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Our 2025 Garden: winter sowing two more beds

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Mission accomplished!

I really wanted to push to get the rest of the seeds in for our 2025 garden. I still had to wait until the afternoon to start, so the ground had time to thaw from overnight frost. From there, it was a race against time to finish before I lost light. I even managed to get some quick footage for an October garden tour video. I haven’t checked the files yet, though, to see if they are worth using.

This is what I was able to get done today:

The first area I worked on was along the chain link fence. The long bed in the first image above was mostly done already, since I’d harvested potatoes out of it. I even found a couple of little potatoes that I’d missed when harvesting.

It still took a remarkably long time to prepare it, though. The section that had the purple caribe potatoes that never grew was compacted like crazy, even though I’d loosened at least part of it, to plant the kohlrabi.

Those actually had some leaves trying to grow! If they hadn’t been eaten by flea beetles, they’d still be growing now.

There was also the lone Jabousek lettuce that had seeded itself and survived being munched by deer. I got a bucket to use to collect the seeds. There was a lot for just one plant! I ended up putting a healthy scoop of them with the remaining root vegetable seeds, giving it a shake to mix them in with the other seeds, potting soil and vermiculite.

I also cleaned up the chimney block planters along the other section of chain link fence a bit. I just took down the tomato supports and cut the tomato plants at their bases, leaving the roots. I will be leaving those as is until spring.

As for the narrow bed, once the soil was loosened, weeded and leveled, I scattered the seed mix. This mix has Dalvay shelling peas, a few King Tut purple peas we saved, Royal Burgundy bush beans, Hopi Black Dye and Mongolian Giant sunflowers and a few black Montano Morado corn seeds I’d saved, plus onion seeds.

The onion seeds are so much smaller, though, I scattered the larger seeds first, which probably included a few onion seeds as well, then went back over the bed to scatter the remaining onion seeds. There wasn’t enough to do the entire bed, though, but I made a modification, later.

First, though, I went over the bed several times, looking for the larger seeds and pushing them into the soil, spreading them further apart, if necessary. When I found the bush beans, I pushed them into the soil closer to the brick edging. If I had to move peas, I pushed them into the soil closer to the chain link fence. The Mongolian Giant seeds were easy enough to see, but the corn and black dye seeds are so dark, they were much more difficult to spot. I’m sure I missed quite a few. I also replanted the two little potatoes that I’d found.

If all goes to plan, the peas will be able to climb either the fence, the corn or the sunflowers, the beans will have room to get bushy along the outside edge of the bed while doubling as ground cover, and the onions will dissuade hungry deer.

Once I’d pushed in as many of the larger seeds as I could find, I got some of the shallots and onions I’d set aside earlier for replanting. I transplanted them around the outer edge of the end that did not get the scattered onion seeds. These shallots and onions are there to go to seed – and to dissuade any hungry deer, I hope! Everything in this bed, except maybe the corn, is stuff deer love to eat!

After planting the shallots and onions, the soil was gently raked to make sure everything was covered before getting mulched with leaves topped with grass clippings.

That left the root vegetable – and now Jabousek lettuce – seeds to sow. Those went into the low raised bed that the German Butterball potatoes had been in, which is in the second photo of the slideshow above.

When the potatoes were harvested, the bed was weeded, and hadn’t been touched since. All it needed was to break up soil clumps, pull out any weed roots that got missed, soil clumps broken up and leveled.

With this higher bed, I did things a bit different. Anything along the walls of the bed would freeze, since the mulch can only protect from the top. So I focused on making sure the middle of the bed was readied for seeds, leaving about 6 inches from the walls unplanted.

This seed mix has Uzbek Golden carrots, Napoli carrots (an orange variety), Merlin, Bresko, Cylindria and Albino beets, French Breakfast, Champion, Cherry Bell and Zlata radishes, Purple Prince turnips and our saved onion and lettuce seeds in it.

It sounds like a lot, but this was finishing off packets of older seeds, so there wasn’t much of each variety, plus I don’t expect a high germination rate for any of them.

Once the seeds were scattered and gently raked over, they got mulched with leaves topped with grass clippings.

That is the last of the winter sowing vegetables to do! The only thing that could still be sown before winter is the wildflower mix, and that could even wait until spring, if I wanted. The space I’ll be planting them is still covered with an insulated tarp, and that won’t need to be moved to cover the septic tank for a while, yet.

While I was working on this, my younger daughter was taking care of things in the house, including re-installing the arm based over the new tub surround. She was able to find a way to fit the big L shaped bar in, as well, though it does make one of the corner shelves in the surround of limited use, now. Which is fine. The arm bar is needed more.

Now that the arm bars are in, my husband can finally use the shower! Even with the bath chair, he can’t get in and out without the arm bars.

My older daughter is not well today, and we’re all pretty broken and hurting, so my daughter offered to get us take out, if I were up to it.

Yes. Yes, I was!

Meanwhile, my brother and his wife were coming over for one last trip – to drop off the trailer they’ve been using to bring everything from their property to wherever it needed to go. They arrived after I left for town, but I was able to see them before they left. Tomorrow is the possession date for the new owners, so they not only pushed hard to get their own stuff out, but to make sure the new owners had things like flax bales to cover their septic field, and a few other things that got set up for them.

One thing they did was take off their “road sign” at their driveway. When the road past our driveway was named for our family, the municipality made five signs, but only needed four, so my brother was allowed to take the extra. They’ve had it at their driveway ever since. It has now been removed.

That sure made things feel a lot more final!

It would be good if we could use it at our intersection. There was one when we moved in, but then the stop sign it was attached to was knocked down and the road sign stolen. We’re pretty sure our vandal did that, but have no way to prove it, but like we can’t prove he stole the sign with my father’s name on it off the corner fence post, or that he stole the trail cam we had mounted on that post.

The municipality never replaced the road sign. I suspect that if we put this one up on the stop sign that got repaired, it would just get stolen, too.

Well, we’ve got our own painted sign at the corner, with a camera on it in case there are more vandalism attempts. That is working out just fine.

There is, of course, still lots more work to get done in the garden, but getting this winter sowing done was the thing that had to get done first. Now, we just do as much as we can while the weather holds. At the same time, my brother will be coming out as often as he is able, as he wants to sort things to their more permanent locations. Particularly the farm equipment, now that the storage trailer is in place. A lot of small things just shoved into the barn that will need to be sorted into the storage trailer or bread truck (which will be a workshop). He also has a dismantled shelter he needs to rebuild over the tractor that got its radiator damaged while lifting the discer off the trailer. It will need to be replaced, and he’s planning ahead to be able to do it during the winter, so having a roof over the tractor will be very important.

Anyhow…

They got here after I left to pick up the food, but I got home fast enough to at least give my brother a hug – my SIL was so exhausted, she fell asleep in their truck! – before they had to go.

We’re going to be seeing a lot more of my brother and, hopefully, his wife from now on!

That makes us very happy.

Getting the last of the winter sowing done today also makes me very happy.

😊😊

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 garden – I hope!

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Yes!!!

It felt so good to get a really productive day outside. It’s been so long!

I did have to wait until the afternoon, when it warmed up to our expected high of 6C/43F. Even so, some of the areas I worked in that were shaded longer were still partially frozen.

