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We have a truck!!!

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

Yes!!! It is done! As of today, we are new truck owners.

We are so excited!

Yes, it’s a 2011, yes, it has some rust on it, but the interior is pristine, and everything works!!!

Just look at that clearance! We’ll be able to get through things that had us stuck at home over the past few years, including last year’s spring flooding, when the roads washed out. In fact, we’ll even be able to drive it to the gravel pit and load it with gravel to use around the house, garden and driveway. We’d have to do a walk through, first, and probably clear away some rocks and trees.

And yeah, we definitely need that step to get into it. My husband is going to love it! The seats have adjustments like our Grand Caravan had, plus lumbar support adjustment, which he will appreciate the most of all of us.

It took all day to actually get the truck. After doing the necessary transfers, my daughter and I were ready to head in, in the morning. We were also going to make a quick stop at the grocery store, then my daughter was going to treat us to Dairy Queen take out to bring home. A new Dairy Queen officially opened in town just yesterday, so everyone’s pretty excited about that.

Yeah. It doesn’t take much to get us excited. 😄 But it does mean that, on those days were we’re out all day running errands in the city, we can get take out on the way and it’ll still be hot when we get home.

The first catch:

I got an email from the financing lady, saying the lender had sent the paperwork back, and asking for my daughter’s name, phone number, plus my husband’s email address. I assumed this meant they wanted my daughter’s name on the paperwork as a co-signer, because I happened to mention she gave us funds for the down payment, and would help with the monthly payments. My daughter absolutely was not going to be on there are a co-signer!

Once I explained that, she corrected my misunderstanding. The lender wanted someone as an emergency contact, in case they couldn’t reach us. I told her, she lives with us and has the same number, so if they can’t reach us, they wouldn’t be able to reach her! So I gave them my brother’s land line number.

Meanwhile, I got a call from the garage, just as I was answering the email. He was texting with her as well and wanted to make sure we understand they were NOT looking for a co-signer on the loan or anything like that.

Once that was clarified, we waited for a while, but didn’t get a response right away. So we headed into town, anyhow.

Once we got there, I checked my email and found they still wanted my daughter’s name. I gave both their names. This way, if we weren’t home and my daughters answered the phone, they would be authorized to speak to the girls about our file.

I answered that right away, then went into the garage. He was still waiting for something from the finance lady, but I was able to make the down payment, then sign the various forms needed.

While he was making the copies he needed, and waiting on the response, he gave me the keys so we could go into the vehicle and even asked us to drive it closer to the garage. Which almost happened.

The truck had been sitting there long enough that the battery was almost dead! It wouldn’t start. Oops.

The first thing I had to figure out after that was, how to open the door from the inside! It took a while, but the lever is in a completely different location than in any other vehicle we’ve owned, and I couldn’t see it in the shadows. 😄

So I let him know, he came out with a charger, and we moved it over. Then my daughter and I spend the next while, reading the owners manual and figuring out the different things on the console, set the time and date, and so on.

After a while, with still no email response from the finance lady, I went inside. He just received a text from her and said she was waiting on a response from the lender. I told him we’d run some errands while we waited, then headed over to the grocery store across the street, where we’d parked the car anyway, to do a bit of shopping. Neither of us had had breakfast yet, though, and since it looked like picking up food to bring home would take a while, we got some food at the grocery store that we could eat in the car. Of course, I kept checking my email. Still nothing.

After a while, I walked back over. As we spoke, he suggested we may as well go home, because there was no way of knowing how long it would take the lender to get back to her. Not only that, but once the lender responded, she would be emailing documents to me for us to sign and send back. It could take minutes, or hours.

So my daughter and I headed home, stopping at the new DQ first. It was just into lunch time, so it was pretty busy, but the line went fast. After placing our order, we got our number and went to the side to fill our drinks and wait. My daughter ended up taking the drinks to the car, as the place filled up even more! They were absolutely inundated, including plenty of teens from the nearby high school, coming over for lunch.

I predict they will do very well here. Especially in the summer, during tourist season.

My daughter came back after putting the drinks in the car, then when our order was ready, she took the bag of food while I collected the Blizzards we also got. She then had the fun job of balancing trays of Blizzards and drinks on her legs during the drive home.

It is not a smooth ride, and a couple of the drinks were a bit over filled! Once we reached the gravel road, she asked me to pull over, so she could clean up a bit.

I drove much slower on the gravel road that we normally would! 😄

So we had our lunch, and then I spent the next while near the computer, checking my email regularly. We did get the documents after a couple of hours, which my husband could go over and sign digitally, then send back. Once I got a confirmation of receipt, I texted our mechanic to let him know.

After maybe another hour, I texted him again, asking if he’d received a confirmation from the finance lady yet.

Of course, I couldn’t be at my computer the whole time, but it was a bit of a surprise when I was back in my room, and our mechanic phoned me, asking if I’d received his text. I checked my phone, and there was no notification – but when I opened my text app, there it was – along with a couple other texts from elsewhere!

I’m so glad he called! Now that the this part was done, he needed us to bring him proof of insurance. It was past 4 by then and, as far as I knew, the insurance place closed at 5.

So we headed out again as quickly as we could, since it takes about 20-25 minutes to get there, depending on the traffic. Thankfully, we did not find ourselves stuck behind slow moving vehicles. Once there, I dashed in to get the paperwork, making sure to thank him for calling, since I did not receive any notifications for his text. He knows we’re in a cell phone dead zone, so he figured it was something like that. He also suggested a different insurance place to go to, that was open later, so that’s where we went.

That part went quickly. There was no one else there besides the staff, and it was all pretty straightforward. I got new license plates, because I didn’t think to bring the ones from the van. I was even given a choice of one set of plates or plates from a new box, in case there was a series that I found easier to remember. I didn’t care, so I got the last plates from an old box.

Everything was done quickly, and the lady that helped me was awesome. As she was inputting stuff into the computer, she was reading some things out loud and mentioned our mechanic’s name. When she did, I couldn’t help but say how awesome he’s been for us, and she quite enthusiastically agreed with me. She’s done quite a few vehicles sold by him, it turns out, and has found he has been really great for finding people just the vehicle they needed.

(As I was writing the above, I got a phone call from the finance lady – there’s still more to be done at her end!!! But I’ll get to that, later.)

