Not a wasted trip, plus isolation shelter repair

January 2, 2025January 2, 2025 / Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

Today was the day my husband and I were able to head into the nearer city to trade in his phone. With his contract expired, returning the phone would save getting hit with the balance of the after contract bill, and he could trade up to a newer version.

That was the plan, anyhow.

Since trading in the phone meant it needed to be checked as being in good working condition, that had to be done in person. It would be a painful trip for him, but it’s been a long time since my husband has gone anywhere other than doctor’s appointments, so we were going to make the most of the trip. The store location is right next to the Walmart I normally go to if I’m not going to the larger city, plus there is a restaurant right near by.

We could *gasp* go on a date! 😄😄

So we headed out about mid morning, with a quick stop at the post office (the mail I’m expecting that’s been delayed by the strike still isn’t in – and it’s coming on on 2 months since it was sent!), and got there in decent time. Some sections of roads running East-West were in rougher shape, but better than I expected.

When we got there, I dropped my husband off at the cell phone store with his walker, then found a parking spot in between the three places we needed to go to. We had several choices on where to go for lunch, but decided to go to a Boston Pizza. My husband already knew what he’d be ordering, and asked if I could pick up some lactase for him, so I made a quick run into the Walmart to get that, first.

When I got back to the cell phone store, he was still in line. It was very busy. He’s been there long enough to hear and see transactions ahead of him and realized he might have a problem. They required photo ID.

He doesn’t have one.

He has other ID, but no photo ID. This goes back to when we tried to transfer his driver’s license the province we moved from, to this one, back in 2017. Even though his old driver’s license from this province was still on file, the laws changed because of identity theft. None of his ID match his birth certificate. It’s tradition in his family from the area he grew up in (he’s from the East coast) for everyone to have four names – three “first names” plus a surname – and use the second name as the given name. This only ever came up as a issue while he was in the military, and all they did was reverse his first two names on his paperwork. His old military passport has that version of his name in it.

What they told him he had to do when he tried to get his new driver’s license was to legally change his name to… his legal name… It was bizarre. Also, expensive and a weeks long process.

Unfortunately, it took so long to finally get to that conclusion, he was in insane amounts of pain by the time we left. We made a number of calls and ended up talking to the ombudsman, only to be told he just needed to have two bills/official documents with his full legal name on them, and they could issue him the ID. My husband, however, was not physically up to going back and going through all that hassle again. For the most part, however, when he does go out, all he needs to show is his health care card as ID, since it’s typically for medical appointments.

My thought was, if he could get his phone online in the first place, without having to prove his identify, there must be some way to do it in real life.

As we were waiting, I messaged my younger daughter to update her on things.

She sent me a photo.

I’d brought the truck up to the house for my husband, and shoveled the walkway up to the truck. After we left, she went out to shovel the rest of the walkways. In doing so, she startled some of the more feral cats out of the isolation shelter.

One of them jumped out in totally the wrong spot, so she went to take a look.

When we still had the large heated water bowl in there, and the cats kept knocking it down into the gap between the floor and the front that the cats can climb through, it knocked a screw loose right at the corner of the plastic window. I’d bought longer screws to secure it again, but hadn’t gotten around to actually doing it yet.

*sigh*

Well, a cat forced its way through the loose corner and snapped off a section of the plastic window.

The broken off piece could be put back and the corner patched up, though.

We were out of the neoprene washers we’d used for securing the plastic to the frame. I’d found them at the Canadian Tire, which was across the street, so I walked over to get some, along with some clear Gorilla tape, while my husband stayed in line. Depending on how long things went, I could meet him at the Boston Pizza.

I knew exactly where to go to find the washers, though, and the tape section was nearby, so it didn’t take long at all. The only down side is that the smaller washers I’d used before were not in stock. They had the next two sizes, and I went with the smaller, half inch washers.

After getting those and dropping them off in the truck, it took such a short time, I figured my husband might finally be at the counter, so I went back to the cell phone store, first. I checked inside, but was pretty sure my husband was already gone, though, as I saw fresh tracks in the snow on the sidewalk that looked like they could be from a walker or wheelchair.

Sure enough, he was already gone, so I ended up following his tire tracks all the way to the front door of the restaurant. He had pretty much just been seated when I got there!

He didn’t get a new phone.

Sure enough, his lack of photo ID meant he couldn’t trade in his old phone and couldn’t use it to trade up to a new one.

Which means, we’re going to get almost $700 added to our next cell phone bill.

*sigh*

On the plus side, I always pay what’s in the budget, not the actual amount for new charges, so we’d been building up a credit. My own phone had ended its contract and I got a much smaller end-of-term bill added, so that credit came in handy already. We’ll also be able to change our plans to reduce the monthly billed amount, which my husband will look into. We’ll still be paying the budgeted amount, though, so between the two, it won’t take long to pay it off, but still… what a pain!

For my husband, literally a pain.

Still, he was very happy to be out and about.

As for our meal…

We started out with a shared plate of onion rings for an appetizer, and those were good. It came with a lovely creamy dill sauce for dipping.

My husband ordered their nachos for his meal – they are an appetizer meant to be shared, so it was huge, as well as loaded with all sorts of toppings. He really liked it, and ended up having almost half of it boxed up for home.

I decided to try their maple bacon burger (no tomatoes, no onions). For the side, I chose a coleslaw.

I had the coleslaw first and it was the blandest coleslaw I’ve ever had in my life. I tasted zero vinegar. There was a dressing on it, but I couldn’t taste anything I could even give a name to. Oddly, though, I started feeling the heat of spices in the crevices of my tongue (this is something that is hereditary, and is the reason I can’t handle the heat of spices; the chemicals get into the crevices and even mild spices burn painfully). I couldn’t taste any spices, but that heat was there. It was so strange, and disappointing.

Then I had my burger.

I may not have had tomatoes or onions, but it was still loaded with toppings. Cheese, pickles, bacon, cheese, lettuce, the maple flavoured sauce and condiments, all on a brioche bun. It should have been packed with flavour.

It was bland. How all those ingredients could be bland, I don’t know, but they managed it. Perhaps it was because of the second issue I found.

It was barely even warm. The slice of cheese had melted over the burger, but was no longer melted. It’s like the burger had sat in the kitchen, and not under heat, long before it came to our table.

It still tasted okay. It certainly wasn’t a bad burger. Just not a very good burger.

As I’m writing this, I realized it never even occurred to me to say anything about it. I just ate it anyway.

In the end, the food, plus our Pepsi’s, totaled just over $68 before tip.

Ah, well. We had our date, and enjoyed each other’s company, and that’s why we were there in the first place!

As we were talking, it occurred to me that the last time we’ve been to a Boston Pizza, it was before we moved out of the city, and my husband was still working. There was a BP not far from the office he was in, and he and his co-workers would go there for lunch. Sometimes, the girls and I were able to meet him there during his lunch break. Which means, it’s been more than 10 years since we’ve been to a BP!

I don’t think we’ll go again for probably another 10 years, if at all. There are far better, and better priced, choices out there.

That done, my husband was actually up to going to the Walmart with me. He had something he wanted to pick up himself, so I told him where he could find what he was after, then headed to the pet section. I’m not sure when I’ll make it back to the feed store for 40 pound bags of cat food, so I wanted to get a few 9kg bags for the outside cats, just in case. Plus, I got more canned cat food for the inside cats. My daughter let me know she and her sister were out of oat milk, so I picked up a couple of cartons for them, plus a case of Kraft Dinner that was on sale.

As I went into the winding lane to the self checkouts, I caught up with my husband, at the next till. After talking to him for a bit, I grabbed a couple of snacks and drinks for the road, then paid for my cart load. Much to my surprise, I went through the exit just as my husband was done loading his stuff up into the basket under the seat of his walker!

Then the cashier handed him a Ziplock baggie with stuff in it. He was confused by this. It took a while to figure it out, but he’d made a donation to the Children’s Hospital, and I guess they have some sort of promo for donations of a certain amount. In the past, I’ve received a reusable bag, a lanyard and a pen at different times.

The baggie he got, though, had baby food items in it. A box of baby cereal and some sort of squeeze container. I’m not sure what else was in there. We had asked the cashier about a donation bin, and she said something about giving it to the food bank.

We’d gone through the first set of doors out when my husband stopped to put on his jacket, so popped back in and looked around some more for a donation bin. I didn’t find one, so I went to the customer service counter and asked the woman there. She stopped to think for a moment, told me they did have one, but she didn’t know where it was! She did take the baggie, though (it had “paid for” written on it already) and said she would take care of it, and talk to her manager. As she was talking to the back room, she passed another employee and I could hear her saying “we need to put a donation bin by the doors!”