The first thing I did was finish off the bed I was working on yesterday. That little section was shaded and still rather frozen, so it took longer than it normally would have. When I was done, I grabbed a nearby roll of plastic that was rolled up and waiting to be put away for the winter and laid it out on the bed, starting from the shaded south end. It wasn’t long enough to cover the entire bed, but all I really wanted was to get the end that got more shade to warm up a bit, once the sun was able to start hitting it.

Once that was done, I shifted to the old kitchen garden and cleared the rectangular be that had the Forme de Couer tomatoes this year. That bed was shaded by the house on one side so it, too, was partially frozen. After clearing it of weeds and mint rhizomes, I grabbed one of the plastic sheets that had protected the eggplants and peppers earlier, and laid it over the soil. This bed is shorter, so the plastic was plenty long enough.

I had decided to use the high raised bed, which is already prepared, and the open section of the garlic bed for winter sowing, so I didn’t need to clear another bed, yet. Leaving the plastic to warm the soil, I headed into the house and started going through my seeds.

I had already considered what I wanted to winter sow earlier, but I’m always flexible on stuff like that.

After going through my seeds, I decided on some ordered chaos.

I’m also going to need to clear one more bed.

Most of the seeds I will be sowing are older seeds, so I don’t expect a very high germination rate for some of them. I also decided to include some additions.

Here are the beds I was able to finish planting before it started getting too dark.

The first image of the slideshow above is in the old kitchen garden. With that theme in mind, I’ve got more “kitchen” greens. These include:

– spinach – four different varieties
– Swiss chard – two different varieties
– Shallots – saved seed collected from a lone surviving shallot a couple of years ago
– Kohlrabi – both purple and green
– Hedou Tiny bok choi – we got these as free seeds a couple of years ago, but they were smothered by elm tree seeds after they sprouted. A couple of seedling survived and bolted, so I let them go to seed and saved them.

Lastly, I included some onion seeds collected this year. Hopefully including the onions and shallots will keep the deer and damaging insects away.

These and another group of smaller seeds were added to a repurposed herb/spice shaker container, along with some seed start mix and vermiculite I had left over from starting seeds indoors in the spring, and given a thorough shaking.

After emptying this container into the old kitchen garden bed, it was mulched with a thick, insulating layer of leaves that was topped with some grass clippings, as was done with the garlic already planted.

In the next image, you’ll see the bed I had started on last night. This one is now a summer squash bed. Years ago I had accidentally bought three collections of summer squash when I meant to get just one. We’ve been using the seeds for several years now, but they are starting to get old. The only new seeds were the White Scallop patty pan squash. The others are Sunburst (a yellow patty pan), Endeavor (green zucchini), Goldy (yellow zucchini) and Magda (mottled pale greens, similar to zucchini). I don’t expect much for a germination rate for the older seeds.

With these larger seeds, I scattered them from end to end on the bed, then pushed each one into the soil, spreading them out more evenly in the process, used a rake to gently cover them over, then mulched with leaves and grass clippings.

The next two photos – the remaining end of the garlic bed and the high raised bed – have root vegetables, plus protective onion seeds. These include:

– the last loose seeds of Uzbek Golden carrot (I still have the home made seed tape of those)
– pelleted Napoli carrot
– beets – three red varieties left over from before, plus a white Albino variety given to me
– Purple Prince turnip
– radishes – three red varieties left over from before, plus a yellow variety given to me.

Plus, protective onion seeds were added as well.

I used the shaker over the small area next to the garlic, but I honestly couldn’t tell if any seeds got out. I mulched it anyhow, but when I got to doing the high raised bed, I took the shaker lid off and just scattered the mix. I could at least see the pelleted carrot seeds! This bed is shorter, and I ended up not finishing off the container. I’ll find somewhere else to sow the rest of the seeds.

After mulching the high raised bed, I moved the wire cover onto it for winter storage. The wire is open enough that it won’t prevent snow from covering the bed, and the snow is an important part of this winter sowing process.

This left me with two containers of seeds. I decided to plant the flower seeds. I wanted those in the main garden area and decided to use the space by the high raised bed where the pumpkins and drum gourds had been planted. It’s a small space and did not take long to clean up. That last space got:

– Butterfly Flower: Orange shades (a milkweed) that I tried starting indoors this past spring, but never got to direct sowing the rest.
– Forget Me Nots – given to me by a friend
– Nasturtium; Dwarf Jewel Mix – I got those this year and never got around to planting them.

I look forward to (hopefully) have a busy patch of flowers for the pollinators in the main garden area next year! The Nasturtium should also act as a trap crop, luring in insects that might harm some of the other plants.

For flowers, I also have two packages of Western wildflowers mix. I have an area along the edge of the maple grove that has been covered with the insulated tarp, folded in half, since it was taken off the septic tank lid in the spring. I’m hoping that did the job of killing off any weeds under it. Once the tarp is removed, that is where I intend to plant the wildflower mix. It has 16 varieties of annuals and perennials native to Western Canada in it.

I am now left with one last container of seeds to plant, but I was losing light and need to prepare another bed for them. This container has:

– Dalvay peas, including seeds I collected from the ones we planted this past year
– King Tut purple peas; from collected seeds
– Royal Burgundy bush beans
– Hopi Black Dye sunflowers – just one of the two packages I had
– Mongolian Giant sunflowers – I had only one packet of those
– a small number of Montana Morado corn. We’d grown them a couple of years ago and left them to go to seed, as we were going to test grinding them into flour, only to have the cats dump the entire bowl of collected seed. I managed to salvage a few seeds – less than a dozen.

I chose this combination so that the peas could climb the sunflowers, while the pole beans can shade the ground. This group of seeds did also get onion seeds added to it. Everything in here is prone to being eaten by deer, so I’m hoping the onions will be enough of a turn off for them.

After talking to my daughter about it, we figured the place to plant this is in the long, narrow bed along the chain link fence. It’s mostly clear already, as it had potatoes in it this past year. There’s just one self seeded tomato plant still needing to be cleaned up. Plus, the kittens have been using it as a litter box, so that needs to be cleaned out, too.

So that is my plan for tomorrow. To get that last group of seeds winter sown seeds in. Then, I’m hoping to get a bit more clean up before taking the garden tour video I’d originally intended to take in the middle of the month. This will be the last garden tour video of the year.

In the spring, once the snow is melted away, the mulch on all of these will need to be removed, to allow the soil to warm up and the seeds to germinate. If all goes to plan, this will give us a head start to our 2025 garden.

With most of these, I completely finished off the seeds I had left from previous years. I still have plenty of other things that can be started indoors, and others for direct sowing.

Next year’s garden will be very, very different from how this year’s garden turned out. Not having four 18′ beds dedicated to winter squash and melons is going to make quite the difference! We will be planting fewer tomatoes next year, too.

Even if this winter sowing experiment doesn’t turn out turn out, I could get away with not buying any new seed this winter.

I will still buy more seed, of course! Just probably not until a month or two from now. I’ve already got my eye on some rare heritage breeds that I’d like to grow, if only to help keep the varieties going.

Mostly, though, I’d like to finally get some new beds started, and get at least one permanent trellis built.

If the weather holds.

We shall see.

I’m just happy with the progress I got today!

The Re-Farmer

First stock up shop: this is what $374 total looks like

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Today (or, should I say, yesterday, by the time this is published!) I headed into the city to do the first of our stock up shopping trips. I was using the car loaned to us while our truck was being repaired, so it was not at large as it would have been, if we were using the truck.

My first stop was the international grocery store, where I had breakfast – Dim Sum and a drink cost just over $20 – before I started shopping.

This is what $147.62 looks like.