So I got the insurance stuff done, then it was back to the garage. From there, he took the copies he needed but, before giving me the keys, he wanted to bring it into the garage. So my daughter took the car home while I waited. He had some other stuff to get done first and, as we chatted, mentioned in passing that normally, he wouldn’t release a vehicle until he got the money from the lender, but it was me, so he was okay with it.

!!!

What a sweetheart! In thanking him, I mentioned that my husband has a medical appointment tomorrow, so the timing of this is perfect, and so incredibly appreciated. He and the finance lady have gone so above and beyond!

Once the bay was clear, he drove it in, and they made sure all the tires were properly full, after sitting as long as it had on the lot, and cleaned the windows from removing the stickers, put on the new plates, etc.

And that was finally it! I could take the truck home!

Almost. The tank was at empty, so gas station first!

When I first started filling, the nozzle kept shutting itself off, like it does with my mother’s car. I’ve asked about it, and I’ve been told dust gets into a line and the sensor in the nozzle reads that the tank is full. It took a while, but eventually it started to fill without stopping. I wasn’t sure how much it would take to fill that tank, but when it stopped again at just under $80, I went ahead and finished there. It turned out to be just over half full. Another $60 probably would have filled it.

Ouch.

We try to never let our tanks get below half, though, so once it’s filled, I won’t be doing any $140 or more fills! I’ll probably top it up tomorrow, after my husband’s medical appointment, though it’s almost worth a trip to the city to fill at a Costco, with their prices usually at least 10¢/L cheaper.

We’ll consider that another time.

Finally, I could bring the truck home! It only took about 7 or 8 hours!

When I got home, the girls were waiting for me by the garage. It’s the first time my older daughter has seen it, other than the photos I took last month. They were all over that thing! It’s got cup holders and charging ports, everywhere. 😄 Then, my younger daughter drove it into the garage.

Mostly.

The back end was still sticking out the door.

Between her sister guiding her from the front, and me watching to see when the door was cleared, she was able to get it in. The truck just barely fits in the garage!!! There’s a counter at the back wall of the garage, and the bumper is just inches from it, and the door just barely misses the back bumper to close it! There is no getting around the vehicle from the inside, once the door is closed!

Not a problem I expected to have. I new it was longer than the van, but not that it was that much longer! We’re going to have to put some sort of bumper or marker so we can see how closer we’re getting to that counter.

So all is settled and fine, right?

Of course not.

As I mentioned, I got a call from the finance lady. She was asking if my husband had any other photo ID, or even an old passport. Well, he did have an old passport, but that was from his days in the military. Which makes it quite old (I just thought about it, and it’s at least 30 years old). We still have it; but it wouldn’t be much good. So she asked me about some other things. Part of the problem is that his Metis ID is hand written. I mentioned his old driver’s license from the province we lived in before moving here, which she got all excited about. She also talked about the “voided check” having only his name on it. Which confused me, because the photo I’d sent them had both our names on it. It turned out she was looking at the digital form from the bank we’d recently had to send, because the banking information had only my name on what is a joint account, since I was the one logged in to get it for them. I’d also sent photos of his old driver’s license, but she apparently never saw it.

Which is when I found out that a number of images I sent her came in a form she could not open. The files were too big, so they were automatically loaded to Google Drive, but when she clicked on them, it wanted permission to access them, which apparently she didn’t get. Which isn’t how it’s supposed to work, but the end result was, she couldn’t open them.

Once I realized that, she emailed me a list of all the files she couldn’t open. I resized them, then sent them back. That worked out, except for his birth certificate. When my husband was in his teens, he had it in his pocket for some reason, and it went through the wash. It was in rough shape, so it’s been in a folding plastic case that was meant to hold a bank book (hands up, how many reading this had a bank book!) to protect it. She asked it if was possible to take it out of the plastic for a clearer photo. I said I would try, but explained why it was in the plastic. Thankfully, in the time it took for me to find my husband’s wallet (I first tried looking in his pack on his walker in the sun room; it wasn’t there, but I did chase four massive racoons out of the sun room!), I saw her response saying not to risk damaging it, and if I could just get clearer pictures of the front and back.

Which I was able to do, then resized them and sent them to her. As I was writing the above, I got a confirmation from her that they were good!

Finally!!!

So now, everything should be straight with the lender.

I hope.

If not… well.. I guess we have the loan of a truck for a few days, until my husband can get new photo ID. Which would take a while, because the province’s public insurance provider that does all that is still on strike.

Which reminds me.

When I brought the plates and insurance papers back to the garage, I mentioned that it was the last plate before they went into a new box. He heard the “last plate” part, and said they must be really worried! It turns out that, with the strike, no new plates are going out. So while private insurance companies can process things like vehicle insurance, if they run out of plates, they’re stuck. They could contact other companies to acquire extra, but they’re all running out, too. Thankfully, this place did still have another box, but if this strike goes on for much longer, people who need new plates won’t be able to insure their vehicles at all. It’s like with getting a new photo ID, a new driver’s license, or having to renew a driver’s licence photo. They can do everything locally, except actually give out the card. Only a temporary paper version that’s good for 2 or 4 weeks. Just enough time for the public insurance company to process the paperwork and issue the official government ID, and for it to go through the mail.

Once the strike is over, the backlog is going to be incredible.

So that’s where we’re at now. As I finish writing this, I have not received any other email from the finance lady, which means that – so far, at least – there is no problem with the resized and resent images.

I must say, I do appreciate that we can do all this digitally. Can you imagine if we had to go in, in person, during office hours? Even if they could fax stuff over, it would probably take days just for this little bit of stuff right here. And since this loan is under my husband’s name as the primary borrower, that would mean him having to be driven into town multiple times to sign things, which he would not be up to. Unless I were allowed to bring paperwork home for him to sign, which I have been able to do for some things in the past.

I am just to thankful for all the effort our mechanic and the finance lady have gone through to make it so we could get that truck, in our budget. It was not easy. Especially when, even with the price being dropped so much, we had another $1200 in taxes added on. I made sure to tell her how much we appreciated it, and that if I could, I’d give her a hug! (yes; I did give our mechanic a hug!!) She told me that just hearing that made it worthwhile. I know she probably deals with a lot of difficult cases like ours, and probably worse, but I don’t know that she gets a lot of appreciation shown for her efforts!

Well, I made sure to tell them, because my goodness, not having a winter worthy vehicle with snow likely in a few weeks was a major concern! Thank God!!! What a sense of relief, to that that truck sitting in our garage right now!!