So… that worked out, I guess! I have no idea what else we would have done with a baggie of baby food. There are no food banks in our area, and we don’t know anyone out here with babies to give it to. There’s a food bank in the town nearest us, though I don’t know where their donation bin is. The grocery store has one they keep near the exit, so I suppose we could eventually have left it there.

That done, we loaded up the truck and headed home. My husband had bricked his phone last night, expecting to be coming home with a different phone, so he didn’t have any of the apps we normally use. He was at least able to text my younger daughter to let her know we were on the way home.

Once at home, I backed up to the house to unload, but had to quickly dash ahead in to use the washroom – going in and out from warm buildings or a warm truck, into the cold, does terrible things to my bladder! My husband caned it in, leaving the walker for me to bring into the house later.

The first thing I noticed when I went into the washroom, though, was the quiet hum of a pump. Not the louder sound of the well pump, right under the bathroom. The septic pump, barely audible.

My daughters were upstairs, and no water was running to turn trigger the pump.

As soon as I could, I dashed into the basement to check.

Sure enough, I could see through the filter lid that the pump was running dry. It had been running for so long, not only was the motor hot, but the exit pipe was also hot!

I shut it off, then popped open the lid on the filter to prime it. The lid came right off; it wasn’t sealed for some reason!

I think we need to replace the O ring!

After priming it, I turned the pump back on and watched carefully. Sure enough, water started flowing through. So the tank did fill and triggered the float, but nothing was flowing through. It could be that something had blocked the pipe, or it could be because the filter lid was too loose and there wasn’t enough of a vacuum. This has happened before, though, and I had to pry the filter lid off, because the O ring was sealed so well, so I can’t say for sure.

Thankfully, once water started flowing through, that actually cooled down the pipe, and even the pump itself. I still stayed and watched until it shut itself off.

Part of the problem is, there are few places in the house were the pumps can be heard. Especially the septic pump, which runs quieter than the well pump. So unless someone is in my bedroom/office, in the bathroom, or standing by the basement door, they can’t hear the pump – and even if they were, they wouldn’t necessarily be there long enough to know if there’s a problem.

I’ve been looking at indoor security cameras to replace the critter cam in the sunroom. I want something that allows us to keep the live feed going continuously, and save files to a micro disc, without having to pay for a subscription. The ones I have been looking at can also be directionally controlled through an app.

We might need to get one for the basement, so we can check on the pump from anywhere. Depending on where we set it up, we could also see if anything is backing up through the floor drain again, too.

We need to replace the pump itself, but a camera is something we can afford in the short term. I was thinking of getting one in the spring, but we might just pick one up sooner, rather than later!

That taken care of, I unloaded the back of the truck, then fed the outside cats so I could park it. Which is when I remembered my husband’s walker was still in the back! 😄 So were the things I picked up at Canadian Tire, and his box of nachos.

I was just a big distracted after dealing with the pump!

Once I got everything to the house, I got the drill and driver to patch up the isolation shelter.

I don’t know why Instagram cut the pictures. I specifically set it to show full size when I uploaded them!

The first photo is the one my daughter sent me. The broken off corner was set on top of the entry shelter box. When I was going in and out of the house to unload the truck at point point, I was seeing Stinky watching me, through the hold in the corner!

Much to my surprise, several of the younglings actually stayed inside the shelter while I worked on it. The broken off piece has frost on it, and I held it in front of the heat bulb to get it melting, wiped it down, melted it some more, until I got it clean and dry.

The cats were quite confused by my actions!

I got the corner piece back in place and partially secured with new, longer screws. Then I covered the broken edges with clear Gorilla tape on the outside. I mean to do the inside, too, but that’s frost covered, so it will wait until that melts away and it can be cleaned and dried.

The very corner screw, however, wouldn’t secure. It stripped the pilot hole, and would need a wider screw. Since I was adding more screws to secure the plastic window in strategic places anyhow, I added a couple more on either side of the corner screw. The neoprene washers are too big for the screws, but as long as they are tight enough, they’ll keep the moisture out of the screw holes.

In the summer, what we might end up doing is cutting away the half of the window with the broken corner and putting in a new section over that side. My brother gave us a bunch of scrap wood and other materials, including a section of clear plastic (most likely Lexan) that might be big enough to cover the opening.

This patch will have to do for the rest of the winter, though.

By the time I was done, my daughter had put away the shopping and was helping my husband set his phone up again. He’s got it done enough that it can be used again, and he can log into his various accounts and apps.

The whole purpose of our trip to the nearer city was for him to trade in his phone, and that didn’t happen – but it wasn’t a wasted trip at all. My husband got to get out and about, which he hasn’t done in such a very long time. It was painful, but he was glad to have done it, and we even got a date out of it.

So all is good!

Tomorrow morning, though, I’m out again, this time to drop the truck off at the garage at 9am. I don’t know how long it’ll take them to replace the sensor and the block heater cord, or even if they’ll get to it right away, so I have no idea how long I’ll be in town. I don’t have any errands to run, though I will make a stop at the hardware store. In the summer, I would walk to the beach or something and enjoy the outdoors. There are no indoor places to just hang out in the winter, and the high for tomorrow is expected to be -20C/-4F. There are just stores, restaurants and gas stations, and I don’t like to linger if I’m not going to buy anything.

Ah, well. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to hang out in town during the winter.

After that, I should be able to stay home for the weekend and just enjoy not going anywhere! 😄

The Re-Farmer

Well, that got weird!

January 1, 2025 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Okay: the plan for the day was to head over to my mother’s and take her for her MRI appointment.

With our New Year’s celebrations, I didn’t make it to midnight, and instead went to bed, so I did at least get some sleep – until I was awakened by a cat starting to hork right next to my head. How’s that for an alarm clock?

I intended to be on the road by 6am, so as to arrive at my mother’s place early. Sunrise, this time of year, is 8:30, so it was still full dark when I headed to the garage. I did meet my goal, though, and was on the road by 6.

I’m glad I did leave that early, because it took an extra 10 minutes to get to my mother’s. We’d had some snow last night – just enough to cover everything with a light, fluffy layer.

Which makes driving on already icy gravel roads even more slipper, so I was taking it slow.

When I got to the highway, I was playing “find the lane” for much of the trip, and doing 10-20km/h below the speed limit. It wasn’t icy for the most part – at least as far as I could tell. I just couldn’t see where the lanes were, and I often would reach a clear spot and find I was diving in the middle of the highway.

Thankfully, there was no traffic. I saw only 2 other vehicles besides me, the entire time.

When I got closer to my mother’s down, I drove into snowfall. Again, nothing major, but so reflective, even on low beams, that it got even harder to see. I was quite happy to get to my mother’s, and not looking forward to the drive to her appointment! I knew that certain sections of our route would not be good.

When I got to my mother’s apartment, her walker was gone. I knocked and the door was open, but I didn’t see her. Popping back into the hallway, I saw her down the hall. She had come out to meet me, but I happened to arrive just when she’d popped into the washroom. 😄

The walk back to her apartment was really hard on her, and she was panting like she’d been running a race by the time she came inside.

I told her that I’d want to leave right away, because of the road conditions. She started asking, what would they do if we came later? There’s something fishy about this appointment. They just want old people to die.

I asked her, do you want me to cancel? It was really last minute, but given the road conditions, combined with how much she was struggling, I wasn’t going to push her on going like I normally would. I can’t make that decision for her, though.

She hemmed and hawed so long, it was past time we should have been on the road, so cancelling it was.

Then I had to find the right number to call, because of course, there’s no number just for the hospital. The only number I could find was for the regional health center corporate office.

It took some doing, but I did eventually find a number for the diagnostic centre at the hospital and called. No one answered, of course, but I left a message about my mother and her appointment, the road conditions and that she was really struggling, so we would have to cancel. I left our numbers for them to call back, but don’t expect to hear from anyone. My mother has her regular doctor appointment on Monday, so a new request can be made then – this time, specifying an afternoon appointment!

That done, we settled in for a visit, because I was not going to head home until it was light out. We made some tea and were chatting when I heard a distinctive noise from the door behind me. Something had been slid under the door.

I went to get it and found a note that read, “Happy New Year, Old B***c”

My immediate thought was that it was our vandal again – he’s slipped many a vile note and letter under my mother’s door over the years – so I opened the door and went into the hallway, just in time to hear a door closing. My mother’s apartment is near one of the exits. I went far enough to see the doors (there is a tiny vestibule in between inner and outer doors), but by then, there was nothing to see, and I wasn’t about to leave my mother and run for the outside doors.

