plans? what plans?

Clean up: reclaiming the old kitchen

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The girls took care of a huge job for me, in emptying out the old kitchen!

Well. As much as it will be.

Here is how it looks now, while we take a break and get out of the heat.

When we first moved here, my younger brother had his larger freezer where the one in the photo now sits. They moved it out shortly after we moved in, freeing up some space for us.

There was a shelf in the corner, filled with a variety of things hidden behind a curtain. My mother had a thing for putting curtain rods on shelves, then hanging light and lacy curtains to hide the contents. I don’t think she understood that she was damaging the shelves in the process. Mind you, with most of the shelves, it really didn’t make much difference.

This corner is where our current freezer, which had belonged to my parents, used to sit. When I was a kid and we were still using this kitchen, there was a fridge in this corner.

I have zero memory of there being a fridge in this kitchen!

When I started cleaning up the old kitchen before, I had put a utility shelf in this corner. In no time at all, things ended up dumped in front of it, because we had no place else to put them, and it became completely inaccessible!

That corner is where we will be putting the plastic couch from the sun room.

After taking this picture, I took down the curtain over the window that doesn’t have aluminum foil on it. It has a screen, so I tried opening it to get some air circulation, but it would only open half an inch. Ah, well. Better than nothing!

The window with the foil over it is supposed to get replaced. The replacement window is actually leaning against a wall, between the doors to the house and to the sun room.

We are not going to be replacing the window just yet, but I will keep that in mind as we set things up again.

Ah, the old wood stove! This is what my mother cooked on, until the addition was added to the house and we got an electric stove, to go with having running water and an indoor bathroom.

The hinges on the door are broken, as if someone tried to stand on it while open.

There are still ashes in there!!

Eventually, I want to clean it up and pick up some stove blacking – I even found some in one of our local hardware stores.

It’s amazing that this stove was going almost all day, every day, and the kitchen never caught fire. There is NOTHING protecting the walls and floor.

We will not be doing anything to what’s on the shelves in that little nook just yet.

Of course, there were all sorts of things the girls cleared out. The dresser in the photo being one of two larger items, plus lots of things like this sifter screen. It was used to clean the chaff and dirt out of seeds. It’s old and the wood is rotting, but it’s being kept. It’s very likely my dad made it himself. The screen is ordinary metal window screen. The wooden frame was very likely salvaged from a peach basket or something like that.

As the girls took things out, I started hauling some of the stuff either to the junk pile, or into the storage house, which is where that sifter went. I hate that we’re adding things into there. We’ve made no attempt to start cleaning it out. When we do, we’ll definitely need to use masks and gloves. If I can find some coveralls that would fit us, that would be good, too.

Among the things I took in were a large and a small shop vac. When my daughters started talking about using a shop vac on the floors, one of them wondered if the large shop vac worked. I had taken a look at it while carrying it over, I thought that, while it might run, it probably doesn’t vacuum anymore. The little one was

(Aaaannnd… that’s it. I’m done for the day.

As I was writing the above, the phone rang. My sister had taken my mother to the cemetery, and accidentally locked her keys in the car. Long story short, it turns out her car has a combination touch screen she’d forgotten about, but since they were in the area, my mother wanted to see the yard. I am now completely drained. We’ll finish the job tomorrow.)

Where was I?

Ah, yes. The little shop vac. It was wrapped up in a plastic bag, so my daughter didn’t realize what it was. The old kitchen had (and still has) lots of jars that we put into the wagon, so before my daughter had to go back to work, we brought the wagon to the storage house and assembly lined passing them all up the stairs and stacking them in a space I’d prepared for them. Then I brought the little shop vac to the sun room to plug it in and test it out.

It works! So we have a little shop vac – small enough to fit into a grocery bag! – to help clean up the floors. This will be a huge help in the old kitchen, with it’s bits and pieces flooring.

After doing the glass, we stopped to take a break, and I started on this post. Then I got the call from my sister. It turns out she’d tried to call several other people first, including her husband who has spare keys, before being able to reach me. The concern was, there is no shade at all in the cemetery, and it was way too hot for my mother to be in the sun.

So I headed out to go get them, thinking to bring them here to wait for my brother in law – or I could take my mother straight home.

It turned out to be a moot point. I got to the cemetery, and there was no car! Clearly, they’d gotten it open.

