Today’s progress – running around and work accomplished… sorta

October 11, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I am so glad my brother said he would take care of my mother’s morning meds today, after we got the call from home care saying they didn’t have anyone to do it!

After feeding the outside cats and doing my morning rounds, I grabbed breakfast, then backed the truck closer to the inner yard. I didn’t want to go too close to the house while loading the back, because of all the very curious cats and kittens!

Speaking of which, I did a head count of all the cats and kittens I could see this morning. I counted several times and got a different number each time, but the highest count was 42. Mostly kittens. I’ve been messaging with the rescue group and mentioned this, commenting on how I can now see why we’re going through kibble so fast. I told them I got four 40 pound bags when disability came in at the end of Septembers. Sixteen days, and we’ve gone through three of them. I had to start the fourth one, today. They asked if I could last a week. I think we might be able to. They also asked about the prices for 40 pounds bags, and I was later able to send them pictures of a couple of receipts from the two different feed stores I go to, and the two different brands I get from them. A rescue would certainly be on the look out for better prices on kibble!

Anyhow…

I am so happy we have that new cover installed on the truck!

We were finally able to take the garbage from cleaning out the sun room to the dump. After I loaded those much bigger bags from the sun room clean up, with my older daughter distracting kittens away from me and the truck as best she could, she helped me get the household garbage out of the old kitchen, where the bags go until we can do a dump run. With all the kittens running around, it’s easier to have one person pass these smaller bags through the screenless window in the storm door to a second person. That way, only one person has to dodge kittens! 😄

This is the first dump run we’ve been able to make since we took the truck in for repair and getting the new cover installed. With the extra garbage from the sun room clean up, it filled the entire space under the cover – and no worries that something would blow away on the highway!

Once the truck was loaded, I was off to the dump. I got there right at 10. There was already a truck parked on the road, waiting for the gate to be unlocked. It turned out that the car in front of me was the attendant! I had it in my head that they opened at nine, forgetting that winter hours starts at the end of October, not the beginning. Glad I didn’t leave for a 9am opening!

By the time I unloaded the truck, there was a whole crowd of vehicles that had come in behind me, including a dump truck with two huge crushed cubes of garbage. !!! I’m happy to say that the area in front of the pit was relatively clear of huge piles of garbage. I’m still nervous about getting a flat tire every time I got in there, though.

That done, it was off to the pharmacy in town. I wanted to get refills before I ran out. I’m glad I didn’t wait. I have my anti-inflammatories, and my stomach meds to protect from the anti-inflammatories. I take the stomach meds only once a day, but can take up one or two anti-inflammatories, up to three times a day. If I were to take the max dose of the anti-inflammatories, I would finish both at the same time. I only need to take a couple of anti-inflammatories once a day, though, so those last a lot longer. I’d actually picked up a refill a while back, but it has disappeared, and I never used any of it. I’m still finishing my first bottle. I suspect a cat knocked the second bottle of the shelf, but I haven’t been able to find it, anywhere! So I had to get another refill.

The stomach meds, though, have already been refilled twice before, and my prescription was done for refills. The pharmacy would have to fax my doctor to get an extension. Unfortunately, today is a Saturday on Thanksgiving weekend, which means the earliest the doctor will get the fax is on Tuesday.

Once again, glad I started this now, and not later! I’ll have enough to last until the updated prescription is in. If I’d waited, I would have run out, and I really don’t want to do that. These have saved me from so much pain and stiffness, it still amazes me.

Meanwhile, I was able to get the other refills. While the pharmacy was taking care of that, I headed over to the grocery store to pick up a few things before Thanksgiving.

I didn’t have much on my list, but I did spend time going through the store, looking for something I might want to add to our Thanksgiving dinner. I should have picked something up while in my mother’s town, yesterday! They had much better sales on pies. This store had sales, too, but they were not only more expensive even with the sale price, you had to buy two of them to get the sale price, Otherwise, they were regular price – and there was no way I was paying that much for a small pie!

Taking my time at the grocery store gave the pharmacy the time then needed to fill my prescriptions. They were just bagging it up when I got there. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get the missing one on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, my brother had surprised my mother by showing up to do her morning med assist instead of the home care worker. He also had a couple of Thanksgiving dinners my SIL had packed for her. She was very happy about that and said they would be her lunch and supper! 😊 He stayed long enough to take care of her portable air conditioner and the window set up for the winter. He was done and already here at the farm before I got back from my own errands, so I went over to see how things went. She can be particularly cruel to him.

She turned out to be having a good day today, and was actually mostly kind to him. As we were catching up, he remembered to tell me my mother brought up about me and the farm. I immediately became suspicious, but he told me it was good. She had brought up about how we are paying for the utilities here, and he said yes, plus things like the internet, and fixing things, and so on. She started to say how she wanted to help. I told him, she has teased about helping with the door replacement a couple of times, but I don’t expect her to. He assured me, she’ll help with the door replacement. As her PoA, he could even make it easier for her and do an etransfer, or she can write me a check, if she prefers, but he says she intends to help with the door. She wants this place to be in good shape.

I don’t trust her. She’s burned all of us, at one time or another, by making promised and then backing out at the last minute. She has cost my brother many thousands of dollars by doing that. Even the times she has helped, like with the new roof and replacing the septic ejector, it was because my brother made sure she followed through. She actually tried to back out of paying for the roof like she promised, after the work was done, because she refused to believe it should cost more than a thousand dollars (it was around $15,000, I think), even though we got estimates and showed them to her.

I trust my brother, but there’s only so much he can do, and I don’t trust her.

We shall see. Lord knows, we could use the help after this past very rough couple of years, and my brother knows it.

Meanwhile, as I got caught up with my brother, I came into the house to find my purchases had all magically put themselves away. 😄 That allowed me to go back outside and try and get some work done.

Painting the isolation shelter and a few other things, were priority. It was supposed to be a much warmer day today, but it has been insanely windy.

I did get the painting done, though. The new paint is very noticeably lighter! I don’t care, though. I made no effort to try and keep the new colour off the painted parts. When I find something better to bring in for colour matching, we’ll get another can of paint in the right shade, and give what I got painted today a second coat, after winter.

The sliding windows had to be removed, of course. I was careful when painting the tracks, as I didn’t want them to get filled with pools of paint by accident.

In the first picture, you can see the box to shelter the ramp opening. Later on, I want to flip it upside down to paint the inside, but that’s not a priority. I got the old plant stand painted, and it’s sitting on a couple of broken sidewalk block pieces to keep it above ground.

The second picture is the side where the sliding window can only side towards the front, not over the insulated side wall. There was a bit to do in the front, and a single piece on the back that needed to be done, but most of the painting needed was on the sides.

I did not do the wire mesh door. It was so windy, I was starting to get an ear ache and had to head inside for a while.

After a break, I headed out again. By then, the paint was no longer wet to the touch, so I put the sliding windows back, which you can see in the third picture. Everything was sliding just the way they should!

That cats could now use it, too. Without those windows, the wind was blowing through so much, it actually blew a corner of the hammock loose!

My next project was to continue that garden bed I’d done half of.

Just in time for it to start raining!

I stayed out as a light rain came and went, while thunder rumbled in the distance, until it finally started coming down too hard to stay outside.

The first picture is the “before” shot. The second is how far I got before it started raining too hard.

So. Many. Tree roots. I think I got about half way down that side. Maybe a bit less. The rock bucket is a little over half full.

Once the roots and rocks were cleared, the soil was wonderfully light and fluffy. Perfect to grow in – if we didn’t have to worry about those roots coming back!

I’m glad I got as much done as I did. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get back at it. Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer, but rainy. We’ll be having our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, anyhow. I plan to pack up a care package for my mother and visit her on Thanksgiving day. She will be getting her Meals on Wheels, though, so it will be for later in the day. Monday and Tuesday are supposed to be quite chilly, with overnight lows reaching below freezing, but then it’s supposed to warm up again. That will be my time to get the beds finished, then start some winter sowing! I’ll have to go through my seed packs and work out where I want to plant things. Some things will be more appropriate for the old kitchen garden, right against the house. Others can be planted well away from the house, as they would get harvested in the fall. Some beds will get the winter sowing marked clearly, so that I can sow other things among them in the spring.

I’m really looking forward to having a better gardening year than this one was!

The Re-Farmer

Got some progress in, and cat news

October 10, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

As I was finishing my rounds this morning, I got quite a few cat pictures that I could send to the rescue. Including this one of Rolando Moon.

