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Stair cats, and this is $424 (plus $155)

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I spotted this adorable sight, just as I was finishing up my morning rounds.

The cats are taking advantage of every snow-free space they can find!

This morning, my daughter and I headed out fairly early to do the first of our stock up shopping trips in the city for next month. We are using my mother’s car, as we are avoiding using the van as much as possible now that things are warming up, which means smaller trips.

Smaller in size, but not in cost!

Our first stop was at an international grocery store, where we also had dim sum for breakfast (which I was able to do and still stick to my Lenten fast of no sugar or starchy foods).

I completely forgot to get a picture of our first purchases, but this is what we got:

Food:
2lb bag of Mandarin oranges: on sale for $6.99
Avocados; bag of 4: on sale for $3.49
Bananas: $1.095/kg got us a bunch at $1.88
Caramelized onion goat cheese: $8.99
Triple creme brie for our Easter basket: on sale for $11.99
Gouda cheese, truffle (a real treat!!!): $9.61
Blue cheese stuff olives for our Easter basket: $7.99
4pk quantity sale: 2 of ground chicken, 2 of stir fry beef, $20 (saving us $4 total)
Ketchup: sale price $4.49
Bell pepper variety pack: on sale for $5.99
Coffee creamer for my daughters: on sale for $4.49
Two 5lb bags of Russets: sale price $3.99 each
Bacon slab: smoked applewood $10.43
Bacon slab: smoked $10.25
House brand sliced bacon, 2 packages: sale price $3.89 each
Two 2L soy milk for my lactose intolerant daughters: $4.69 each
Dark soy sauce for my husband (the Filipino brand we usually get was out of stock, so this is a new one for him to try): sale price $3.49

Non Food:
Extra strength carpet odour eliminating powder: $4.79
Febreeze (for upstairs): loyalty card 20% off for $5.29
Non-bleach, pet safe spray cleaners, 2 bottles: $4.99 each

The sale prices (with our loyalty card discount) saved us $23.75, for a grand total of $155.62 after taxes.

All of that, except for the potatoes, fit into two of our hard sided grocery bags, with room to spare.

Our next stop was Superstore.

This is $424.02, plus a free turkey for purchasing more than $300

*sigh*

Non food:
Dry cat food, two 10kg bags: $32.99 each
Paper towels, 12pk: $11.99
Toilet paper, 24pk double rolls: $19.99
Replacement mop head: $6.99
Polysporin, extra strength + pain killer: $11.49
Gauze for the first aid kit: $6.79
Insoles, for my daughter: $17.49
Insoles, for me: $17.99
Deodorant: $4.99
Argan oil (hair treatment): $.68
Feminine liners: $13.99
Hair elastics: $5.00
Toothpaste for sensitive teeth: $6.49
Large bottles of shampoo and conditioner: $15.99 each (we finally found the kind we’ve been looking for!)

Food:
Soy sauce – they had the brand my husband likes! (he’s basically the only one who eats soy sauce): $2.99
Tapioca pearls (for my mother): $1.49
Giant block of Old Cheddar: $32.49
Whipping cream: sale price $5.69
Frozen chicken nuggets (something I asked my daughter to pick for a quick treat): $10
Frozen pizza bites (another quick treat): $10
Giant pack of hot dog wieners: $9.99
Frozen pork lion: $19.71
Frozen shrimp: $16.99
Sourdough loaf: two at $3.00 each
French bread: two at $0.95 each
Torpedo buns: 1 large bag at $5.00
Rye bread: two loaves at $4.79 each
Hot dog buns: two at $4.29 each (most of the bread went straight to the freezer)
Goat cheese: $7.99
Sandwich meat: smoked turkey and Montreal smoked meat, at $6 each
Figs and Port salami for the Easter basket: $9

Butterball turkey: free

I didn’t realize until now that the cashier didn’t ask me for my points card, and we were so busy loading the cart, I forgot I had one, which means I didn’t get my 4420 points. I’ll have to hang on to the receipt and claim those, because I can actually get cash off my groceries with them. We’ll be back in the city in a few days, so I should be able to take care of that.

Our next trip to the city will likely be a Walmart and Canadian Tire trip. I only got 2 bags of cat food, which won’t last long, but I didn’t want to overload my mother’s car. We’ll need at least 8 big bags, total (unfortunately, the cats don’t want to eat the larger bags of cheap stuff from the feed store) for the month. More, if I can only find the 9kg or less sized bags in stock. We also need to get more stove pellets for the litter boxes. Those come in 40 pound bags, but I think if I spread them out in the back of the car, it should be okay to get a couple of those, plus a couple of bags of cat food at the same time.