Then I saw a car I’d passed on the way over, coming back up the road. I haven’t seen my sister’s newer car in a while, so I hadn’t recognized it. I learned she’d gone to the house closest to the cemetery (which is off the main road and cut into the bush) to make the calls, since her cell phone was locked in the car along with her keys. After reaching me, she got through to her husband, who told her to just use the combination. She’d forgotten there was one! Along the frame of the driver’s side window is basically a touch screen of numbers. She didn’t remember the combination, but her husband did, so they were able to get in. I guess they were on the way to the farm when they saw me going by and turned around.

Since they were there, my mother wanted to come see the yard. She insisted, she didn’t want to come into the house (stairs are difficult for her). I had already told them we had emptied the sun room and old kitchen, and everything was spread out in the yard. They were okay with that, so I sent a message to my family to let them know the situation, and off we went.

What does it say that I get better cell phone reception at a cemetery in the bushes than we do here at the farm? :-D

Once we arrived, my sister parked in the shade of the yard. I asked her if my mom had brought her walker, and she hadn’t, so I went and got my father’s walker. We keep it handy for times like this (and in case I ever need it!). My sister and I also moved the plastic couch into the shade of my mother’s white lilacs, for later.

We then did a tour around the yard, and it was about what I expected. My mother had no real interest in the progress made, and all the interest in the things she didn’t like. Oh, I’d pulled up the spirea over there! Yes, Mom. It was spreading and killing things off. I want the lilacs, not the spirea.

Which is when she told me she had also tried to keep up with pulling them out of that spot, too.

And why did I want those piles of sticks all over the place?

I don’t want them there, but we have to put the branches somewhere. They will be cleaned up in time.

We went around to the old stone cross my late brother had salvaged off a building he’d demolished, which was another area I’d pulled up spirea. I’d been given a hard time about that, too, but now the area is filled with wildflowers. My mother had already graciously given me permission to pull up the spirea in that area. There is one patch of spirea by the storage house that we are keeping. The butterflies and other insects just love them, and it’s a place where we can keep it under better control. My mother was, at least, happy to see how well the grapes are doing (no comments on their no longer being buried in spirea and now on a trellis, though), only to launch into how I need to water them. I really have to water them, because they’re under a roof (meaning, the eaves of the storage house), and they’ll do really well if I just water them.

…

Yes, Mom, I know how to water plants.

She didn’t know what to make of the cucamelons.

Then we started walking towards the old garden area, and she could see the sunflowers at the far end.

What are those sunflowers doing there? Did you plant them?

Yes, Mom. We’ve been talking about that a few times, now.

What are those over there? Are they squash?

Yes, those are squash.

*long pause*

Oh, there used to be such a beautiful garden here! It used to be so beautiful!

*sigh*

She couldn’t, of course, go into the garden, because it is so rough. My sister and I went down to the end of the apple trees, and she had a few things to say about the horrible plow job. The summer before we moved here, she and her husband were the ones trying to cut the lawn in the area. The problem is that, instead of plowing in straight rows in the same direction, so the furrow overlap each other, my younger brother had gone in circles, instead. That left the mounds the were are now struggling with. We’re not sure why he did it this way, but my sister suspects alcohol was involved! :-D

Since I’d mowed a path, my mother was able to go through the maple grove with her walker, all the way to the old willow tree that we’d lost a big chunk of in a blizzard last fall. My sister remembers that tree being huge, even when visiting at the farm before my parents bought it. Then we went over to the fire pit, and I told my sister about how I found the bricks around it. She was amazed, partly because she remembered those bricks being there, and didn’t realize they’d been completely covered.

I tried to talk to my mother about some of the plans we had, but she wasn’t interested. Instead, she wanted to go to the storage warehouse, where almost all the things my parents left behind are now packed away in. I managed to convince her to first stop for a rest in the shade. After a nice rest and hydration, we made out way over.

She actually insisted in going inside, struggling up the few stairs to get in. The building is jam packed, with only a couple of narrow areas to walk in, but she squeezed her way through. Some of the cardboard boxes have started to collapse under the weight of their contents, and I found some things that could not be boxed where knocked onto the floor, including a little mirrored altar of my mothers. The original crucifix was long gone, and another had been put in it’s place. We found that on the floor. My mother decided to take it with her. It turned out to be the first gift she and my dad received, when they got married! Then she started pulling out the large framed pieces, eventually digging out a print of Mona Lisa.

She ended up taking that with her, even though she had nowhere to hang it!

Then she started digging at the end of the path, trying to reach something. There was a bunch of curtain rods from when we cleaned out the sun room, originally. I convinced her to let me get them for her, but when I asked which she was after, she’d completely ignored me. So I grabbed several and held them for her while she picked a couple of the least damaged ones.

