progress

Today’s progress – running around and work accomplished… sorta

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I am so glad my brother said he would take care of my mother’s morning meds today, after we got the call from home care saying they didn’t have anyone to do it!

After feeding the outside cats and doing my morning rounds, I grabbed breakfast, then backed the truck closer to the inner yard. I didn’t want to go too close to the house while loading the back, because of all the very curious cats and kittens!

Speaking of which, I did a head count of all the cats and kittens I could see this morning. I counted several times and got a different number each time, but the highest count was 42. Mostly kittens. I’ve been messaging with the rescue group and mentioned this, commenting on how I can now see why we’re going through kibble so fast. I told them I got four 40 pound bags when disability came in at the end of Septembers. Sixteen days, and we’ve gone through three of them. I had to start the fourth one, today. They asked if I could last a week. I think we might be able to. They also asked about the prices for 40 pounds bags, and I was later able to send them pictures of a couple of receipts from the two different feed stores I go to, and the two different brands I get from them. A rescue would certainly be on the look out for better prices on kibble!

Anyhow…

I am so happy we have that new cover installed on the truck!

We were finally able to take the garbage from cleaning out the sun room to the dump. After I loaded those much bigger bags from the sun room clean up, with my older daughter distracting kittens away from me and the truck as best she could, she helped me get the household garbage out of the old kitchen, where the bags go until we can do a dump run. With all the kittens running around, it’s easier to have one person pass these smaller bags through the screenless window in the storm door to a second person. That way, only one person has to dodge kittens! 😄

This is the first dump run we’ve been able to make since we took the truck in for repair and getting the new cover installed. With the extra garbage from the sun room clean up, it filled the entire space under the cover – and no worries that something would blow away on the highway!

Once the truck was loaded, I was off to the dump. I got there right at 10. There was already a truck parked on the road, waiting for the gate to be unlocked. It turned out that the car in front of me was the attendant! I had it in my head that they opened at nine, forgetting that winter hours starts at the end of October, not the beginning. Glad I didn’t leave for a 9am opening!

By the time I unloaded the truck, there was a whole crowd of vehicles that had come in behind me, including a dump truck with two huge crushed cubes of garbage. !!! I’m happy to say that the area in front of the pit was relatively clear of huge piles of garbage. I’m still nervous about getting a flat tire every time I got in there, though.

That done, it was off to the pharmacy in town. I wanted to get refills before I ran out. I’m glad I didn’t wait. I have my anti-inflammatories, and my stomach meds to protect from the anti-inflammatories. I take the stomach meds only once a day, but can take up one or two anti-inflammatories, up to three times a day. If I were to take the max dose of the anti-inflammatories, I would finish both at the same time. I only need to take a couple of anti-inflammatories once a day, though, so those last a lot longer. I’d actually picked up a refill a while back, but it has disappeared, and I never used any of it. I’m still finishing my first bottle. I suspect a cat knocked the second bottle of the shelf, but I haven’t been able to find it, anywhere! So I had to get another refill.

The stomach meds, though, have already been refilled twice before, and my prescription was done for refills. The pharmacy would have to fax my doctor to get an extension. Unfortunately, today is a Saturday on Thanksgiving weekend, which means the earliest the doctor will get the fax is on Tuesday.

Once again, glad I started this now, and not later! I’ll have enough to last until the updated prescription is in. If I’d waited, I would have run out, and I really don’t want to do that. These have saved me from so much pain and stiffness, it still amazes me.

Meanwhile, I was able to get the other refills. While the pharmacy was taking care of that, I headed over to the grocery store to pick up a few things before Thanksgiving.

I didn’t have much on my list, but I did spend time going through the store, looking for something I might want to add to our Thanksgiving dinner. I should have picked something up while in my mother’s town, yesterday! They had much better sales on pies. This store had sales, too, but they were not only more expensive even with the sale price, you had to buy two of them to get the sale price, Otherwise, they were regular price – and there was no way I was paying that much for a small pie!