The price of beef is absolutely insane. I was looking to order another freezer pack from our local ranch supplier anyways. I’d hoped to find some good sales to supplement but, nope. The “sale” prices are still too rich for our budget! The only beef I got today were the stir fry beef that were part of a sale in the first store we went to.

On top of all this, I put $25 gas in the tank, which almost filled it, and by the time we got home, the fuel gauge was lower than when we filled!

On the way home, I asked my daughter about what she hoped to do here at the farm; things to build, fix, grow, whatever. She is very interested in having to buy as little as possible which, in the future, would include things like making shoes and weaving cloth. She wants fiber animals (goats or alpaca), but would also like to grow flax to make linen. For the space we would have available to grow flax, it would take a few years of accumulating the fibers, but then, it’ll take a few years to buy or build a spinning wheel and loom (her drop spindle won’t quite cut it!). I also have some heritage wheat seeds that I want to grow, just to collect more seeds, for future use. We would be converting parts of the outer yard into small fields for stuff like this – which requires significant clean up, first!

As for leather, once we get to the point of hunting deer, she would be interested in tanning the hides. My husband has been doing some leatherworking and has lots of tools, but the leather itself is so expensive, he hasn’t been doing anywhere near as much as he would like.

We also talked about building more smaller sheds. Most of the outbuildings here are falling apart. We’ve got way too many things crammed into one side of the garage, and that space would make a great workshop. Plus, the garage itself needs a lot of repairs. If we have someplace else to safely store this stuff, that’ll make it easier to do the repairs it needs. Right now, the only space we could use is the barn, and it’s already got so much stuff in it, much of which is probably junk, simply because of how long it’s been sitting there. Plus, the barn isn’t exactly in good shape, either. I certainly would never use it for animals again, without a lot more repairs than we are able to do ourselves.

We also talked about fixing the pump shack; the concrete floor is breaking up and the wooden walls are rotting away, but the frame is still sound, and it has a solid metal roof. It’s also possible that the only thing we need to get the old well going again is to replace the leathers in the pump. After all this time, they would need to be replaced anyhow. We just have to find out what size we need and find where to get them from. If it still doesn’t work right after that, then we would call a well company.

Of course, we want to grow as much food as possible. With the way things are going, food prices are not going to be going down again for a long time, if at all. The value of our dollar is dropping too much.

Once the snow is gone enough, the first thing we need to do for this year’s garden is start building the trellis tunnels. My plan had been to bury the vertical posts in the ground, which would still be mostly frozen. However, now that we know that that area can get flooded out, we would need to have at least low, probably mid height, raised beds at the base of the trellis tunnels, we might not need to. The vertical posts can be part of the walls of the raised beds. The tunnel part would be 4 ft wide (for accessibility reasons, all our paths will be 4 ft wide), but we would not be able to reach the beds from the inside of the tunnel once the climbing mesh is in place, so the beds would be only 2 ft wide. Once the walls, mesh and soil is all in place, we won’t need to worry about the vertical posts getting blown over. We will also be making portable trellises, but they are not as high of a priority, since they can be built much more quickly.

Then there is my priority to have a chicken coop. Our homesteading neighbor that has a shed he needs to get rid of promised to bring it over to us in the spring, once the snow is clear. We need to figure out where, exactly, to put it. It then needs a floor and a modification to the roof to make it into an angled shed roof, rather than a flat roof (which started leaking and is why it needs a new floor). Heck, as long as we have the floor, we can throw a tarp over the roof to start with. As for nesting boxes, I think we actually have some in the barn, and it wouldn’t take much to make roosts.

This would do to start with. I also want to get that antique wagon frame from the car graveyard and see if it’s salvageable to make a chicken wagon. For the amount of eggs we go through, having chickens will be a huge help with the food bill. Eventually, I’d like to have a couple of pigs; both chickens and pigs can be a huge help in clearing and reclaiming land so it can be used to grow food. Plus, of course, we will have manure for fertilizer. The fiber goats my daughter wants to get would be helpful with that, too, but I think that’s for a bit further in the future. Plus, we would get a couple of piglets in the spring and they would be butchered in the fall, so that makes them a priority over goats. Unless we get a milk goat, first. Then my daughters wouldn’t have to buy soy milk.

