook stove.  It was completely hidden away by stuff we put there, just to get them out of the way until we could get them to the storage shed or, for our own stuff, create a space for it.

The old kitchen is an add on to the original log house.  I had thought my dad had added it on after buying the farm from a relative, but I’m told the original builders had built it.  Another log building that we used as a chicken coop was the “summer kitchen.”  That’s where a stove was set up and the cooking and canning would happen, to keep the house from getting too hot.  As I understand it, this stove is from the summer kitchen.  Which means this stove hasn’t moved in about 3 generations.  Maybe four.

Until the new part of the house was built in the early 70’s, and we got running water and an electric stove, this was our kitchen.  Even after the new one was built, when the power went out, we would go back to using the old kitchen for cooking and some of the heating (the wood burning furnace needed electricity to operate the fans the blew hot air).

It’s a good thing we have no plans to use the stove.

I’m just going to post a couple of pictures for now; I found a lot of weird stuff on, in and around it!  Here is how things looked after I moved away that big stuff we had leaned in front of it.

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The chair, we’d put in to make room in the dining room, since we didn’t need the 8 or so that were there.  The vehicle bike rack is ours.  We kept it, even after selling off our bikes before a move, because we’d intended to get bikes again.

There’s a vacuum cleaner you can see on the left, with its head in the centre bottom of the photo.  That used to be ours!  And before that, it belonged to my in-laws.  They gave it to us during one of our moves back to the province, and when we left it again, it ended up on the farm.

The fire extinguisher box on top of the warming shelves turns out to have a fire extinguisher in it!  We’ll have to take it out and check its condition.  If it’s good, we’ll just need to recharge it and we’ll have an extra. :-)  We already have another modern one in our kitchen, though I suppose it’s due to be recharged, too.

You can also see just a bit of an umbrella sticking out.  That’s ours, too!  My husband bought it for the girls the second time we moved back to the West coast.  It’s painted silk with scenes of Winnie the Pooh (book style, not Disney style) on it.  There was a second, smaller one, too.  The girls were 3 and 6 at the time.  They are now 22 and 25.  So excited to find that!  I hope we find the second one somewhere, too.

I’ll post pictures of some of the other stuff I found later.  For now, this is what it looked like when I stopped for the day.

20180706.cleanup.oldkitchen.stove.progress

Yeah, I found another vacuum cleaner. :-D

The tin on top of the warming shelves was one of the things I found IN the warming shelves.

It’s full of nails.

The oven door is broken.  I found a piece of hinge on top of the stove, and I think the second hinge is broken inside the oven door frame itself.

I wonder why one corner  of the stove top is leaning down like that?

Amazingly, there are still ashes in the fire and ash boxes.

Eventually, I plan to give it a good cleaning, polish it up and find some way to put the oven door back, though I doubt it can be repaired.  If there is a baking rack for the oven, I haven’t seen it – though I might not even recognize it for what it is, if I did.  I remember my mother baking, but have no memory of a rack in the oven.  The only memory I have of looking inside the oven was when my mom was canning and had jars in a water bath, the container of which pretty much filled the entire oven.

For now, I am done with the oven area.  I will next focus on emptying the shelves in the west side of the room and made some decisions about which, if any, I will keep.  I think I might keep one, just because it’s been handy to stand on to reach the breaker panel.

I am NOT looking forward to working in that nook beside the oven.  It’s going to be a tight fit to get into and move around in there, and it’s quite the disaster. :-(

The Re-Farmer

Sun Room Clean Up – East side

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Today, while the girls finished raking up behind the other house and adding to the flower garden, I finally got started on the sun room.

This addition to the house was the brainchild of my late brother, to create a space that my parents could sit and enjoy “outside” without being exposed to the elements.  My late father used to love sitting there.  It was also easier for him to get outside with his walker, as there are no steps to clamber up and down, like at the main door.

We’ve been using the room to store bags of feed for the outside cats, deer and birds, and now we’re using it to store the yard work tools we’ve been using.  However, we’ve basically only been able to use one side of the room.

Here are a couple of before pictures.

20180608.sunroom.cleanup.eastside1.before

My dad’s walker is still there, and still used by my mother, so she doesn’t have to struggle with bringing her own walker over here.

Behind it is what appears to be an antique prayer kneeler.

I’m keeping that, and hope to be able to refinish/preserve it.

That plastic church on the shelf across the window is something I thought was one of those Christmas village things.  It wasn’t until I started packing it that I realized it’s a hanging bird feeder!

It is now hanging off the stand in front of the living room window, waiting to have some bird seed added to it.

20180608.sunroom.cleanup.eastside2.before

We’ve been using my dad’s old seat to hold the feed bags (just cat food, right now).  It’s one of those glider rocker type seats.

The crutches in the background, leaning against the shelf on the right?  Those were there so long, the padding of the handle leading on the shelf was actually stuck to the wood!