Taking my time at the grocery store gave the pharmacy the time then needed to fill my prescriptions. They were just bagging it up when I got there. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get the missing one on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, my brother had surprised my mother by showing up to do her morning med assist instead of the home care worker. He also had a couple of Thanksgiving dinners my SIL had packed for her. She was very happy about that and said they would be her lunch and supper! 😊 He stayed long enough to take care of her portable air conditioner and the window set up for the winter. He was done and already here at the farm before I got back from my own errands, so I went over to see how things went. She can be particularly cruel to him.

She turned out to be having a good day today, and was actually mostly kind to him. As we were catching up, he remembered to tell me my mother brought up about me and the farm. I immediately became suspicious, but he told me it was good. She had brought up about how we are paying for the utilities here, and he said yes, plus things like the internet, and fixing things, and so on. She started to say how she wanted to help. I told him, she has teased about helping with the door replacement a couple of times, but I don’t expect her to. He assured me, she’ll help with the door replacement. As her PoA, he could even make it easier for her and do an etransfer, or she can write me a check, if she prefers, but he says she intends to help with the door. She wants this place to be in good shape.

I don’t trust her. She’s burned all of us, at one time or another, by making promised and then backing out at the last minute. She has cost my brother many thousands of dollars by doing that. Even the times she has helped, like with the new roof and replacing the septic ejector, it was because my brother made sure she followed through. She actually tried to back out of paying for the roof like she promised, after the work was done, because she refused to believe it should cost more than a thousand dollars (it was around $15,000, I think), even though we got estimates and showed them to her.

I trust my brother, but there’s only so much he can do, and I don’t trust her.

We shall see. Lord knows, we could use the help after this past very rough couple of years, and my brother knows it.

Meanwhile, as I got caught up with my brother, I came into the house to find my purchases had all magically put themselves away. 😄 That allowed me to go back outside and try and get some work done.

Painting the isolation shelter and a few other things, were priority. It was supposed to be a much warmer day today, but it has been insanely windy.

I did get the painting done, though. The new paint is very noticeably lighter! I don’t care, though. I made no effort to try and keep the new colour off the painted parts. When I find something better to bring in for colour matching, we’ll get another can of paint in the right shade, and give what I got painted today a second coat, after winter.

The sliding windows had to be removed, of course. I was careful when painting the tracks, as I didn’t want them to get filled with pools of paint by accident.

In the first picture, you can see the box to shelter the ramp opening. Later on, I want to flip it upside down to paint the inside, but that’s not a priority. I got the old plant stand painted, and it’s sitting on a couple of broken sidewalk block pieces to keep it above ground.

The second picture is the side where the sliding window can only side towards the front, not over the insulated side wall. There was a bit to do in the front, and a single piece on the back that needed to be done, but most of the painting needed was on the sides.

I did not do the wire mesh door. It was so windy, I was starting to get an ear ache and had to head inside for a while.

After a break, I headed out again. By then, the paint was no longer wet to the touch, so I put the sliding windows back, which you can see in the third picture. Everything was sliding just the way they should!

That cats could now use it, too. Without those windows, the wind was blowing through so much, it actually blew a corner of the hammock loose!

My next project was to continue that garden bed I’d done half of.

Just in time for it to start raining!

I stayed out as a light rain came and went, while thunder rumbled in the distance, until it finally started coming down too hard to stay outside.

The first picture is the “before” shot. The second is how far I got before it started raining too hard.

So. Many. Tree roots. I think I got about half way down that side. Maybe a bit less. The rock bucket is a little over half full.

Once the roots and rocks were cleared, the soil was wonderfully light and fluffy. Perfect to grow in – if we didn’t have to worry about those roots coming back!

I’m glad I got as much done as I did. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get back at it. Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer, but rainy. We’ll be having our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, anyhow. I plan to pack up a care package for my mother and visit her on Thanksgiving day. She will be getting her Meals on Wheels, though, so it will be for later in the day. Monday and Tuesday are supposed to be quite chilly, with overnight lows reaching below freezing, but then it’s supposed to warm up again. That will be my time to get the beds finished, then start some winter sowing! I’ll have to go through my seed packs and work out where I want to plant things. Some things will be more appropriate for the old kitchen garden, right against the house. Others can be planted well away from the house, as they would get harvested in the fall. Some beds will get the winter sowing marked clearly, so that I can sow other things among them in the spring.

I’m really looking forward to having a better gardening year than this one was!