The Re-Farmer

Rough night, and … do I dare say it?

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Before I get into things, I just want to share this adorable photo I got last night.

Nothing like a bowl of kittens to brighten your day!

This is a picture from yesterday, because I’ve taken none today. I haven’t even gone outside, and I don’t know if I will get to it. A daughter took care of feeding the outside cats, and I am skipping my morning rounds entirely. All because of a very long and strangely painful night.

Quite a long time ago, I started feeling a strange pain in my left side. I thought I might have pulled a muscle, but it never went away. This started about 6 months after I’d had a large cyst remove, and thought maybe there was a connection, since it was in the same general area, but the doctors couldn’t find any. It got worse to the point where I had difficulty standing up straight – which could be a real problem while driving! Since moving here, I’ve gotten more tests done, and still, no cause could be found. There comes a point with doctors where, if they can’t find a cause for something, they start looking at you askance, and you can tell they think you’re just making it up, or that the problem is psychosomatic. Eventually, I just stopped trying to find a cause. The pain, if I can even use that word, is just there, now encompassing an area from my hips to under my ribs. It’s just a constant presence, but after a while, I no longer got that escalation, where I couldn’t stand up straight anymore. At least, it became more rare. Instead, something else started to happen.

I would lie down in bed, on my right side, because my left hip is more arthritic than my right. As soon as I started to relax, my left side would start cramping. Perhaps spasming would be the better word. The only way to alleviate it was to tense up and twist into a pretzel. As soon as I tried to relax again, it would come back. Sometimes, if I lay on my left side, that would help. Sometimes, I had to get up. Usually, I just went through several bouts of these contortions before I could finally relax my muscles, and then finally be able to sleep.

Well, last night, it happened again, except this time, it was both my sides, not just my left. I was jerking around like a marionette, trying to get it under control and to the point where I could relax. I’m still feeling residual pain from that.

That, on its own, was bad enough. Things didn’t end there. At about 3 – 3:30 in the morning, I rolled over, and instantly my right thigh started cramping viscously. I couldn’t stay lying down, but I couldn’t straight the leg, either, or the cramping would get worse. Of course, I had to go to the bathroom, right? I managed to hobble my way to the bathroom, but even just sitting on the toilet triggered more spasming. I even tried massaging the affected muscle, but just touching it cause more spasms. I was able to do my business, then hobbled to over to get some ibuprofen, because my extra strength arthritis acetaminophen that I take very night before bed doesn’t touch this. Ibuprofen helps with Charlie horses, and this was kinda like that, so I thought it was worth a try.

I’m still feeling residual pain and weakness in my leg from that.

It would have been nice if that were it, but nooooooo. Then my feet had to get into the action.

My feet are wrecked, so it’s not unusual for me to have a metatarsal suddenly dislocate, or for there to be shooting pains, etc. One of the things that happens pretty regularly is sudden cramping if there is a change in temperature. The temperature itself doesn’t seem to matter; it’s how quickly it changes. So, for example, between the time I come out of a nice warm shower and the time I can put on socks and shoes, my toes can start cramping, and it takes a while for them to warm up again enough for the cramping to stop.

Which means that sometimes, if my foot comes out from under the covers, my toes will start cramping instantly.

That started happening last night, too. With both feet – and they weren’t even out from under the covers.

I don’t even know how long that went on for before I finally passed out, until I was awakened by a kitten deciding to curl up against my face, neck and shoulder. That was when I realized I had all the big kittens on my. One on my neck and face, one in my arm pit, one on my chest, and two around my legs. If any of the tinies were on me, I wouldn’t have known, because they weigh nothing! 😄

I managed to get out of bed and do their morning feeding (including Butterscotch, who has rediscovered my pants shelf as her favourite bed), mostly because I needed them distracted so I could go to the washroom. That’s when I discovered I was still feeling the effects of all the cramping and spasming of the night. My daughter was about to feed the adult cats and saw me hobbling around, so she was more than understanding when I asked her to feed the outside cats, too.

Thank God we have a narrow hallway and arm bars all over the place. I needed the walls and the arm bars to hold myself up!

I’m better now, after a few more hours, but definitely still having issues.

I have considered why this might have happened, and if it was because of the work I did in the garden yesterday, but I’ve done that much and more before, without reacting like this. I mean, I’ve ended up stiff and sore to the point that walking was very painful, but no muscle cramping and spasming like what hit me last night. Especially not with so many parts of my body affected, not to mention all of them in one night.

Whatever it is, I’m currently in recovery mode for the day.

After all that, though, I do have some good news. I’m almost afraid to say something so soon, as it’ll be a few days before it follows through. Still… here it is.

We’re going to be getting that truck.

Last week, I’d stopped at the garage to talk to our mechanic, checking out some of his other vehicles at the same time, letting him know we were able to increase our down payment to $1000, thanks to my daughter. At this point, I’d pretty much given up on the truck, but he had a couple of SUVs that would have worked out, for my husband’s needs, at least. One was sold and the other wasn’t prepped for sale yet, but it gave him something to keep an eye out for.

Well, yesterday, I got a call from him.

He had been talking to the financing lady. He told her the new amount we could give for a down payment, and he was willing to drop the price on the truck even more for us. At this point, I suspect he’s actually taking a loss. He doesn’t just buy used vehicles and resell them right away. He’s a mechanic. He makes sure they are completely sound, first, so any work that needs doing, he does. Unlike the dealership that sold us our van, he doesn’t sell vehicles that turn out to have major damage on them. That has to be factored into the price, too.

As for the financing lady, she tried taking off the warranty, and that also lowered the final cost. Between the three things, that brought the payments down to $162 bi-weekly. Our max budgeted amount was $300 monthly. We would have another $100 or so per month for registration and insurance we have to consider as well. This still put us just over our budget amount. Since bi-weekly payments means having at least a couple of months a year with three payments instead of two, this put the monthly budget amount at more than two payments totalling $324. We’d have to budget closer to $400 per month.

However…

Just the night before, my daughter told me she would soon be able to transfer more over to contribute to the damage deposit, having been paid for more commissions. She has also said she will help with the payments.

I gave him a tentative yes, and mentioned we might be able to increase the down payment. I just didn’t know by how much. He told me to talk to the finance lady once I knew. Depending on the amount, if it would only save us a couple of dollars a month, it might not be worth adding it on.