My sister and I eventually persuaded her to stop trying to rearrange things and start heading out.

Then she decided she wanted to go into the storage house.

!!!

My sister immediately pointed out how difficult it would be for her to get up those stairs. I had to plead with her, not to go in. I reminded her of her breathing problems, telling her I’d been in and out of there several times, and my own lungs were starting to burn from it (as I type this, I can still feel my throat burning from talking so much, after being in there). I promptly got told that I needed to leave the doors and windows open to get the smell out. I told her it needed a major cleaning, plus there are no screens on the windows, and I didn’t want anything to get in and get trapped (my sister says that’s probably how the dead squirrel that is now a skeleton on the kitchen floor got trapped in there). She still insisted I should leave the door open and open windows.

What was it she was after in there? Maybe I could get it?

It turns out she was worried about a pair of brass candlesticks, and whether they were still there. They are actually a pair of menorahs, and I assured her, they were still on the shelf, covered with a light curtain. Oh? I didn’t cover them! was her response. Well, someone did. They’re still there.

In the end, my sister and I ended up going into the storage house, and we each grabbed a candlestick, took them to the door and showed them to her.

As we put them back, my sister and I were talking for a bit, but I just couldn’t stay in there any longer. My lungs were burning. Even my sister was already noticing it affecting her, so we headed out. I got more lectures on how I needed to leave the door open, and how I need to clean things. Eventually, my sister pointed out that I had stopped cleaning things, and they should probably leave so I could get back to it.

Which they did, but by then, I was done. That hour or so with my mother drained more energy out of me than two days of working on the sun room and old kitchen. I would so love to have a better relationship with her, but she just can’t seem to find anything good to say, without undermining it with by making sure I know what a bad job I’m doing, or how wrong what I’m doing it, etc. I’ve reached a point in my life where she can no longer hurt me, but my goodness, it just sucks the energy right out of me! She couldn’t even resist making a snarky comment about the sweatpants I was wearing; the ones I wear when I know I’m going to be doing dirty manual labour, that used to be my husband’s. They have elastic around the ankles, to help keep the wood ticks out. No recognition at all that I dropped everything to go and get them when they were stuck at the cemetery, and that’s why I was still in my grubbies.

But I did get a lecture about how she won’t be around forever, and after she’s gone, we’ll remember and miss her.

*sigh*

I wouldn’t be surprised if my mother lived to be 100. For all her complaining, she’s got an amazing constitution. Even when she had abdominal surgery and they kept her in the hospital for a week, she recovered faster than when I had a much less invasive day surgery! I was about to say she could get hit by a truck and survive, but… she’s already done that.

So I’m done. Wiped out. Exhausted. Not physically, but mentally.

My daughter headed out to secure some of the stuff so they won’t blow away. I’m going to go do the watering with fertilizer I’d planned on doing, once things cooled down a bit.

I’ll at least be able to say I finished one thing, today, after that!

The Re-Farmer

New baby sighting, and washer update

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While doing my rounds, before going to the city, I went to the usual spots to see if any more branches had come down during the night.

None had, but when I reached the fence near the pump shack, I heard something moving on the metal table beside it.

It took me a while, but I eventually saw a kitten slink under the table itself.

Was that Junk Pile cat’s white and grey baby?

Near where I was standing is a spot the cats use to go under the chain link fence. Rosencrantz, whom I’d seen earlier as I put kibble out for the yard cats, went through, stopping several times to look back at me and give me a death glare! :-D

Just look at that face!

So was that Rosencrantz’s baby I was seeing?

She made her way to the pump shack, then settled down in front of the door, keeping an eye on me. I could no longer see the kitten under the table, but then and orange head popped out of the hole at the bottom of the door!

I’d actually enlarged that hole last year, when Pump Shack kitten was living in there. (We haven’t seen Pump Shack cat, nor her mom, Guildenstern, in a very long time.)

It took a while, but the other kitten did eventually come around.

Of course, there’s that little sapling in the way! :-D

This is most definitely NOT the grey and white kitten I saw before. This one has more white, and also has patches of orange in it.

So this is a first time sighting of these babies!

These would be the younger siblings to Keith, David and Junk Pile cat.

Shortly after this, my older daughter and I headed for the city. Having gone looking around online last night, I had several possibilities for washing machines that I wanted to check out at Home Depot.