Rolando, being one of the cats my late father cared for, is not up for adoption, but I wanted to share that face with the folks at the new rescue!

I shared quite a few other pictures as well. There was a fair bit of messaging throughout the day, and some things were finalized. One person is going to take in 6 cats herself, not this weekend, but next. There is another cat she is fostering right now that is going to a forever home this week, and the extra days will give her time to clean out the room she has for fosters before she can take more.

That’s something we can’t do. Have an entire room in the house dedicated to cats to be isolated for a week or two!

We have confirmed I will be delivering Smokey and her brother, the cat with the severe ear mite infection, plus three friendly kittens. None of the more feral ones, on this trip.

I had sad news to share with the rescue people, too.

Last night, around 1am, I was still up and tending to the inside cats, when I decided to give the outside cats a top up in the sun room. I figured the skunks and raccoons would have cleaned their kibble out by then, and I didn’t want them to be too hungry before the morning feeding.

As I was adding their kibble treat to various trays in the sun room, cats came running – except one, in one of the cat beds.

It was one of Frank’s remaining two kittens, passed away.

*sigh*

I was kind of expecting it, as her kittens were pretty sick, but still…

At least I can say it passed away while being in a cuddle puddle, and not cold and alone.

I let my older daughter know, as she was available at the time, and she came out with a flash light so I could bury the kitten. His brother actually came running and was so curious about what was going on, it was hard to get the job done! I finally was able to grab him and take him with me as I went to put the spade away, while my daughter found larger rocks to put over the new grave, so nothing could dig it up.

When feeding the cats this morning, Frank’s remaining little got to have his own bowl of special food in the old kitchen, supervised by my daughter, before getting an eye wash. He was pretty active and eager for attention, which was encouraging.

After the morning routine and planting of garlic, I was off to my mother’s, set to arrive after she’d had a chance to enjoy her Meals on Wheels lunch. I had quite a few things to get done, including helping her with her feet, so I brought along my micro-pedi thing and a proper set of toenail clippers, with plans to leave them with her. She has a fungal infection on a couple of her toenails and refuses to use the prescription treatment for them, because it was so expensive, so I don’t want to be bringing the stuff I use on her toes back home with me!

When I got there, though, she was lying down and her Meals on Wheels tray was on her table, untouched. My mother had forgotten that I was coming. She said she wasn’t feeling well, but since I was there, she got up to join me, and eat her lunch.

She had not made a shopping list, so we did that together. It was a really short shopping list this time. She still had much of what I’d picked up for her, last week.

When I called her last night about coming over today, I asked her to take a package of chicken out of the freezer that I could cook for her. I had been thinking of the meaty legs and thighs, but she took out the split wings, instead. After I got back from the grocery store, she even had them out and in a bowl, where she’d started to rinse them off.

Before I left for the grocery store, though, we got her laundry started. The wash would be done by the time I got back. Which is exactly how it worked out, so I got her stuff in the drier, and her third load started, before I got to work on the chicken.

I asked her how she wanted me to prepare them and she seemed surprised by the question. It turns out she just boils her chicken. (She never uses her oven for cooking; instead, she uses it to start pots and pans!) She’d even brought out a small pot and a large frying pan do use to cook them, as she doesn’t have a single pot large enough for the package. She asked me how I would have prepared them for myself and I mentioned a few things. She almost went with pan frying them, but she decided she really wanted that chicken stock.

So… boiled split wings it would be!

Then I asked her what she usually put in with them. Once again, she seemed surprised by the question. Water? was her response. Then she asked me again, how would I do it. Knowing what she had in the fridge, I said I’d be adding some carrots, celery and onion to it, some salt and pepper…

Then she remembered she was almost out of salt, but forgot to include it in her shopping list.

She had enough for the day, though, and told me to go ahead and add the vegetables to the chicken, too.

I’m glad she went with that because it turned out she was intending to have the chicken as a soup for her supper. Now, she would have chicken and vegetable soup!

That reminded her of something else she wanted us to pick up for her. “Tiny macaroni”, she said. I didn’t know what she meant and tried to get more details, but she got really frustrated that I didn’t know what she was talking about. I told her, there are a lot of different kinds of pasta out there! Did she mean orzo? Couscous?

I don’t think she’d heard of either before.

When she still couldn’t find the words to tell me what she wanted, I got my phone and and started searching for small types of pasta so I could show her pictures. I found one to show her, and it wasn’t small enough.

When she started talking about it being quick cooking, so she wouldn’t have to stand at the counter for long, I had a light bulb moment. I did some more searching and found a picture to show her.

She was talking about ramen noodles. She was very excited when I found the pictures for her!

Talking about her having food that cooks quickly, it got me to bringing up her home care again. She needs to have them come out to help her more often. Not just med assists, but help with dressing, making small meals – even if it’s just to make her some toast, or heat up a can of something for her, which is about the extent of what she’s up to on her own – even bathing.

My mom just got more and more frustrated at the idea. Her comments against it came down to “I’m not used to having servants. I’m used to doing things myself.”

So… that’s how my mother sees the home care workers. Not as people helping her with her medical needs, but as servants.

I told her, she’s causing her own problems by not accepting help she needs, because this care would get her into a nursing home faster. It’s either that, or have a fall!

I’m hoping she’ll come around.

This did give us a chance to talk about something else. I got a notification for a voice mail this morning, which meant there was no signal and the call went straight to voice mail. It took a few tries before I had enough signal to listen to the message, as the wifi calling isn’t working for some reason. It was this morning’s home care aid. She told me that she had emptied my mother’s commode and fount it very full, cloudy and smelling strongly. She’d asked my mother if she felt burning or any pain while urinating, and was told no. She brought up that she didn’t now if maybe it hadn’t been emptied for a while.

So when my mother and I talked about it, I asked her if she had any symptoms of a UTI, and she had none. Then I asked her how long it had been since the commode was emptied (it’s supposed to be done every morning).

I didn’t get a straight answer, but she started talking about one particular home care worker that is always in a hurry and leaves as soon as she gets my mother’s meds out. I told her, they are supposed to empty it every morning – there is extra time scheduled for my mother’s morning assist for stuff like this. She told me she can empty it herself, and I said no – that’s their job for a reason! I told her, just imagine trying to go to the washroom and having a fall, while carrying that bucket!

Hopefully, she will insist on it in the mornings. Otherwise, this will happen again. She shouldn’t have to, though. It’s part of their morning assist, not just the meds.

When I got home, I checked the schedule. My mother had someone yesterday with a name I didn’t recognize. The three previous mornings where this person my mother has issues with, that just comes in and leaves, without even making sure my mother takes her meds.

Which means that, potentially, that thing wasn’t empties for 4 mornings.

!!!!

Anyhow…

I stayed around until her chicken soup was cooked and her laundry was done and put away. I got some sweeping done, but I never got to do her feet. She wasn’t up to it. By the time I headed out, I had been there for almost 3 hours. I made a quick stop at the grocery store for ourselves before heading home – just some bread and eggs for now. Tomorrow, after I do the dump run, I will be going into town to pick up prescription refills, then going to the grocery store there, where prices are a bit better than in my mother’s town.

Overall, my mother was on one of her good days, though I had to redirect her to other topics a few times. There were also a few times when she was moving around, leaning on walls or furniture as she did, where she made sudden outcries of pain.

She really needs to be in some kind of supportive living, or a nursing home. It’s so frustrating that the home care office that decides this hasn’t approved her for it!

By the time I was heading home, it was late enough that I asked my daughter to feed the outside cats. When I got home, there was a message waiting for me, saying that she got it done, that she had a chance to pet all sorts of cats she’d never been able to touch before…

… and she couldn’t find Frank’s last little grubling.

*sigh*

Once I was home and settled in, I updated my siblings on how things went with my mom, including about what she remembered she wanted from the grocery store, after I’d made the trip. Then I got changed and headed outside to try and get some stuff done while there was still enough light.

That included checking the sun room for a missing kitten.

I found him in the same place I’d found that little white and grey tabby, a few days ago. Under a shelf, looking like he was all curled up for a nap.

*sigh*

I headed out to bury him beside his brother then my cell phone rang.

It was home care. They didn’t have anyone to do my mother’s morning visit tomorrow.

*sigh*

While I had the person on the phone, I mentioned finding a voice mail earlier in the day. I said that if a call goes straight to voice mail, that means I’m not getting a signal, so to call the land line instead. For some reason, while outside the house, I had enough signal to get that call, but would not have gotten it, if I were inside the house.