So I went to talk to the girls, and my daughter said she would able to bring our down payment up to $1500.

I emailed the financing lady with the new amount. I also asked about having monthly payments instead of bi-weekly. It’s just easier for budgeting, since my husband’s disability comes in at the end of the month.

I got a quick response with some new numbers. The increased down payment would make a difference. We would have to make a bi-weekly payment for the first payment, but after that, we could call the lender directly and arrange for it to be monthly, instead. The monthly payments would be $331.

We accepted the deal.

Which is kinda scary.

First, taking off the warranty is a risk, but considering who we are buying it from, I consider that risk to be very low.

Next is relying on my daughter being able to make regular payments. Yes, she has consistent commissions, her Patreon supporters and even a few sales from her digital shop, but working freelance like she does means the monthly income is inconsistent. I know she’ll be good for it. I just don’t like it having to rely on it.

The final thing is, where in our budget these payments will be coming from. Some is what we’ve been squirreling away into our contingency fund. That’s going to drop. Most, however, will come from that part of our budget that pays for things like getting the septic tank cleaned, or hiring plumbers, or fixing my mother’s car…

But with the truck, there will be some reductions in the budget. We will no longer have to do as many trips to the city to stock up, because we can fit probably four times as much in the back of the truck as we can in her little car, and not have to worry about how heavy the load is. That doesn’t even count the space available in the cab if we fold up the back seats. My mother’s car, even with the work we had done recently, is not good on gas. At least it’s not getting worse anymore, but with fewer trips to the city, even with a relative gas guzzler like a truck, we will be spending less on gas per month. We would go back to using my mother’s car just to drive my mother around again, and as an emergency back up vehicle.

Best of all, we’ll have a reliable winter vehicle before the sow flies – with new tires, too!

It will take a few business days for my daughter’s transfer to come through. Once we’ve got the down payment all together, I’ll head over to finalize the purchase and get the truck insured. If all goes well, we’ll have a truck by the end of the week.

I just pray that nothing goes wrong between now and then!

The Re-Farmer

Put to bed: garden progress. Also, Butterscotch is “home”!

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We have reached a lovely 16C/61F today, with wonderful sunshine. You know what that means!

Time to get work done outside!

Today, I focused on using the last of the soil in the kiddie pool the melons were grown in and soil from the grow bags, to top up our first trellis bed. The potato bags were already emptied and the soil all in a pile, so that was nice and quick to transfer over. Between that and the soil from the kiddie pool, more than half the trellis bed was covered.

Then I started on the grow bags the bell peppers were in.

I think I discovered why the peppers never thrived in those.

I had two shallow “raised beds” from the dollar store, plus two deeper, higher quality bags. As soon as I started trying to break up the soil with the spade, I found it to be remarkably solid and hard to cut through. That bag in the photo was the last of these fabric grow bags. It flipped inside out as I tried to empty the soil, and was still stuck.

Those are tree roots.

It turns out those horrible elms from the self seeded row of trees my mother allowed to grow not only release millions of seeds every spring, their roots will actually grow up into the grow bags and smother whatever else is growing there! The only bags where this was not a problem were the potatoes. Those had a thick layer of straw on their bottoms. I did see a few roots here and there, but nothing in the soil layer like this. These fabric grow bags had some grass clippings added to their bottoms. Those were completely decomposed. I didn’t do the feed bags the hot peppers were in until later. Those had straw on their bottoms, too, but not as deep a layer as the potatoes.

So most of my time ended up being spent trying to break up the soil enough that I could finally shake it from the roots, before it could be dumped into the trellis bed. The four bags the bell peppers were in were just enough to finish topping up the trellis bed.

That left five feed bags; four that had the hot peppers and onions in them, and one that had just onions. I left those and shifted to the high raised bed. The grass clipping mulch was moved and the bed was weeded – leaving two little onions to keep growing.

It’s really amazing, how deep dandelion tap roots can grow!

I found what looked like a couple of mouse tunnels in two of the corners. Grass clippings were used to fill in gaps in the corners, and all along the edges, as well as to chink some gaps on the logs that I found. I also debarked it a fair bit. That’s to keep insects and moisture from the logs, so they’ll last longer.

Once that was all cleaned up, I leveled the soil, pushing some of it up against the grass clippings around the edges. Once that was done, I went back to the remaining grow bags and de-rooted them. All five ended up in the high raised bed.

Last of all, the soil was topped with a light sprinkling of grass clippings before both beds got a thorough soaking. I want the water to soak through all the layers, but don’t want to compact the soil layer, and the grass clippings will help with that at least a little bit.

The beds have now been put to bed for the winter!

When adding soil to the trellis bed, I could see it bouncing! I did stomp on them, but the layers of grass clippings, leaves, kitchen compostables, straw, wood chips and bark, all still have quite a bit of space in them. By spring, I expect the whole thing to have sunk and settled at least 4 inches. The main thing, though, is that it is ready for planting in the spring, even if it takes longer to build the trellis part of the trellis beds!

Now for my happy Butterscotch news!

She’s back indoors!

I’d gone out to feed the cats a bit early, yesterday evening. Butterscotch came around and I got to pet her and cuddle her. She still wouldn’t go near the other cats, and if they came close, she would leave, even from the food I’d put near the storage house for her. Shop Towel in particular was interested in that.

After trying – and failing – to bring her to the kibble house to eat, I tried a different tactic. I’d seen a kitten running around around the front of the house, so I left a pile of kibble on the concrete steps for it. Butterscotch let me pick her up again, and I walked around the back of the house, avoiding all the cats, to bring her to the lone pile of kibble.

I almost got there, too.

It just happened that the girls decided to come outside, and as soon as the doors started rattling, Butterscotch got spooked, and I couldn’t hang onto her anymore. Once the girls realized what happened, they worked with me to encourage Butterscotch to come to them at the steps, and got her eating.

My younger daughter stayed with her while her sister and I played interference with the other cats. Several of them suddenly decided they needed to check out what she was doing at the steps!

Including Shop Towel.

Shop Towel has become an enigma. He’s been hanging around and eating with the other cats, and they are mostly okay with that. Driver and Judgement have not been targeted by him, nor have any of the other males. Mind you, he’s clearly the father of most of the adult males, but I don’t know how much of a difference that would make.

The problem starts when he seed Butterscotch and Nosencrantz.