So I went back inside to my very curious mother and showed her the note. Then I documented it, taking a photo and sending messages to my siblings and family back home, describing what just happened (I am so glad I got into the habit of documenting everything, so many years ago. It has come in so handy), when I heard a strange noise in the hallway.

I looked through the peep hole and didn’t see anything, but when I opened the door, I found a woman walking down the hall and just reaching my mother’s door, in her housecoat and slippers. She saw me and started going on about how, my mother shouldn’t be doing this, it’s against regulations, it’s a fire hazard. It took me a moment to realize she was talking about my mother’s walker…

… which was down the hall, next to a neighbour’s door. That was the noise I’d heard.

The woman kept ranting, swearing and going on about regulations and fire hazards while I retrieved the walker, asking her what was going on (I think she was getting even more angry because she couldn’t get a rise out of me), and she told me she’d found my mother’s walker in the street. So I thanked her for bringing it in, and said my mother hadn’t done this, and that someone had just left a nasty note under my mother’s door. She basically said that she wasn’t surprised about the note because of my mother being how she is. I parked my mother’s walker where it belongs, under the little shelf by her door, and she ranted and swore at me some more, saying it didn’t belong there, while going back to her own apartment at the end of the hall.

I went back inside and was telling my mother what happened when I heard another noise at the door. I opened it and found my mother’s walker against it. The woman had come back and bashed it against the door. She demanded I take it inside and started saying more insulting things about my mother and me (I’m fat, so I must be just like my mother…) and swearing before going back into her apartment.

When I went back inside, my mother was just shaking her head. She could hear some of what her neighbour had been saying. Apparently, this behaviour is common with her.

She’d brought stuff up with public housing people before, and was told to call in and make a formal complaint. They can’t do anything if people don’t complain. So I found the number and tried calling them. I knew it would go to voice mail, since it’s New Year’s Day, but the mail boxes were full, and I couldn’t even leave a message. We will have to try again during regular office hourse.

So we talked about it some more and I documented this to my family as well.

My mother thinks the neighbour is the one who left the note, not our vandal. She says the use of the word b**** is very much her style, while she’s never heard our vandal say it. I’ve heard him use it, particularly directed at me, though not often, so she does have a point. I did hear the door closing when I went out, and I thought it was an outer door, but I suppose it’s possible I’d heard the door at the end of the hallway, which is even closer to the exit than my mother’s door.

So… that was fun.

My mother, meanwhile, was getting very tired, so she soon went to bed while I stayed a bit longer, waiting for it to get light before I left.

The drive home was much better, but I’m definitely glad we didn’t make the drive to the hospital for the MRI in the dark. I got home just in time to meet my daughter coming up to the gate to switch out the trail cam memory cards, as she started the morning rounds for me once it got light out.

So this whole day has turned out far stranger than expected. The note was bad enough, but for the neighbour to get all weird on me was really… something. The woman definitely has issues. My mother tells me there has been police involvement because of her, and her own son had shown up that time and basically told them, he was done with her. This has been going on since well before she moved into the building my mother is in.

Slight pause in writing this; I just got off the phone with my brother, and he agrees that the note must have been from this woman. The door I heard closing had to have been her own door, not the exit door I thought it was. I’m just so used to our vandal being the one doing this sort of thing, and there was no one to be seen at the time, I just made the assumption. If the neighbour hadn’t come out and started making noise and messing with my mother’s walker, I would never have had reason to think otherwise.

We really need to get my mother out of that place and into some sort of assisted living. For her own safety, as well as for her health needs!

As for me, I’m so very tired. I did get some sleep last night, but not much.

Time to see if I can squeeze in between the cats on my bed and get a nap in!

The Re-Farmer

Happy New Year’s Eve!

December 31, 2024 / Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

We’ve got a bit of a break in between things, so I thought I’d drop in and wish everyone a Happy New Year!

*Image created by WP AI image generator*

My daughter and I headed out this afternoon to go to the bank in my mother’s town, where she could get a replacement debit card, after discovering someone had stolen her number and tried to use it in the US somewhere. Since it was so close to the grocery store, I dropped her off and went in to pick up some drinks for tonight, and more sandwich meats – because I know, no one is going to want to cook for the next while!

Then I spotted some excellent sale prices and got a few more things. Of course. 😄

When my daughter joined me, she picked up a couple of things just to confirm her replacement debit card was properly activated.

Before heading out, we stopped to fill the gas tank. Our province’s gas tax break ends tonight, and the prices are expected to jump by about 12¢/L tomorrow. Unfortunately, the prices went up since yesterday. I’d put some gas in yesterday at $1.309 and today it was at $1.369 *sigh*

And we’ve got so much driving to do in the next couple of weeks!

From there, we made a quick stop at the post office to pick up a parcel for my husband that came in today. While I was there, I got a cheap (on sale) bottle of wine for tonight. Then I saw the most adorable display of tiny mason jars of “Moonshine” (that’s the brand name) in different flavours. I ended up getting one of each for us to taste test. For the price of those, I spent more on them than the bottle of wine, but I’ll never be buying them again, so I figured it was a nice treat. The full size jars – these drinks all come in mason jars – are a pretty standard inventory item, but I’ve never seen the minis before. Our tiny little general store’s booze corner doesn’t have a lot of space, and these are seasonal items, so I don’t expect to see them again. Mind you, for such a tiny space, they manage an amazing selection.

From there it was home. As my daughter and I were gathering stuff to take to the house, I noticed something strange on the shelf against the wall.

The garage door handle.

My daughter had gone ahead to start the truck as we were leaving and, when she opened the door, the handle hit the sagging door frame and broke loose. When she closed the door as we were leaving the garage, I could see the screws in the door, holding bits of the handle still!

I don’t see the point of replacing the handle until we can do something about that sagging frame.

While my daughter took care of putting things away, I made sure to give the outside cats their evening feeding.

Stinky really wanted attention!

He is a strange one when it comes to trying to pet him! He wants pets, but he also wants to bite my hand. Or lick it. Or attack it with his paws. Or push his head against it, asking for more pets, then biting at my hand again.

Silly boy!

For now, we have a bit of time on our hands before we need to start preparing things for tonight. There isn’t a lot that can be done in advance. We plan to have a whole bunch of different appetizers that need to go into the oven, a vegetable tray with dip, a charcuterie board and baked brie with a variety of crackers, mini Naan and cubed French bread.

Oh, I just remembered something that needs to be made ahead! Asparagus pinwheels. They’re a simple appetizer. Flour tortilla spread with cream cheese all over, then rolled with pickled asparagus spears in the middle. This time, we will be including prosciutto with the asparagus spears. After they are rolled up, they get sliced into rounds about half an inch thick. They’re awesome, but we only make them for days like today. We just don’t normally have pickled asparagus spears around.

As we enjoy our spread this evening, we plan to continue our Lord of the Rings marathon until midnight.

Since I have to go to my mother’s so early in the morning for her MRI, I might take a couple of hours nap (I made a point of napping earlier today), but may end up just staying up all night, then sleeping when I get home.

I get the feeling sleep is going to be in short supply for the next while. 😄

Meanwhile, I hope you all have a grand time celebrating this New Year’s Eve and welcoming in 2025!

More driving today… and tomorrow, and the day after, and then…

December 30, 2024 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

You know, it’s a good thing my “job” is to take care of this place. Otherwise, I have no idea how I’d manage to get things done.

Things like unexpected shopping trips.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, the cuteness!

There was one heck of a crowd in the isolation shelter when I came back from doing my morning rounds! As I came closer to the shelter, some of the more feral cats ran away, leaving “only” eleven left in the upper level of the shelter. I think there might have been as many as fifteen cats, crammed into that upper level, as I was walking up to the shelter!

Once I was back inside and having my breakfast, my daughter suddenly came in with her phone. She’d been wanting to book a follow up visit with her doctor today, which was on my morning to-do list, as I wanted to book a meet and greet for myself, too. The doctor I’m seeing now is still the interim doctor. It may be convenient having the same doctor as my mother, but we’re working to get my mother into assisted living, and it would be more convenient to have the same doctor as my daughter. That and the clinic is right next to a grocery store, which is extra handy. 😄

Well, the clinic called her cell phone (I’m shocked they got through!), and she was wondering what date worked for me to drive in. So I talked to the receptionist and booked a double appointment for us. After the call, my daughter asked, who goes first? I told her, I would, and then I could go to the grocery store if we needed anything, while she had her appointment. It’s been a long time since I’ve had my bloodwork done, though, so I won’t be surprised if I get a requisition for that to be done. There is a lab in the pharmacy right at the clinic, too.