Once at the store, I went looking at the machines. I wasn’t too surprised that there were fewer than what I saw online. Aside from the prices, I had also looked at ratings. GE had some of the lowest ratings, while Whirlpool had the highest. Those were out of budget, though. Plus, I wasn’t seeing any on display.

I had an employee acknowledge me when I first got there, asking if I needed help right away. I didn’t, yet, which worked out for him, since he said he needed to go to the back for a while. This gave me lots of time to look at the machines before settling on this one.

It was a GE, but not the same model I was seeing on the website that had the lower ratings. In fact, I don’t recall seeing this model online at all. The price was also easier on the budget than others on display. There were several cheaper ones but… they were also TOO cheap! And I don’t mean just on price.

There was also the issue of size, which turned out to be more of a non-issue. Where we have the washer and dryer is already tight. My daughter at home measured the width and messaged me the info. Our machine at home was 26 7/8ths wide. We could go up to 27 inches, but that was it. The machines were all either 26 7/8ths inches wide, or 27 inches wide. This one was 27 inches wide.

I then waited for the guy to come back.

And waited.

After a while, I asked a nearby cashier if she could see if someone was available, on the possibility there was someone else in that section.

There wasn’t.

So I waited some more, wandering around a bit.

Which is when I discovered there was a whole other section of washers and dryers I’d somehow managed to not see.

Of course, that’s when the guy came back.

I told him I was looking for a washing machine, mentioned that I’d just noticed the other section. After a quick walk around, I showed him the one I said I’d decided on.

“No,” he said.

I could only laugh. He did explain, though.

Basically, the brand sucks. He’d never use one himself, and wouldn’t sell one, if he could avoid it. His recommendation was to go with either Whirlpool or LG. I’d seen both brands were highly rated, but I hadn’t looked at any LG models online.

The first one he took me over to was a Whirlpool. It was over budget but, more importantly, it was 27 1/2 inches wide. That half inch would make a difference.

He showed me a couple others he recommended, both LG, that were 27 inches. The closer one we came to, I told him straight up was out of budget, so he showed me another one.

After going back and forth, I went with the cheaper LG.

This is it.

It cost $100 more than the GE, but it was still within budget. Well. Almost. After taxes and whatever fees were added on, it ended up costing $835 and change. So $35 over budget. It is also a higher capacity machine, at 5.5 cubic feet instead of 4.9 cubit feet in the GE I was looking at.

Unfortunately, they do not keep an inventory of stuff like this. It has to be delivered from the national warehouse in Ontario.

Expected delivery to the store: Friday, the 24th.

That’s more than a week away.

Now, I could have decided not to buy it, then tried going elsewhere, but that would most likely have meant going to another city, at a competitor’s location where we got our replacement hot water tank. That store has higher prices for the same makes and models, though, so even if I were able to find an identical machine, I probably could not have bought it.

So I bought the machine. If we really, really have to, we can go to town and use the laundromat.

As he did the computer stuff, and put me into their system, we had time to chat. I told him about our washer dying yesterday, and how we had to decide if it was worth fixing. I told him about finding the plastic part under it, and he cringed. I mentioned the screws, and he cringed a bit more. Then I mentioned the puddle of oil, and he did a whole body twitch while in the middle of typing. :-D

After the transaction was done, he made sure to let me know to expect a call on Thursday, the 23rd. If there was no call, he said to call him early on Friday (I made sure to take down his name). The delivery trucks stop running at 4:30. Once they stop, there would be no chance of it arriving until Monday, so it would have to be early enough for him to make some calls about it.

The new washer will be delivered to the store. We’re too far away to have it delivered to our place. Which actually helped a bit, since it kept the price down. There would have been a delivery fee on top of everything else, but he was able to waive that.

So we’ve got more than a week without a washing machine.

And I needed to do laundry, yesterday.

While we could make the trip into town to use the laundromat, we’re not going to bother. At least, not yet. My daughters have already done a load of their own laundry in the bath tub, and I’m about to do the same.

The one good thing about the new washing machine not coming in right away is, we have time to haul the old one out and clean up the mess of oil under it.

By the time we got home, I was surprised it wasn’t even 2pm yet. If felt like it should have been more like 4 or 5!

This has been a very expensive month. I had to buy the push mower. Then I had to buy the parts and pieces to fix the sink. My daughter bought the new stove, and now we’ve bought a new washing machine. Meanwhile, we’ve got the riding mower still in the shop (at this point, I’m hoping they’ll continue to take their time getting to it!), plus my mother’s car will be ready for the end of the month. That one, at least, I’ve got almost 2/3rds paid off. My older daughter is still getting regular commissions, but my younger daughter is not going to be able to find a job for some time, given the pandemic situation, and our Premiere extending our “emergency” status for a couple more months, in spite of the lack of cases in our province. So it’s not like there’s any way for the income to increase with the outgo!