He hasn’t really targeted Nozencrantz, but he has in the past, and she’s clearly nervous around him. When he goes for the food, she leaves. At least she’s not running up a tree anymore, but it means she doesn’t eat. This morning, I left kibble on the red bench for her, just so she could have something!

Butterscotch, however, has his attention, and he wants to chase her.

Between him, and her not wanting to go near any of the other cats, this was a problem. If only we could get her inside, but she wouldn’t let us take her close to the house!

Well, we found a way.

It started with my younger daughter going over to Shop Towel as he was milling around the storage house. She squatted down (oh, to have functional knees like hers!), held her hand out – and he came right over! She was able to pet him as he purred and rubbed against her legs! We were all pretty stunned by this.

That gave us an opportunity.

The cat carrier was in the sun room, in hopes we’d be able to catch one of the adult females for spaying and adoption. While my younger daughter kept Shop Towel distracted, I got the carrier and her sister and I managed to get Butterscotch in.

She was not happy about that.

The carrier also allowed me to get her past all the indoor cats and bring her into my room.

She was not happy with the kittens. She snarls at them, and spent the night hiding under my printer table. She still came out for pets and cuddled, though, and she was very happy to have wet cat food!

The kittens are curious, but we let the big ones in and out, so she’s not overwhelmed by them. The three tiny ones are still too small to let out.

After I finished up in the garden, had a shower and came into my room, I was able to persuade her to come out for pets, and even go up onto my bed for cuddles. The kittens still in the room were all asleep, so there was no snarling involved.

As I write this, she is still on my bed, curled up and having a nap!

I feel much better having her inside. She probably would have been fine outside, but that whole thing with her not being able to get food because she wouldn’t come closer to the house or other cats was a concern. Plus, she’s one of the originals that my late father cared for. Grandma deserves a warm and comfortable retirement!

I really hope this works out for her.

Once we get some of those kittens to the clinic for spays then adoption next month, I’m hoping we can convince Nosencrantz to come back in, too. I miss her nightly cuddles!

The Re-Farmer

A few surprises

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I forgot to mention this less than happy surprise I found while doing my rounds yesterday morning.

One of our highbush cranberry trees has been eaten. Again! This is the one that has an old saw horse over it to protect it, yet it still got eaten! The other, unprotected one was ignored. Why are the deer so determined to eat this one cranberry bush??? It was left alone all summer, too. With the damage being done so late in the growing season, I doubt it will survive. We shall see in the spring, I guess.

I had another surprise when I headed out to feed the outside cats for the evening.

Butterscotch emerged from wherever she’s been hiding out and came running for pets and cuddles. She still wouldn’t go near the other cats, so I ended up leaving some food on the ground on a cat path near the storage house. She did eat some, but then other cats came to investigate, and she took off.

One of those cats was Sad Face (aka: Shop Towel).

Sad Face has been around a lot more often lately, and he has NOT been going after the other cats. In fact, I’ve seen him eating along with them. Nosencrantz doesn’t like him, though, and takes off when she sees him, and so does Butterscotch. He and the other cats seem to be starting to get along; still not sure about Judgement, but Judgement tends to stay in the sun room more often then not, curled up in a cat bed and covered in kittens.

Eventually, Butterscotch just left entirely, disappearing into the maple grove, which meant there was still kibble in the grass that Sad Face was very interested in. As he was eating, with his back to me, I slowly started to approach him.

I’m sure he’s at least partially deaf. Likely due to ear mites.

Then came the surprise.

When I reached out and put my hand on his back, he flinched a bit – then kept on eating!

So I started to pet him, and he still kept eating.

After a bit, with other cats coming over to see what was going on, he did move away and turned to face me – but didn’t run away. Instead, he started eating again, with me and 8 other curious cats around him. I moved forward and he backed off slightly, until I reached my hand out.

He came over to sniff it.

Then he came closer for pets.

And more pets!

He actually started purring, and rubbing around my legs!

We have never been able to approach him before, and have actually had to chase him away because of how aggressive he was to the other cats. I’m sure he’s the one that killed that poor long haired ginger I found in one of the old dog houses by the outhouse. I’ve broken up a number of fights between him and The Distinguished Guest, and TDG was usually on the loosing side. We don’t see him anymore, just as we don’t see any of the other visiting toms anymore. I’m pretty sure he’s why Gooby is gone, too.

And yet, when given the chance, he was incredibly friendly with me and loving the pets!

Also, that cat is a solid brick of muscle.

That was yesterday. What about this morning?

Well, as I brought the food out, Nosencrantz was in among the other cats, but – as usual – waited for kibble to be left in the bowls under the shrine. That was always her favourite spot to eat, before we brought her inside, and she doesn’t like eating closer to the house. By the time I was done putting food out, I saw Butterscotch come running from somewhere beyond the storage house, so I made sure to leave a bit of kibble on the path again, just for her. She was more interested in getting pets, though, which was fine.

I counted 36 cats, cattens and kittens. No Sad Face, at the time.

I did the rest of my rounds and when I got back to the house, there was Sad Face. He was milling around with the other cats, going into the old kitchen garden as I came closer. When he had his back to me, I was able to approach him again and start petting him. That was going well, until he spotted Butterscotch near the storage house. I tried pushing him around to face another direction, but he was utterly focused on Butterscotch.

Yeah. He went for her.

Butterscotch already saw him and went straight up a tree. I had to chase Sad Face out of the yard. Unfortunately, by the time I finished up and was ready to come inside, she was still up the tree.

I really want to bring her back inside, but even when I’ve been able to pick her up and carry her, she doesn’t want to go near the house. Not even for food.

Maybe as things change with the kittens, we can bring her back in. I’ve been chatting with the Cat Lady, about the discounted spay day next month. The vet really wants to do females, not males, if at all possible. Which makes sense for population reduction. Toni is booked for sure, which we will be paying for ourselves, and she will be coming home with us. The rescue would have paid for 2 yard cat males to be done, and they’d have come home with us, too. However, she has found a home for Ghosty, so she’s asked us to bring Ghosty to get fixed, along with the two males, and Ghosty would go home with her. Which makes a booking for four cats instead of three! And these bookings have to be used, or the clinic will be less likely to accept appointments from her on these discount days in the future.

As we talked about the clinic wanting to do females, I mentioned that Tin Whistle and Mitsy could both be done. If they were done, she would be taking them to adopt out, as she has people wanting female cats. They’d take the adult yard cats, but we can’t get hold of them.