After pausing to let my family and siblings know about the call from home care, I continued the sad job of burying Frank’s last kitten. I updated the rescue about that as well. Two kittens in one day! 😢

I was starting to lose light, so I started working on the box for around the front of the isolation shelter ramp door, to keep the winter weather out. Parts of the roof were cracked, as was the front panel. I started out trimming the smaller opening in the front panel first, when I got a message from my brother.

He was planning to visit my brother tomorrow, and said he could do the morning med assist!

That was so, so appreciated!

He wanted to call me to talk about it, so I quickly popped inside so I could use the land line. We went over what gets included in my mother’s morning med assist. He confirmed about the grocery items she remembered later on, so he will be picking that up for her. My SIL, meanwhile, was making a chicken dinner to pack up for my brother to bring and have an early Thanksgiving lunch with her. It’s also that time of year for him to put away her portable AC for the winter, and set in the Styrofoam insulation in the window opening for the night. The glass in the window was removed so my mother could have the AC, and is set aside to be put back after my mother finally gets to move out and into a nursing home.

That done, I headed back outside again. Once the duct tape patching was done, I got out what I was planning to use as handles on the sides, so it can be carried more easily, and without damaging the plastic parts more.

The white piece of wood on the side, with a matching one on the other side, is the new handle. It’s the same thing I used for the legs, except they are half the length.

I’d picked up 1″ wood screws to attach these, as I’d run out, only to discover I really should have picked up 1 1/4″ screws. In the end, I attached them with two screws on the outside to hold them in place, then with three more screws through the thinner plywood on the inside.

Thankfully, my drill and driver both have lights on them, because it was pretty dark by the time I was finished, and the inside of the box, of course, was even darker!

It is now ready for painting.

Since I’ll be running around so much tomorrow, even without a trip to my mother’s early on, I’ve asked my daughters to do the painting, as soon as the morning chill is gone. Which will probably be around 10am. I want the paint to have as much time to cure as possible before the chill of the night. The exposed wood on the isolation shelter needs to be painted, the entry box needs to be painted, there’s a plant stand I scrubbed clean that can be painted, and plus there’s the wire mesh “door” for the old basement that we didn’t use this summer, as it was part of the platform in the sun room before we did the deep cleaning. There was plenty of grime from messy cat feet that needed to be scrubbed off of it, so I figure a paint job would help protect the wood, even if we don’t end up using is as part of a cat platform again.

Once the painting is done, there’s some rigid foam insulation inside one of the side walls that has been thoroughly scratched up by cats, so I want to cut a new piece for that. Then I want to wrap the bottom half with vinyl for the winter again, plus add handles to make it easier to move around.

All of which can be done after the paint dries!

Getting this done has been pushed back by other things coming up, so often. I’m just glad to have gotten it all to the point that all the painting can be done at once, rather than piecemeal – and that my daughters will be able to get it done for me while I’m running around, again!

That will give me more time to focus on getting more garden beds clear of weeds and tree roots, and finishing the inside wall of the garden bed in the old kitchen garden.

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

Updates on cats, doctors and more cats!

October 9, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I woke up late this morning which, unfortunately, meant we had a lot of very hungry cats outside! I asked one of my daughters to simply pour a scoop of kibble onto the sun room floor to tide them over before I could do a proper feeding. Which helped, I suppose, but they were really eager for their morning food. That is when I mix up a small bowl of “cat soup” with just one can of wet cat food, and use that to soften the bowl if kibble, first. I also prep a smaller bowl of kitten soup that I leave on top of the freezer until later. I could hear so much commotion at the door, I ended up taking the bowl of softened kibble and going out the main doors, instead. Even if I had someone ready to herd cats out the door as I went through, I just didn’t want to risk stepping on a kitten!

Which means I filled their food trays and bowls in reverse, doing the furthest ones first and making my way to the sun room. I didn’t take long for them to hear me and come running. Which worked out so well, I’m thinking I might start doing this regularly!

After I finished putting the last of the softened kibble in the sun room trays, I grabbed Frank’s two remaining littles and brought them into the old kitchen to have their own kitten soup without having to fight off other cats. That also gave me time to wash their eyes open again. That done, I quickly popped into the sun room and back again. Frank wanted into the old kitchen and I let her, so she could have the special food along with her kittens.

It didn’t quite work out that way.

She was too nervous and went hiding and exploring around the old kitchen. I let her be and went to get the squeeze treats I bought a while back but never got to using, yet. I gave some to the kittens in their food bowl, then just squeezed the last of it onto the freezer near them, hoping Frank would be tempted. At one point, I was able to reach her and pick her up, but as I moved towards the freezer, she got more and more nervous. Before I could put her down beside her kittens, she panicked, scrambled when her feet touched the top of the freezer, sending food – and kittens! – flying. One of the kittens ended up falling behind the freezer, while Frank ran and hid under a couch.

The other kitten was still on the freezer and done eating, so I let it out through the screenless storm door window. Then I tried to get the kitten that was behind the freezer. It was sitting on the floor, just out of reach. I thought I could use something to push it from behind and get it to move out from behind the freezer.

Instead, it disappeared. It took me a moment to realize it had gone into the opening where the freezer’s guts are! After several attempts, to reach it, it finally came close enough that I could grab it and lift it out without getting tangled in things I could feel, but not see, in there!

The kitten got to enjoy a bit more food and squeeze treat, but Frank wouldn’t come out. I finally went out with the kitten, hoping that Frank would go onto the freezer and eat, while I wasn’t in there.

The kitten joined the cuddle puddle – and was nuzzling Sir Robin, trying to nurse!

I spent some time refilling water bowls, then opened the doors to the old kitchen, where I found Frank just inside, waiting. She never ate what was on top of the freezer, and was very eager to just leave the old kitchen! That gave me a chance to take the bowl of kitten soup and leave it out for other kittens to finish. There was still the glob of squeeze treat on the freezer, though. I ended up picking it up with my fingers, trying to hold it in my hand. It was messy, but I got most of it. I then went to the cats and kittens at the kitten soup bowl.

Two kittens I’ve never been able to get close to before where there. Both of them happily licked the squeeze treat off my fingers instead of running away!

Then they ran away. 😄

Meanwhile, I started getting messages from people with the rescue. This continued throughout the morning, and while I was in the city. Long story short, we might be bringing as many kittens over on Sunday as we can get into carriers! I’ll have to get some clarification, first, though. There seemed to be some communication issues. Tomorrow is Saturday, so I need to get that cleared up fairly quickly!

When I was done my morning rounds, it wasn’t much longer before my daughter and I started for the city. We left insanely early, to give ourselves time to get lost. 😄 I did look the place up on the map last night, plus I had Google Maps up on my phone to give directions. The route looked pretty straightforward, though what it was showing in the app did not match was I saw on my desktop last night. The address was the address, though, and I did remember the area fairly well, from my days when I used to work around there, and lived just across the river. I was not looking forward to trying to find the address, then finding parking. The area is mostly narrow, one way streets.

We did make a stop at my mother’s down along the way, though, to pick up a couple of energy drinks and some chicken and wedges for breakfast. From there, I got the app going to give me directions while I drove. My daughter was a sweetheart and passed potato wedges to me while I drove. I couldn’t eat my chicken while driving, but my daughter could eat hers, and I was more concerns that she got some food in her. She has a terrible habit of not eating, because eating most foods makes her sick. We have not been able to track down exactly why.

As we got into the city, I had the app up on the dashboard holder, but for some reason, it wasn’t giving voice directions. So my daughter took the phone so she could see the map and gave me the directions as we went along. I did remember the route from checking the map last night, but it’s been so long, I preferred having a navigation officer!

When we got to where the area, one of the first problems I noticed was not being able to find street numbers, anywhere. We got to where the app said the address was at, but couldn’t see anything to show where the clinic was. Specifically, a building tall enough, as the endocrinologist clinic was on the 9th floor.

With the one way streets, we drove around the block a couple of times, made slower because of construction, before finally spotting a parkade that didn’t have a “lot full” sign and headed in. We figured we could find the place more easily on foot. It couldn’t be far.

We then had the fun time of trying to find a place to park with enough room for our truck. The first four levels were all reserved parking. We finally got to a level that wasn’t all reserved, but the first side of that level was half roped off, apparently reserved for “game day”. We finally got to where it no longer was all reserved, and nothing was roped off, but the only open spots we saw were “small car only”.

Then I spotted two accessible parking spots.

My daughter and I don’t have our own accessible parking placards, but we do have my husband’s. We used it and finally parked.