Unfortunately, it means a lot of things we’d hoped to get done this summer, likely won’t happen. We need to buy plywood for a floor on the trailer, and more for other projects we had in mind. I was hoping to buy materials to create a base for the cordwood outhouse we were planning to build this summer. While there is a lot we can get started on to prepare that won’t cost money, we do still need to buy some things, like mortar ingredients, and I was hoping to have concrete paving stones as a “floor” to build on. That project will likely have to be pushed back to next year. Plus, if anything else breaks down, there’s very little left in reserve. I’m just thankful we had as much as we did, set aside, to cover these. I just can’t help but think, how on earth are we supposed to come up with $10,000 for a new roof, when stuff like this keeps happening?

But, thanks to my husband’s private insurance and disability income, the bills are being paid, there’s food on the table, and gas in the tank. Being hear at the farm, we’ve got a roof over our head (even if it needs replacing!) and are secure as “caretakers” of the property. We are much better off than so many others, and have much to be thankful for.

Well, there’s one thing that might help, on the financial side. Our internet provider has had a new tower built in the area.

When moving here, the only option we had was satellite and, because of plan limits at the time, we had to get two of them to provide enough data for our needs. (Getting internet is a necessity, since my daughter’s business is entirely online now.) Even then, we had issues. Eventually, we were able to double the data one of the plans. Meanwhile, we lose connectivity fairly easily. Particularly in summer, when the foliage is full. The primary account’s satellite is usually fine, but the secondary satellite is barely a couple of feet to the side, and the branches block the signal more frequently (I’ve lost internet several times, just writing this post!). As we reach the limit on the data plan for our primary account, we switch cables on our router to the secondary account – and we switched cables just this morning. We have been regularly going over our data plans, and while the company waived those costs for the past couple of months, due to the lock downs and more people being stuck at home, that ended this month.

My husband talked to the company and will arrange for someone to come by next month to do a site survey (when we’ll have money to pay for the survey). If they can get a signal to the new tower, we would be able to move away from satellite completely, have only one account, unlimited data, and save almost $200 a month.

Yeah. We spend over $300 a month, just to get internet out here, with limited data and frequent loss of connectivity.

I’m really hoping they find a signal this time!

The Re-Farmer

Heat Wave

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Today was our day to go into the city to do our big shopping trip.

We didn’t finish.

We currently have more weather warnings. This time for heat!

I took the above screenshot shortly before 4:30pm. We might actually go a bit higher before it starts cooling down. 30C/86F is hot enough, but check out the humidex expected for Monday! 40C = 104F

We’ve been getting enough rain lately that our municipality has removed the burn ban, completely. No restrictions at all right now! We have lots that needs to be burned, but with the heat, who wants to be around fire right now? :-D

And we don’t have air conditioning in the van anymore, nor even working fans in the console.

It did make the trip into the city … interesting!

We managed to get to the Walmart and the Costco to stock up. After gassing up at the Costco, we were going to go to a couple more places. Then road construction and detours had us doing a route march through residential areas (why are they designed to be such mazes???) before we could back track, go back through the construction, and finally take a road that would get us to the street we needed, albeit at a different spot than I was originally after. By that time, I was done. We just went home.

Part of the reason I was okay with doing that is because my daughter asked for an extra trip into the city, which we’ll be doing tomorrow. She’s buying us a new stove! Since we’ll be in the city again anyhow, we can also pick up the rest of the stuff we need for the month.

Considering she is using her savings and had to quit her job, I am extremely grateful that she is willing to do this for us. The stove we have has only three working elements right now – we stopped using the 4th when we saw sparks every time we turned it on – and even those don’t heat up well, among other issues.

There isn’t much in the monthly shop we need to get, though. The freezer and pantry are stocked up again. We also have lots of cat food and litter – we’d run out of both, completely, as of this morning! The only things left are the items we don’t want to get in bulk quantities, like fresh fruits and vegetables, or ingredients we can only find in various ethnic sections of a grocery franchise we regularly visit now.

With the current heat wave, getting work done outside is going to be difficult. Unless I start getting up at 5am, while it’s still cooler (well; not so much over the next few days). I might just have to start going that. Which means, no more staying up until 2am!