So we will have to figure that out as the time gets closer. We only have 3 carriers, with two of them soft sided carriers that a yard cat could probably tear out of pretty easily. With the kittens, we could easily put two, or even three, into one carrier without any issue, but there would be no sharing of carriers with the adult cats.

I’ve also shared photos of some of the yard kittens with her. She may have found a home for the little black puff ball – one of Soot Sprite’s, Pom Pom’s and Tiny’s siblings that we’ve been able to socialize quite thoroughly, just recently. There’s also a friendly black and white catten that looks so much like Decimus. Mostly by his permanently stunned expression. He would be a good one to adopt out, but I had to remember to let the Cat Lady know that he is probably not a well cat. His lungs rattle when he breathes. I made sure to tell her that this is probably a deal breaker, and not to feel she has to take him in. Some of the people who have adopted cats from her work in vet clinics, though, so I thought perhaps one of them would be willing to take him in, as they would be in a better position than most, to find what’s going on with him and give him the right care. She will pass his picture around and let people know.

As for Decimus and the others, I’m told that Decimus is getting quite fat from all the mice she’s catching, and is the best cat the woman has ever owned! Phantom, however, has no interest in the outdoors anymore, and is now an indoor cat. Turmeric (they all have new names now), on the other hand, is making strange. She’s staying outside, even at night (the woman keeps them indoors at night, but hasn’t been able to with Turmeric). She’s very sad about not being able to make friends with Turmeric, but at least Turmeric is staying there.

Meanwhile, it turns out she has a neighbour on a farm nearby who has no cats, and is interested in getting some. I am amazed by this, to be honest. I’m used to cats just showing up on the farm, but that isn’t happening where they are. The Cat Lady joked with her that she should move to our area; she’s have lots of cats show up!

If this neighbour wants outdoor cats, it would be nice if they would be willing to take some males. We have four of five adult males that we could bring over right now, and probably another 3 or 4 friendly kittens and cattens, if they wanted youngsters from this year. I’ve even been able to start petting Driver regularly while he eats on the cat house roof, and he’s only been back about a week.

I’m trying to think of ways to lure the female cats over and try to socialize them, but every idea I can come up with would lure in the friendly males even faster and they mill around so much, the females wouldn’t be able to come any closer. The only exception is Caramel, and she’s often even pushier than the males, while also trying to bit the hand that pets her! Trapping is always a possibility, too, but you just never know what cat would end up being trapped, with so many around. The friendly males would be more comfortable investigating the bait in a trap than the females! Of course, once I have a cat in a trap, I’d have to take it somewhere right away. With how we have the sun room set up as shelter this time of year, we can’t use it as an isolation room anymore, and we certainly couldn’t bring a mostly feral yard cat indoors until we could get it out. At least with the Egg Lady, if we catch a cat, we can bring it straight to her place. She has a chicken coop set aside for them to get used to their new home, and to stay in until she gets them to a vet to get fixed.

Normally, the Cat Lady doesn’t pass on personal information, like where people live, other than a general sense, but with the way things are… I wonder if we could work something out? From what I know, the lady that took in our three isn’t all that much further away than the Egg Lady, and has an isolation ward set up, too. If I could get the cats directly to her, where they could stay in isolation under they get fixed, that would also give her time to socialize them in a more controlled setting – something we just can’t manage with our set up.

Hhmm… I’ll run that idea by the Cat Lady.

If things work out – if we could just catch these cats! – we could potentially adopt out 6 or more outdoor females to homes where they would get spays and vet care right from the get-go. Plus, there is interest in some of the kittens, indoors and out. That would make a HUGE difference in our own population issues, and be much better for the cats, too.

We shall see.

Plus, if we can get friendly with Sad Face, we should be able to get him fixed, too! Hopefully, that would make him less aggressive with the other cats, and we could finally make him one of our own. I really hate having to chase him away.

The Re-Farmer

Butterscotch!

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I found out last night that, when my daughters headed outside while it was still light out, they got visited by Butterscotch! She came right up to them, wanting pets and cuddles, so casually, they assumed she’d been back for awhile.

When I found out, I headed outside to see her, but there was no sign of her.

There was, however, a massive racoon sitting on the threshold between the sun room doors that were tied off partly open. No surprise that all the kibble was gone.

This morning, while feeding the cats (I counted 36 or 37), I looked for her, but still no sign. As I continued my morning rounds, though, I started hearing meowing in the distance. Of course, I went looking. I had gone into the outer yard by the fire pit, when she came running!

I was even able to pick her up and cuddle her as I walked. I brought her to the food and set her on the cat house roof, but other cats were still eating, and she ran off. I caught up with her again and cuddled her, but she won’t go near the other cats.

Hopefully, that will change, and she will stay close, like Nosencrantz now does

Meanwhile, this gives me hope that Marlee will come back, too.

The Re-Farmer

Trellis bed progress, and the last potatoes are in

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Okay, so I did finally make it outside yesterday to do some work. I may have been mentally drained with all the BS going on with our vandal, but not going out was actually making me feel worse. It was later than I normally would have gone out, but the weather was still good, and there was still enough light.

For a while, anyhow.

My first task was to fill the wheelbarrow with material to add to the bed. The compostable bag of kitchen scraps went in, along with the Spoon tomato and pepper plants from the old kitchen garden, and all the squash and pepper plants from the main garden bed. I also pulled up the potato plants from the grow bags, which meant the Purple Peruvian fingerling potatoes would need to be harvested.

All that material went on top of the straw layer, followed by a layer of leaves and finally a sprinkling of grass clippings.

The grass clippings were more to keep the leaves down for when I tromped all over it, after this picture was taken. Then the whole thing got a thorough soaking. After that, I emptied my last half bag of manure over the grass clippings.

My plan had been to empty the soil out of the kiddie pool the melons were growing in, then use it to collect the soil from the potato bags while harvesting those. I got one load in the wheelbarrow, but the soil in there was very damp, sticky and heavy, and I was starting to lose the light. So I just emptied the one load into the bed, then shifted gears.

One thing about spreading even that small amount of soil onto one end of the bed: those layers REALLY start to sink under the weight! The bed looks over full in the photo, but those layers will probably settle to only half the bed, by the time the soil is added.