Yeah. That little cart load is almost $150.

This store is where we tend to get some things I would consider treats, though.

The coconut milk was on sale, and my daughters like to use it, so I got a couple of cans. The evaporated milk is for my younger daughter’s baking. They also requested the jar of Lao Gan Ma chili sauce.

The Coke Zero is for myself and my husband, while the Cranberry Ginger Ale is for my daughters – buying both got me the sale price.

My older daughter requested the Monsters, but they are for both my daughters, plus myself, and I took advantage of another 2-for- sale to get 6 cans. The cases were not on sale; just individual cans.

For meat, I got the locally produced smoked bacon slab, some pork chops and some ground beef.

The two types of Gouda are treats. I can’t remember if we’ve tried Forest Mushroom before, but we certainly haven’t tried Smokey BBQ before!

I got an extra bottle of my husband’s favourite soy sauce. For my daughters, I got a couple of cartons of oat milk – the brand of soy milk we used to get is having issues and has started to go bad very quickly, so they’ve requested oat milk in another brand. I thought I was getting plain, but got vanilla, instead! They mostly use it in their tea, though, so that works.

I picked up some black teas that were on sale – a variety pack, plus Irish Breakfast, which was not included in the variety pack. I got a flat of eggs that should last us until we do our Costco shopping, were I get double flats of eggs. I also remembered to grab some recycling bags. They’re smaller than what we need, but it was the largest size they had, and we are completely out. I’ll pick up our usual size bags at Costco.

Using my loyalty card saved me $18.54, which isn’t too bad, I guess.

I had considered hitting a Superstore after this, but I was messaging with the garage and with my SIL about getting our truck home, so I decided to skip it and went straight to Walmart.

This is what $226.69 – including a $10 donation – looks like.

Yeah, that cart looks even emptier.

This is what I got.

The big expenses were the wet and dry cat food. I just got one bag of kibble for the inside cats. I will get more at Costco. For the outside cats, I get 40 pound bags at the feed stores.

Thee was an excellent sale on whole chickens, so I got two. I also found plain oat milk for my daughters – at a better price, too. It’s the same brand.

I got packages of sliced turkey and sliced ham for sandwiches. The light rye bread has gone down in price, so I picked up 4 loaves for now. Oh, and I grabbed a couple of cheeses – Havarti and Old Cheddar.

In the non-food category, my daughters requested some personal care products they will pay me back for later. I also got a 15′ extension cord rated flexible to -40C/F This will replace the one we currently have plugged into an outlet inside the cat house. The current one can have only one thing plugged into it, and it’s used for one heated water bowl. A second one is in the sun room, and now we have a third.

So these two shops came to a total of $374.31, including taxes and a donation.

On the way home, I picked up a bag of kibble at the feed store, which came out to just over $63 after taxes. Next time, I’ll go to the feed store to the north of us, where they have a brand that costs less, and the cats seem to enjoy more. Variety is good, though.

Adding in the feed store kibble and the food, that brings things up to about $457. Plus, I filled the tank on the loaned car for $38 and change, then put $30 of gas into the truck after we picked that up, though my CAA card gave me a bit of a discount. Gas prices had dropped to $1.279 today, so that helped. All in all, we’re looking at $525 total, give or take some change, for the day.

Oh, and another $320 for truck repairs and an oil change, bringing our total spending for the day up to about $845. My daughter will be covering the cost of the truck repairs later, though, so at least that will be going back into the budget!

The next trip to the city for our Costco shop won’t be for a few days. Possibly not until after the weekend. We’ll see how things work out.

If nothing else, it’ll give more time to catch up on getting things done for the winter, outside!

The Re-Farmer

We have a truck again – and hot water!

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Woohoo, what a day!!!

I hadn’t heard from the garage about the status of our truck, but today was my day to do our first stock up shopping trip (which will get its own post later). Once I was in the city, I texted our mechanic and let him know I had a reliable signal, so he could update me whenever he had the chance.

Long story short, it was fixed and getting its oil change, and would be ready soon.

Yay!

Now, to get the truck, I was thinking I would have to do it another day, as I would first be driving to the city to get my SIL, then we’d drive back to the garage, pay and get the keys, then my SIL would take their car to their home and I’d take the truck to ours.

Well, after much messaging between my brother and his wife, and the garage, it was worked out to get it done today! My brother was bringing one last load here to the farm, with my SIL coming along to help me get the truck, but they weren’t going to make it until well after the garage closed.

With a discount for paying in cash, the total was $320. On the way home from the city I still had to stop at the feed store for a 40 pound bag of cat food to tide us over until my husband’s main disability pay comes in. A branch of my bank is in the same town, so I got the cash, then drove to the garage to pay for the work and get the keys before they closed, leaving the truck until I could come back with me SIL.

I was able to briefly talk to the mechanic about the truck. It turned out to be probable the best of all possible scenarios.

The oil pump’s sensor needing replacing.

He said this is so common, he changes out about one of these every week – which is a lot for a town this size.

There is no damage to the engine at all, which is a HUGE relief.

From there, I finally went home to unload the shopping of the day, then had a quick supper. I took advantage of the daylight to work on a garden bed until my brother and his wife arrived. She and I then left pretty much immediately to get the truck.

Their car is a sweet ride, but it sure felt good to be driving our truck again!

After a quick stop to add a bit of gas, I headed home – absolutely paranoid about all the gauges and lights and warnings a long the way!

It was fine. Apparently, this is why the check engine light had been on, too.

Once we got back, we helped my brother unload. When things were mostly done, my SIL headed home ahead of him – it was already full dark by then. While this is the last load for the farm, they still have a few more things to take care of on their property before the new owners officially take possession of it.

I continued helping my brother until it was all done. The only down side was when I popped the tailgate back onto the trailer. It’s made to slide down channels on the sides, but if it doesn’t drop straight, one end tends to catch. That happened and when I got it loose, it dropped straight down.

Right onto the tips of two of my fingers!

One of them is now quite swollen, making typing rather difficult! 😄

Once everything was closed up and put away, my wonderful, awesome, amazing brother took the time to work on our hot water tank!

The first thing he did was use a different handle for the socket, and was able to get the old anode rod out, while I held the tank in place as best I could. Once those tanks are empty, they are really quite light!

The anode rod was longer than there’s space above the tank, so he had to bend it to get it out. It was quite covered in crud, of course. I honestly expected it to look worse.

Once that was done, it was a relatively simple matter to install the powered rod (not an affiliate link). This is how it looks now.

The rod itself is a lot shorter than what we pulled out, so that made it easier to install. It sticks out a lot further than I expected. There is a ground wire now attached to one of the screws around the top of the tank.

Then it was time to remove the elements.

When he tested it with his meter before, the top one was out. He didn’t have his meter with him this time, but I was sure the bottom one was also burnt out.

After removing the wires, it was quite easy to get the top element out. After making sure the threads were clean and clear, the new element was installed and wired up again.

Then it was time to take out the bottom element.

Wow. That was… something.

It wasn’t difficult to unscrew it, but once my brother starting trying to pull it out, it did NOT want to come out. It was completely covered in crud! He kept having to twist it back and forth to break off the crud and try to pull it out, little by little. It turned out to be longer than expected – and then there was a bend at the end!

Once he got it out completely, we could see that it was supposed to be bent back on itself, but it was so full of crud that, as my brother pulled it out, he actually straightened the element out in the process.