The main thing is, the more we can grow ourselves, the easier it will be on the budget, and the more food security we will have.

After spending more then $550 today (though we did spend more than usual on non-food items), and not having anywhere near what we need for a month’s stocking up, this isn’t even a matter of choice anymore.

The Re-Farmer

Snow cat

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Just look at this beauty!

He will sometimes follow me at a distance, when I do my morning rounds. I’ve been able to sneak a pet every now and then, while he’s eating on the cat house roof, but he takes off as soon as he realizes he’s being touched.

He and his long haired tuxedo sibling are among the oldest of last year’s kittens. I found out the girls have named them. Because of what their faces, especially their noses, looked like when they were kittens, the girls names them Adam and Driver.

I asked my daughter which one was which.

“Whatever is funniest at the time.”

I love my daughters.

The Re-Farmer

Well, that explains it

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The snow on the driveway is pretty hard packed, but there are a few softer areas where tracks show up. This morning, I was seeing some unusual deer tracks.

Then I checked the gate cam files.

I watched at least 7 deer, over three videos, coming in. Later, the camera caught three of them running out again, at full speed!

That certainly explains what I was seeing in the snow this morning!

I have another slight change in plans today. I was going to meet a woman in a parking lot for a great deal… 😉 The homesteader I buy most of our eggs from is going to be in the town closer to us with a load of eggs at a certain time and place, so I figured that would be a good time to get a couple more flats

Then I got a phone call from my mother. I had bought an extra dozen eggs for my mother as a surprise a while back, and she was wondering if I would be getting more eggs. She wanted to get another dozen for her Easter basket – eggs she wouldn’t need to colour!

So I contacted the egg lady, letting her know how many I was after. She’ll have enough, so I’ll be getting eggs for both ourselves and my mother. Though it’s a bit early for Easter!

The funny thing is, I’ll be going to the town closer to us, getting the eggs, then driving to my mother’s place, which is in a town between our place and the egg lady. So instead of saving some driving, I’m at least doubling it! 😄 I don’t mind, though. I’m glad my mother liked the eggs I got her! Last time, though, she ended up with all brown eggs. This time, I’ll make sure she gets a few in other colours.

With that in mind, I’ve slightly postponed starting seeds today. I was able to pick up more Jiffy pellets to refill a tray, which is now set up and hydrating. Tomorrow, the rest of our peppers – all early varieties – and some Spoon tomatoes will be started. Depending on how much room I have in the tray, I may even fit in some Purple Beauty bell pepper seeds from last year. That was all I have that need to be started indoors in the 8-10 week range. We’re currently at about 9 weeks before our last frost, so next week I hope to start the seeds that need 6-8 weeks.

I’m going to have to figure out how to raise the mini greenhouse frame higher, in a secure manner, because we’re eventually going to need the shelf space. Where the shelves and frame are sitting, they get excellent sun in the morning, but the bottom shelves of the mini greenhouse are in the shadow of the wall under the window. I know how I can get it higher. It’s that “secure manner” that’s a bit more of a challenge.

Looking at the newest seedlings in the large aquarium greenhouse, I could see roots making their way through the biodegradable pots the Crespo squash are in. They need to be potted up! Right now, there are three, big healthy seedlings in one pot, and a new one coming up in the other pot. I’ll see if I can thin by diving. I’d hoped to have larger biodegradable pots to pot up to, but I’m just not finding them. I suppose I could order online, but by the time they get here, it’ll be too late. So they will go into plastic transplant pots.

We did lose that one sickly drum gourd, but the others are doing well. The Zucca melon, however, is really thriving. Both still have pots that were reseeded, so we might get more of each.

The thyme is doing so well, I’m thinking of eventually potting up one of the bunches into a permanent pot for growing indoors, while the others get planted outdoors. We have a second variety of thyme to start, but not for a few more weeks. I’m curious to see the differences between the variety. As small as the current seedlings still are, they have SUCH a strong fragrance when the leaves are handled.

I am quite happy with the new, cat proof living room set up. It’s really making things much easier this year!

The Re-Farmer

Pushing her limits, and changes of plans

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Now that we have the living room barricaded to the cats and turned into a plant room, we’ve decided that we will work on bringing Nosencrantz and Marlee in with us every now and then, to try and get them used to being outside of my office/bedroom, but not have to worry about other cats.

Yesterday, I was able to grab Nosencrantz and give it a go.

She was not happy.