The feed bags used to grow the potatoes in are good for only one year’s use. They were all starting to tear apart as I tipped them over and dumped them out. The straw from the top and bottom of each bag could be easily set aside, leaving just the soil to sift through and pile up before moving on to the next bag. I got a decent amount of potatoes out of it. More than either of the other two varieties, and they were decently large for a fingerling potato, too. It was so dark by then, it was getting hard to find the dark purple potatoes in black soil in fading light! I will not be at all surprised if I find ones that got missed, when the soil is transferred over to the new bed. I did try to get a picture of the harvest, but it was a sucky flash picture, so I won’t inflict that on you. 😄

Today has turned out to be a less pleasant day, weather wise, so I’m extra glad I got as much done yesterday as I did. This morning, as I was finishing my rounds, I harvested some Uzbek Golden carrots to go with a roast I was wanting to do today. A nice big hunk of beef roasted with all three types of potatoes that we have, a whole bunch of our smaller yellow onions, and the golden carrots. Those were so big and juicy that, as I was cutting off the tops and tails, several of them would suddenly make a popping noise, and split from end to end!

I checked on the roast before I started this, and it was done – and the house smells delicious!

The Re-Farmer

Zero motivation

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I’m just not feeling it today.

My daughters pulled an all nighter last night. Aside from my older daughter working on her commissions, they did the usual cooking and cleaning, and my younger daughter baked an amazing zucchini cake with cream cheese icing. She’d baked one while house sitting, using zucchini from my brother’s garden, but we had to buy zucchini for this one, since our summer squash barely survived the slugs and didn’t produce much this year. Oh, she also did laundry and ended up spending two HOURS taking care if this…

This happened while I was clearing bush to access the tree I needed to debranch and cut to size. These are tiny burrs from a weed that has the prettiest, daintiest flowers that become these horrible things. I’ve been pulling them up every time I see them, but once the flowers are done blooming, they’re really hard to see.

Turns out I missed quite a lot of them.

I’d tried to rub out as many as I could before putting them through the wash. Once through the drier, the tiny burrs are a bit easier to rub out, but I ended up putting them back in the washing machine, to be included in the next load. Which turned out to be my daughter’s bedding. She didn’t realize what was on them until she moved things to the drier. Rather than risk burs ending up all over her bedding, she instead started picking them out, mostly one burr at a time!!

I would never have had that patience!

They’ll need to be washed again to hopefully remove the last little bits.

Then, since they were both up anyhow, they let me sleep in a bit and took care of feeding the outside cats for me, and I could do my rounds a bit later. I had to change the batteries on the trail cams today, including the solar powered one. I’ve had to change batteries on that one only once since we got it, and that was because I accidentally left it on “setting”, which meant it spent and entire day and night draining power while waiting for buttons to be pushed. The solar panel would have kept it going during the day, but once it was dark and the batteries were being used, they were completely drained.

As for me, I was glad to have that extra sleep and, to be honest, I’m fighting the urge to go back to bed. It’s gorgeous out there and there is lots of work to do, but I’m feeling quite drained.

With yesterday’s chill, I was planning on getting some crochet done after having a late lunch. I was just settling in to eat in the cat free zone (the living room) when the phone rang. Of course, the living room handset wasn’t in the living room at the time, and I didn’t get to it before it went to machine. It was my mother, and telling me to call her back, and she did not sound good at all.

So I called her back right away and found out why.

Our vandal had just showed up at her place, out of the blue, and he was in a full rage, apparently, He was yelling at her at her door, so the entire building could hear, going on about how she “gave” me the farm. Where he got that notion, I have no idea, because the property was signed over to my brother, not me. This was directly because of our vandal harassing her to change the will and give it to him. With the farm off the will entirely, he would not be able to contest it. In some messages he’d more recently left on her machine, he went on about “squatters rights” and how the property now belongs to me, but Canadian law no longer recognizes squatter’s rights, and hasn’t for a very long time. Not that we’re squatters in the first place. We have an informal arrangement, but an arrangement nonetheless. I don’t know who got it in his head that the property now belongs to me (and just me; apparently, the rest of my family doesn’t exist), but that’s his current thing.

To my mother’s credit, she told him outright, it’s none of his business. He already managed to get what would have been his inheritance more than 20 years ago, but he wants more. He started going on about how he worked on the farm, too (as if my siblings and I didn’t??). He is absolutely convinced he’s somehow entitled to the property, and seems to believe my mother can somehow still give it to him? It makes no sense, but we’re not dealing with a rational person, here.

Also to my mother’s credit, she finally told him to never come back. Previously, she’s sabotaged our efforts to protect her from him by actually phoning him and inviting him for tea or to go out for lunch or something. There seems to be a huge guilt factor motivating her efforts to make peace with someone who used to be so close, but has become completely irrational. I think feelings of guilt are behind his behaviour as well. My late brother’s death really destroyed him. I think a part of him recognises how much he’d taken advantage of my late brother, and that they weren’t anywhere near as close as he’s invented in his mind since the accident. He’s been taking it out on my mother, in particular, and since my father passed, has been using both of their deaths to cruelly abuse and manipulate my mother. That he has failed just seems to eat at him and is causing him to double down. A newer manipulation he’s using on her is that he’s apparently dying of cancer one day, or can’t walk anymore on another (as he stands at the door, having walked into her building…). He likely does need hip surgery again, but how is that my mother’s fault? Oh, right. He’s blaming his hip damage on all the work he supposedly did at the farm. Back when we were still close, I was the one that advised him to keep at the doctors about how much pain he was in, after working aircraft maintenance, on concrete floors and crawling around inside the craziest of places, looking for hairline cracks. The doctors didn’t want to do it because he was “too young” and it would need to be redone every 10 years. Well, it’s been a lot more than 10 years, so he’s likely in a lot of pain right now. And now he’s rewritten his own memory as to the cause and using it against my mother for… what? What does he expect her to do for him? Probably give him what’s left of her money, instead of the land. Though he has vowed to use every penny, even to the point of homelessness, to sue my brother and I. For what, I’m not entirely sure.

My mother is the weak link and the soft target. He hasn’t been going after me anymore. Our restraining order is expired, but he knows that I am willing to go to such efforts to stop him, which seems to be enough to keep him from going back to his past behaviour. Mind you, we did have a trail cam stolen, as well as the old sign with my father’s name on it, while the restraining order was in effect, but he technically did not have to go onto the property to do it, and we have no actual evidence that it was him. Still, when I mentioned it in court during mediation while trying to get the restraining order (he was not present for that), his lawyer and the judge were both nodding along going, “yeah, it would have been him.” There’s simply no one else that would have done it. So far, I’ve only seen him on the trail cams driving by. He no longer gives the finger to the cameras, nor comes up to the gate to shout down our driveway, while clearly drunk again.