After the call and while finishing breakfast, I was wrestling with myself. There were a few things I wasn’t able to get at the grocery store yesterday. If I left early enough, I might be able to find them before they sold out. Mostly, I was looking to get a party tray of fresh vegetables, and maybe another of fruit, to go with our finger food New Year’s celebration. Plus a flat of eggs. With tomorrow being New Year’s Eve, I knew things would be busy and things would sell out fast, but none of it was necessary, and I really didn’t want to go.

Then my mother phoned.

She was worried about her MRI appointment on the first. It’s a big holiday, and everybody has the day off, so there must be some sort of mistake. I told her, hospitals don’t have the day off. Oh, for emergencies, sure, she tells me. I finally asked, are you wanting me to cancel the appointment? Oh… no… but are you sure there’s no mistake?

I assured her that, when I got the call, I did ask because the appointment was on New Year’s day. They confirmed.

Then she started talking about how, when she looks into her fridge, it’s looking pretty empty.

Did she want me to come over?

Oh, no, she tells me. Then starts listing off all the stuff she still has (even after telling me she was out of various things). Plus, it’s cold, and she also needs to go to the bank, and she doesn’t want to go out in the cold. Plus, today is Bingo day.

I told her, it’s going to start getting colder again after New Year’s. Looking at my calendar, I added, it’s either today or Thursday, and it’s supposed to be colder on Thursday.

She hemmed and hawed some more.

Finally I told her to just start her list, because I can come over today. She was getting her Meals on Wheels today, so I told her I would be there for about 1pm, after she had a chance to eat.

I ended up leaving early enough to do my own shopping first. This little grocery store doesn’t do party trays, so I ended up getting some fresh vegetables to make our own party tray, some grapes to go with our charcuterie board, plus a few other things. Then, because the price was right, I picked up a 2 pack of frying chickens for less than a single chicken normally is. The Instant Pot I got for my daughters is big enough to fit a whole chicken in it, so that would work out well.

(As I write this, I can hear the pot venting away; they’ve started a pot roast for the first meal with it!)

From there, I put some gas in the tank (we’re going through a lot more gas than usual, with all the extra driving around!), got my own lunch to eat in the truck (the truck seats are more comfortable) and still ended up at my mother’s about half an hour early.

When I got there, she was in the lobby, looking for something.

She was wondering why bingo wasn’t set up yet.

I asked how she was doing, and she was silent, making motions and acting like there was some reason not to speak out loud. Finally, she said, it’s better not to say.

So…. I guess that meant she wasn’t feeling well?

She did manage to tell me that she wasn’t up to going out and would just give me her list. Then she was going on about where bingo was one or not, then knocking on a neighbour’s door right by the common room to ask him if he knew if it was still on. He didn’t, and seemed confused that she was asking him. She told him she could just phone, instead. I told her, it’s barely past 12:30. It’s probably still too early, thinking it started at 1, but nope: turns out it starts at 1:30. Way too early to be setting up!

I managed to get her back to her place and, as soon as she sat down, she started digging around for a phone number. I eventually figured out she meant to call the senior’s center (they run the social events in her building) to find out if bingo was still on. I told her, why bother calling? Just go over at 1:30 and see. It’s either on or it isn’t, but there’s no need to call. She agreed that she could do that.

Then we went over her list, she gave me funds for her shopping, and I was soon off. The shopping is a lot faster when it’s just me using her list. When I got back and made my way through the common room, I saw that they were starting to set up for bingo! 😄

I made sure to tell her that, when I got to her place. After putting away her groceries, there was time for a bit of a visit before bingo started. As we were talking, she told me how her breathing issues seem to be connected to how much commotion is going on. After asking some questions, it seems like a stress response. The problem is, my mother is creating a lot of her own stress, like worrying about there being a mistake with her MRI appointment (this isn’t the first time she’s done that with appointments, so it’s not just about it being on New Year’s day), or that bingo was cancelled because nothing was set up an hour in advance.

Then she started talking about her vision. Oh, her vision. It’s getting worse.

Now this set off all sorts of alarm bells with me. With her wet macular degeneration, we were advised to monitor it closely and, if it starts getting worse, to get her back to the eye clinic in the city right away. So of course, I started asking more specific questions.

As she started talking about how her vision is getting worse, she casually mentioned that the “black spot” is gone…

Wait… what???? !!!!

Then she mentioned the wavy lines are gone.

????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The wavy lines were from dry macular degeneration in her left eye. She’s taking special vitamins to keep that from getting worse. For those to be gone is amazing, but not as amazing as for her to say the “black spot” in her right eye is gone!

I got her to cover her left eye, then held my hand about two feet from her face, raising two fingers. I asked her, can you see the two fingers?

Yes, she tells me.

I raise a third finger without saying anything.

Three fingers, she tells me.

I’m totally shocked that she could see any fingers at all!

I moved my had back another couple of feet and tried again.

She couldn’t tell me how many fingers, but she could see that “something” was there.

I am totally blown away. While at the clinic with her, less than a month ago, a tech did the same test with her, and she couldn’t see his fingers. When he had her try and look at a single letter on the eye chart, she saw nothing at all.

The eye doctor had told her she shouldn’t need more injections, but also that her eye would not get better. There is scar tissue that will not go away. The injections were to keep it from getting worse, but that we shouldn’t expect it to get better. Her next appointment is in February, and we are to monitor her and bring her back if it gets worse.

Now, it seems her vision around that scarred area in her eye has healed enough that she can see more.

But, she told me, her vision is getting worse. It’s getting “dimmer”. I tried to ask questions to get a better idea of what she meant, but she started getting really frustrated. She simply doesn’t have the vocabulary to tell me what she means. So we dropped that part.

She’s been wearing her old glasses, though, since she decided the eye doctor she got her prescription from gave her a bad prescription and cheated her (they treated her like gold). I suggested that tomorrow, she try wearing her new glasses, as those would have the most up to date prescription. She agreed that it was worth a try.

Hopefully, she will remember to do it in the morning.

Then there was a knock at the door. One of her neighbours had come over to let her know, bingo would be starting soon!

So we said our goodbyes, and I headed home.

By then, it was pretty much time to do my evening rounds, so I headed out and topped up the kibble and warm water for the outside cats.

I just had to get a picture of these two.

The one in the freshly emptied food bowl is Magda. She is pretty friendly and lets us pick her some and sometimes even carry her.

The one above her, with the black splotches on its nose and mouth, has been named Ink by the girls. It also has black splotches on its front paws. The girls think it looks like he’s been playing with a pot of ink, so that’s what they’ve named him.

Or her.

He’s pretty feral and won’t let us anywhere near him to find out, one way or the other!

Oh, there was one other unexpected thing today.

Not long ago, my daughter tried to log into her bank account and found it locked. I got a message from her while I was on my way home. She’d gotten through to the bank on the phone and discovered that someone tried to use her debit card number (she has no credit card) at a restaurant in the US. !!! It was stopped and her accounted locked as potential fraud, so nothing was taken from her bank account, thank God!

She would, however, need to go to a branch and get a replacement card.

As soon as I could, I called the branch in my mother’s town to confirm their hours. They are open tomorrow.

Which means that, tomorrow, I will be driving my daughter to our bank branch in my mother’s town (we won’t be able to do that much longer; I hear this branch will be closing!).

Then, the day after tomorrow – New Year’s Day – I will be taking my mother to her MRI appointment.

Then, on the 2nd, my husband and I will be going to trade his phone in before they ding him with the end-of-contract bill of almost $700. It has to be done before the 4th, and that’s the only day I’ve got left.

The next day, Friday, I’m taking the truck in to get the MAF sensor and block heater cord replaced.

Then, on the following Monday, I’m taking my mother to her regular doctor for a follow up appointment.

Then, on the Wednesday, I’m going back to the same town, but a different clinic, for the joint appointment for me and my daughter.

I’m doing as much driving in the next couple of weeks as I would normally do in a month in the summer. In the winter, I try to do as little driving as possible, but that’s just not working out!

Thank God winter has been mild and conditions pretty good, so far. Based on the 10 day forecast, though, that joint appointment is going to be on a day where the high is expected to be -24C/-13F, while the lows are supposed to be -29C/-20F.

At least we’ll be able to plug in the block heater by then! That’s being replaced on Friday, and Thursday night is when overnight lows are starting to dip below -20C/-4F again.