I set her on the couch while setting up my tea and trying to find something to watch on TV for a while. Ended up watching The French Chef, because absolutely nothing newer appealed to me! Once I settled on the couch, I shifted her over against my leg, she leaned hard against me and did. Not. Move. for nearly an hour. When she finally did move, it was to tuck her face against my leg.

Which is an improvement from previous times we tried bringing her out. The last time I did, she crouched onto a step between the old and new parts of the house, frozen in panic, even as other cats had to basically jump over her to go through the doorway. She was so stressed, she shat herself. *sigh*

With no other cats around, she was definitely stressed, but not to that point. We’ll need to do this more often.

The frustrating thing is that, if I could just leave my door open, I’m sure she would eventually go exploring. As would Marlee and maybe Butterscotch. Unlike the other two, Butterscotch is not the least bit stressed out, has zero interest in leaving the room, and is very happily living her best life. If the door is open, some – not all – of the other cats come in and out, which would be fine…

Except for Turmeric.

While other cats will sometimes go for Nozencrantz in particular, or maybe even act aggressive towards Butterscotch and Marlee, it’s not much different from when they get ticked off at each other. Even with Potato Beetle added to the mix, aside from the rare altercation with one of the other males, his integration into being an indoor cat has been seamless. Why it’s so different with both the ladies, I just can’t figure out. Especially since, when Butterscotch and Nosencrantz were first brought into the house, Nosencratnz did leave the room and start exploring. Then some of the other cats got aggressive with her, and she’s been a bundle of stress and anxiety ever since.

Turmeric, however, is the one cat that is most aggressive. She’ll be absolutely fine, but as soon as she comes into my room, it’s like she’s hunting for the ladies. I tried having my door open last night, just because I was tired of having to get up every few minutes to let Leyendecker, Cheddar or Fenrir in and out, over and over. The other cats ignored the open door. Only Turmeric came in, saw Marlee in her favourite spot in Baby Jail (we still have the cage set up, simply because Marlee likes going in there so much, and Butterscotch likes to sit on top of it), and made a beeline straight for her, snarling away. She wouldn’t stop, and I had to close my door again. *sigh*

So we’ll see how it works, bringing them out for supervised time in the plant room. Marlee doesn’t like to be picked up or carried, so it might be a bit harder to get her in there.

All in good time.

Meanwhile…

My plans for the day changed a bit. I was debating whether or not to go to my mother’s today or tomorrow, as I had some things for her. Then I got a call from my brother. He just had a very strange call from my mother. She started talking to him about some disturbing dreams she had, then said she thought he should come visit. He told her he was taking a test right then, so that wouldn’t be a good idea.

The line went dead.

He tried calling her back, but her line was busy. After about 7 times trying to get through to her, he finally called me.

Only then did he realize he’d forgotten to pause his test. It’s a timed exam!

He’s really stressed out about this exam. The last I talked to him, there were no exam times available until next month, so getting to do it today had to have been a pretty last minute thing. He’s been working on this course for some months now, and he’s concerned that if he doesn’t pass it, it might actually put his job at risk. I can’t imagine him failing the exam, but understand the stress he’s feeling. His employer has paid thousands of dollars for this course, and the exam along costs over a thousand dollars – and if he fails, it’s another thousand + to take it again later.

My mother would have no ability to understand what he’s going through. It’s so completely out of her experience, and outside her ability to comprehend.

So he was quite concerned about her. He wasn’t sure if she’s accidentally hung up by pressing a button on the phone with her face, or if she deliberately hung up, or of something else happened. Especially with the line being busy immediately after. Even with calls between him and I in the past, we’ve had weird things happen with the line, and one of us would try to call back the other only to get a busy signal because, at the other person’s end of the line, it hadn’t been cut off yet.

I told him I was considering visiting her this afternoon, and promised I would check up on her. He, meanwhile, did try to call her again, and finally got through.

It turns out that yes, she did hang up on him, and immediately called our sister, because she “didn’t hear what she wanted to hear”. So was our sister going to come over? Oh, no. She’s working today. I don’t think my mother even asked her to come over.

First, our sister works nights. She had plenty of time to come over for a quick visit.

Two, since he was in the middle of this test when my mother called, she was actually calling him while he was working, but still expected him to drop everything and visit her.

On top of all that, I don’t think she even considers how badly she hurt him, a few months ago. Frankly, it’s a testament to what a good man he is that he hasn’t cut her out of his life completely.

Yes, it was that bad.

And she totally doesn’t get it.