Of course, cleaning this all up was… interesting.

I started at the window, taking things outside and getting it cleared enough that I could move the seat outside.

When I moved the green garbage can, I figured I’d better check to make sure there wasn’t any actual garbage in it.

I found a plant pot.

Full of gloves.

Then I spotted a… wire whisk?

Ugh.

20180608.sunroom.cleanup.eastside.during.wisk

I don’t want to know what’s on that.

It got thrown out.

Yes, I was wearing gloves for all this!

When I finally could move the seat, I found this, under it.

20180608.sunroom.cleanup.eastside2.during

The cat poop, I was expecting.  During the winter, we sometimes found one of the outside cats had snuck into the sun room while we were putting food out, and at least twice, we discovered a cat in the room the next morning.  There is no way a cat could be in there that long, without making a mess.  Unfortunately, we had no way to even look for it, never mind clean it up, until now.

I also found the world’s cheapest, dullest knife.

Once I could access the shelves, I finally could start packing up the books, magazines and old Polish newspapers, as well as the various odds and sots around.

Speaking of odds and sots…

20180608.sunroom.cleanup.eastside.during.traps

There were tucked away behind the kneeler.  Mouse and rat traps.

Very gross traps.

The got garbaged.

The scrap carpet got added to the haul-away pile, outside the yard.

Here are the after pictures.

20180608.sunroom.cleanup.eastside1.after

The far wall is one of the log walls of the original part of the house.  Behind the bookshelf that was there, I found a pile of dead Asian Lady Beetles, that had made themselves some sort of a nest to hibernate in, partly under the paneling.

I really hope I swept them all out, but probably not.  We’d have to remove the paneling.

I’ve left the shelf across the window to finish clearing later.

20180608.sunroom.cleanup.eastside2.after

What a huge difference!

Once this side was clear, I had the space to start moving things around to work on the other side.

Which will be in my next post. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Okay… this is the worst find yet

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I thought, after the horror tunnel, desiccated mouse carcasses, and other strange things we’ve found while packing up and cleaning away 4 decades of my parents’ stuff in our new home, I would have been beyond getting surprised by things we find.

I was wrong.

I must admit, it’s not so much the contents, but the circumstances of it.

Though we really don’t have the room for it in the growing pile in the dining room intended for the shed, I am just really not happy with having the litter box in the dining room, even if it is in an out of the way corner.  Having cleared everything else away, I decided to move the dresser and the stuff on the wall out of the little nook they’re in, so the litter box can be moved away from where we eat.

After removing the drawers, the first thing I discovered was a scale under the dresser.

Why is there a scale under the dresser?  It’s not like it was accidentally pushed under it.  It was way in the back corner.

Okay.  Fine.

I start moving the now drawerless dresser.

*clatterclatter*

A broken broom handle, with masking tape on the broken end, falls to the floor.

It had been between the dresser and the bit of wall on the bathroom side.  I had noticed that something was there, but forgot about it before moving the dresser.

Okay.  Fine.

I carefully pull the dresser out, hearing all sorts of crunching, grinding noises from the floor.  Oh, dear.  I called for a daughter to help carry it, since it sounded like pulling it along the floor would cause damage.  However, as I maneuvered it out a bit more so a daughter could grab it from the other end, I found it was really, really light, and not making the noise anymore.  So I just moved it myself, down the hall, up the two stairs to the new part of the house, and into the space I’d prepared for it in the dining room.  Then I put the drawers back and went to continue cleaning.

This is what I found.

20180313underthedresser1

What on earth?

This is a flash picture; there is no light in this corner, so I really couldn’t see very well, but that plastic container on the floor?  My first guess was that the dregs on the bottom was mouse poison.  And what was all that on the floor?

I moved the scale and that plaque beside it to the pile of stuff for storage.  The plaque?

It was a prayer.

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Okay.  Fine.  I can see something like that falling between the dresser and the wall and being forgotten about.  That black piece of plastic?  Probably put there to get it out of the way and forgotten about as well.

I very carefully moved the mirror next.  It was just leaning on the wall, on top of that piece of wood.  The far side of it is a broken edge.

Then I come back to clean up the rest.

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That plastic bowl?  Is a glass bowl.  The crud on the floor is ancient cat litter, complete with several desiccated turds.

And a piece of bread.

So, it looks like this area was used for both a cat litter box, and for… cat food? before.  I threw the bowl out, but I’m guessing it’s the remains of some sort of cat food on the bottom.

All of this means that someone took out the litter box, but left the mess behind.  Left the bowl and the bread and added a bathroom scale.

Then put the dresser on top of it all.

Then used the dresser to store extra towels on the bottom drawers.  Above the cat poop and drying food.