After he pulled it out, he bent it back like it was originally supposed to be – sort of.

Here is the old and new elements.

Yes, they are different elements; this part number for the new one is the number I was given by the company for the bottom element.

Here are all three parts. Instagram cuts off part of the photo, so you can’t see the tip of the anode rod, which has even more crud on it than the rest.

The straight element it from the top. That’s the one that was dead when my brother tested them. How the bottom one was still live at the time, I have no idea! That one was so encased in crud!

The new powered anode rod is supposed to keep that from happening again. Or, at least, not so quickly. This tank was installed only a year ago! The shorted life span of any of the tanks we had – though the previous ones started leaking from their bases somewhere inside, and this one hasn’t.

Once everything was installed, it was time to start filling the tank.

When there was enough water in it, we allowed it to drain out the bottom, to take some of the crud out with it. We didn’t see a lot, though.

As the tank filled, we ran the hot water at the old laundry sink in the basement, while my daughter ran all the hot water taps upstairs, to get the air out of the pipes and clear out more crud. Once the tank was full, we did it again, before finally asking my daughter to turn on the breaker. We also plugged in the powered anode rod.

My brother waited a while longer, checking the elements to make sure nothing was leaking, etc. He couldn’t stay until the entire tank heated up, though, and left soon after.

We do now have hot water, though! In fact, it’s now so hot, we might want to turn the thermostat down on the tank!

No more heating pots and kettles of water, for dishes and sponge bathing!

We’re all so paranoid of things breaking, though, no one has dared to take a shower, yet. 😄

Meanwhile, with this new powered anode rod, we should also no longer have that sulfur smell from the hot water. We’d been treating the tank with hydrogen peroxide to get rid of it, but it never lasted long. Eventually, we just stopped bothering, and put up with the smell.

I am so glad my brother was able to take the time to help us with this. Especially when they have so much going on with their move right now. In retrospect, while we might have been able to do it ourselves to a certain point, when it came to getting that bottom element out, we could not have done it. I’ve lost so much grip strength due to arthritis, I couldn’t have done it. My younger daughter injured her wrist while installing the tub surround, and both my daughters have all the joint issues that comes with PCOS. My husband, of course, is the most broken of all of us, and shouldn’t even be doing the stairs.

My brother is the best!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 garden! Garlic is planted, and clean up continues

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Yay!!

Today, we were expected to hit 15C/69F, making it the last really warm day of the year. We’re expected to his 11C/52F in a few days, that that will likely be the last double digit Celsius temperatures we’ll get.

My goal was to get the garlic into the bed that was already about half prepared and covered with plastic, to see if we’d be able to get any solarization happening.

There was a slight side trip, though. The rescue had ordered a kibble donation from Amazon that was supposed to arrive tomorrow. Amazon deliveries – at least those sent by mail – tend to come early, so I went to the post office, just in case.

I’m happy to say, they were there! I don’t know what kind of promo or coupon the Cat Lady took advantage of, but it was for three smaller (compared to what we usually get) bags of indoor cat food.

The outdoor cats don’t care!

When I let her know, with thanks, that the kibble had arrived, the Cat Lady told me they now have FIVE large bags of kibble for us! That is so amazing! The challenge right now is to stock up extra kibble for the winter, in case we find ourselves unable to get out. I do not want to run out again!

The outside cats, however, have enjoyed their warm morning kibble softened in sludgy bone broth (I removed the meat from the bones, put it back in the stock, then blitzed it with the immersion blender) so much, I’ve got more being made in the slow cooker right now, since the last of the first batch was finished this morning.

The kibble picked up – and a feeding done so I could drive out of the yard again – it was time to get to the garden.

First job: preparing the rest of the bed.

The first image in the above slideshow is the “before” picture. The second picture if after removing the plastic, and the grass clipping mulch in the part that needed to be cleaned up.

The part that was covered in plastic did have a few weeds in it, but didn’t need much work to get that cleaned up. The rest of it had one really bad patch of crab grass, but was otherwise pretty good – except for the very end, where some Creeping Charlie was staring to invade.

There were also elm tree roots, of course.

And rocks. There’s always rocks!

I wanted to amend this bed with some trench composting. I made the trench in the middle, from one end to the other, with the spade. The soil in this bed is not anywhere near as compacted as I’ve had issues with in other beds, so no actual digging was needed.

This was a good time to remove more weed and elm tree roots.

And rocks.

Then I used the landscaping rake to widen and level the trench some more, while also removing more roots.

And rocks.

So many rocks!

The next photo shows the filled trench. I took advantage of this and emptied the compost buckets from the kitchen directly into it. Then I pilfered the compost pile, taking most of the Crespo squash vines that were in there.

Last of all, I scattered some dried grass clippings over the whole thing, then tromped back and forth on it a few times, to tamp it down.

That done, the soil was pulled back over the compost materials, evened out and leveled. For some reason, there was quite a bit more soil at the south end (away from the elm trees) than the north end.

There was still some bits of squash vines poking through, but that’s okay.

In the process of all this, I did find little surprises!

There were three yellow bulbing onions that had been missed, and a whole bunch of little shallots! These will be transplanted elsewhere and allowed to go to seed, next year.

Finally, it was time to plant garlic!

I’d selected a dozen of our biggest garlic bulbs from this year’s garden to plant. As these beds will eventually be framed with logs (at least, that’s still the plan!), the actual growing space is being kept fairly narrow. That makes it a lot easier to reach with my short little arms! 😄

After laying out the garlic bulbs in short rows of three, they didn’t make it all the way to the end of the bed. I will find something else to plant in the remaining empty space.

When I pause to take a photo, though, I realized something.

Garlic grows relatively shallow. Which means they won’t be affected by the elm tree roots at the north end of the bed, where there are the most roots.

So I moved the garlic from the South end of the bed to the North end.

Once the garlic was laid out, it was just a matter of pushing the root end into the soil. Once they were all in, I used the back of a fan rack to cover them.

After just a couple of passes, I stopped and got a broken piece of bamboo stake to mark how far the garlic was planted in the south end of the bed. Once the soil was raked over the cloved, there was no other way to tell how far they went!

Once the garlic was covered, I raked up several wheel barrow loads of leaves to created a nice, thick insulating mulch. Then I topped that with a thin layer of grass clippings, more to weight the leaves down, so they don’t get blown away!

After that was done, I took the time to rake in between most of the garden beds. While weeding, I generally toss the weeds and roots into the path. I wanted to get rid of that, so things like crab grass didn’t accidentally end up back in the low raised beds.

At that point, I didn’t have the energy for more digging and bending, so the next bed had to wait.

Instead, I started working on the old kitchen garden.

I didn’t bother taking any before shots.

I was quite surprised by what I was seeing in the wattle weave bed. The wild strawberries are looking quite green and healthy. The thyme was also looking great, and the chamomile actually had some fresh flowers blooming!

In the second picture of the above slideshow, you can see my garden helper. 😁

I’m saving the plastic rings that went around the tomato and luffa plants to use another season. I quite liked how that worked out.

The bed with the Forme de Couer tomatoes had a soaker hose in it. Once the tomato plants were removed, I took that out. I don’t know that I’ll use it again. It took forever to do any level of watering, and I’m not sure why. It’s possible our super hard water is clogging pores.

All the support takes were gathered up and set aside, except for the two broken ones I’m using to hold the plastic rings. The tomato and luffa plants were pulled and set aside – they will likely be trench composted, too.

That that was as far as I got today.