My daughter actually forgot her cane at home, but we had three spares in the truck. After she grabbed one for herself, I decided to grab another for myself, just in case.

I am so glad I did. My left hip may be better after the steroid injection, but that lasts for only so long, when pounding concrete!

We had to back track to the street the clinic was on (with a gorgeous, castle-like cathedral as a landmark; I once had the opportunity to go there for mass, when I lived in the area, and can attest it’s as beautiful on the inside as the outside), then tried to find someplace with a street number. We found one, but didn’t know which direction we needed to go for the clinic. We were in the 300’s, and the address was in the 200’s.

We were about to wing it when I spotted a guy in a suit about to cross a street, so I quickly asked him if he knew where the clinic was, and which direction we’d need to go. He was an absolute sweetheart, quickly found the place on his phone (his app got it right, where ours clearly didn’t!) and pointed us in the first direction. We had about 3 blocks to walk, though part way along, the sidewalk was blocked off for construction (which was happening all over the place), so we’d have to cross the street, then cross back again, along the way.

The guy was so wonderful and happy about giving directions, he really made our day!

So, off we went, picking our way through construction at an intersection across from the area blocked off for construction (!!!) before finally making it to the final stretch. That’s when we could see a big billboard sign for a clinic. We couldn’t actually read all of it, because there was a tree growing right in front of it, but we could make out enough that it looked right. The entrance wasn’t on the street the address was on, though, and as we walked past the corner and could see the other side of the billboard, which wasn’t blocked by a tree, we realized it wasn’t the right clinic. We still popped in to ask for directions.

The lady pointed out the window to another high rise building across a parking lot.

A building with a huge painted on sign on the side.

With the name of the clinic at the bottom, in white paint on a pale blue background, barely readable.

We were very appreciative for the help.

Thank God we left as early as we did! My daughter’s appointment was at 1pm. We reached the front doors at about 12:40!

When we got to the 9th floor, the elevators opened up to a reception desk.

With things roped off in front, as if under construction. I think it was actually just to keep people from waking up to the counter, though.

There was no one at the counter.

We tried reading the sign, all it really had was arrows for endocrinology in both directions, and some doctor’s names. My daughter didn’t have a name for the doctor she was booked at, so we didn’t know which way we had to go. I spotted a cleaning lady, so I asked her which way to the endocrinologists. She asked which doctor we needed to say, and I told her we didn’t know. She said the staff (meaning the receptionists) were on lunch and would be back soon, so they’d be able to tell us.

We thanked her and went to a nearby waiting room. We couldn’t see the reception desk from where we were but, thankfully, could hear when someone was at the counter. My daughter and I – and several more people in the waiting room – promptly headed over to check in!

… and ask where a bathroom was. It was a long drive!

Of course, it was while my daughter was still in the bathroom that someone came out and called her name! I let them know. 😄

Even with all that, my daughter ended up at her appointment almost 10 minutes early!

She was out much faster than I expected for a first time appointment. She had requisitions for blood work, one to be done right away, the other to be done later. She had been told there was a lab on the ground floor, and she could get her first blook work done there, so that was her first stop.

When we got there and she was checked in, I asked about how long it would be, since the waiting room was quite full.

About 40 minutes was the answer.

!!!

It turned out they were short staffed today, and falling behind.

With time ticking on our parking spot, we decided it would be faster if we head out and stopped at a lab on the way home.

So, off we went to get the truck and head home, this time taking a route I was much more familiar with. It wasn’t until we got home that I had a chance to check why we were sent to a completely wrong area.

It turned out the address in my calendar for the clinic had two numbers reversed. The bizarre thing is, when I was looking at the address and directions on the website last night, I saw the address that was in my phone. Yet, when I looked up the clinic last night, I used the street address that was on my phone, and found it.

So weird!

As we were leaving the clinic, my daughter made a comment about how much she appreciated our new doctor, but she was going to wait until we were out of the city, and I didn’t have to focus on traffic so much (dancing around more construction) before telling me how it went.

We did make one stop along the way. Gas prices in my mother’s down had dropped to $1.269/L, but I planned to get gas in the city. I’d seen a station on the way in that had gas at $1.239/L and was planning to go there – until we passed a station with gas at $1.199/L !! I was just over a half tank and put $40 in, which filled my tank! I can’t remember the last time I was able to fill my tank from half for only $40!

Once we were out of the city, I remembered to ask my daughter how the appointment went.

Not well.

It was a very short appointment and I won’t go into detail, but the doctor was very rude and “just an old b***”, as my daughter described her. Long story short, though, by the time she told me some of the things the doctor did, my jaw was dropping. She needs to make a formal complaint. The doctor apparently made it clear she was disgusted by my daughter’s body. My daughter has hirsutism. She was there because of her PCOS. How does an endocrinologist not encounter a PCOS patient with hirsutism before? Or maybe she has, and just treats all her hairy female patients with hormonal disorders with disgust?

As if that weren’t bad enough, my daughter was manhandled, without explanation nor consent, in a way that is considered sexual assault. Sure it was a physical exam, but NO doctor is supposed to touch a patient like that without first explaining what they were examining for, and getting consent.

She also tried to test my daughter’s reflexes, but kept missing the tendon, then getting ticked off because there was no reaction to her hammering on my daughter’s ankle.

I really hope my daughter files a formal complaint, because… damn!

Along the way, we stopped in the town our doctor’s clinic is in, to do her first blood tests at the lab in the hospital. My daughter went in to get her tests done, while I stayed in the truck to finally eat the rest of my breakfast!

I’m glad we chose to go to a lab on the way home. My daughter was out so quickly – with two people called in ahead of her – that I was just finishing eating when she came back to the truck! Had we stayed at the lab in the city, we would have been just getting out and heading to the truck, unless they fell behind even more.

Her second set of blood tests can be done whenever she is able, but for this one, she is supposed to take a medication at 11pm, then get her blood tested at 8am.

I don’t even know if the local labs are open at 8am. I think they open at 9am. We’ll have to figure that out. Either way, she has a prescription to pick up before she can do the second test.

After the results are in, she hopes to get a telephone appointment only, or pay extra to get the results emailed to her. She does NOT want to go back to this doctor. I told her that she needs to let her regular doctor know about what happened so that, if necessary, she can get referred to another endocrinologist. Apparently, there’s a new clinic being built and there’s already a long waiting list for it, but she’s more than willing to wait, rather than go back!

For the most part, my daughter is just angry, but she realizes that a patient with, for example, a history of sexual abuse, a visit like this would have been very traumatic.

So glad that appointment is over with!

By the time we got home, it was late enough that the first thing I did was get the outside cats fed. No crowd trying to break through the old kitchen door during the evening feedings! Then I got changed and head outside, focusing on getting all the now-dry stuff from the sun room packed up and put away in bins with lids.

As seems to be the usual around here, it took longer than I expected, but I finally got it done!

The storage area is now organized and packed. Before winter, more things will be added for storage but, over all, it is done. On the cat side of the room (second picture) I still need to figure out where to set the second heat lamp, which has a lower wattage heat bulb, but that’s pretty much it. That cats really, really like the new set up! More and more of them seem to have figured out the litter boxes, too.

Finishing the sun room meant I could finally move the cat isolation shelter under the canopy tent.

That took some doing. The wheels kept sinking into the soil! That thing is heavy. What I would like to do, once I have the spare funds for it, is replace the wheels with something larger. For now, I put scraps of cardboard under the wheels to keep them from sinking into the dirt. I also have some handles I want to add to the front and the back, so it’ll be easier to move around.

Meanwhile, the cats can still use it where it is now.

Or that one skunk I have been finding, napping in the cat bed!

The box to go over the ramp door during the winter needs a bit of work. The overlapping plastic cracked when I set it on its side to attach the legs. I did try to set it where it could overhang the edge of the well cap, but it kept moving while I tried to work on it. Nothing some duct tape can’t fix. 😜 The panel in front, with a smaller opening for the cats to get through, was broken by cats panicking and hitting the edges while running out, so that needs to be trimmed. I also want to add a couple of pieces of the same material used for the legs to the sides, as handles to make moving it around easier. Right now, it’s hard to get a grip on it without damaging that roof panel even more.

It might be a couple of days before I can do the painting. Saturday would be perfect for it – a warmer day and, more importantly, a warmer night in the forecast. I might be able to get just one coat on before it starts getting too cold for wet paint to cure, but even that is better than nothing.