The Re-Farmer

Got some progress in, and cat news

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As I was finishing my rounds this morning, I got quite a few cat pictures that I could send to the rescue. Including this one of Rolando Moon.

Rolando, being one of the cats my late father cared for, is not up for adoption, but I wanted to share that face with the folks at the new rescue!

I shared quite a few other pictures as well. There was a fair bit of messaging throughout the day, and some things were finalized. One person is going to take in 6 cats herself, not this weekend, but next. There is another cat she is fostering right now that is going to a forever home this week, and the extra days will give her time to clean out the room she has for fosters before she can take more.

That’s something we can’t do. Have an entire room in the house dedicated to cats to be isolated for a week or two!

We have confirmed I will be delivering Smokey and her brother, the cat with the severe ear mite infection, plus three friendly kittens. None of the more feral ones, on this trip.

I had sad news to share with the rescue people, too.

Last night, around 1am, I was still up and tending to the inside cats, when I decided to give the outside cats a top up in the sun room. I figured the skunks and raccoons would have cleaned their kibble out by then, and I didn’t want them to be too hungry before the morning feeding.

As I was adding their kibble treat to various trays in the sun room, cats came running – except one, in one of the cat beds.

It was one of Frank’s remaining two kittens, passed away.

*sigh*

I was kind of expecting it, as her kittens were pretty sick, but still…

At least I can say it passed away while being in a cuddle puddle, and not cold and alone.

I let my older daughter know, as she was available at the time, and she came out with a flash light so I could bury the kitten. His brother actually came running and was so curious about what was going on, it was hard to get the job done! I finally was able to grab him and take him with me as I went to put the spade away, while my daughter found larger rocks to put over the new grave, so nothing could dig it up.

When feeding the cats this morning, Frank’s remaining little got to have his own bowl of special food in the old kitchen, supervised by my daughter, before getting an eye wash. He was pretty active and eager for attention, which was encouraging.

After the morning routine and planting of garlic, I was off to my mother’s, set to arrive after she’d had a chance to enjoy her Meals on Wheels lunch. I had quite a few things to get done, including helping her with her feet, so I brought along my micro-pedi thing and a proper set of toenail clippers, with plans to leave them with her. She has a fungal infection on a couple of her toenails and refuses to use the prescription treatment for them, because it was so expensive, so I don’t want to be bringing the stuff I use on her toes back home with me!

When I got there, though, she was lying down and her Meals on Wheels tray was on her table, untouched. My mother had forgotten that I was coming. She said she wasn’t feeling well, but since I was there, she got up to join me, and eat her lunch.

She had not made a shopping list, so we did that together. It was a really short shopping list this time. She still had much of what I’d picked up for her, last week.

When I called her last night about coming over today, I asked her to take a package of chicken out of the freezer that I could cook for her. I had been thinking of the meaty legs and thighs, but she took out the split wings, instead. After I got back from the grocery store, she even had them out and in a bowl, where she’d started to rinse them off.

Before I left for the grocery store, though, we got her laundry started. The wash would be done by the time I got back. Which is exactly how it worked out, so I got her stuff in the drier, and her third load started, before I got to work on the chicken.

I asked her how she wanted me to prepare them and she seemed surprised by the question. It turns out she just boils her chicken. (She never uses her oven for cooking; instead, she uses it to start pots and pans!) She’d even brought out a small pot and a large frying pan do use to cook them, as she doesn’t have a single pot large enough for the package. She asked me how I would have prepared them for myself and I mentioned a few things. She almost went with pan frying them, but she decided she really wanted that chicken stock.

So… boiled split wings it would be!

Then I asked her what she usually put in with them. Once again, she seemed surprised by the question. Water? was her response. Then she asked me again, how would I do it. Knowing what she had in the fridge, I said I’d be adding some carrots, celery and onion to it, some salt and pepper…

Then she remembered she was almost out of salt, but forgot to include it in her shopping list.

She had enough for the day, though, and told me to go ahead and add the vegetables to the chicken, too.

I’m glad she went with that because it turned out she was intending to have the chicken as a soup for her supper. Now, she would have chicken and vegetable soup!