It would mean kicking cats off my bed, too. :-D

Oh, to have the life of our cats! <3

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties – plans interrupted

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While doing my rounds this morning, I had some company.

Butterscotch looks downright malevolent! :-D

While checking things during my rounds, I found we have fewer sunflowers today, compared to yesterday. It’s possible I missed a couple, but it seems that something has been eating them. One or two at a time.

I visited the kittens again, after my rounds.

They really love that box of wood bits!

…

So, my morning posting got interrupted today. I am not continuing this almost 12 hours later!

My daughter happened to ask me about a bed frame I was looking to get. When we were prepping to move out here, one of the things we discovered was that the two twin sized box springs under our king size mattress were broken. No idea when that happened. We figured we could get new ones after the move.

Well, the move being the fiasco that it was, that didn’t happen. Instead, my husband and I had the mattress directly on the floor.

Which is not good for someone with a back injury. It was, however, the best of our mattresses. Also, the other mattresses were all twin sized.

When my husband ended up needing a hospital bed, we had to set the king size mattress aside and I used the spare twin. The king size ended up stuck behind the couch in the living room. It was just too big to put anywhere else. The cats, of course, discovered they could climb it and take naps up by the ceiling.

Which would have been fine, until they started using it as a scratching post.

Nothing we did would stop them. Of course, when we were asleep, we weren’t there to stop them. They were slowly destroying it. The only way to stop the destruction was to start using the mattress.

On the one hand, that was great. The twin mattress was a cheapy, and painful to sleep on, so the better quality mattress was much better on my body. On the other hand, my knees, feet and hips are pretty shot. Getting up and down from so low to the ground was taking its toll.

Eventually, we found the frame I wanted at Ikea; one that did not need box springs, and with 6 drawers underneath. We just had to save up for it.

Of course, other things kept popping up that was priority on the budget. Like repairing vehicles. This year, however, we finally got some decent tax returns, and were able to set some aside.

Just in time for Ikea to have a sale on the bed frame I wanted.

Which was out of stock.

Also, Ikea was closed because of the pandemic, and only doing online purchases. We would have an arranged time to pick up. So after a few days, when I tried again and saw 1 frame in stock, I tried to buy it.

Before I could finish going through the checkout process, it was gone.

So I signed up to be notified by email when it was in stock again.

Today was the last day of the sale, and when my daughter asked about it, I told her I hadn’t received an email saying they restocked. I decided, however, to check again. Just in case.

There was 2 in stock! They never contacted me.

I tried to buy it online, so we could pick it up later.

The website was having technical difficulties. When I tried to check out, it told me it was out of stock, but when I looked at the item directly, it still said there were two.

Their customer service web chat wasn’t working and when I tried phoning, there was no answer. Not even an automated one.

I did notice, however, that the store is now open to customers.

I decided to go for it. One of my daughters and I headed out within minutes. We couldn’t be sure there were any in stock – with a 2 hour drive to get to the location, at the far end of the city, even if they were in stock, that didn’t mean they still would be when we got there. We figured it was still worth it, and we could use the trip to go elsewhere, while we were at it.

I had the item number so when we finally got there, we made our way straight to the pick up area, but there was no aisle number. After asking around, we ended up at an information kiosk. The woman looked it up for me and…

Yes, there was indeed two left in stock.

We would never have found it in the pick up area, though. It turned out that the king size version of this bed frame was only available through their loading/pick up area. She called it in, gave me a print out with the bar code and order number so I could pay for it, and instructions on where to go to have it brought to us.

It was a bit confusing and frustrating, but it finally got done. Not only did I finally get a bed frame, but I was able to get it while it was still on sale.

Yay!

We took advantage of being in the city and made a couple more stops, then when we got home, the girls spent the next couple of hours assembling it.

I helped.

A little.

:-D

Once it was done, of course we all splayed out on it.

I love having a king size!

Then, I did something amazing.

I got up.

Then I sat down.

Then I got up and sat down and got up again.

Because I can do that now! Effortlessly!

The unplanned trip blew away any plans we had for today, but it was so worth it!!

This is going to be so much better on my knees!!!

I’m so excited! :-D

Yes, it’s the little things that make me happy. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Kitten fix, and this is going to be another odd day

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First up, here are your smiles for the day!

I wasn’t able to get decent kitten pictures this morning, so here are some from last night.

I picked up some wet cat food, just for Beep Beep and the kittens, and they were in heaven! Leyendecker is an enthusiastic eater, while the others are still figuring out that whole eating and chewing thing. Once he had his fill, he crawled into my arms and began grooming himself, my arm, licking my fingers, rolling around in my arms and generally being the most adorable thing ever!