I’m going to be out and about a lot over the next while. Tomorrow, I’ll be at my mother’s for longer than usual. Along with her grocery shopping, I will be cooking up some of the chicken she was so angry at me for buying for her. I even remembered to ask her to take it out of the freezer tonight, so it’ll be thawed out before I get there. She’s also asked me to trim her toenails for her. I want to take a good look at her feet, as she apparently is getting an ingrown toenail, and that might need to be checked by a doctor. Of course, I’ll be doing some housework for her, changing her bedding, probably doing her laundry. Some of this stuff, my sister would normally come out on Fridays (my mother’s scheduled laundry time with the shared machines) and do for her. Since my mother gets her Meals on Wheels at noon on Fridays, I don’t plan to be there until about 1pm, so she has a chance to eat, first, and I can take the tray out to the common room for pick up, later in the week.

Saturday, I’ll be out again for a dump run, but that shouldn’t take long.

Sunday afternoon, I will be meeting to drop off cats near a Walmart, so if there’s any last things we need before Thanksgiving on Monday, that would be my time to get it.

Then I get to stay home for a while! The only appointment I have next week is a telephone follow up about the injection to my hip. I’ve got lots to do to prepare beds for winter sowing, as both day time highs and overnight lows will soon be cool enough to sow seeds but not have them germinate until spring.

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: in before the cold

October 5, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

It was still raining, off and on, while I was doing my evening rounds. Today, that included getting a meter reading.

I had help.

Gouda in particular was following me the whole time, mostly trying to rub against my feed while I walked and trying to trip me up!

Even from a distance, I could see those mushrooms in the wood chip pile are getting much bigger.

Well… two of them are.

The third one in the group looks like something stepped on it, and the fourth I found off to the side doesn’t seem to be getting any bigger. I wonder what kind they are?

We are expected to drop to 3C/37F tonight. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to hit 0C/32F, then 2C/36F the night after, before things are supposed to warm up a little bit overnight. The winter squash are covered and should be okay, but I decided not to bother trying to cover the rest. Instead, I did a harvest.

There is our single White Scallop squash that I’ve been allowing to get bigger. No chance it would get big enough and mature enough for viable seeds, but it is at an edible stage right now.

The peppers and Turkish Orange eggplant, on the other hand, are now set up in the living room to ripen. We’ve had a red pepper and an orange one so far. There are also supposed to be yellow ones in there. The one that’s darkening if from a plant we got a red pepper from. I’m curious to see if the lighter green ones will turn yellow, or if they’re just really immature.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a mix of sun and cloud, with a high of 11C/51F. The day after is supposed to reach a high of 8C/46F. After that, we’re supposed to have highs above 15C/59F. The lows are supposed to be all over the place, but still below 10C/50F. It’s also supposed to be sunny until Sunday, when we’re currently expecting to get rain. Of course, the forecast will be changing from day to day, but it does look like we’ll be able to get more progress in the garden, getting the garlic in, and preparing beds for winter sowing. Normally, I’d say we have a good window of pleasant weather to get that done but, considering how many huge roots I’m finding in the main garden beds I’m prepping, it’s likely to take quite a bit longer than it should!

Ah, well.

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

How things went today

October 4, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I’ll start with the more pleasant things!

First up, while doing my morning rounds, I spotted something very white in the wood chip pile, from quite a distance. Check these out!

The first picture was of a group of three very round mushrooms – I thought they were puffballs at first, until I saw the stems. The next three pictures are with my hand for perspective – then I found a fourth one, off to the side!

I have no idea if they are edible, and have no intention of finding out.

As I was heading inside, I found this adorable cuddle puddle.

Two of them! The smallest kittens really like to pile together.

Once the morning round were done, I was able to get a few things done before heading to my mother’s. My brother came out today, but he had to focus on replacing the radiator on one of his tractors that got damaged last fall, then try to get it going. Days are short, so I just popped over to say hello before I headed out.

When I got to my mother’s, she was all “prepared” for me. I barely got through the door! She had ice cream buckets of tomatoes she wanted me to take home. One of her neighbours in her building has had a great tomato year in their little garden plot and has been leaving boxes of them in the common room for people to help themselves. My mother keeps taking more than she needs for herself, because apparently no one else is taking any, and she doesn’t want them to go to waste.

So… she gives them to me.

While I was getting the two ice cream buckets of tomatoes out from under her table for her, I saw her collection of jugs for her drinking and cooking water, so I refilled those right away.

There were other errands she wanted me to do, but I told her I’d do them after I’ve put away her groceries.

She didn’t have a list, so I sat down to start that with her. It took a while, because she kept wanting to go on about other things. There’s one home care worker she has issues with in particular. For a basic med assist, they are supposed to be there for 5 minutes, making sure she takes her medication before they leave. The morning assist is for 10 minutes, as they are supposed to help with emptying the commode or helping apply her Voltaren to her back. This one rushes to put the meds in the little bowl she has for them, to make sure they’re all there (sometimes, they can get caught in the packaging), locked the box up and leaves without making sure my mother takes her meds. Apparently, she’s been so rough with the lock box, she ended up knocking my mom’s phone off its charger and just left it where it fell.

My mother was also angry about her new schedule. She has five evenings, which is two med assists done by the same person, plus four mornings, done by someone else (out of a 2 week schedule) listed as “unfilled”. I tried to explain to her that they have to have the schedules out by a certain time, so if they don’t have someone for a specific date or time, they have to list it as “unfilled”. That doesn’t mean they won’t find someone. Just that they hadn’t, before the deadline. My mother thinks it means people are going to show up because they’ve… called in sick, in advance? She doesn’t understand how scheduling works.

It did give me a chance to try and talk to my mother about things she can do to try and get herself into a nursing home faster. I tried to explain that, because she’s only getting med assists, they basically view her as being able to care for herself. But if she takes advantage of the other assists they have available – meal assists, bathing assists, dressing assisted, etc. – that would go a long way to helping her get in faster.

She just got angry at me. She doesn’t trust the home care workers (there’s one that she says is really good at her job, and that’s the one that helped care for my father, before he went into the nursing home) and doesn’t want them touching her or preparing her meals. I tried to explain why she needed to get it anyhow and, besides, if she were in a nursing home, she’d be having that all done for her, anyhow. To which she said, in a nursing home, she would have “professionals”. I told her, the home care workers are “professionals”. They may or may not be good at their jobs, but they get training, first.

At one point she told me she had been talking to a woman that used to live in our little hamlet, that I went to school with. Her mother lived in the same building as my mother, having moved in a few years ago. It turns out her mother is in a nursing home now! She was visiting a friend and stopped to chat with my mother. As my mother told her how much she wants to be in a nursing home, she was told to try falling down! Which is pretty much what I was thinking, but hadn’t mentioned. My mother is constantly afraid of falling down, so she is super careful not to. If, however, she did have a fall, she’d have to use her Lifeline to get help, because she certainly couldn’t get up again on her own. They could call her an ambulance (and would call me to inform me of any issues). Chances are if that happened, my mother would end up going straight to a nursing home or supportive living, somewhere.

She did mention about the last time she used her Lifeline to talk to someone about her she was feeling. At the end of it, she was asked if there was anything else they could do for her. She said, help me get into a nursing home! The person on the Lifeline said they would talk to someone higher up about it.

I don’t know what they can do, but if there’s something, it would help! Lord knows, my mother isn’t willing to do anything herself that would get her in faster. We keep telling her things that would help (like getting other home care assistance that they have available), but she just refuses. I can understand why, but she doesn’t understand that she is sabotaging herself. She much prefers to complain and expect other people to do things for her, not do them herself. This is not a new thing. She’s been like this for as long as I can remember.

After much circular conversation, I did manage to get a shopping list written down for her. Some of it was “see how it looks” or “depends on the price” type stuff. She needed more of her Voltaren, too, so a trip to the pharmacy was also in order.

I was able to find everything she wanted, and even got her a pumpkin pie as a treat I was pretty sure she would be happy with. Either she’d be happy, or she’d be angry. Thankfully, she was in a good mood, and was very happy to see the pie!

Once everything was put away, she insisted I sit with a cup of tea for a while before I finished doing things like sweeping her floor, taking care of her garbage, etc. Then she foisted a bag of aluminum foil she saved from her Meals on Wheels packaging onto me, together with the tomatoes! She’s been carefully washing and setting aside the foil each part of her meal is wrapped in. From the amount in the bag, it’s been probably a year’s worth of foil! She thought I might be able to use them in the garden (??) or something. I told her, I could add them to our aluminum recycling. We save up our aluminum until it’s worth the trip to the salvage yard. She was quite happy with that idea.