Weirdly, the long term forecast now says we’ll have about 10 days of that, then 10 days or so of temperatures rising to just below freezing again. This is a La Nińa winter, though, and the system should start affecting our area more over the next couple of months. For our region, that usually means colder temperatures, but it looks like we’re going to be getting temperature whiplash, instead!

Once we get past that last appointment, I hope to not have to do anything more than short trips into town – and hardly any of those! – until it’s time to go more stock up shopping at the end of January!

I just want to stay home.

The Re-Farmer

Enjoying a quiet day

December 29, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Of course, all the usual stuff that needed to be done got done, like the morning rounds.

What a gorgeous sunrise, this morning!

I’m not a morning person, but I can still appreciate how beautiful in can be!

The kitties were quite enjoying the isolation shelter.

I counted 11 while I was taking the photo. It’s hard to tell, with all the reflections. Altogether, I think I counted 32 cats this morning. They were running around so much, it was hard to keep track of which ones I’d already counted.

Last night, my husband glanced out the bathroom window and saw the heat lamp was out. I went to check and found the cats have managed to knock the plug loose out of the power bar.

While there, I realized there was a cat using the heated water bowl as a butt warmer.

Even though I’d given them an early feeding so I could park the truck, they were out of both food and water! Even the broken heated water bowl we replaced, which had been full of ice and slowly melting, was down to just dregs. So I gave them another feeding, then rinsed out and filled the water bowls.

This morning, the water bowls were all empty again! Well. Except we have two outside that aren’t heated, so they were just solid ice. Both are in shade, so they never melted with the warmer temperatures. The cats were more interested in the water than the food!

I just got back from doing the evening rounds. We’re still at our predicted high of -3C/27F, but it’s so lovely and sunny out there, any ice and snow still on the sidewalk blocks are melting. The cats are just loving it. I think I counted 29. They needed their water bowls topped up again, too, though at least they weren’t completely out, this time.

With the warmer weather, I’ve actually seen a couple of visitors in the sun room on the critter cam. Once, a skunk, and another time, a single massive racoon. Hopefully, they won’t be visiting more often, and will stay in their hiding places when the temperatures drop again!

Overall, though, it’s been a home day for me, and I’m quite happy to not have to go anywhere. I might make a quick trip into town tomorrow, though, to get the last couple of things I wasn’t able to get on the stock up trip, and check the mail. The strikers might be back at work, but we’re still missing mail. At least my husband got his bloodwork requisition, even though we can’t do anything about it until after the holidays.

In other things, I got to see the first files from the new solar powered trail cam. I am quite happy with it. I won’t need to move the stand it’s one, for starters. I will probably need to reduce the resolution and motion sensitivity, though. I have it set to take a photo, then a short video, just like the camera it replaced. I was amazed by how well it picked up audio! With the other camera, it would have a recording of me right next to it, talking to a cat or something, and barely pick up sound. This thing’s microphone is so sensitive, I could hear the sounds made by the chain and sliding bar when unlocking and opening the gate, some 30 feet away!

We shall see how it holds up when the temperatures drop, though. That’s always the litmus test for the cameras!

So far, so good, though.

The Re-Farmer

She left me pet her today!

December 28, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I did have to be sneaky about it, though.

She tried to get away from me but the rose bush slowed her down enough that I could stealth pet her. She liked it enough to stop and let me keep petting her and give her ear skritches.

She even started purring!

We’re not at the stage were we can get her into a carrier, but we’re getting there!

The Re-Farmer

Truck update and an unboxing

December 27, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today has turned out to be a lovely, warm day! The forecast ranged from 1C/34F to 3C/37F, depending on what app I looked at. It seems the temperature we actually hit was in between, at 2C/36F.

Even when I headed out to do my morning rounds, we were at a balmy -1C/30F. The outside cats were quite enjoying it, and were running around all over the place!

I even had several following me up the driveway when I went to check on the gate!

It’s been a while since I’ve had that many cats following me around.

With the temperatures expected to go above freezing, I made sure to break out the ice chipper to scrape the sidewalk, and the concrete in front of the sun room, clear of ice and snow, so that it would melt clear faster. Tomorrow we’re supposed to reach a high of 0C/32F, so hopefully that will be enough for the sidewalks to dry clear, rather than just ice over!

The truck was booked at the garage for this afternoon, but I headed out earlier, so I could stop at the post office before it closed for a few hours around lunch time, since I wasn’t sure how long I’d be gone. I even remembered to grab the empty water jugs for refilling, too. While opening the garage door to put them in the truck, though… well…

The middle of the garage door frame is slowly sagging. There is a metal piece attached to the top that is there to sort of guide the handle inwards, but as it slowly sags lower, I try to remember to push the door in a bit so the handle will clear the frame.

I forgot to do that this morning, and slammed the handle right into the frame. This is a replacement handle, too. I can now see how the old one got so broken!

So, we’re going to have to pick up another handle. No hurry on that. We don’t close the door all the way, anyhow, as one of the latches on the sides doesn’t retract far enough when the handle is turned. When the door gets closed all the way down, it can only be opened again from the inside, by manually pulling the cable to that latch. When we get a new handle, we should be able to just tighten the cable on that side to fix it, though I don’t know why it became a problem in the first place. The cable is as tight as the day I installed it, still.

Anyhow…

I’m more concerned about figuring out how to straighten out the frame, then support it to keep it from sagging again. Given the larger size of the opening, it would likely have to be supported from above

We’ll figure it out.

I made sure to give the truck’s engine time to run before I headed out. Everything was fine during the short drive to the post office, just like last time. I had a couple of packages to pick up, including some kibble the Cat Lady was able to get with coupons from Amazon for us.

From there to town, I kept an eye on the oil pressure gauge. It actually last longer than I expected, and I almost got to the garage before the needle dropped and the alarm started sounding – just as I had to stop behind several cars to wait for a tiny train to go by! It was basically about a block of driving with the alarm and warning lights going.

I was quite early to drop off the keys, but I also made a point of booking the truck for next week. That’s when the MAF sensor and block heater cable will be replaced. He has to order the parts in, first.

After that, I popped into the motel next door and had lunch at the Chinese restaurant there, before running a couple of errands. My appointment was at 1pm, and I got back about 20 after. He was on his own, though, and hadn’t had a chance to look at it yet, but I just wanted to grab the keys so I could put away my shopping bag.

Before I headed out, I mentioned doing errands, and he suggested I check out a nearby store. A customer had told him the entire store was 50% off today. I pretty much never go there – I can’t afford their prices, normally. About the only things they have that would interest me is clothing, and it would be a rare thing for them to have my size. Still, I figured it was worth taking a look.

Ha!

I got in the door, and that was pretty much it. There was a line at least 20 people deep, cutting through the area I would have wanted to look in. This is not a large store, so it doesn’t take much for it to get overcrowded! The other side of the store was mostly empty, but that was where the shoe and jewelry sections were – nothing I would be looking at.

So I left. I was happy to see how busy they were, though. For a lot of retail companies, these last few weeks of the year are what puts them in the black for the year, and it’s even harder for a small town like this.

After putting my bag in the truck and giving the keys back, I had a bit of time to kill, so I swung by the hardware store across from the store that was having the big sale. A hardware store is much more my style! I ended up getting a couple of small items, but mostly wanted to look at some of their equipment. They actually had some utility pumps in stock – and on sale! Not the sort of pump we need to replace our septic pump, though. One of the staff came over to help me and I showed him a picture of the pump we have, and he agreed that the one I was looking at was not what I needed. He admitted, he wasn’t the one who knew septic pumps (not a surprise, since the system we have isn’t really done anymore), but that was okay. For now, I was just looking at prices. I think I should probably consult with my brother about getting a new one. My SIL was sure they actually have a spare, somewhere among the things now stored in our barn, but I think I would prefer a new one, if I can swing it.

I was just leaving the store when I checked my phone and discovered a message from the garage had just come in. The truck was ready.

When I got there, we talked about the problem for a bit. All he did was take the sensor apart and clean it out, so he just charged me for labour.

It is going to happen again. Even if he replaced the sensor again, it wouldn’t make a difference.

The problem is, with the temperature fluctuations this time of year, moisture gets into the system, but doesn’t get a chance to evaporate completely. He suggested doing things like letting the truck run for about 15 minutes before going anywhere and, if I’m just running inside a store briefly, to leave the engine running. This would give it a chance to heat up enough for the moisture to evaporate. Meanwhile, keep checking the oil levels. As long as they’re good, we know that it’s the sensor again, not an actual problem with the oil pressure.