That reminded her of something else she wanted us to pick up for her. “Tiny macaroni”, she said. I didn’t know what she meant and tried to get more details, but she got really frustrated that I didn’t know what she was talking about. I told her, there are a lot of different kinds of pasta out there! Did she mean orzo? Couscous?

I don’t think she’d heard of either before.

When she still couldn’t find the words to tell me what she wanted, I got my phone and and started searching for small types of pasta so I could show her pictures. I found one to show her, and it wasn’t small enough.

When she started talking about it being quick cooking, so she wouldn’t have to stand at the counter for long, I had a light bulb moment. I did some more searching and found a picture to show her.

She was talking about ramen noodles. She was very excited when I found the pictures for her!

Talking about her having food that cooks quickly, it got me to bringing up her home care again. She needs to have them come out to help her more often. Not just med assists, but help with dressing, making small meals – even if it’s just to make her some toast, or heat up a can of something for her, which is about the extent of what she’s up to on her own – even bathing.

My mom just got more and more frustrated at the idea. Her comments against it came down to “I’m not used to having servants. I’m used to doing things myself.”

So… that’s how my mother sees the home care workers. Not as people helping her with her medical needs, but as servants.

I told her, she’s causing her own problems by not accepting help she needs, because this care would get her into a nursing home faster. It’s either that, or have a fall!

I’m hoping she’ll come around.

This did give us a chance to talk about something else. I got a notification for a voice mail this morning, which meant there was no signal and the call went straight to voice mail. It took a few tries before I had enough signal to listen to the message, as the wifi calling isn’t working for some reason. It was this morning’s home care aid. She told me that she had emptied my mother’s commode and fount it very full, cloudy and smelling strongly. She’d asked my mother if she felt burning or any pain while urinating, and was told no. She brought up that she didn’t now if maybe it hadn’t been emptied for a while.

So when my mother and I talked about it, I asked her if she had any symptoms of a UTI, and she had none. Then I asked her how long it had been since the commode was emptied (it’s supposed to be done every morning).

I didn’t get a straight answer, but she started talking about one particular home care worker that is always in a hurry and leaves as soon as she gets my mother’s meds out. I told her, they are supposed to empty it every morning – there is extra time scheduled for my mother’s morning assist for stuff like this. She told me she can empty it herself, and I said no – that’s their job for a reason! I told her, just imagine trying to go to the washroom and having a fall, while carrying that bucket!

Hopefully, she will insist on it in the mornings. Otherwise, this will happen again. She shouldn’t have to, though. It’s part of their morning assist, not just the meds.

When I got home, I checked the schedule. My mother had someone yesterday with a name I didn’t recognize. The three previous mornings where this person my mother has issues with, that just comes in and leaves, without even making sure my mother takes her meds.

Which means that, potentially, that thing wasn’t empties for 4 mornings.

!!!!

Anyhow…

I stayed around until her chicken soup was cooked and her laundry was done and put away. I got some sweeping done, but I never got to do her feet. She wasn’t up to it. By the time I headed out, I had been there for almost 3 hours. I made a quick stop at the grocery store for ourselves before heading home – just some bread and eggs for now. Tomorrow, after I do the dump run, I will be going into town to pick up prescription refills, then going to the grocery store there, where prices are a bit better than in my mother’s town.

Overall, my mother was on one of her good days, though I had to redirect her to other topics a few times. There were also a few times when she was moving around, leaning on walls or furniture as she did, where she made sudden outcries of pain.

She really needs to be in some kind of supportive living, or a nursing home. It’s so frustrating that the home care office that decides this hasn’t approved her for it!

By the time I was heading home, it was late enough that I asked my daughter to feed the outside cats. When I got home, there was a message waiting for me, saying that she got it done, that she had a chance to pet all sorts of cats she’d never been able to touch before…

… and she couldn’t find Frank’s last little grubling.

*sigh*

Once I was home and settled in, I updated my siblings on how things went with my mom, including about what she remembered she wanted from the grocery store, after I’d made the trip. Then I got changed and headed outside to try and get some stuff done while there was still enough light.

That included checking the sun room for a missing kitten.

I found him in the same place I’d found that little white and grey tabby, a few days ago. Under a shelf, looking like he was all curled up for a nap.

*sigh*

I headed out to bury him beside his brother then my cell phone rang.