I’ll have to weed the tiny raised bed again. I see all sorts of grass coming through the mulch. I’m thinking of planting the remaining Red Wethersfield onions that I found among the Forme de Couer tomatoes in or near the tiny raised bed. These will also be allowed to go to seed, so I want to find a permanent spot for them.

The long, narrow bed against the retaining wall needs a bit of work, and I’m thinking of replacing the very crooked top log with wattle weave, if I can find enough materials to do it.

By this time, I had to stop. I’d completely forgotten to eat lunch, and it was getting to be supper time!

I won’t be able to continue this tomorrow. CPP Disability comes in tomorrow, so I’ll be heading into the city for our first stock up shopping trip. I’ll be using the car my brother and SIL lent to us. We haven’t heard from the garage about the truck. I think I’ll phone them in the morning. At this point, all I want to know is what’s wrong with it, and an estimate on getting things fixed. When the time comes to pick up the repaired truck, I will need to drive to the city first, to get my SIL, drive back with her to get the truck, then I can take the truck home while she takes their car back to the city.

Speaking of which, I was expecting them to drop off another load today, but I haven’t heard from them at all. There was just small stuff left. Perhaps they decided to take it to their new place, instead. They were talking about coming here, though, and my brother was going to look at the hot water tank for us after unloading. I’m quite surprised to have not heard anything from them, either way.

Well, they certainly have their hands full right now, so maybe that’s not surprising after all.

I’m just happy I got my main goal for today accomplished.

Our garlic for next year is in!

There is still lots to do. While things are expected to be cooler, the next couple of weeks should still be mild enough to get more garden beds ready for the winter, and to try our winter sowing experiment. I’m thinking I might do one or two went sown beds in the main garden area and, maybe do a third bed in the old kitchen garden.

I’ll have to go through my seeds and decide which to plant together, where. I plan to do a sort of organized guerilla gardening. I’ll be selected in what gets planted where, but once it’s time to plant, the seeds will be mixed together and scattered about.

But first, the beds need to be prepared, and there’s going to be just a few days when I’ll be able to work on it before things start to get too cold! Once the winter sowing is done and mulched, the other beds can be done at a more leisurely pace.

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-farmer.

Well, I didn’t get the progress I intended…

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But I did get progress!

My original plan for today was to get a garden bed ready to plant garlic in.

I ended up going into town, instead. My daughter’s transfer from PayPal went through, and she sent me the funds for two new heat elements for the hot water tank. Then, since I was in town anyhow, I make a quick stop at the grocery store to refill our big water jugs.

We still don’t have hot water, though.

Using the large socket set my brother loaned us, we first tried a practice run on removing the anode rod from one of the old tanks.

It would not come loose, no matter what. The socket wrench in this set had an extra long handle, so torque wasn’t the problem. It could also slide so that you can grab it from both sides of the socket.

Nothing.

This was an old tank that died a year ago, so perhaps that was part of the problem?

The current hot water tanks’ breaker is off, but I still double checked before setting it to drain completely. After a while, we tried to take out the original anode rod.

Nope. It was not moving. We also had the extra challenge of the tank trying to spin around, but not being able to hold it in place as easily as with the tank was wasn’t right up against a wall.

So that got set aside. I’m going to have to ask my brother for help with that.

We popped open the panels to access the elements, but ended up not doing anything. I just don’t want to take chances with anything electrical and, since we need my brother’s help anyhow, it would just be easier on my mind to leave it for him.

What I could do, though, was start setting up for the powered anode rod. It came with a 12 foot power cord. That was long enough to reach the outlet the sump pump is plugged into. I set up hooks to hold up the cord along the floor joists for the bathroom floor, while also keeping it away from the various water and drainage pipes, and still have a bit of slack at either end.

At times like this, it’s handy that the old basement’s ceiling is more than a foot lower than the new basement. Short little me can reach without any problem!

Meanwhile, we were kept up to date on how things were going for my brother and SIL. By the time they loaded the two trailers, their truck and their friend’s SUV, it was past 4pm by the time they could leave!

I made sure the gate was open for them. Then, when it was getting close to the time I expected them to arrive, I headed outside. I wasn’t going to be able to start preparing a garden bed to plant garlic in, but I could at least work on the small bed the Crespo squash was planted in. The A frame trellis, with its cross piece broken by the weight of a squash, and its netting was still there. I got the A frame parts and pieces unsecured and set with the stakes from the beds in the main garden area. Once all of the stakes, posts, nets, ties, etc. are gathered up, they’ll be sorted and bundled before being put into the old garden shed for the winter. There are a lot of broken bamboo stakes this year, but I might be able to use some of them for other things.

Once the stakes used to make the A frame trellis were set aside, it was time to clear the net of squash vines and pole beans. That took the longest to get done!

Once the net was bundled up and set with the rest of the stuff for winter storage, I pulled the rest of the squash vines out of the bed. The compost ring is, handily, right beside this bed.

I was just pulling the supports for the peppers in the bed beside it, when vehicles and trailers pulled in. By the time I set the supports aside and joined them, they already had one trailer backed up to the barn, both sets of doors open, and were already unloading.

With the four of us working together, unloading went very quickly, all things considered. Still, with two trailers and both vehicles loaded, we lost light quickly.

We got to enjoy another beautiful sunset, though!

Not as brilliantly orange and red as yesterday, but still very dramatic and gorgeous!

With the possession date on their sold property coming up fast, they just put everything into the barn, even though some of it will need to be moved out to their storage trailer and the old bread truck that will become a workshop. My brother is going to have to sort through and organize things later one. That’s going to be a huge job!

Even with all this going on, they had us in mind. Yesterday, we had the extra lumber that they gave us for our small building projects, as well as a heated water bowl from when they had dogs. Today, it was traps! They have two live animal traps. One is smaller; they used it for squirrels getting into their sheds. It’s big enough for a small cat. The other is a larger, two door trap that’s the next size up. After putting those in the garage, I made sure to message the Cat Lady. She was going to lend us a trap so catch the feral females for spaying, but the last person they lent it to hasn’t returned it. Now, we have two! That will come in very handy over the winter. The goal is to trap and spay as many of the feral females as we can before they go into heat in the spring.

If all goes well, the cat isolation shelter will get good use this winter!

Once everything was unloaded, they had to leave right away. Hopefully, tomorrow will be their last loads out here – at least, the last ones that need trailers to haul out!

Which means my goal of getting a garlic bed prepared and planted has been shifted to tomorrow.

It’s supposed to be warmer tomorrow, anyhow!

Another delay, but considering it meant getting that much closer to having hot water again, plus helping my brother and SIL out, it was worth it!

The Re-Farmer

Gorgeous!

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We got to enjoy an amazing sunset tonight!

The camera on my phone was actually able to pick up the colours, just as we were seeing them.

Best of all, I got to enjoy the view with my brother, his wife and a friend. They were unloading trailers, and we all had to stop for a few moments to appreciate the incredible sky.

We live in a truly beautiful area.

The Re-Farmer

Finally home

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Today it was arranged for me to go back to my mother’s place to help her with basic home stuff. These are the things my mother needs help with, but that Home Care out here doesn’t provide. Light housekeeping. Laundry. That sort of thing.

Of course, I stared my day with my morning rounds. This morning, I used some stock from the crockpot in the liquid I used to soak kibble for the outside cats.

Oh, my goodness, did they ever love it!