As he was telling me this, I could tell he was really frustrated. He’s mentioned to me before, that this is very much a GM thing. He doesn’t see this problem in other brands. Some sort of design flaw, is his thought on that. When I mention having it go off like this, it leaves you not knowing if it’s just moisture in the sensor again, or an actual problem, and he completely agreed.

Then there’s just the problem of driving around with an alarm dinging, warning lights and the onboard computer telling me to SHUT OFF ENGINE. It is really quite stressful.

Hopefully, cleaning out the sensor will do the trick for at least a while. I have to take my mother for a scan on the 1st, then a medical appointment on the 6th, and I sure as heck don’t want that alarm going off while driving with my mother!

As an aside, I spoke with my mother last night, and she asked about the truck. She is still talking about buying “herself” a brand new car. She doesn’t drive, of course, and anything she gets would have to be half in my name, as that’s the only way I’d be able to get it insured. I don’t expect her to be paying for the insurance (nor any other vehicle expenses), and it would be parked here at the farm, anyhow. I did try to warn her that a brand new car would be very expensive, but she’s okay with that. In fact, she’s almost excited about the idea. I really, really hope my brother has a chance to talk to her about that. She doesn’t have *that* much money squirreled away! As great as it would be to have access to a back up vehicle again – and a new one, too! – we would have to do something with her current car, just to have someplace to park it (which means it would have to be quite a small car!). Having to pay the expenses for two vehicles again, while having payments on the truck at the same time, would be very painful on our budget. *sigh*

Anyhow…

After reclaiming the truck (he’d even left it running, since I responded to his text so quickly), I popped across to the grocery store, picked up a few things and refilled a couple of water jugs. From there, it was a quick stop at the gas station, then home.

I’m happy to say, the needle on the oil pressure gauge stayed right were it was supposed to. It did seem to start dropping when I was driving slower on the icy gravel road, but still inside the acceptable range on the gauge.

Once everything was unloaded and put away, I got to do an unboxing.

Our new solar charged trail cameras were in!

The cats really, really wanted to see what was going on, too!

I was specifically looking for a camera where the solar panel directly powered the camera, with regular batteries as a back up. I settled on this brand, which came in a 2 pack. We only need one right now, so the other is still in its box.

I had to retake the photo of the outside of the boxes. When I laid them out on my bed, Layendecker leaned over and used one of them as a pillow!

Silly boy.

The camera comes with a tree strap for mounting, plus a USB cable for the first charging of the solar panel’s internal rechargeable batteries.

The USB cable is mostly hidden under a curious Mitsy in the photo.

After opening it up, it took me a while to find where the battery cover was. The clip is partially hidden by the cover, as it’s right near the bottom cover hinge.

One substantial difference between this camera and any others we’ve had is that it uses only four AA batteries. Most take eight. We did have one camera (that got stolen) that held eight batteries, but could operate on only four, if necessary. This one has room only for four batteries. They will only be used if the solar panel doesn’t have enough charge to power the camera.

The solar panel adjusts slightly, and it does not come off. The one we have now, the solar charger is a separate unit that can be removed, so the camera can be used on batteries only. I like having that option, if necessary, but the camera we have now is no longer available. The current camera’s solar panel angle cannot be adjusted, so there are trade offs both ways.

While the camera does have a tree strap, it also has the screw in port for a plate mount, which is what our current camera is on, now. This camera did not come with a mounting plate, while the old one did.

I find it really bizarre, however, that the screw in port is in the battery cover. I would have to either remove it from the mounting plate (which I have to do now, for a different design reason) or, in theory, open the mounting plate and swing the camera down. I wouldn’t want to do that, though, as it would put too much stress on the hinge of the battery cover.

I plan to use both the mounting plate already on the stand, and the tree strap to hold it in place. With the current camera, the top heavy weight of the solar panel is a bit too much for the mount, so I’ve got a small bungee cord supporting it. Over time, though, the bungee is starting to stretch out and not support as well. The solar panel on the new camera is not as heavy, though, so it might not be an issue. We shall see.

One thing about this camera is that it does NOT have a wide angle lens. The solar camera we have now is wide angle, which I really like. Without a wide angle lens, we will probably have to move the stand it’s mounted to. The base, with its weight to keep it from blowing over in the wind, is buried in snow right now, so that likely won’t happen until spring!

The USB cable is for pre-charging the solar panel’s internal batteries, which is recommended to do before first use. After going through the menu and setting up the date, time, etc. and putting in a memory card, I hooked that up, so it will be fully charged and ready for tomorrow. When I do my morning rounds, I’ll switch cameras instead of memory chards!

The other solar camera has been working again, which is good, but when it fell open into the snow, one of the cover clips broke. So there is just one clip holding it closed. That would make it slightly less waterproof, as condensation could get past the seal by the broken clip.

The non-solar sign cam is still working, but it’s quite a bit older and sometimes glitches out. Depending on how this new camera is, I might use the spare to switch out the other one. It’s under a tree, but it does get enough sunlight to support a small solar panel. Especially at sunrise.

Either way, we’ll still have a couple of back up cameras, if we ever have troubles again.

I look forward to seeing the first files on the new camera, and what the quality is like.

Which is rather fun and all, but it sucks that we need to have to set up trail cams as security cameras in the first place.

Ah, well. It is what it is!

The Re-Farmer

So glad we’re not in the city anymore!

December 26, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

But I’ll get to why, in a bit.

Today – the second day of Christmas – has turned out to be a lovely day, even with the wind. The last couple of days have been slowly warming up, but we have been hit with winds from the south, and they were pretty brutal at times. Today, the winds were milder, so our high of -1C/30F was feeling more like -7C/19F, instead of -17C/1F!

The outside cats are quite enjoying the milder temperatures, though there’s a crowd that prefers the isolation shelter more than anything else!

I counted a dozen cats in the upper level! Plus there was at least one, possibly two, on the ramp inside the entry shelter box. It is mostly the littles that are in the isolation shelter, I have noticed. The adults and older cats go in and out, too – you can see Stinky over in the corner on the right – but they don’t tend to stay in the cuddle puddles in the isolation shelter. I see them on the critter cam in the sun room, more often.

Judgement really wanted attention this morning! When I stopped to try and get pictures of the cats in the isolation shelter, he basically flung himself down on my feet and began rolling. 😄

Today has been a catch up day on things. Because it’s so much milder, we set up the drainage hose for the washing machine out the front door. My husband and I got our laundry done, then we did a couple of loads of cat beds and blankets, and the girls will be doing their laundry next. As long as the hose gets dragged in as soon as the last load is done, it will be fine. We don’t want it out there when we hit our low of -8C/18F tonight!

In between other things, our Christmas turkey got deboned and I made a stock for the outside cats as a treat after for after their evening feeding. They got the bits and bobs, too – we made sure to leave lots of meaty bits for them – and are very happy! When I made cat soup for the inside cats, I used some of the stock instead of hot water, to treat them as well. The inside cats were also very happy!

Then, this afternoon, I started getting some messages from the Cat Lady, with a rather alarming tale to tell! One of their motion sensor alarms went off and her husband went to check, thinking it was one of the cats setting it off. The next thing she knew, he was calling for her to call 911!

Long story short, a woman and broken into their cat garage (they checked the security footage, later), which is a separate building housing the rescues. She took some drugs, pet the cats and passed out. Then she went to the house, letting out the cats, broke into their garage and started going “shopping”, helping herself to jackets and ski pants, and a couple hockey bags she filled out of their freezers, before triggering the alarm. When the Cat Lady’s husband showed up, she was clearly high and there was a bit of an altercation. She was still there when the police arrived.

Everyone is okay, thankfully, but there was glass broken and other damage done. As you can imagine, they were pretty shaken by it all! Thank God they have security alarms and cameras.

This is not the only incident. A couple of days ago, my son from another mother, who lives in the city we moved from to come here, was involved as a bystander in what turned out to be a carjacking and kidnapping. Someone had come running to him in absolute hysterics, asking for help. This also ended as best as it could, and the girl that was kidnapped was recovered safe and sound.

The crazy thing is, the incident didn’t even make the news.

As for the Cat Lady, when the RCMP showed up (they are in a suburb, and are not covered by the city police), they basically didn’t care, it happens so often – and they are in what is considered a very good neighbourhood!