It was home care. They didn’t have anyone to do my mother’s morning visit tomorrow.

*sigh*

While I had the person on the phone, I mentioned finding a voice mail earlier in the day. I said that if a call goes straight to voice mail, that means I’m not getting a signal, so to call the land line instead. For some reason, while outside the house, I had enough signal to get that call, but would not have gotten it, if I were inside the house.

After pausing to let my family and siblings know about the call from home care, I continued the sad job of burying Frank’s last kitten. I updated the rescue about that as well. Two kittens in one day! 😢

I was starting to lose light, so I started working on the box for around the front of the isolation shelter ramp door, to keep the winter weather out. Parts of the roof were cracked, as was the front panel. I started out trimming the smaller opening in the front panel first, when I got a message from my brother.

He was planning to visit my brother tomorrow, and said he could do the morning med assist!

That was so, so appreciated!

He wanted to call me to talk about it, so I quickly popped inside so I could use the land line. We went over what gets included in my mother’s morning med assist. He confirmed about the grocery items she remembered later on, so he will be picking that up for her. My SIL, meanwhile, was making a chicken dinner to pack up for my brother to bring and have an early Thanksgiving lunch with her. It’s also that time of year for him to put away her portable AC for the winter, and set in the Styrofoam insulation in the window opening for the night. The glass in the window was removed so my mother could have the AC, and is set aside to be put back after my mother finally gets to move out and into a nursing home.

That done, I headed back outside again. Once the duct tape patching was done, I got out what I was planning to use as handles on the sides, so it can be carried more easily, and without damaging the plastic parts more.

The white piece of wood on the side, with a matching one on the other side, is the new handle. It’s the same thing I used for the legs, except they are half the length.

I’d picked up 1″ wood screws to attach these, as I’d run out, only to discover I really should have picked up 1 1/4″ screws. In the end, I attached them with two screws on the outside to hold them in place, then with three more screws through the thinner plywood on the inside.

Thankfully, my drill and driver both have lights on them, because it was pretty dark by the time I was finished, and the inside of the box, of course, was even darker!

It is now ready for painting.

Since I’ll be running around so much tomorrow, even without a trip to my mother’s early on, I’ve asked my daughters to do the painting, as soon as the morning chill is gone. Which will probably be around 10am. I want the paint to have as much time to cure as possible before the chill of the night. The exposed wood on the isolation shelter needs to be painted, the entry box needs to be painted, there’s a plant stand I scrubbed clean that can be painted, and plus there’s the wire mesh “door” for the old basement that we didn’t use this summer, as it was part of the platform in the sun room before we did the deep cleaning. There was plenty of grime from messy cat feet that needed to be scrubbed off of it, so I figure a paint job would help protect the wood, even if we don’t end up using is as part of a cat platform again.

Once the painting is done, there’s some rigid foam insulation inside one of the side walls that has been thoroughly scratched up by cats, so I want to cut a new piece for that. Then I want to wrap the bottom half with vinyl for the winter again, plus add handles to make it easier to move around.

All of which can be done after the paint dries!

Getting this done has been pushed back by other things coming up, so often. I’m just glad to have gotten it all to the point that all the painting can be done at once, rather than piecemeal – and that my daughters will be able to get it done for me while I’m running around, again!

That will give me more time to focus on getting more garden beds clear of weeds and tree roots, and finishing the inside wall of the garden bed in the old kitchen garden.

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

Updates on cats, doctors and more cats!

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I woke up late this morning which, unfortunately, meant we had a lot of very hungry cats outside! I asked one of my daughters to simply pour a scoop of kibble onto the sun room floor to tide them over before I could do a proper feeding. Which helped, I suppose, but they were really eager for their morning food. That is when I mix up a small bowl of “cat soup” with just one can of wet cat food, and use that to soften the bowl if kibble, first. I also prep a smaller bowl of kitten soup that I leave on top of the freezer until later. I could hear so much commotion at the door, I ended up taking the bowl of softened kibble and going out the main doors, instead. Even if I had someone ready to herd cats out the door as I went through, I just didn’t want to risk stepping on a kitten!

Which means I filled their food trays and bowls in reverse, doing the furthest ones first and making my way to the sun room. I didn’t take long for them to hear me and come running. Which worked out so well, I’m thinking I might start doing this regularly!