The kibble I picked up recently was the Walmart economy brand – we needed quantity over quality, this time. It didn’t absorb as much liquid as some other brands we’ve tried. That made carrying the bowl I use, without sloshing everywhere, rather more challenging! Of course, the first trays I add food to are in the sun room, and it’s easier to just put the bowl down in the middle of the floor and start scooping.

Thankfully, the scoop I have is larger and fairly deep, so scooping so much liquid works fine.

Of course, as soon as the bowl was on the floor, it was inundated by cats, already starting to eat, which made for another challenge to scooping it out!

This time, though, the cats were for more interested in the excess liquid. Hoo boy, where they ever excited with this treat!

This is definitely something we want to do more often. Especially in the winter, when not only having warm food first thing in the morning will be a help, so will the extra fat and nutrients in the liquid.

After the morning errands and breakfast were done, my first stop was the post office. Our powered anode rod has been in for a while, but we haven’t been able to pick it up until today. I was also able to mail my mother’s payment for her ambulance bill; she doesn’t trust her local post office, nor does she trust their outside mail box. She says some of her mail to Poland never arrived, and she’s convinced the staff at the local post office kept it back, because one of them mistook a letter she was sending as being to Ukraine, rather than Poland. As for the outside mail box, it got stolen and broken into, some time before we moved out here, so more than 7 years ago.

🫤

Anyhow. It’s sent, and hopefully, it’s made out to the right name, because there was nothing on the bill to specify who to make a check out to, since hardly anyone uses checks anymore.

With all that, plus a quick stop for some gas, I got to my mother’s at about 11, which is the time I normally get there when I’m planning to run errands for her. I did pick up a treat to go with our tea, though.

I was there for just a few minutes when my cell phone started ringing. That happens so rarely, I’m always surprised by it. 😄 It turned out to be our mechanic. When I called about having our truck towed to them, I spoke to one of his employees, as he wasn’t there, nor was he there when the truck was dropped off. He just found a note with the keys and my phone number on it, so he wanted to know why it was towed in!

I explained to him what happened and what we did, just to get the truck home. After hearing that, his initial thought was that some gunk got into the switch – that’s now three different people who have suggested this being the most likely reason the alert kept going, and the pressure gauge kept dropping, even after we’d added as much oil as we did. I told him we were already planning to book an oil change (after we had to cancel it when I booked it about a month and a half ago), with a diagnostic to figure out why the check engine like was on. My OBD II scanner gives several possible reasons, not nothing definitive. Once he had that information, he could take a look at it and know what he was looking for!

I haven’t heard from him since then, so that tells me he wasn’t able to do that today. This is something he would do in between other customer bookings, when he has a bay open, so that could take a while.

Of course, my mother was hearing bits and pieces of the call, so she was wondering about how that was going, so I explained it a bit before we got to work.

One of the first things she asked me to do was to check the schedule in the laundry room. It turns out her apartment was blocked off for 1-3pm. There two other apartments blocked off for the morning, but no one was doing laundry at the time. Lunch hour wasn’t blocked off for anyone on any day. We figured it would be fine to start early – but maybe not too early.

After getting her laundry out and sorting it the way she wanted, we settled in for some tea and conversation until her Meals on Wheels was delivered. The volunteer delivering it was one of the social workers that comes regularly for planned activities. When she got there, she told my mother that someone from Home Care had come out yesterday, but she wasn’t home. We asked what time, and she said at about 1pm.

My mother’s appointment in the city was at 1pm!

Normally if there is something going on, Home Care calls me, first, as I am the primary contact person. If they did, I could have told them my mother wasn’t going to be home at that time, but no one called either of us. All the social worker knew was that it was something about meals, and not about my mother’s medical assist visits.

They really should have called first. The social worker figures they’ll try and stop by again, later, but when she first brought it up, it sounded like she thought my mother had an appointment with them, then skipped out on it. We figure it has something to do with the bulk meal preparation we were originally going to get for my mother, until she decided to go with Meals on Wheels instead. I think the Meals on Wheels is the better choice for her. I don’t think she could tolerate someone preparing and packing up meals in her apartment for 2 hours for very long, even if it was every two weeks. Plus, she is so happy with the Meals on Wheels food she is getting!

After she had her lunch, we made up a grocery shopping list for her, then I started her laundry. Her building has two washers and two driers, so I got both washers going, then headed out to do her grocery shopping. With having prepared meals delivered three days a week, it reduces her grocery list a fair bit, so I was done, back and put everything away before the washing machines were done!

After her first loads went into the drier and her last load was started, I took advantage of her watching daily mass on TV and did some sweeping and dishwashing and whatever else I could see that needed doing, then sat and finished watching mass with her.

I did have a bit of a mystery that got solved while I was sweeping up.

Shortly after I got there, and I got the call from the garage while she was getting dressed for the day, I saw her taking a bucket of urine from her room to the bathroom. I figured she was finally using the commode in her room, but couldn’t see it. While sweeping in her bedroom, I saw that it was gone, and there was a table where it used to be.

It turned out to be in the living room, covered with a cloth and being used as a table.

I don’t understand why she refuses to use the commode. Her bucket fits perfectly into the pan it comes with, so she doesn’t have to struggle to remove a pan that would need to be carried with two hands. Instead, she’s squatting over a bucket? With her wrecked knees? I just don’t get it!

Well, we can’t force her to use the thing, I guess.

While sweeping, I also found one of the traps left by the exterminator and checked it out. There were plenty of insects stuck in it – it’s that time of year, when more of them come into the warmth – but no sign of bed bugs that I could tell. I was looking closely while going through her laundry and while sweeping, too. Nothing. The exterminators still need to come one more time, and she should have gotten the notification letter telling her when they’ll be coming by now, but she hasn’t mentioned anything to any of us.

We’ll have to be on top of this, so we don’t have a repeat of her almost getting herself evicted for refusing to let them in.

Anyhow…

My mother had told me she would fold her laundry herself, but I did that for her. I was going to need the basket for her last load, anyhow. She also had some things that were too heavy for her that I moved, and others that needed to be tucked up higher than she could reach for winter storage.

All in all, I was there for about five hours. My mother was really tired by then, too. She’s still having trouble sleeping at night, but with all this going on, she wasn’t able to nap during the day, either. She was still going to get two medical assists for her medications, with one of them typically about an hour after the time I left, so not much point in trying to nap then!

After leaving my mother’s, I made a quick stop at the grocery store for a few groceries to tide us over until CPP Disability comes in next week.

Once at home and heading to the house, an absolute army of cats came out to see me, clearly looking for supper! I left my daughter to put away the groceries and mail, then headed out to give the cats their evening feeding.

They were very happy kitties!

Especially this one.

This one is black with a white blaze on his chest – no other white that I can see – and I call him Midnight. He is friendly enough that, once we are able to get more of the females spayed, we will be able to easily catch to get neutered.

That reminds me. I want to find more breakaway collars to put on the cats that get fixed, so we can spot the ones that are done right away. I did pick up a collar recently to try out, not realizing until I went to remove the packaging that it was not actually a breakaway collar. With outside cats, I won’t use any other type, as the risk of them getting caught on something and choking is too high. So far, I’ve only found them at a local dollar store. Hopefully they will have more, the next time I get there. I got four of them, but only Syndol still has his. I think I put the other ones on too loosely. Since then, Gouda was neutered, but he and Rolando Moon are the only orange cats we have right now, so there’s no mistaking them for other cats.