Living where we do does not exempt us from such troubles. Given that the nearest police are at least 20 minutes away, and chances are if we called 911 for the police, they might not show up for even longer, the properties out here are convenient targets. Still, even taking into account our vandal, it’s nothing like what’s happening in our cities. Even our small towns are seeing increases of crazy stuff like this. Sometimes, it feels like we were able to escape the city, just in time. We certainly had … situations, shall we say… that we had to deal with, but it all just seems to be so much worse now.

I’ll take living in the boonies, any day, even without all this, but right now, I’m just appreciating it so much more.

The Re-Farmer

Analyzing our 2024 Garden: corn, peppers and eggplant

December 20, 2024December 19, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

For the next while, I’ll be going through my old posts and videos about our 2024 garden, looking at how things worked out, and use that information to decide what we will do in our 2025 garden.

Some things managed to work out pretty well, even with our rough start in the garden!

The Original Plan

Corn

Corn is something we’ve tried to grow a few times. The first year, we grew several varieties with some being grown more as part of our long term plan to break up soil that had never been gardened before, and prepare the area for a future food forest. I’ve also been trying to grow kulli corn – a deep purple Peruvian variety – for a number of reasons, though we’ve found ourselves growing Montana Morado, instead. Some worked well, some didn’t.

With our garden size actually being reduced after a flood year, instead of expanding, this year we weren’t necessarily going to grow corn at all. We just didn’t have the space prepared for such a nitrogen hungry plant.

However, I had a couple of short season sweet corn varieties I wanted to try somewhere, so when I found myself with larger spaces between winter squash transplants in the second bed, I chose Yukon Chief, which had the shorter growing season: a mere 55 days!

Peppers

We have been trying different varieties of peppers to find the ones the family likes most. Personally, I can’t eat peppers, so I have to rely on their feedback for this. Last year, we had a mix of success and fail with peppers. This year, my older daughter requested one type of hot pepper, and we figured we should probably cut back on the number of varieties to try out this year. So far, no one has really found enough difference between the varieties of sweet peppers to really choose any one type over the other.

Eggplant

We’ve tried two varieties of eggplant before. The first we tried was Little Finger, which was grown in grow bags. They didn’t thrive, but we did have a few little ones we could harvest that we did enjoy. We later learned that nearby elm trees had roots invading the grow bags – a whole row of them all along the north end of the garden, near the self seeded elm and maple trees my mother allowed to grow after she transplanted the raspberries they’d started growing through.

We tried them again another year, but they fared even worse, growing in one of the concrete chimney block planters by the chain link fence. It wasn’t until this spring that I found the blocks were completely choked out by elm tree roots.

So this year, I wanted to try them again, in a completely different area!

The Classic eggplant was new to use last year. Only one seedling started indoors survived. It went into the wattle weave bed and the plant grew strong and healthy, though it was late in producing. In the end, we had one roughly palm sized eggplant to try, plus a couple smaller ones.

I wanted to try both again, this year. I was rather liking the idea of being able to grow enough eggplant to make baba ganoush, or cook nice big slices of them over an open fire.

How it went

Corn

I was really, really happy with this variety! Having something that matured so quickly was amazing!

Sure, I probably planted them too close together, but that didn’t seem to bother them too much.

They do not grow very large cobs, but the corn was so tasty, I could eat them raw!

There were two problems, though.

One was, high winds. After they got mostly flattened after a day of high winds, I did what I could to straighten them and support them, only for them to get flattened again from another direction.

The other was, racoons. I’d actually harvested all the corn – or thought I did – when I found I’d missed a few cobs. I decided to leave them to dry on the cob, so harvest seed at the end of the year. That never happened, because the racoons tore them apart and ate them.

*sigh*

Peppers

Wow, did we get peppers!

The hot peppers – Cheyenne – were started much earlier indoors. For the sweet peppers, I still had seeds for a collection of early varieties, plus a variety that did very well last year, and even a few seeds left from one I’d tried to grow a previous year.

I ended up planting a few of each, thinking the older seeds would have a lower germination rate.

Which was sort of true.

We ended up with quite a lot of the hot peppers. They went into a raised bed in the East yard, in between the two varieties of eggplant.

The sweet peppers all went into the high raised bed, later to be interplanted with shallots.

They all did really well! Especially the ones in the high raised bed. They got so full of peppers that got so big and heavy, I found myself having to add supports to some of them – and others actually broke their stems from the weight!

What they didn’t do was ripen much.

As with everything else this year, they were well behind. I did have some I could harvest, with the purple Dragonfly and Purple Beauty peppers ripening fastest, then some Sweet Chocolate but I ended up harvesting a whole lot of unripe peppers before they could be killed off by frost.

The good thing about peppers is, they keep ripening after they’ve been harvested.

I did end up with enough peppers ripening indoors that some could be cut up and frozen, while others got dehydrated. The family actually got tired of eating peppers, like they did with tomatoes!

The exception being the hot peppers.

My oldest daughter is the only one that can eat them, and even then, just small amounts. These aren’t even an exceptionally hot variety of pepper, either!

We did try dehydrating a bunch. We don’t have a dehydrator, and use the oven for that. Unfortunately, the peppers made it so that we could barely stay in the kitchen while they were dehydrating, because breathing the fumes caused our lungs to start burning!

Once they were dry, though, they went into a jar. They should be processed into a powder, but no one wants to do it and accidentally end up breaking powdered hot pepper.

There was a LOT of green hot peppers, though, and they ripened very well indoors.

What I ended up doing was stringing them, and they are now hanging in the cat free zone (the living room) above where the heat vent is, to dry. It’s a lot slower, but it doesn’t create fumes.

Eggplant

We ended up with quite a few surviving transplants this year, which was really nice. They went into a low raised bed with the hot peppers. For this bed, I covered it with cardboard and thick paper as a mulch, then cut openings to transplant through. I moved the box frame cover onto it, and set up sheets of plastic around it to create a sort of open greenhouse situation, since the eggplants and peppers are all heat loving plants.

The plastic ended up being torn off by high winds.

Later in the season, I was able to try again, using stronger plastic and running paracord both inside and outside the plastic to keep it in place, which you can see in the last photo in the slideshow below.

The plants themselves stagnated in growth for a while, until things dried up enough that I could mow some lawn. Once they got a nice grass clipping mulch on top of the cardboard and paper, they really started to grow and bloom.

Eggplants have such lovely flowers.

We were able to harvest some small eggplant towards the end of the season, before they all got harvested ahead of a killing frost.

The setbacks means they never got particularly big, but they were big enough to get a taste of them!

My conclusion, and thoughts for next year.

For the corn, I most definitely want to grow them again. While I am happy with the Yukon Chief, I want to try the other variety, next year. I can’t remember the name of it right now, but it matures in 65 days, I believe. Wherever we end up planting them, I want to make sure to have something set up to support the plants so they don’t get knocked over by high winds as they get bigger. I have a few ideas that would involve fence wire or something like that, set up horizontally, for the stalks to grow through.

I also want to find more kulli corn seeds to try again, but maybe not next year. We shall see. I might buy some seeds (if they’re not sold out again), just in case we end up with enough garden real estate available. If it doesn’t happen, though, I’m hoping the few Montana Morado seeds that got included in the mix along the chain link fence will survive the winter and grow. For the number of seeds in there, if they do survive, I expect to have to hand pollinate them. Then I will leave them on their stalks to dry, and save more seed for next year.

We’re still trying out different varieties of sweet corn. Once we figure out what we like that grows well here, we will want to dedicate a larger area of garden space to be able to grow enough that we can can or freeze some. For now, my single packet of I think only 50 seeds will be enough.

As long as we can keep the racoons out of them!

For the peppers, we won’t need to grow hot peppers again for a very long time! I don’t think we want to grow so many sweet peppers again, either. I’m debating, for next year, picking up a variety that grows smaller “snack size” peppers, instead, but I haven’t decided yet.

As for the eggplant, I’m happy with how they did, under the circumstances. I do want to grow them again. I probably won’t grow them next year, though. I want to save the garden real estate for staples, instead.

Given what a rough start we had this spring, all of these did way better than expected, so I am very happy.

The Re-Farmer

Analyzing our 2024 Garden: tomato and potato surprise

December 19, 2024December 18, 2024 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

For the next while, I’ll be going through my old posts and videos about our 2024 garden, looking at how things worked out, and use that information to decide what we will do in our 2025 garden.

As with so many other things in our garden this year, things did not go as planned or expected!

Tomatoes – how it started

This year, we were planning to cut down on how many tomatoes we were going to plant. I wanted a paste tomato for making sauces and, by request, we were going to have a few cherry type tomatoes for fresh eating. Two, maybe three, varieties.