Nicco, on the other hand, is more into the water bowl than the solid food thing. He also demanded “up” from my daughter, but once he was there, he wasn’t too sure he liked it!

This morning, I was enthusiastically tackled, climbed and squealed at, by the entire bunch! They definitely enjoy people attention. :-)

While doing my rounds this morning, I started to prep a bit for working on the lawn. With the rain we’ve had, and more to come, soon, there is only a small window to get the job done. Unfortunately, it will be while fighting off squadrons of mosquitoes. The last couple of years were so dry, we didn’t really have a lot of mosquitoes. This year, we have more normal moisture levels, which means we also have more normal mosquito numbers.

The area we are in is infamous for mosquitoes. And wood ticks. I recall, when living in a different province, a co-worker of my husband shared a story. They, too, had moved from another province not long before, with the husband moving ahead to start a new job, and his wife following some time later (we’ve had to do that a few times!). She drove through several provinces. After driving through the province we’re back in now, she said the front end of their white car was black and fuzzy, from all the mosquitoes stuck to it! My husband just nodded and said, yeah. That sounds about right!

So my focus for today is going to involve girding my loins, covering myself in insect repellent, and getting as much of the lawn done as I can before getting driven back indoors by either the bugs, or rain! That includes getting the mowers checked over, making use of that mower blade sharpener I got, and likely needing to charge the battery on the riding mower, first.

Wish me luck!

The Re-Farmer

Out of whack (and kittens, of course)

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It’s not even noon yet, and my day is already completely out of whack! It’s my own fault, too. :-D

My daughter got her new work schedule, which had 1 whole extra shift on it, beyond another month of 1 shift a week.

It was today.

I diligently added it to my calendar, then completely forgot about it until my husband came to me this morning, saying, “So [our daughter] has a shift today, and it’s just after 8…”

Which meant we had to leave in less than half an hour. It took me about that long, just to shift mental gears. LOL If I’d remembered and set my alarm as I normally do when she has a shift, I would have completely finished my rounds and been at my computer, almost finished checking the trail cam files by then.

No worries. My husband had already fed the outside cats, and topped up the food for the inside cats, except Beep Beep and the babies. He can’t do stairs very well, and we’re still keeping the other cats out until the kittens get a bit bigger.

When visiting Beep Beep and the kittens last night, I noticed they weren’t using the crate under the chair that used to be part of their nest. They are really liking the set up on and under the platform bed frame. So I decided to see what would happen if I put the crate on the frame.

This happened.

I barely put it down when Beep Beep jumped right in!

When I visited them this morning, they were all running around so much, I couldn’t get any good pictures.

So here are some crappy ones. :-D

I’m pretty sure this is Turmeric, teething on the basket I made. When the two orange ones aren’t close to each other, it’s kinda hard to remember which is Turmeric and which is Saffron. :-D

I had not intended that basket to be for the kittens, but they really seem to like it!

There were a couple of noticeable achievements this morning. I had already seen Leyendecker, at least, eating the cat kibble. This morning…

… Nicco was figuring out how to drink water from a bowl.

The major achievement (especially after having to clean up a mess on the foam mats we laid out on the concrete for them) is this…

Yes. I took a picture of a kitten taking a dump. But it was in the litter box, not the floor, so this is a milestone! :-D

Anyhow.

I’ll be needing to head into town again a couple more times. I’ll be meeting my daughter for lunch and taking advantage of that to try and find some self-drilling screws my brother is looking for, to use on that trailer frame we now have wheels on and has been sitting in the barn all winter. Then again to pick up my daughter at the end of her shift. So getting more of the squashes transplanted will wait another day. The ones already planted have grown noticeably, as have the carrots in the new garden plot. That’s encouraging, at least. :-) There are plenty of other tasks to do that can handle interruptions.

I’ll just have to remember to use lots of insect repellent before I do anything outside. Aside from the squadrons of mosquitoes, I’ve been seeing lots of wood ticks already. :-( Ah, well. Such is life in the sticks! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Plans? What are those?

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First, I wish to share with you this image of domestic bliss I get to enjoy from my office chair of late.