Oh, and as I was going back and forth to move things, I found a pile of something that had fallen out from under the dresser as I’d moved it up the two steps.  As I swept it up, I took a closer look.

I’m pretty sure it was a very old mouse nest.

Once clear, I mopped the area with disinfectant cleaner, including the walls, then used a scrub brush in the area (including on the other side, where I got the girls to take the stuff leaning there upstairs), then mopped it again.  The only thing in that corner that still needs to be moved is one last large mirror, which will require a screwdriver to remove.

I don’t have the energy for that anymore.

I also found a shoe tray that I scrubbed; it will go under our litter box when it gets moved.  For now, the entire area is being left to dry.  We will move our litter box in tomorrow.

This just blows me away.  It’s one thing to be in the practice of keeping things that might be useful, and just shoving them somewhere for storage, as is likely the case for most of the things we’ve found.  It’s quite another to deliberately put a dresser on top of cat litter, cat turds and cat food.

And a scale.

I just don’t understand.  Who did this?  I don’t know how long that dresser has been there, but I don’t think either of my parents were strong enough to move it.  Well; maybe my mother, depending no how long ago it was done, but she usually got other people to do that sort of manual labour for her.   So I have no idea.  And why?  Why was it done like this?  I can’t imagine any of my siblings doing this.

I’m at a complete loss.

I think I’m going to take a shower now.

The Re-Farmer

More Packing Up

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After much procrastination, I finally started working on a corner at the end of the hall, between the bathroom and old kitchen doors.

There is a dresser in a little nook there, surrounded by a couple of big mirrors, and with some sort of little memorial shrine or something on top.  It ended up being a catchall place for things, both our own and stuff from when we were cleaning the bathroom out.

I finally started to pack it up.

After finding places for our own stuff, I started boxing what was on top of the dresser, then moved out the mirror that was sitting on top of the dresser, leaning against the wall.

That’s when I noticed this.

20180308corner

Has that gap always been there?  I have no memory of it, but as a child, it’s not something I would have noticed.

This area is where the add on that the old kitchen is part of is attached to the log portion of the house.  So the wall on the left with the opening is log – which is why it’s as wide as it is – while the rest is more modern materials.  You can see more of the log portion of the opening in the mirror, up to the wall the stairs are against.

After moving the mirror that is in the photo, I finished packing up the contents of the dresser.  It turned out to be an odd mix of things.  The top drawer had all kinds of gloves – painters gloves, I think – paint brushes, stir sticks, a couple of wooden crosses that looked like they used to be mounted on the top of something, a Canadian flag, an envelope of flower seeds, a couple of children’s sweaters… ???

The other drawers seemed to be used to store old towels and fabric pieces.  The towels in the bottom drawer where hiding a whole bunch of mouse poop.

Which actually reminded me of when this dresser was my own.

When I was a kid, what is now my office was my bedroom.  My bed was in the corner my desk is now in, and the dresser was against the bit of wall between the door and the closet.  The closet itself had no door back then.  I don’t think it even had a curtain, yet.

Above the side of my bed was an outlet, where I had a nightlight with its own switch.  I also had vanity with a mirror – which I now have in the master bedroom – against another wall.

One night, I was awakened by the sound of something falling off my vanity.  Turning on my nightlight, I looked around, but never did find out what got knocked over.

Going back to bed and turning out the light, I lay awake for a while.

That’s when I started to hear the noises.

By the vanity.  The dresser.  The closet.

Rustling.  Scritching.

I turned on my nightlight.

The noises stopped.

I turned it off and waited.

The noises started.

It was mostly around the dresser.  In the dresser.

This time, when I turned the light on, I pulled one of the dresser drawers out a couple of inches.

Then I got back in bed, leaving the night light on, and waited.

After a few minutes, the noises started again.  Then I began to see them.

Mice.

They had been climbing somewhere up the back of the dresser, and with the drawer open, I would see a head pop up and look around every now and then.  I heard them scurrying between the dresser and the closet, and then I saw a mouse start to climb up my clothes!

I think I saw about 6 mice different mice that night.

The next day, I found one of the friendlier barn cats and brought it into the house for the night.

The cat was okay with it, for the most part.

Then, during the night, I rolled over and my head landed on something soft and furry.  The cat had curled up on the pillow beside me.  I don’t know which of us was more startled; me, or the cat!  I felt so bad for spooking it.

I don’t know how successful the cat was in hunting, but I didn’t see mice in my room again after that.  Perhaps the cat caught them, or the cat’s presence scared them away.

Either way, they were gone.

Over the years, that dresser was used by my grandmother when she moved in with my parents – my room became hers – before passing away, and then by my father, as he started using my old bedroom because it was so much warmer (and closer to the bathroom. :-D ).  I don’t know when or why it was moved out to where it is now, replaced by a different dresser.  Maybe my dad was starting to have troubles opening and closing the drawers.