For the cherry tomatoes, we had Chocolate Cherry and Black Cherry. For the paste tomato, I tried San Marzano this year, so see what the hype was all about.

Then we got free seeds with one of our orders, for Forme de Ceour tomatoes, a slicing tomato, so we had to try those!

Then there were the mystery compost ring tomatoes!

Oh, and a couple of mystery self seeded tomatoes. 😄

When starting them from seed indoors, I planted just a few seeds of of the cherry and slicing tomatoes, but a lot more of the paste tomatoes, with the expectation of processing and canning them.

The problem was, we had a very high germination rate, and I just can’t bear to toss away strong, healthy seedlings. Which means we ended up with considerably more transplants than intended.

And almost all of them survived transplanting!

How it went

Let’s start with

The Black Cherry tomatoes.

Those got transplanted into the wattle weave bed, along the back of the long side if the L shape. Each transplant had a protective collar round them, held in place with a pair of bamboo stakes that would later be used to support them as they grew.

The collars are something I will continue to do in the future. My husband goes through a lot of gallon jugs of distilled water for his CPAP humidifier, so we’ve got lots of them available. The tops and bottoms are removed, and they get placed over the transplant. This protects them from wind and, in the early parts of the season, from cold spring nights.

It also protected the transplants from rolling cats.

Bonus, the collars came it handy for spot watering. Fill the collars with water, and it slowly absorbed right at the base of the plants, rather than spreading across the garden bed.

The Black Cherry tomatoes – there were 7 of them – THRIVED!!! They got incredibly tall, growing up the stakes, then into the lilac branches above. They produced so many clusters of tomatoes, the branches couldn’t really hold the weight. We ended up having to find ways to add more support as they got bigger. It did take a long time for them to start ripening, though – again, due to our unfortunate spring weather.

The Forme de Ceour tomatoes

We ended up with 9 or 10 transplants. They went into the larger rectangular bed in the old kitchen garden, near the wattle weave bed, with the garlic down the middle, and Red Wethersfield onions interplanted with them.

They, too, absolutely thrived! I’m sure it helped that the sump pump hose was set to drain against the base of the bed, at the high end of the garden. With so much rain this spring, the pump was going off many times a day until well into late summer. Which means this bed got watered from below, frequently, and with our soil drainage, they would never had gotten over watered.

They were also quite prolific, and were among the first to start giving us ripe tomatoes, which my family assures me were quite delicious. They got so heavy with tomatoes that the weight actually broke some of the stakes supporting them!

The Chocolate Cherry tomatoes

There were 7 of these that got transplanted into the chimney block planters at the chain link fence, leaving one empty block for the Goldy zucchini to be planted in.

They grew pretty well, but did not thrive, like the others did. They produces lots of tomatoes, but they were slow to ripen, and few ripened at a time. I now think the chimney block planters themselves may be part of the problem.

The San Marzano tomatoes.

While we started the most of these from seed, an unfortunate falling tray accident did quite a bit of damage.

With the spring weather and inability to work on the main garden beds, I ended up planting the largest and strongest plants into the retaining wall chimney blocks. These blocks have mint in alternative blocks, with chives at one end, so they went into the open alternating blocks.

These did not do well. The plants never got particularly strong or healthy, and they produced few tomatoes.

When a bed was finally ready in the main garden area, the last transplants – the weakest ones – finally got into the ground.

They did fantastic. Even the one that was so spindly, I debated just tossing it rather than transplanting it, recovered and thrive!

I was never able to keep up with pruning these ones, so the side branches soon splayed out in all directions, so the point I was sure they had crushed most of the onions growing in between them. We ended up winding jute twine around the stems until we could lift them up and tie them off to their bamboo supports.

They did not, however start to ripen until very late, and when they did, we never got a lot of them. As a determinate variety, they should have all ripened pretty much at the same time, but they did not.

The Mystery Tomatoes

When harvesting potatoes from the bed along the other section of chain link fence, I uncovered a volunteer tomato. I ended up transplanting it to one end of the bed, so I could harvest the potatoes. It grew quite well, considering how late in the season it showed up. It produce large amounts of small tomatoes. Small enough that I don’t think they were survivors from when we planted a Mosaic Mix of cherry and grape tomatoes, but too big to be the Spoon tomatoes we’ve grown there in another year.

None of them ripened before frost.

Then there were the compost ring tomatoes!

These were from the seeds we dumped into the compost after processing last year’s harvest. The plants got massive. Eventually, I could see some that I could recognize as most likely from the Indigo Blue we grew last year. Others were clearly Roma VF.

But then there were the round ones. We never grew red tomatoes like that. I have no idea where they came from!

How it Ended

So.

Many.

Tomatoes.

With first frost approaching, my daughter and I harvested all the green tomatoes in one evening, along with the last of the winter squash.

Two of those bins are almost all San Marzano. One has Forme de Ceour on the bottom. Two are all the cherry tomatoes, plus a few Forme de Ceour as well – and the last of the patty pans, which you can see beside the cat.

The real surprise was the compost ring.

The plants were so strong and dense, I had to cut them away to reach the tomatoes – and there were so many tomatoes hidden under the foliage! The foliage was so dense, the tomatoes were actually looking blanched.

This bin is just from the compost ring. In one corner, you can see the dark Indigo Blues (most likely). The rest would be the Roma VV.

Those round tomatoes, though, with one looking quite red. I have no idea what they are. We never grew tomatoes like this. We haven’t even bought tomatoes like this in the store!

It’s been months since they were harvested, and we still have a box with ripening tomatoes in it, in the kitchen.

My tomato Conclusion

This was a successful year for most of the tomatoes. As with everything else, they were about a month behind, but most were very prolific.

I don’t know that we’ll be growing tomatoes next year, though.

I don’t eat fresh tomatoes. They make me gag. I can eat them after they’ve been processes, as long as they are a sauce or a paste. My family likes fresh tomatoes.

They are getting sick of tomatoes! 😄

When we weren’t able to process them fast enough, we put whole tomatoes into the freezer to be processed later.

We still have some from last year.

The problem is, they end up buried in the freezer and we don’t get to them.

Hopefully, this winter, we can make a project of processing them, if only to free up space in the freezer!

If we do grow any tomatoes next year, they will likely be another cherry type tomato, and not many of them. Or, we will get more volunteers!

The Potatoes

We bought two new varieties of tomatoes for this year. We got a couple of 3 pound bags of German Butterball, a later season variety, and Purple Caribe, and earlier season variety.

We ended up planting a third variety.

But first, we had to amend soil, to try and increase the acidity.

Once the soil was amended, there were only enough Purple Caribe to plant in 2/3rds of the bed. We still had some Red Thumb fingerlings from last year left – they were looking pretty wizened and sprouty by then! I planted the largest, healthiest looking ones, and the rest went into the compost ring.

It was a while before we were able to plant the German Butterball variety, in one of the low raised beds in the East yard.

How it went

With the Purple Caribe not well at all. About half of them never grew. We had a few plants that we could harvest, leaving two late bloomers to grow as long as possible. There were very few potatoes to harvest.

They were good potatoes, though.

The Red Thumb did much better, which was a real surprise. We got a decent harvest out of them, considering how few were planted.

The German Butterballs were left in the ground for as long as I felt we could get away with. I’m quite happy with the harvest I got out of them, too. We didn’t plant enough to keep for the winter, but we do still have some left now. We’re saving the last of them to have with our Christmas dinner.

Potato Conclusion and thoughts for next year

We are still in the “finding what kind we like” phase with potatoes. I would definitely be okay recommending the German Butterball potatoes. I wish I knew what happened with the Purple Caribe potatoes. This is the second time we’ve tried to grow a caribe type. The first time, the area we planted in got flooded. We had flooding this spring, but where the Purple Caribe failed would not have been affected by it. The Red Thumb fingerlings were a pleasant surprise. These are good potatoes and, clearly, do well when kept and used as a see potato. The only problem is, as a fingerling potato, they are harder to clean and peel for cooking, and just take so much longer to prepare because of that. So while they are good, I think we will move away from fingerling types completely.

Next year, I do want to grow potatoes again. I have just not decided on a variety yet, and am not even sure where I would grow them at this point.

All in all, though, I would consider the potatoes as successful this year, and am happy with what we got.

The Re-Farmer

The Re-Farmer

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

postaday

Not a wasted trip, plus isolation shelter repair

Well, that got weird!

Happy New Year’s Eve!

More driving today… and tomorrow, and the day after, and then…

Enjoying a quiet day

She left me pet her today!

Truck update and an unboxing

So glad we’re not in the city anymore!