All in all, the visit with my mom was pretty good. Just one racist rant I had to distract away from, and during the times she did get angry because she didn’t like what she was being told, it wasn’t quite the personal attacks on me such things often become. It was actually a pretty good visit, as far as that goes with my mother!

That done, I had a request from my husband, so I went to the town we usually go to for our local shopping. The difference in prices between grocery stores was worth the extra driving.

Thankfully, fruit cake was not part of his shopping list.

I could not believe how expensive these fruitcakes have become! Not that long ago, seeing them at prices above $7 was considered expensive!

After I got the few things on my husband’s list and made a stop at the gas station, it was time for home.

My brother was still working on his tractor, so I headed over for a quick hello and to update him a bit about how it went with Mom. Then I went in to change into my grubbies to do some work in the garden, instead of in the sun room, while there was still light enough.

I made sure to water the winter squash and cover them for the night, first. We’re supposed to get rain, but it’s also supposed to get cold enough that I’m not sure the winter squash would survive it. They might be kept covered for several days, if the 7 day forecast is at all accurate. The next three nights in particular will probably put an end to the eggplant, peppers and summer squash, so if there’s anything to bring in an ripen indoors, tomorrow will be the day to do it.

I need to get more garden beds ready for winter sowing, though, and today I started working on the bed the carrots and peas were grown in.

*sigh*

I got a little more than a quarter of it done. As I was working my way down one side, I kept getting tangled up in tree roots. It was a while before I found root they were all coming from and got that pulled out. Then I found more from another root!

It was starting to get dark, so I didn’t want to start fighting with roots I couldn’t quite find yet, so I decided to call it a night. For all the work done in these beds, particularly when they got shifted to their permanent locations, getting them ready for the winter should be easy. All of these roots I’m hitting were not there in the spring. I’m blown away by how far they are extending from the trees, and how big they are.

According to the weather apps, we’re supposed to get rain all night and all through tomorrow, with heavy rain warning. So it might be a couple of days before I can continue. The overnight lows that had been forecast to drop below freezing have changed to just at freezing. Hopefully, the cover will be enough for the winter squash. After that one cold night, we’re actually supposed to get decent, if cool, weather again. That would be a good time to get the garlic in.

Well, we’ll see what actually happens! I’ll take the mild weather for as long as possible!

The Re-Farmer

Change of plans, and still creepy

October 3, 2025 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

One of my goals for today was to get more done in the sun room. Which did happen, though quite a bit later than I originally intended. My daughters had their own grocery shopping to do that was worth a trip into the city, which we ended up doing today.

Last night, for some reason, was a sleepless night. It was one of those nights where, the more I wanted to sleep, the more wide awake I became. Not because of pain, or busy brain, or cat shenanigans. Just… awake. I finally fell asleep somewhere around 5am. I woke up a couple of hours later, as it was starting to get light out, and ended up asking my daughters to do the morning routine outside, so I could get some more sleep. The only thing they didn’t do was switch out the trail cam memory cards. Which was okay. I was considering changing from switching them in the morning to switching them in the evening.

Which turned out to be a good thing.

My younger daughter and I started heading for the city in the late morning. I was in the truck at the end of the driveway while my daughter closed the gate behind us. By the time she was in the truck and buckled in, I saw that a tractor on the road was close enough that I waited for it to go by.

I didn’t recognize him at first, but it turned out to be our vandal, sporting a new beard. Instead of driving past us, he stopped his tractor on the road, directly in front of us.

When it looked like he was going to get off the tractor, I drove around him and down the road. It’s just a short distance to a stop sign, and I could see in my mirror that he was still sitting on his tractor, in front of our driveway.

Creepy Creeper was creeping again.

As we continued on our way, my daughter texted the family to keep an eye out on things. Then she checked the security camera’s live feed and he seemed to be gone. She updated the family again as we continued on our way.

When I switched out the memory cards this evening and checked the files, I could see from the time stamps that he sat there for a full two minutes after we drove away, before finally leaving.

Creepy.

The rest of our trip to the city was uneventful, thankfully. My daughters’ shopping list was for the international grocery store I’d skipped when I did our stock up shopping last week. It happens to be near a Dollarama, so I went there first while my daughter started her shopping. I’ve been getting a particular pattern of dishes from there, but the cats knocked a couple of bowls off the counter and broke them, and I wanted to get replacements. Of course, I found a few other small items that would be useful, then met up with my daughter at the grocery store. I took advantage of the trip to pick up a few other things – bread, milk, eggs, mayo and a box of large slide-lock freezer bags (generic brand). Those five items cost over $50!

My daughter had a much larger shopping list that ended up being over $200. It looks like they’re going to be doing a lot of Asian themed cooking over the next while!

That done, we headed home, backing into the yard to unload. It was getting around 4pm by then, so I fed the outside cats to distract them so we could unload. It almost worked! My daughter unloaded the truck to the door, where I grabbed the stuff to bring in the rest of the way. She kept having to use her cane to push kittens away from the door! Even so, Sir Robin and one of Frank’s tinies still managed to get through the door once. They are so fast! Sir Robin would happily be an indoor cat. So would all three of Frank’s grublings!

Once the truck was parked and everything was put away, I headed outside. I didn’t get too much done inside the sun room. There were two plastic storage shelves, one large, one small, that could be brought in the corner I want to keep covered so the critters won’t do their business in it. I might still change things, but I put the larger shelf in front of where the bathroom window is, and the smaller shelf in the corner. The cats like to climb up to the window to say hello, but the cube shelf that was there before is a lot shorter. Cats would scramble to reach the window to look in. Now, if we decide to leave the shelf there, cats could potentially go on the top two shelves to look in.

Yes, I’m a suck for the cats!

It also means they won’t be scrabbling up the wall to reach the window sill, scratching things up, and they’re less likely to fall and potentially hurt themselves.

I moved a couple of other things in – parts of the platform we’d had on the other side, previously, a metal garbage can we used to store things like hoes and spades, plus the actual garbage can. Those were moved mostly because we might get rain tonight, and I didn’t want water getting in them.

Another part of the platform was our “summer door” to the old basement. It allowed us to keep the door open for air circulation on hot days, while keeping the cats out. It didn’t get used that way this year, because it was part of the platform and had the clamp lamps hanging off of it still.

That will get stored in the sun room, too, but first it needed a good hose down and scrubbing of the wooden frame. I’ve got it set under the canopy tent to dry. Now that we have a gallon of paint to cover the exposed wood on the isolation shelter and the box that will go in front of the ramp door to block wind and snow, I will paint the frame of this summer door, too. One of the plant stands that the cats used to get up onto the platform was also in need of a scrub. I’ve decided I will paint that, too.

With the shelves in place in the sun room, I spread the kibble trays out a bit, so they’re not all crowded on one side. I’ve been watching the live feed on the critter cam and the cats and kittens seem to be really happy with the set up. They’ve been running around and playing all over the nice, clean floor!

I could probably bring the floor mats back in, too. I forgot that they’re still hanging on the chain link fence, after getting pressure washed with the hose. These are indoor/outdoor water proof mats with a carpet-like surface. One more thing to protect tiny toe beans from a cold concrete floor, in the winter.

I still don’t know how I’m going to set up the heat lamps. One is a 250 watt ceramic heat bulb and has a protective cage so nothing can accidentally touch the bulb. I would like to have that one over the open space between the cat cage the the shelf at the window. I can’t clamp it to the shelf itself, which would be the easy thing to do, as that shelf is all cat beds, and it might get knocked about as they move around the different levels. The only other thing above the area I want to set the heat lamp is the hanging pair of shop lights. Nothing stable enough to hold a heat lamp, there.

Must think about this some more.

The second lamp should probably go closer to the cat cage, more or less where the heated water bowl will be set up, once it’s plugged in. There’s an arm bar on the wall there, but I don’t think the clamp lamp would hold onto the chrome surface very well. I could set it up on the other side of the door, but I’d rather encourage the cats to use the west facing half of the sun room.

All things to figure out over the next while. I’ll need to sort through the bins that will go into the shelves I set up today and reorganize them, which will include storing things somewhere else entirely. Once the space under the canopy tent is clear, I want to roll the isolation shelter under it, so it can be painted and protected from any rain (or snow!) we might get over the next few days. The weather apps said we might get rain storms this evening. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to get rain all day but, again, I think it’ll mostly be south of us.

I will be heading to my mother’s do to her grocery shopping tomorrow, anyhow.