*sigh*

I had other errands to run, so I did those in my mother’s town instead of the one closer to us – things are noticeably more expensive where she lives, but for the amount I needed to get, it wasn’t worth the cost of gas to go elsewhere.

There were a couple of things I brought for her, and one that I made for her. I wasn’t sure how she would handle it. She kept saying she needs a new chair, to replace the one she uses at her little dining table. She said it was breaking, but it turns out that only the vinyl seat is starting to crack. So I got some blanket yard and crocheted a cushy for her tushy. Just a rectangle in waffle weave stitch, so it’s twice as thick as ordinary single crochet. I made ties at each corner, even though I couldn’t quite remember how the legs were on this chair. It’s got a metal frame, and the legs are all one piece of metal tubing, forming a triangle shape on the sides from the back for the legs. Turns out there’s just open space under the front half of the seat, so my ties at the front were too short, but I could at least tie the back to the frame. I told her it would hide the cracks until she can find a suitable replacement chair. She did laugh about it, but accepted the cover. I knew it would be either that, or she would get angry and rant about how she’s worth having a new chair, or that I wasted yarn or something. There’s no in between with her!

The bottom of the triangles that form the legs has also been leaving black marks on her flooring, from being slid back and forth constantly, for years. So I got some self adhesive felted floor protectors that came in a long, narrow strip that could be cut to size. I cut a couple of pieces and stuck those on the bottom of her chair, and she seemed happy about that, too.

Overall, it was a very good visit. She was definitely having one of her better days. It wasn’t until I was almost ready to leave that she started to tell me about her dreams. They were definitely nightmares, where she thought she was losing her mind, and needed to get home – but home was an area of the city my parents lived in, before they bought the farm – and so on. Then she started asking me if I knew what these dreams might mean. Which seems to be the crux of the problem. It’s not just that she had these nightmares (it turned out she woke from one nightmare, couldn’t sleep for hours, then when she did fall asleep, she had another nightmare). She thinks these dreams had some sort of prophetic meaning.

So we talked a while about dreams, and how sometimes things you worry about in the back of your mind can lead to disturbing dreams. I also described similar dreams that people often have, about needing to get somewhere, or trying to run away from something, but it’s like something is holding you back and keeping you from getting where you need to go. She practically lit up as I described these, as it was familiar to her. Knowing other people get dreams like this was a sort of revelation for her.

I think she felt better by the time we were done talking about it and I headed home. It’s hard to know. She might feel better about it now, but start feeling bad about it again, later.

Needless to say, as soon as I got home, I sent a message off to my brother to reassure him. As far as I know, he was still working on his exam at the time, so I don’t expect to hear back from him for a while. He’s got enough on his plate, that’s for sure!

Hopefully, she’ll ease off on giving him a hard time. Probably not, but it would sure be nice!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: newest sprouts!

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I love it when seedlings suddenly burst out of the ground and grow so fast, things are different every time I check on them!

When I checked on them yesterday, I could just see one Crespo squash starting to shoulder its way through the soil. Near the end of the day, I could see two emerging and one more just visible. I also spotted one eggplant peaking through. By the time I shut down the lights for the night, the eggplant was up, with signs of more starting to emerge, plus signs of one Caveman’s club gourd.

This morning, two of the Crespo squash are fully up, with the third one almost there – and the soil in the other pot looks like something might be breaking through soon, too. There are still more tomatoes emerging, and more eggplant peeking through. Still just one Caveman’s club gourd visible, so far.

As for the older seedlings, it looks like all the ones that got potted up have survived, though one drum gourd that did not need potting up doesn’t look like it’s growing. There had been two in that pot and one died. I was hoping the second one would make it. We shall see. The other two that were thinned by division are growing, and the third pot was reseeded, so I hope there will be more to transplant once the garden is ready. The more there are to transplant, the better the chances that at least one will reach maturity!

I’m happy to see so many seedlings emerging now. Soon, these will be moved off the heat mat to make room for the next batch of seed starts.

So far, things are looking good!

The Re-Farmer

These are two different cats, plus some updates

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A while back, I was seeing the one ‘iccus that was still around. Chaddicus? Thadiccus? I know it’s not Bradiccus, because he had a white tail tip and was… well… male… and I don’t think it’s Saddicus…). This cat was very pregnant, so when I heard a kitten squeaking that one day, I assumed it was … Thadiccus. I’ll settle on Thadiccus.

But then I started seeing the mama, and finding dead babies, and when she came to me for comfort and cuddles, I realized it was Junk Pile.