So that was how things went today. Hopefully, over the next few days, I can stay home for a change and finally get work done outside! At this point, the very least I want to get done (besides finally harvesting the potatoes and sunchokes) is plant a bed of garlic. Anything I mange to get finished beyond then, as far as the winter sowing I’m hoping to do, is gravy.

I just need to have a few days at home, with no running around, to do it!

Wish me luck!

The Re-Farmer

“You’re mother is dying.”

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No.

No, she isn’t.

But that’s what she told me when I got a call from her this morning.

This is starting to become a common refrain, unfortunately.

My schedule for today included heading to my mother’s nice and early, so I could drive her to the city. She had an afternoon appointment for another eye injection *shudder* to try and stop the bleeding of her wet macular degeneration and maybe – just maybe – improve her vision in that eye.

I tried to get more information about what was going on, but just got repeats of her usual. Her breathing. She only got 2 hours of sleep, and it’s because of her pills (it’s not because of her pills). Her chest pains (acid reflux). Pain in general. Even her incontinence. She’s convinced she is dying.

On the one hand, I get it. I totally get it! She feels like crap, and the idea of driving 1 1/2 hours to an appointment that would take at least an hour, then another 1 1/2 hours drive back, would seem overwhelming.

She’s 93 years old with busted up knees.

Yeah, I get it.

On the other hand, she has no understanding of just how good she is doing. I mean, she’s really amazing. At this age, her sister was already in the nursing home, being shuttled around in a wheelchair, and falling deep into dementia for several years. There are people far younger than her that are doing far worse.

Plus, canceling and appointment like this at the last minute is a big deal. There is only one place that does these treatments, and if she wants to retain any vision in that eye (she did say she was noticing an improvement), she needs these treatments.

Her response was, what does it matter, if she’s going to die, anyway?

She tried to guilt me, saying that I didn’t believe her. I told her, it’s not that I don’t believe her, in how she feels. I’m trying to understand why she thinks she’s dying. Because, really, there is nothing new in her complaints. That’s what I keep trying to get to. What is happening that’s different, that’s convincing her she’s about to die any at any minute.

In the end, she said she wasn’t going to say anymore and was going to say good bye, then she hung up.

At which point, I messaged my brother and his wife to let them know the situation. They are so busy right now, it’s the last thing they need to deal with, but they needed to know.

In the end, I decided that I would go to my mother’s place, anyways, and talk to her in person. If she still refused to go, I would phone the clinic and cancel the appointment from her place.

I meant to leave early, but so many cats were following me to the car, I had to ask one of my daughters to very noisily feed them.

Yes, they’d already been fed.

Including sweet Gouda. What a lovely kitty he is!

It was Syndol that would not stop following me to the car. I kept moving him away, and he kept coming back. I finally had to carry him all the way to the house, where he finally noticed the kibble and went to eat.

So much for leaving early, but I was at least on the road at the time I was intending to be.

While I was driving, my phone started ringing. I couldn’t answer, of course, but I’d told my brother that I would be on the road, and I figured it might be home.

It was.

When he couldn’t reach my by phone, he sent a quick message. He’d phoned her, they had a good talk, and she will go. He called her in between meetings at work, so he had to be brief. By the time I parked and could check messages, my SIL added that my brother had finally told our mother that they were selling their place, just so I would be aware.

So when I got to my mother’s apartment, she was up and ready and waiting.

She then launched into giving me all sorts of instructions on what to do and where to find things when she died. I honestly think she expected to die during the drive in.

She did mention my brother’s call, but as she was giving me instructions, including about her finances, she brought up my brother, and how he has the farm, but he wants her money, too. I sold her, the only person that wants her money is our vandal, and reminded her of the legal steps my brother had taken to protect her from our vandal. She just scoffed, then said that my sister was the only one who didn’t care about my mother’s money.

Which is weird, but she does like to try and play us against each other.

I’d worked out a time when we had to be on the road by, to get to her appointment, and we ended up leaving almost 20 minutes earlier.

She did walk very slowly to the car, lots of panting and pausing. It was a struggle for her to get into the car, and then she sat there, panting.

She really did play it up.

Her struggle to get into the car was very genuine, though. If we were using the truck, I probably would have had to practically pick her up to help her in!

She made a comment about her breathing as I was getting in, but then pretty much stopped the act at that point.

As we were driving, she started telling me things like, she’d talked to some of her neighbours in her building, and one of them had the same thing she did (at least that’s how my mother understood it), she didn’t go anything, and it went away. Then my mother told me about a Jehovah’s Witness that used to come visit (how many decades ago was this???) who talked about losing vision until she prayed and God healed her, and her vision had been fine ever since. She also told me about how, years ago (how many years?) she remember she had black spots floating around in her vision. She never went to the doctor, never did anything different, and they went away.

All I could say, really, was that these are all different things. That’s great for them, but that has nothing to do with you’re specific situation.

Also, for someone who was complaining about getting only a couple of hours sleep, she was very talkative and alert. I suggested she could try napping during the drive, but she wanted to enjoy the scenery…

Anyhow.

She told me she’d gone to bed at around 11, woke at 2am and couldn’t get back to sleep, no matter what, and it was because of her pills. I told her, we know it’s not the pills. It could be anything. Even just busy brain or stress. Oh, but you don’t know what I’ve lived through…

???

Eventually, she brought up about my brother selling their property, and that they were selling it privately, not through an agency.

I’m not sure what reaction she expected from that.

I reminded her, I had told her, my brother is preparing for retirement.

She did bring up about him not selling the farm – the property we are on – and I told her, he can’t sell it. That was part of my father’s will.

She dropped that, too.

Overall, though, the conversation during the drive actually went pretty well. She kept commenting on the traffic. She still seems to think traffic should be like when she and my father lived in the city until the mid 60’s.

I’m glad we left as early as we did, though. It’s construction season.

If we’d left when I originally planned, we should have arrived about half an hour early. Leaving when we did, we should have arrived as much as 45 minutes early.

We got there 10 minutes before her appointment.

They took her in almost immediatley.

The next while spent getting her eye dilated while the tech tried to get images and video of it.

Normally, during these tests, they ask you to focus on a green X, or a picture of a house, or some such thing, in the middle of the device over the eye they are looking at.

With macular degeneration, that’s not possible. She can’t see the middle of anything.

So the tech instead set up a tiny green light on an adjustable arm in front of her left eye, and asked my mother to try and focus on that.

My mother kept getting distracted.

What do you mean a green light? It’s white?

There’s a dark spot in the middle.

The light isn’t on…

After a number of attempts to get video, I finally started to explain, they just needed her to look at that spot. It didn’t matter what the colour was, or anything else. It’s the location she needs to focus on.

I think she finally understood that, but by then, the tech was done!

She was then sent to a waiting room before the next stage, but the doctor requested one more image. He needed a specific location photographed, so he could compare with an image taken last time.

That, at least, was quick!

We do have good news.

The bleeding in her eye seems to have stopped. There is still a bit of blood in there, but mostly there is scar tissue right in the middle of her vision.

Then he asked her if she wanted to continue treatment!

She deferred making a decisions (which is her usual way), wanting him to make the decision for her. Which he couldn’t do, of course. He did say he would recommend still getting the treatments since, if they are stopped now, the bleeding might resume. I finally said we should at least do a treatment today, and we decide about further treatment later.

Meanwhile, my mother launched into how she’d had these black spots floating in her eyes, (I told her, this is not the same thing, and the doctor repeated that) and they went away on their own, etc. The doctor told her, this is not going to go away on its own.