Anyhow.

My mother hadn’t actually wanted to talk to me about it. She wanted to talk to my sister about it, as my sister still has some civil contact with our vandal. Well. Her husband does, anyhow. She couldn’t get through to my sister by phone, so I promised I’d send her an email, which I did immediately after getting off the phone.

Then I messaged my brother to update him, and we ended up chatting for quite some time. There isn’t a lot we can do about it, but we need to be aware, in case this is a sign that our vandal is losing it again and might decide to cause us problems here on the farm again. As for my sister, she did get through to my mother, then sent our vandal a message that probably didn’t do any good at all, but I guess it was worth a shot.

By the time all that was done, my food was cold and my tea was tepid. I also had to move on to other things and never got to my crochet at all.

I still feel completely drained and have no desire to go outside and get work done. The chances of him harassing me from the road are next to nil, so that’s not the issue. I’m just tired. Mentally and psychologically tired.

Of all the struggles we have found ourselves dealing with since the move, our vandal turning from friend to foe is the one that is the most unfortunate and difficult. That he goes after my mother like that… Ugh. My mother may be pretty abusive and cruel herself, but that doesn’t justify his abusive behaviour towards her. Especially over something that is none of his business. Blaming the actions from both of them on mental illness – as accurate as that may be – cannot be an excuse to accept the behaviour.

So… that’s where I’m at now. I really need to get outside and get some work done, while the weather is good, but I have zero motivation and zero energy. I’m simply out of spoons.

The Re-Farmer

October garden tour, and a surprise

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Last month I did a garden tour video on Sept. 10, which is our average first frost date. At the time, forecasts still had us looking at frost free nights well into October.

We got light frost over the next two nights after I recorded the video.

So when we got a harder frost exactly a month later, I figured it would be good to do another garden tour video. I managed to get it put together last night, started uploading it to YouTube, then went to bed. I got up a few times (drinking a liter of tea before bed was probably not a good idea) and checked on the progress, removed a kitten from the keyboard and repaired her editing of the description box, before finally falling asleep for the rest of the night.

When I checked my computer in the morning, I found it had been restarted.

Thankfully, whatever caused it to restart happened after the video finished uploading, so I didn’t have to start all over again. I just had to finish going through the settings and hit publish.

Here it is! I hope you enjoy it. 😊

In other things, once I was done my morning rounds, I grabbed our water jugs and headed into town to refill them and get a few groceries. The post office and the store it’s in closes at noon today, so I made sure to stop for the mail on the way out. I knew my husband had a package waiting, but I had one, too – and a lovely surprise it was!

My absolutely awesome friend sent me a new thermometer! I just love those nice, big, easy to read numbers! The hygrometer is going to be handy, too. Especially when it comes time to start seeds indoors again.

The reading on here is straight out of the box, after being in the car for a while, so it doesn’t reflect the ambient temperature and humidity of the house in the photo.

While in town, I popped over to the garage briefly, since it’s just across the street from the grocery store. I wanted to let our mechanic know how much we now have available as a down payment. Probably still not enough for that truck, but there were a few SUVs I looked at along the way. One, I didn’t bother checking out as it was too small for our needs, but there were two others that caught my attention. One turned out to be sold already, and the other was a new acquisition that he hadn’t even gone over yet, so he had no price for it, yet. From what I could see, though, it’s probably outside of our budget, anyhow. Ah, well.

Getting a vehicle in October seems very unlikely but, in November, we’ll be able to contribute more towards a down payment, so that might finally get us to monthly payments in budget. My daughter does plan to contribute towards the monthly payments but, with her income being mostly commissions, I’m not going to count it in my numbers.

It’s a cooler day today, and it’s been trying to rain all morning, so I will be focusing on indoor stuff today. The next few days are supposed to be warmer, sunnier – and drier! – so I hope to catch up on things outside, then.

Today looks like a good day to make a pot of tea, pop on some videos and catch up on my crochet!

The Re-Farmer

It feels good!

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Well, I’m quite happy with how our Thanksgiving dinner turned out yesterday. The main reason is, just about everything on our plate was from our garden!

Starting from the top, going clockwise:

Uzbek Golden and Naval carrots, steamed, then tossed with butter, salt and pepper, and a touch of brown sugar.

Red Thumb fingerling potatoes – these are most definitely a mashing potato! – with butter, cream cheese, mayo mashed in, seasons with dill, salt and pepper.

North Georgia Candy Roaster squash. The squash was quartered and the cavity was coated with a mixture of ghee, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves and a touch of salt, and roasted with the spatchcocked turkey. If we’d done the turkey without spatchcocking it, we wouldn’t have had room for both! 😄

Finally, at the top left, is the quick pickle of both types of carrots, turnip, radish and garlic, spiced with whole cloves and whole cardamom seeds.

I look forward to a time when the meat is also from our own animals.

Unfortunately, I completely forgot to cover the peppers and eggplant yesterday evening. By the time I remembered, it was past midnight and we already reached freezing temperatures, though of course, none of my weather apps agreed. When my daughter and I went out with the covers, there was already frost just starting to glitter on the ground. It was chilly, but the stars were incredible! So many, and so very bright!

Heading out this morning, the frost was still heavy on the ground. At the last minute, I decided to take video for another garden tour. It will probably be the last one for the year. I’ll start putting that together in a bit, as I wait for things to warm up a bit more before going back outside. The forecasts for a milder October have all changed, though we’re still expected to get a few days at 10C/50F and above – though again, that depends on which app I’m looking at. It’s still nothing to complain about. After all, we could be having snow right now!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: Thanksgiving harvest

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The turkey is almost ready, so I thought I’d make a quick post.

It’s not the only thing that’s quick today. From this morning’s harvest…

… of orange and yellow carrots, turnips and radishes to…

… a quick pickle! A few carrots, turnips, radishes, garlic, whole cloves and whole cardamom. I made this first thing, so it would have a few hours to pickle before being included in our dinner.

I hope it’s good. 😆 I am no fan of radishes, but I will try it.

The Re-Farmer