After I finished putting the last of the softened kibble in the sun room trays, I grabbed Frank’s two remaining littles and brought them into the old kitchen to have their own kitten soup without having to fight off other cats. That also gave me time to wash their eyes open again. That done, I quickly popped into the sun room and back again. Frank wanted into the old kitchen and I let her, so she could have the special food along with her kittens.

It didn’t quite work out that way.

She was too nervous and went hiding and exploring around the old kitchen. I let her be and went to get the squeeze treats I bought a while back but never got to using, yet. I gave some to the kittens in their food bowl, then just squeezed the last of it onto the freezer near them, hoping Frank would be tempted. At one point, I was able to reach her and pick her up, but as I moved towards the freezer, she got more and more nervous. Before I could put her down beside her kittens, she panicked, scrambled when her feet touched the top of the freezer, sending food – and kittens! – flying. One of the kittens ended up falling behind the freezer, while Frank ran and hid under a couch.

The other kitten was still on the freezer and done eating, so I let it out through the screenless storm door window. Then I tried to get the kitten that was behind the freezer. It was sitting on the floor, just out of reach. I thought I could use something to push it from behind and get it to move out from behind the freezer.

Instead, it disappeared. It took me a moment to realize it had gone into the opening where the freezer’s guts are! After several attempts, to reach it, it finally came close enough that I could grab it and lift it out without getting tangled in things I could feel, but not see, in there!

The kitten got to enjoy a bit more food and squeeze treat, but Frank wouldn’t come out. I finally went out with the kitten, hoping that Frank would go onto the freezer and eat, while I wasn’t in there.

The kitten joined the cuddle puddle – and was nuzzling Sir Robin, trying to nurse!

I spent some time refilling water bowls, then opened the doors to the old kitchen, where I found Frank just inside, waiting. She never ate what was on top of the freezer, and was very eager to just leave the old kitchen! That gave me a chance to take the bowl of kitten soup and leave it out for other kittens to finish. There was still the glob of squeeze treat on the freezer, though. I ended up picking it up with my fingers, trying to hold it in my hand. It was messy, but I got most of it. I then went to the cats and kittens at the kitten soup bowl.

Two kittens I’ve never been able to get close to before where there. Both of them happily licked the squeeze treat off my fingers instead of running away!

Then they ran away. 😄

Meanwhile, I started getting messages from people with the rescue. This continued throughout the morning, and while I was in the city. Long story short, we might be bringing as many kittens over on Sunday as we can get into carriers! I’ll have to get some clarification, first, though. There seemed to be some communication issues. Tomorrow is Saturday, so I need to get that cleared up fairly quickly!

When I was done my morning rounds, it wasn’t much longer before my daughter and I started for the city. We left insanely early, to give ourselves time to get lost. 😄 I did look the place up on the map last night, plus I had Google Maps up on my phone to give directions. The route looked pretty straightforward, though what it was showing in the app did not match was I saw on my desktop last night. The address was the address, though, and I did remember the area fairly well, from my days when I used to work around there, and lived just across the river. I was not looking forward to trying to find the address, then finding parking. The area is mostly narrow, one way streets.

We did make a stop at my mother’s down along the way, though, to pick up a couple of energy drinks and some chicken and wedges for breakfast. From there, I got the app going to give me directions while I drove. My daughter was a sweetheart and passed potato wedges to me while I drove. I couldn’t eat my chicken while driving, but my daughter could eat hers, and I was more concerns that she got some food in her. She has a terrible habit of not eating, because eating most foods makes her sick. We have not been able to track down exactly why.

As we got into the city, I had the app up on the dashboard holder, but for some reason, it wasn’t giving voice directions. So my daughter took the phone so she could see the map and gave me the directions as we went along. I did remember the route from checking the map last night, but it’s been so long, I preferred having a navigation officer!

When we got to where the area, one of the first problems I noticed was not being able to find street numbers, anywhere. We got to where the app said the address was at, but couldn’t see anything to show where the clinic was. Specifically, a building tall enough, as the endocrinologist clinic was on the 9th floor.