Except this morning, I saw both of them at the same time.

That’s Junk Pile on the right, sitting on the roof. She no longer lets me touch her, never mind carry her, but at least she doesn’t run off quite as much.

That’s Thaddicus in the kibble house.

Junk Pile has more white on her chest area, but if you can’t see that area, they look almost identical. We also don’t often see them both at the same time, and I hadn’t seen Junk Pile for days before the kitten sadness.

Thaddicus is not pregnant anymore.

Which means, there is a litter of kittens somewhere outside the yard. If they survived being born this early in the year.

*sigh*

Thaddicus tends not to relax when people are around, so the chances of her lying in a position where I might see if she’s nursing is very low.

Meanwhile, Rosencrantz is also getting pretty big. She tends to have her litters in the junk pile by the chain link fence. I was really hoping we’d be able to catch her and get her fixed before she got pregnant again.

At least last year’s kittens were mostly male, and the Cat Lady has been able to help us with the females that we’d been able to socialize. Still, we have three calicos and two torties that are quite feral, so we will potentially have quite a few litters again this year.

*sigh*

Well, we’ll see how many of the males disappear over the summer, and find their own territory somewhere else.

Meanwhile…

My attempt to find a new doctor has not been successful. I found a third clinic in the town we’ve been going to and called them this morning, but they are not accepting new patients. When I asked, the receptionist knew of only one doctor that was accepting new patients, and that was in the smaller city where the specialist I took my mother to see is located, and I know that would be more than my mother would be willing to put up with. My husband and I still have some options to explore, but unless we’re willing to go to the cities, there are no doctors available for my mother.

So, we’ll likely wait to see when new doctors transfer to our doctor’s clinic, to replace the three that are leaving.

In between all that, I’ve been cleaning up and cleaning out this blog, to reclaim media storage space. It has been unexpectedly frustrating.

I’ve been taking out my old Critter of the Day and Photo of the Day posts. I hadn’t realized just how many of them there were! I started doing these in 2018! Most of these had only a line or two of text, or none at all. All had at least one image, with some having two or three images. So far, I’ve deleted images from and trashed over 270 posts. The first frustration is that so far, this has only recovered a little over 1% of my 13 gigs of storage space. On the plus side, 1% storage space is enough for a lot of photos!

I was going to start with the oldest posts and work my way to the more recent, since it was a while before we figured out how much to reduce our file sizes and not use up memory too quickly, so a lot of those files are larger, even though we had already started to crop and resize fairly quickly. A number of them won’t be removed, since the images in them are stored on Flickr. Flickr limits the number of files you can upload, however, so I can’t use that anymore, without getting a Pro account. I don’t want more annual fees.

The biggest frustrations I’ve been having is with WordPress’ lack of media organization. Everything that’s uploaded is there by date of upload, but if you try to do a search for, say, all images uploaded in a specific year and month, the only thing that will come up are images where the year and month are part of the file name. The only way to see all the images for a month is to keep scrolling back in time. Which is fine for the most recent couple of years, but this is a very photo heavy blog, and after a while, WordPress starts really struggling. Then I start getting pop ups saying WordPress is not responding, asking me if I want to wait or cancel, as thumbnails of images stop loading for a while before suddenly whole groups of them will appear. Then I can scroll down a bit more, and the while thing starts over again.

Last night, I did that for hours, just to reach 2019, when suddenly there was a glitch and I had to reload – but the reload put me right back at the start.

There’s a reason I was trying to scroll back through all the images to get to 2018 (I never got past 2019). What I had started to do was do a search for all Critter of the Day posts. You’d think all the posts with Critter of the Day in the title would show up, but nope. Every post with the word “critter” or “day” would also show up. Still, it made it easier to go through the old posts, and I did even get some going back to 2018 that I tried to deal with. I would open each appropriate post in a new tab in edit mode, then open the image/s I wanted to get rid of in another tab. From there, I would cut and past the file name of the image into another tab I had for the media files and do a search for that specific file. Once it came up, I could delete the image, go back to trash the post, then move on to the next one.

The problem?

Sometimes, the searches just didn’t work.

Obviously, the image is somewhere in my media storage, but they don’t come up in the search. This was a particular problem with early images, when I was using only descriptive words for the file names. I’ve since changed to starting every image file with the numerical year, month and day. That way, if nothing else, I can do a search for the numerical part of the file name and a whole bunch of files will come up. I then find the exact one I’m after, delete that one, then trash the post it was in.