Once we get the dresser out of that corner, along with the other large mirror, which is just leaning between the wall and the dresser on top of a piece of wood, and the framed copy of the Mona Lisa, that corner will be the permanent spot for the cat litter box.

I was really hoping to have had that done by now, but the dresser is too big to add to the rest of the items stacked in the dining room, waiting to go into the shed for storage.

I’m not looking forward to dealing with the cobwebs. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Why?

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I finally got around to taking one of the many random mirrors down. This one was in the kitchen, partially covered with a wall hanging.  It was adhered to the wall in spots, so I ran a butter knife under it and managed to pry it off with only minimal damage to the wall (as if that matters, given the condition the paneling already is in).

On the back, I found this.

The ones in the corners make sense, but what’s with the ones scattered all around the middle?

How does this even happen???

The Re-farmer

Some progress

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Today was another day to work on packing the kitchen.  Including a whole bunch of canisters on the counter, most empty, but some with food in them.  I don’t know how many years they were in there, but in one of them, the canister was starting to rust into the sugar. 😝

Tomorrow, we will have another load for the shed, then the cupboards can be cleaned.  Then we can unpack our own kitchen stuff.

Hopefully, we will finally find my giant stock pot.  That thing is big enough to brine a whole turkey, with room to spare.  You’d think something that big would be easy to find!

We did end up keeping quite a bit of plates and bowls, since we had to get rid of almost all of ours.  With the cramped layout of the kitchen, those will go into shelves outside the kitchen.  The plan is for the kitchen to only have pantry items, food and cooking tools, so much as possible.  With the counters as empty as possible.  Soon, I might even have room to use a slow cooker!

It’s amazing how the most mundane things become exciting when you realize just how much you use them, and suddenly you can’t.

Speaking of which…

With the hot water totally gone again (we have theories as to what happened, but no way to know for sure), we went over our budget and crunched some numbers.  With Christmas, my husband will actually get a disability payment early, so if we can swing it, we might be able to get a new tank installed before Christmas, instead of in January.  It will depend on whether the guy I called can fit us in.

Some bills will have to wait, but the amount of time and energy going towards heating water every day has got to stop.  Our electric bill is going to be insane.

But, if we are careful, we will be okay.  Not having rent to pay makes a difference.

We still need to consider all those little fees that need to be dealt with, like transferring our drivers licenses and vehicle registration and insurance. Thankfully, those all seem to be cheaper in this province. Still, it’s never the big things that kill a budget.  It’s the little things that sneak up on you, chipping away, a few dollars here, a few dollars there.

Still, we have got by on much less, in the past.  Plus, growing up here, I learned very early, how to make a little go a long way.

That has come in handy, many times, over the years.

That initial rough patch is sure painful, though! 😂

The Re-farmer

New Habits

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As chaotic as things are, we’re settling into a bit of a routine.  Mornings, the heating of water for washing begins.  My past habit of staying up to the wee hours and getting up at around 10am has changed to going to bed before midnight *gasp* and getting up earlier.  It takes most of the morning to heat enough water to wash up not only ourselves, but any dishes and stuff that needs doing.  No point in heating all that water again in the evening, just to do dishes.

In the morning, someone goes to feed the outside cats and get them some warm water.  A warm water refill gets done again, later in the day, when what we gave them earlier is frozen.

Packing my parents’ stuff, cleaning shelves, unpacking our own stuff, then finding somewhere to put it, happens when we can.  I have been getting a fair bit of it done while heating water and stuff.  Usually it starts with, “I should make breakfast, but I could really use… ” and then I end up going through several boxes to find an item, get distracted and do something else, get distracted and finish another thing… then, eventually, I remember to go back and actually make breakfast.

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Green tea with chamomile, in my footed cup, all freshly unpacked!

We’re tea drinkers in general, but since the move, tea is ever-present.  Even when I was just coming out to stay a short while (usually for something funeral related), and I stayed at the farm, the kettle seemed to always be on.  We’re drinking more tea now than we did even just before the move, when the water at the co-op started tasting worse and worse.  We have since found and unpacked our tea supplies – we have a LOT of tea and tea supplies! – so the variety is being enjoyed often.

Loading packed boxes into the van and taking them to the shed has had a bit of a stall.  The van is currently full of stuff for the land fill.

Now there’s a new habit we’re going to have to get into.  Regular trips to the dump. Continue reading →

Progress

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Working more on the master bedroom, emptying the shelf that used to be part of a store.  It was jammed full, but I am close to getting it done.

Three of these are books and magazines. Does not count the one box of books that will not go into storage. I expect to pack at least two, maybe three, more boxes of books.

All but one of these boxes is from that shelf.  This is on top of the 5 or so big bags of linens, etc. I packed from this room.

Why is this here?


I also found mirror 56, tucked into a box of utility hooks.
The Re-farmer