*sigh*

I’ll be honest; I’m not looking forward to spending time with my mother. I never know, from one day to the next, if she’ll be having one of her good days or, more frequently, be on one of her nasty days. Ah, well. It is what it is.

Tomorrow is looking like our last warm-ish day for a while. From the long range forecast, I’ve got maybe two weeks to prepare more garden beds and get the garlic in. I might be able to hold off until the the second half of October before I do the winter sowing. Once the isolation shelter is painted, we need to set it set up by the house for the winter, where we can plug in the heat lamp and heated water bowl.

Meanwhile, we’re still waiting on that new pre-hung door that needs to be installed! They have to move a hand rail against the wall to do it, which means the isolation shelter can’t be set up against that wall until the door is installed.

Lots to do, and not a lot of time to get it done.

On a completely different note, while I was doing my evening rounds, I was happy to see more flowers blooming.

Not only are both the asters and Cosmos blooming, but there are even a couple of late nasturtiums!

I’m still holding out hope that the warm weather will last long enough that I can collect seeds from the memorial asters.

The Re-Farmer

A beautiful morning

October 2, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

First up, it was a great morning because MY HIP DIDN’T KEEP ME UP ALL NIGHT!!!

Sorry for shouting, but I’m pretty excited! I could even lie on my left side and everything. No pain at all!

I had been warned that it might take a few days before the steroid injection did its job, and that things might get worse before it got better. I got none of that. It just went straight to working!

So awesome.

Another thing that was awesome was the view this morning, while doing my rounds. We had a fog this morning, and that always make sunrise so very dramatic.

Things were looking pretty in the garden, too.

One pumpkin vine had a couple of huge flowers this morning. I just had to try for a close up on one of them (second picture). In the third picture, there’s a Hopi Black Dye sunflower, but it seems to have skipped developing a seed head and is just filled with flowers.

Our high today was expected to reach 25C/77F, and tonight’s low is expected to be 12C/54F, so the winter squash are being left uncovered still. From the forecast, it looks like we’ll have two more days and one more night where they can be left uncovered. After that, they’ll need to be covered for the night, and probably left covered both day and night for at least a few days. It’s nice to have an unusually warm October again – since moving here, we’ve had years with no frost until November, but not with weeks above 20C/68F – but we’re expecting to get some pretty dramatic swings between the highs and the lows.

Which means I should be planting the garlic within the next week or so, and the winter sowing might be gone before the end of the month. I don’t want the winter sown seeds to actually germinate before spring. Overnight lows at or below freezing is fine, but apparently, we’re going to be getting days at or above 20C/68F again, in the third week of October! Well, that’s where a deep mulch comes in. It will protect the seeds from both heat and cold.

We shall see what actually happens, weather wise! For now, though, my focus had to go back to working on the sun room, which is what I’ll be updating on in my next pose.

See you there!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: last of the potatoes, prepping beds and a bumper crop

September 24, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I’m happy to say I was able to get some progress in the garden yesterday evening, and again today.

I did not continue cleaning the sun room today. My daughter will finish that, but she will restart tomorrow. It turned out that, after trying to keep up with me yesterday, she hurt her back! I keep forgetting, I’m the most able bodied person in the household right now. The kittens, meanwhile, have been piling into the cat cage. It got a bit chilly last night – cold enough that I covered the winter squash, but not cold enough to cover the summer squash, peppers or eggplant – and they was a whole crowd of littles in the cat cage’s cat bed. Most of the other cat beds they could access are outside right now. Only one of the smaller kittens has figured out there are cat beds on the platform, and is able to climb up the shelf to get to them. With the floor now dry, I did put one of the cat beds and the self heating mat on the floor for them to use.

This is what I was able to get done yesterday, before it got too dark.

This is the bed that had three types of tomatoes, bush beans and self seeded carrots in it. I pulled the remaining stems and roots of the tomatoes an the bush beans and set them aside. They will get buried in the bed later on. In the second picture, you can see the finished bed. Most of what I pulled out of there can’t go into the compost, as their roots will spread. In the last picture, you can see the bonus Uzbek Golden carrots that were large enough to keep. The greens will also be buried in the bed. I’ll be doing some amending later one. I’ll be using this bed for winter sowing, but have not yet decided what I will put in it.

This afternoon was pretty hot, so I chose to harvest the last of the potatoes, then work on that bed. At this time of the year, and at that time of the day, most of the bed was shaded by trees, so it was a lot more comfortable to work on.

This is how many potatoes I found in the remaining two or three feet of the bed.

I was really surprised by how many tree roots I was finding while I dug them up. That’s quite the distance! I thought that maybe they were from the other direction, but the nearest tree on the south side is the chokecherry tree. They spread through their roots, but the suckers all come up close to the main trunk. As I worked on the bed, though, it was clear what direction the roots were coming from.

I ended up making a short video when I was done.

I cleaned up only one long side of the bed before I had to stop for hydration and sustenance. I’ll probably work on the rest tomorrow. At the end, you can see all the rocks I “harvested”. !!! Keep in mind that this bed had been amended several times, the soil sifted several times, most recently when all the beds were sifted over into their permanent positions. Not only that but this bed was winter sown with summer squash, which did not take, so it was trenched and cleaned up before we planted the potatoes.

All those rocks were what we “grew” since the potatoes were planted in the spring. Just the bigger ones that were easier to pick up, and I know there were plenty that got missed because they kept getting buried in the soil while I loosened it and pulled as many weeds and roots as I could.

Before I headed in for a break, I just had to check out the blooming asters.

Sir Robin was already checking them out.

Still no Cosmos, but there do seem to be a few more flower buds trying to develop.

Tonight is supposed to be a bit warmer, so I don’t plan to cover the winter squash again, unless that changes. The next couple of nights are looking chilly enough that I might cover the other beds, too. Unless I decide to harvest the Turkish Orange eggplants, first. The peppers can stay for a while longer, as long as the weather holds.

I have decided the bed I’m working on now will be where I plant the garlic in a few weeks. This time, I’m thinking of making sure to mark exactly where they are planted, and then interplanting with something else before the ground freezes. Maybe spinach and/or some other greens. In theory, the garlic should protect any greens growing with them from the deer, same as onions can. The greens would be finished before the garlic is ready to harvest, and could be succession sowed with something else that’s quick growing. Bush beans, perhaps. We shall see.

It’s not a lot of progress. As usual, it was a bigger job than expected. Particularly as I got closer to the north end of the bed, where both the tree roots and rocks were so much denser. Still, a little progress is better than none at all!

The Re-Farmer

The rain has stopped, and Eyelet is in being spoiled rotten!

September 20, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Well, today’s schedule sure changed.

First, a quick update with the home care crazy from yesterday. The plan was, if the guy didn’t come back to do my mother’s bed time med assist, as he said he would, by 9pm, I would drive over to do it.

My mother called me at 8:50 (the actual scheduled time) so say, no one arrived. I wasn’t 100% sure she was scheduled for 8:50, and sometimes they come late, which is why I asked her to call me if no one showed up at 9. I asked her to wait a bit longer and if he still didn’t come, let me know and I’d go over.

My other told me to not bother. She would just take some Tylenol and go to bed. She would be okay.

*sigh*

I hated to do that, but I also really didn’t want to drive to her town, in the dark, in the rain.

This morning, after I did my rounds (it was still raining), I gave her a call.

In which I will pause to share the cuteness! The first picture was taken last night, the second this morning.

Seeing Colby on top of his sister like that is adorable!

She needs a name.

Anyhow… back to calling my mother!

My mother told me she’d had a great night.

Then started going on about how the Tylenol helped so much more than her medications did.

Red flag time! My mother has done this before. Basically, she’s convincing herself that the medications aren’t doing her any good, because she has these other problems. How can she be taking all these medications, but still feel have all these other things? This time, because Tylenol did such a great job with her pains, to her that meant it was working better than her medications.

I have explained this to her before, but I did it again. NONE of her medications are for pain. They are all for different things, and I mentioned a few of them. Unfortunately, I could hear in the tone of her response that she was basically not believing me.

It’s a good thing she gets home care med assists, or she would start skipping her meds regularly, or picking and choosing which ones to take. Again.

To distract, I then asked her about her grocery shopping. She said she was only out of milk and hadn’t started a list. She was in her night gown and didn’t feel like getting dressed. I told her, don’t bother getting dressed, and I’ll help with the list. She was quite happy with that arrangement!