Except sometimes, even that didn’t work. There are some files that simply will not come up in the media search, even though I am copying and pasting the exact file name as it shows on the image. The search cannot have the .jpg or .png file extension, or it won’t come up. Some images had an _ added to them for some reason, and most of the time, if those were there, the image wouldn’t come up in a search (but today, I had a whole bunch work, anyway!).

So while I was able to clean out almost 300 images, there are some that I will have to find the hard way. By scrolling through years of images to get to the date the post was made.

After much wasted time and frustration yesterday, I tried again today, slowly scrolling through media files in between doing other things. I still barely made it to 2019.

So instead, I’ve been going through the post files, looking for the picture of the day titles, from more recent to older. These newer posts have images that are all coming up in a media search, so it’s been a lot more productive.

But I still have only freed up about 1% of storage space total.

This is going to be a long, slow, monotonous job.

Looking through all those old photos, though… Gosh, there are some really good photos! I had fun with them, too. Especially the silly deer faces – I had a whole daily series of photos just for silly deer faces! But, this is not a photography blog and, unlike other posts that are still getting hits years later, they are just taking up space. Aside for the first day or two after being uploaded, no one sees them.

Ah, well. This is all a learning process!

I’m done with that for today, though. There’s probably another two or three hundred more posts to go through before I’m done!

Time for a break from that!

The Re-Farmer

Well, that’s going to make things difficult

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First, the cuteness.

Gooby followed me around while I did my morning rounds, and posed nicely while I was switching out memory cards on the sign cam.

I got a call back from the plumber today, and we’re looking at him coming in some time in the middle of next week. From the sounds of it, he was driving (hopefully, hands free!) while talking to me and couldn’t give me anything more concrete, but we’ll get a call once he has the info. It’s not an emergency situation, so I don’t mind the wait. We have everything else we need, ready and waiting, barring any unforeseeable damage that might be found once the old tub surround is removed.

We got a bit of a boost in the mail today; a carbon tax relief check. One government takes a whole bunch away, another gives a pittance back. It’ll help with the work we need to get done, at least.

The reason I made sure to go to the mail today was because my mother phones yesterday about a letter she got from her doctor. We have the same doctor, so my husband and I got the same letter.

Our doctor is leaving the clinic for one in the city, as of April 1st.

The letter invites his patients to follow him to the new clinic, while offering virtual and phone visits, but driving that far for in person visits is a bit much for all three of us. The current clinic is already pushing it for distance as it is.

So I called the clinic to ask about other doctors there that are accepting new patients.

It turns out they are losing THREE doctors, not just one. There is one doctor that is willing to see their patients for now, but she can’t possibly take on that many new patients. Not that my mother would be willing to see her. She was already complaining about the doctor we’re losing, because he’s not white, but for a doctor to be both not white and female… that would be just too much for her to handle. 🤨

So I started doing some searches. There is only one other clinic in that town, and when I called, their answering service mentioned one doctor that was accepting new patients. I looked up the name and discovered both the clinic and that doctor have way too many negative reviews.

So I tried looking up doctors in the smaller city – that would be pushing it too much for my husband, but not as much for my mother.

That was pretty discouraging, too.

I finally tried looking at the town closest to us. We won’t go there anymore, but my mother might. No go.

There’s a town to the north of us that my husband and I could try, but that would be too far for my mother, plus it would require me to drive south to my mother’s town, then north to this other town, then back to my mother’s town, and finally back home, adding an extra hour of driving time.

Our province does have a service we can register with that will pair people up with family doctors, but if there aren’t doctors withing our area accepting new patients, it’s not going to help us.

What will most likely happen is, we’ll have to wait for new doctors to transfer over to the clinic that we’ve been going, and start seeing one of them.

With my husband’s private disability insurance, he must be “under the care of a doctor”. Every year, he has to fill out a form that includes mentioning how many doctor’s visits he’s had. Thankfully, phone and virtual appointments count, so until we are able to find a new doctor, it will have to do.

The “fun” of living in a rural area. Doctors tend not to want to work out in the boonies. There are simply more patients in the cities. As I understand it, doctors that have recently immigrated to Canada are required to serve in rural communities for a certain number of years first – five, I believe. Which is about how long our doctor as been at this clinic.

Oh, wow!

As I was typing this, I got a message from my SIL. It turns out there where is a mobile medical unit in our province that does house calls.

That would be ideal for my mother!

Time to go contact them and find out how it works!