Just look at those blue, blue eyes! And the little guy, splayed on his back. We had been calling him Nicky Pants, but it looks like we’ve settled on Nicco for a name. Mini-BeepBeep, has earned a different name. She is growing much bigger than the other kittens, and is now known as Big Rig. :-D

One of the things I had scheduled for today was a quick stop at my mother’s. Originally, it was to hang up the beautiful flowers on the beautiful plant hanger my brother (who lives an hour and a half’s drive away) had bought her for Mother’s Day. Something lovely for her to see outside her window. I’d picked up some solar powered rope lights to wrap around it, so she could have something to see at night, too.

Well… to say that my mother was less than gracious about the gifts would be an understatement. Rude, angry, even cruel, would be better words to use. Now, I’ve reached a point where my mother’s behaviour can’t hurt me anymore. At least not in any tangible way. My brother, however is a better person than I am, and he still bleeds. When I spoke to her on the phone after the visit, and about my coming back to hang the flowers when it was supposed to warm up and stay warm, she continued with her ungrateful and hurtful comments.

So my brother drove the distance and took back the gift she made very clear she did not want. Keep in mind that my mother has always been an avid gardener, has two green thumbs, and was just complaining about how the caretakers had dug up all the annual flowers, including hers, and thrown them out. This gift was so that she could have flowers that the caretakers wouldn’t dig up.

The solar powered lights, she had told me, never turned on. It turned out there was a yard light outside her apartment, and it was simply too bright for the light string to turn itself on. When they were wrapped up on her couch, waiting for me, they did turn on, and she said they looked lovely – but she didn’t want them.

So my trip to hang up flowers became a trip to retrieve my unwanted gift.

I did, however, have a chance to talk to my mother on the phone about her behaviour and how hurtful she was. Her words may not have hurt me directly – I was not at all surprised by the behaviour – but to see how much she hurt my brother does make my heart ache for him. I tried to explain this to her. She is really big on people behaving “properly” (which typically means, they should act the way she thinks they should, dress the way she thinks they should, be interested in things she thinks they should, and not act, dress or think in any way she doesn’t like). So I told her that the proper way to respond when someone gives you a gift is to say thank you, and to be kind and gracious.

Well, she had all sorts of excuses to justify her behaviour, but I kept coming back to, “you can still be kind.”

Then we talked about when I could come over, and for her to meet me at a particular exit, since her building will remain locked down to the general public and most visitors for a while, yet. She was in need of some groceries, so I drove her over and she took advantage of having access to a vehicle and stocked up on more than her usual week’s worth of supplies. I helped bring all the bags to her apartment, and then left right away, but before I did, my mother seemed to make a real effort.

She thanked me. Then she talked about how grateful she was that I, and my siblings, help her out so much, and how thankful she was that we do.

Now, if only she would do this with my oldest brother! Of all of us, he is the one she has been the most unkind to. She had certainly tried it with me, since we moved out here, but it doesn’t work, so she has largely stopped.

*sigh*

So the whole thing went longer than planned, which would not have been much of an issue for what I wanted to get done today, had something else not changed. Today was supposed to be the day things started to warm up.

It hasn’t.

The forecast is still saying we’re supposed to reach of high of 11C (51F) with a “real feel” of 10C (50F) today.

They lie.

It’s been cold and damp and very unpleasant out there.

So instead of working outside and prepping the potato beds, I decided to focus on warm things. Like slow roasted ribs in BBQ sauce, and a massive batch of scalloped potatoes in a cheese sauce in the slow cooker. Both of which are being cooked low and slow.

The house smells amazing.

Oh, my timer just went off! Time to check on supper! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Change of plans

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It’s a statutory holiday today, in most of Canada. February didn’t have a statutory holiday until a relatively few years ago (different years for different provinces), and it’s one of those holidays where each province got to pick it. It is not a federal holiday. Depending on where you live in Canada, today is Family Day, Islander Day (in Prince Edward Island), Nova Scotia Heritage Day, or Louis Riel Day (in Manitoba).

My plans for the day was to do some bread baking and some housework, and otherwise just stay at home.

This morning, my mother phoned.

Change of plans! :-D

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Let’s try that again…

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So, today isn’t turning out as planned.

It was supposed to warm up today. Technically, I suppose it did. When I headed out to do my rounds in the morning, it was only about -19C/-2F; much warmer than the past few days.

The wind chill was -33C/-27F, according to the weather apps.

That’s a lie.

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Assessing things

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Yesterday’s plans to take my mother to visit her sister at the nursing home changed. I got a call in the morning, because she was worried about the weather. It was blowing pretty hard, and she was concerned. We ended up postponing for now.

When doing my rounds this morning, I found some minor tree damage from the winds.

Finding this branch was rather funny.

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