She dropped the subject.

So they went ahead with the treatment, with a light freezing of the eye, adding antiobiotic drops, and finally the main freezing. That one needed 7 minutes, and my mother was asked to hold a tissue over her eye and just relax for a while.

As we were waiting for the freezing, the doctor and the tech – plus a third person that was in training – started looking at other files. They spoke quietly, but I could hear bits and pieces, and could see some of the images they were looking at.

All I can say is…

My mother is doing really great! She is there at a time when she can actually get treated, and the damage is relatively mild. At one point, I could hear them lamenting that there was absolutely nothing they could do to help one particular patient. She had simply waited too long to get checked. As quiet as they spoke, I could still hear the pain in their voices.

The doctor had a timer going, so they were soon back working on my mother. She got her injection, and was reminded that she will have redness, which is normal, but if there’s any pain, she is to come back right away.

As for the next treatments, he told her she no longer needs to come back in 4 weeks, but maybe 4 or 5 weeks. I checked my calendar and saw that my husband is rebooked for his CT Scan in 5 weeks, so it would have to be 4 weeks for my mother.

The doctor was very understanding about the long drive in, and that the next treatment would be winter driving. There is simply no other clinic like this that’s closer. One is planned for the town we are closest to, but that’s all it is at this point – plans.

Once he was done, that was it. We just needed to book the next appointment, then go.

By that point, we were both hungry – my mother hadn’t even eaten breakfast! – but neither of us were up to trying to find a place to eat in the city. We talked about where to go in her town and she wasn’t enthusiastic about her choices. Then I suggested we stop at the gas station where I could pick up her favourite fried chicken and wedges.

She was quite excited over that idea!

So we had a good drive home – traffic was a lot lighter, and we were no longer in any construction zones.

I picked up the food and got her home. She was pretty famished by then! I got enough that she could have another meal out of it later.

After that, there were a few things she needed help with. One was a letter from the government that she didn’t understand. Another was helping her write out a check to pay for her ambulance bill, from her trip to the ER a month or two ago. It didn’t come with a return envelope, though – they expect people to pay via etransfer, credit or debit. She didn’t have a suitable envelope, so I ended up taking that home to get ready to mail, which I will do tomorrow.

As we were talking, she mentioned that she needed her laundry done. She hasn’t been up to doing it herself, and it’s been piling up. She said she hoped to “hire” my sister to do it – but my sister and her husband are coming home from out of province tomorrow, and tomorrow is my mother’s laundry day on the building’s schedule.

I also noticed, her fridge was looking empty.

But she never asked me for help. I even asked if she needed shopping, but she said the only thing she needed was milk.

Okay…

That was it!

I left soon after. I’ve got her check ready to mail and have my own parcel to pick up at the post office.

I really, really need to get more work done outside. Tomorrow was going to be my first day in quite a long time where I didn’t need to go anywhere, and could get back to it.

*sigh*

I’ve just arranged to go over to my mother’s tomorrow, to do her laundry and, if she puts a list together for me, her grocery shopping, too.

The long range forecast has changed, again. The snow I was seeing in the beginning of November seems to have gone away for the most part. We’ll even have some warmish days. If the weather holds, I should still be able to get things done.

We shall see.

Meanwhile, we’ve had no word from the garage about the truck, which means no one has had a chance to look at it yet.

I also had a chance to talk to my brother this evening, and got to hear the rest of how his call with her went. He had so little time to make the call, he basically just told her, go to the appointment, and that I was already on my way to get her. When he mentioned that yes, they are selling their property, she launched into her usual lecture about how the value of land only ever goes up, etc. He just let it slide and had to tell her, he needed to get back to work.

When I talked to him this evening, it was after he’d had a very long day at work (he starts at 5am), and was at the property, packing up shed contents. They’ll be coming out here this weekend with the stuff they are keeping, but they are also sending stuff to auction.

It’s a huge job, that’s for sure!

So we will be at least seeing my brother and their friend on the weekend, with trailer loads. I honestly don’t know where he’s going to be putting things at this point! Most of the sheds here can’t be used anymore.

I’m sure he’s got a plan, though. He always does!

So that’s been my day today.

How was yours? 😁😁

The Re-Farmer

How many more things are going to break down??

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

Good grief.

Okay.

My goal for today was to finish sorting enough aluminum to fill the truck bed, go to the salvage yard to drop it off, then go to the nearest Walmart to meet with the Cat Lady and pick up more cat food. We also need a few more things for the bathtub tap repair.

It was raining all morning, so I backed the truck out of the garage so I could work on the cans in the garage. Once I had ten bags, I turned the truck around to make it easier to load. It took longer than expected, and I was no longer sure I’d be able to connect with the Cat Lady.

I was able to get 10 large bags in the truck. All strapped down an ready to go.

I got about half a mile before the onboard computer started dinging, and I got a red flashing “oil pressure low, shut of engine” warning.

So I pulled over and shut it off. After waiting a bit, I tried again, but it went off again almost immediately.

We were due for an oil change, but I’ve never had this happen before!

I ended up walking home to get some oil, and my younger daughter walked back with me. As we were going along, we saw a vehicle stop beside the truck for a while. The driver stopped again when he reached us. It turns out he was a neighbour from up the road. He was hauling a flatbed trailer, so he went home to drop that off, then came back to help us.

Long story short, we manage to get the truck home, and I was able to park it in such a way that it can be easily accessed by a tow truck.

Yup. We are down to no vehicle right now.

And we’re going to run out of kibble, tomorrow.

F***

I updated the Cat Lady and she said she would get cat food to us, but I have no idea how. Someone would have to deliver it to our place, since we can’t go anywhere.

A tow has been arranged for tomorrow morning, and the garage is already expecting it. We’ll get a diagnostic and an estimate, but we won’t have a budget for any repairs until my husband’s disability comes in at the end of the month.

Today is the 22nd. CPP Disability comes in on the 29th.

That’s a week with no transportation. Heck, I don’t even know how I will get to the garage to pick up the truck once it’s repaired – assuming it’s a repair we can afford. It’s entirely possible the problem is gunk in a sensor. Or it could be something major. The engine itself sounds just fine.

Meanwhile, we’ll need to take off the load of aluminum before the truck is taken in, but that will wait until tomorrow morning. I just don’t have the spoons to do it tonight.

I’m going to have to go through our pantry and freezer and see what we can use for cat food.

The past 12 months has seen so many things breaking down this year. It’s been insane. It seems like every time we take a step forward, we get yanked back five.

One of those things that broke down has been my mother’s car – our back up vehicle – which started to make a banging noise. Since then, it now has a tire that keeps going flat, even though we’ve been using the compressor to pump it back up every couple of days. Even if it were running, though, we no longer have the budget for insurance and fuel for two vehicles anymore. Partly because we now have the truck payments, but also because the cost of everything has gone up so much.

I am just so tired, right now. Not physically tired. Not even emotionally tired. More psychologically tired.

It was around this time, 7 years ago, that my husband and younger daughter flew out here earlier than planned, as my FIL was in the hospital and things were not looking good for a while. I started this blog on the 29th of October, 2017, and we weren’t all united again here until the middle of November. Those first few months saw some rough times, and we’ve certainly had our challenges, every year since. Even so, we’ve have had so many things break down, one after the other, like we have in the past 12 months.

Ah, well. We’ll deal.

What other choice to we have?

The Re-Farmer