The Re-Farmer

Update: looks like the mobile clinic is for the city only. However, I did just find there’s another clinic in the town we’ve been going to. This one looks more hopeful!

Well, we’re ready!

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Or, as ready as can be, for the moment.

I did a lot of highway driving today, and my last stop was to pick up the replacement tub surround. It just barely fit into the back of my mother’s car! I actually couldn’t close the hatch after taking this photo, and had to lift the other end to rest on the back of the front seats, first.

The surround I’d found online wasn’t in stock, so I ended up one that was a bit more expensive. I think it’s identical to the one we have right now. I also got the adhesive and caulking.

One handy thing with getting the same type of surround: after we take off the old pieces, we can use them to mark out exactly where to cut holes for the taps and faucet – and the screw holes for the arm bars. I would rather not make new holes into the walls if I can avoid it, plus they are currently in just the right positions, too.

Until we take off the old pieces and see what’s under it, we won’t know if what sort of damage there may be underneath. Only then will we know what else we may need to get to finish the job.

That won’t happen until the plumber makes it out. I left a message with him and he hasn’t called back yet, which is very unusual. I think I’ll call again.

Meanwhile, I also got the replacement fixtures, though again, not what I was originally looking for.

I did find the set that was just like what we have now, but for an extra $5, I got this one, instead. Levers instead of round knobs will be much better on arthritic hands.

We don’t need the shower head, since we have the hand held, but there were no sets without the shower head. Just sets without the faucet and diverter. Which is fine. An extra shower head is not a bad thing to have.

Now we just have to see how much the plumber will end up costing! Who knows. If all goes well, I might still be able to get my new glasses, after all!

On another note, my media storage on WordPress is well into the red zone. I’ve tried resizing old photos from blog posts made in our early days, before we realized just how limited our storage was, started resizing our photos to smaller file sizes and upgraded. My current plan with WordPress doesn’t exist anymore and is grandfathered in, and the next one up is way too expensive, when all I need is media storage space, nothing else.

So I have decided to go back and remove some older posts. For a long time, I had a Critter of the Day series, with photos of birds, deer, cats and other wildlife. I haven’t made those posts in a long time, and they don’t get hits anymore, so there’s no reason to keep them, even though they were fun.

Hopefully, that will free up a decent amount of storage space. I posted quite a lot of those!

The Re-Farmer

My spot

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I finally had a chance to do a burn yesterday. While setting up, I brought out a camp chair to use in between tending the flames.

I didn’t get to use it much.

Pointy Baby was quick to claim it as his own – when he wasn’t jumping up on me, demanding attention!

In the end, I wasn’t able to stay out too long. It to way too windy, so I covered the burn ring as soon as I could, then left it to smolder.

The cats are happy to have the camp chair back in the sun room, for their naps!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: spring is… here?

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Yesterday was the first day of spring. Check out our spring garden!

😄😄😄

It’s going to be a while before we can start building the trellis tunnels (we will be starting closer to the high raised bed, and I hope to eventually have two or three, though maybe not this year), never mind planting anything!

BUT!!!

We do have other signs of spring.

When I shut the lights off for the night, I found two Black Beauty tomatoes had emerged! There had been no sign of them when I turned the lights on in the morning. I could just make out the “elbow” of a third one, and this morning I can see there is a second “elbow” emerging. These are in the cell just below the one with the visible sprouts.

Today, I plan to pot up some of the transplants, and try to start seeds for some losses. We are down to one luffa, two pots of zucca melon still have had no germination, along with one pot of drum gourds, so I’ll see if I can get new ones started, though I won’t bother putting them in the aquarium greenhouse. Their current location above a heat vent should be warm enough. I did remove the plastic cover on the mini greenhouse, as I think the lack of air circulation may be contributing to the losses, and even some of the bigger seedlings have started to look unhealthy.

I stopped at a grocery store to pick up some milk for my mother, and ended up picking up a seed kit. One of the things I wanted to do later on was get strawberry transplants – quite a few of them, depending on the budget – and plant them as a living ground cover around the silver buffalo berry. Last year, the transplants cost about $3 or $4 each. The kit was only $4. So I’m going to try growing strawberries from seed, which will hopefully give me more to transplant than I would be able to afford if buying transplants. And if they fail, it’s not an expensive fail. So that is something else I plan to work on today.

Oh, and I’d better call the plumber about our bathtub before I forget again! After that, I’ll know if I have to be making a trip to get a tub surround and the replacement taps I want.

We’ll see how that works out!

The Re-Farmer