Since I was going to be dropping Eyelet off in the early evening, I wanted to get to my mothers a little bit earlier than usual. Once there, I first focused on her meds. I found a pill organizer and took the meds out of her “orphan” bubbles; last night’s bed time meds and a Monday morning bubble that’s been carried over to new packs for a couple of months now. I made sure to write down which meds they were and tucked the note in one of the organizer spots and tucked the whole thing away. My mother has strict instructions to leave them, unless there’s an “emergency”. I also prepared her bed time meds for tonight – I brought another of the tiny tagine sauce bowls to keep them in – and set up another note with it, setting it aside with the note facing where my mother sits at her table.

That done, we started working on her shopping list. It was mostly her usual items, but we did remember to include things we’d forgotten last time, like the instant oatmeal that makes things so much easier for her. Some things were just “see what looks good” type stuff. When she gave me cash for the trip, she included a bit extra, asking me to keep an eye out for anything else I might spot and know she would like.

Which worked out well. I was able to get her extra fruit that she likes but normally wouldn’t get. Today, they happened to be on sale. Her favourite bread was on sale, so I got extra for her freezer. That sort of thing. As I put things away, I always go over what I got and what changes I made, and she was very happy with the selections. Before putting the milk carton in the fridge, I made sure to open it for her, and I’m glad I did. For some reason, every now and then, they just don’t want to open. If it’s difficult for me to open, that would make it almost impossible for my mother to open! I do wish her grocery store still had their 2L milk in jugs as well as cartons, as jugs are so much better for people with mobility issues in their hands.

That done, I made sure to give her floor a sweep before heading out. One of her neighbours that has a garden plot has been sharing their bounty of tomatoes by leaving them in the common room for anyone to take. My mother keeps taking some, even though she already has, and is supposed to avoid acidic foods like tomatoes. So she gave me an ice cream bucket full to take home! We still haven’t finished off the last bunch she gave us!

Once I was in the truck, I started messaging my family to let them know the status of things. Which is when I started getting messages from the woman I was to bring Eyelet to. She was wondering if I could bring him to a different address, as she’d forgotten she was supposed to go there after her work this evening. It wasn’t far from her own address, so that worked out okay.

We continued our conversation as I got home when she asked when I was planning to head out with Eyelet. I told her, but mentioned that I was flexible, now that I was done with my mother’s grocery shopping. She asked if I could bring him in right away. The new address is for a foster that already had a room ready for him and was home.

!!!

I was back on the road with Eyelet within 10 minutes. My daughter went looking for him as I got a carrier prepared. Finding him was easy. He was napping in the sun room.

He did not appreciate being awakened, then stuck into a carrier!

I grabbed a donated carrier that is triangle shaped and opens on one side, which makes it easy to take cats in and out. It is, however, not our largest carrier.

Eyelet was not happy!

So not happy, he stress pooped in the carrier during the drive out.

*sigh*

He went back and forth between trying to claw his way out of the carrier, to just lying down calmly, and back again, which meant he got messy in the process.

When I got to the address and the woman came out to greet me, I made sure to let her know! I then followed her in to Eyelet’s new home for the next few days.

What a set up! An entire little bedroom, all to himself, with several beds, including one at a window, a cat tree, toys and, of course, a litter pan and food and water. He was enough of a mess that she brought a cloth to wipe him off a bit before taking him out of the carrier.

Dude was not impressed!

He did, however, start purring as soon as she touched him! He was very open to pets in general.

I’ve since gotten an update that he has settled into his new digs very well. I’m not at all surprised. The set up is pure luxury compared to the yard cat life!

The best part is that this was all done well before I was originally scheduled to deliver Eyelet. It even stopped raining shortly after I got home.

It was an awesome rain, too. Almost 24 hours of constant rain. Nothing too heavy, either. The sort of rain we could have used so much of over the summer!

Meanwhile, my brother came out today. I didn’t even realize he was here until I left for my mother’s and saw his car. He’s been busy preparing their trailer for the winter, including driving it out to where the tanks can be emptied. When I got back from delivering Eyelet, he was able to come over and tell me what he’d been able to do for my mother’s car. There’s still more to be done, but it can wait. The priority was to deal with that tire that keeps going flat. He just used the spray stuff in it, then made sure to drive it around, and even put it up on a jack to just spin the tire, so it wouldn’t cure in a puddle inside the tire.

Tomorrow afternoon, he and I will be going to my mother’s tomorrow, and her car is one of the main things she wants to talk about. She says she wants him to get it all fixed up, and that she would pay for it, so that we have a second vehicle, and one that she can get in and out of. It might be better off to sell it, or maybe trade it in for a newer vehicle. My brother is in a better position to make recommendations on that than I am.

So we’ll see how that works out.

Weather wise, next week is looking to be warmer again, and dry. That will be when we seriously need to get the sun room cleaned out. That requires basically emptying it, so we can wash the concrete floor. The cat cage can’t fit through the door without being dismantled, so the room has to be done one half at a time. It’s going to be a big, messy job. I’m going to have to stop storing most of my tools and garden supplies in there. The cats, skunks and raccoons get into it all and make such a mess – and make messes on top of things!

With the rain, I’ve made little additional progress in cleaning up the garden, but tomorrow is the 21st, which is when I’ve been typically doing my garden tour videos. It also happens to be the first day of our new average frost date range. Instead of one day, they now have a range of days. Which isn’t how an average works, but whatever. They now say our average first frost days is between Sept 21 and 30, from the previous Sept. 10. Of course, this year, we had two frosts before Sept. 10! Well, it’ll be another 30 years before they do the math again. I’m still sticking with Sept. 10, when I work out when to do things in the garden, and what the length of our growing season is. It was 99 days before. Now it’s supposedly 125-150 days, since the last frost date has changed, too.

Yeah… I don’t think so. Not a chance, where we are.

Gosh, though… having a 125 day growing season would be amazing. 150 days would be heavenly! There’s so much more we could grow with a season that long!

Ah, well. A girl can dream but, in the end, we have to deal with what we’ve got in our local climate, not what a map of averages says.

Time for me to head outside for my evening rounds before it gets dark, and see examples of that along the way!

The Re-Farmer

The cuteness

September 7, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Things are starting to warm up today, which means I got to spend more time working outside. I was finally able to use the push mower around the cat shelters, then break out the weed trimmer.

Before I started making lots of noise and scaring the yard cats, I got to enjoy some adorableness.

I have almost, not quite, been able to pet the kitten in the first picture. Progress is, it moves away when I touched it back, but didn’t panic or jump off the rail and run off.

Of course, I checked in Frank’s babies in the cat cage, and was amused to find their guardian kitten asleep on the level above them.

The last picture was taken while I was moving things and prepping to mow – and spotted a skunk going after the food and water bowls in the catio! I went to chase it off, but it went inside of the catio instead of away. The door had been tied off so it wouldn’t blow in the wind, so I untied it, then went around to the back of the catio to persuade the skunk to leave. Then I found the garage kittens were inside, too, and very nervous about the whole thing!

This morning, I was able to stop the smokey kitten from running away when I brought the food, put it back at the bowl and started petting it. It was hungry enough to let me, and started eating. Progress!

While using the push mower, I made a point of mowing where the catio is going to be moved to, once I can snag a daughter to give me a hand. Little by little, we’ll get those kittens to start coming to the house! They seem to be like their mother; they don’t seem to like other cats and have no interest in any of the other kittens. Hopefully, that will change by winter.

We’ll have some nice weather over the nest week to 10 days, which means we need to focus on getting winterizing done. The sun room needs to be cleaned out for the winter, the cat house needs to be opened up and cleaned out, the winter window to the old basement needs to be set in place, etc. That’s all on top of cleaning up the garden and preparing as many beds as I can for winter sowing. If things go really well, I hope to have some beds we didn’t use this year ready for next year, and get the second trellis bed at least started. We need to cut more dead spruces to get the 18′ logs we’ll need for that. The trellis bed will be two logs high, so we’ll need four 18′ logs and four 4′ logs. The existing low raised beds will be framed just one log high to start with. We’ll add more height to them as we’re able to get the materials. There’s only so many dead spruces in the grove that we can harvest, and not all of them are nice and straight.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to get lots done while the weather holds!

The Re-Farmer

The Re-Farmer

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

planning ahead

Today’s progress – running around and work accomplished… sorta

Got some progress in, and cat news

Updates on cats, doctors and more cats!

Our 2025 Garden: in before the cold

How things went today

Change of plans, and still creepy

A beautiful morning

Our 2025 Garden: last of the potatoes, prepping beds and a bumper crop

The rain has stopped, and Eyelet is in being spoiled rotten!

The cuteness

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