With the one way streets, we drove around the block a couple of times, made slower because of construction, before finally spotting a parkade that didn’t have a “lot full” sign and headed in. We figured we could find the place more easily on foot. It couldn’t be far.

We then had the fun time of trying to find a place to park with enough room for our truck. The first four levels were all reserved parking. We finally got to a level that wasn’t all reserved, but the first side of that level was half roped off, apparently reserved for “game day”. We finally got to where it no longer was all reserved, and nothing was roped off, but the only open spots we saw were “small car only”.

Then I spotted two accessible parking spots.

My daughter and I don’t have our own accessible parking placards, but we do have my husband’s. We used it and finally parked.

My daughter actually forgot her cane at home, but we had three spares in the truck. After she grabbed one for herself, I decided to grab another for myself, just in case.

I am so glad I did. My left hip may be better after the steroid injection, but that lasts for only so long, when pounding concrete!

We had to back track to the street the clinic was on (with a gorgeous, castle-like cathedral as a landmark; I once had the opportunity to go there for mass, when I lived in the area, and can attest it’s as beautiful on the inside as the outside), then tried to find someplace with a street number. We found one, but didn’t know which direction we needed to go for the clinic. We were in the 300’s, and the address was in the 200’s.

We were about to wing it when I spotted a guy in a suit about to cross a street, so I quickly asked him if he knew where the clinic was, and which direction we’d need to go. He was an absolute sweetheart, quickly found the place on his phone (his app got it right, where ours clearly didn’t!) and pointed us in the first direction. We had about 3 blocks to walk, though part way along, the sidewalk was blocked off for construction (which was happening all over the place), so we’d have to cross the street, then cross back again, along the way.

The guy was so wonderful and happy about giving directions, he really made our day!

So, off we went, picking our way through construction at an intersection across from the area blocked off for construction (!!!) before finally making it to the final stretch. That’s when we could see a big billboard sign for a clinic. We couldn’t actually read all of it, because there was a tree growing right in front of it, but we could make out enough that it looked right. The entrance wasn’t on the street the address was on, though, and as we walked past the corner and could see the other side of the billboard, which wasn’t blocked by a tree, we realized it wasn’t the right clinic. We still popped in to ask for directions.

The lady pointed out the window to another high rise building across a parking lot.

A building with a huge painted on sign on the side.

With the name of the clinic at the bottom, in white paint on a pale blue background, barely readable.

We were very appreciative for the help.

Thank God we left as early as we did! My daughter’s appointment was at 1pm. We reached the front doors at about 12:40!

When we got to the 9th floor, the elevators opened up to a reception desk.

With things roped off in front, as if under construction. I think it was actually just to keep people from waking up to the counter, though.

There was no one at the counter.

We tried reading the sign, all it really had was arrows for endocrinology in both directions, and some doctor’s names. My daughter didn’t have a name for the doctor she was booked at, so we didn’t know which way we had to go. I spotted a cleaning lady, so I asked her which way to the endocrinologists. She asked which doctor we needed to say, and I told her we didn’t know. She said the staff (meaning the receptionists) were on lunch and would be back soon, so they’d be able to tell us.

We thanked her and went to a nearby waiting room. We couldn’t see the reception desk from where we were but, thankfully, could hear when someone was at the counter. My daughter and I – and several more people in the waiting room – promptly headed over to check in!

… and ask where a bathroom was. It was a long drive!

Of course, it was while my daughter was still in the bathroom that someone came out and called her name! I let them know. 😄

Even with all that, my daughter ended up at her appointment almost 10 minutes early!

She was out much faster than I expected for a first time appointment. She had requisitions for blood work, one to be done right away, the other to be done later. She had been told there was a lab on the ground floor, and she could get her first blook work done there, so that was her first stop.

When we got there and she was checked in, I asked about how long it would be, since the waiting room was quite full.

About 40 minutes was the answer.

!!!

It turned out they were short staffed today, and falling behind.

With time ticking on our parking spot, we decided it would be faster if we head out and stopped at a lab on the way home.

So, off we went to get the truck and head home, this time taking a route I was much more familiar with. It wasn’t until we got home that I had a chance to check why we were sent to a completely wrong area.

It turned out the address in my calendar for the clinic had two numbers reversed. The bizarre thing is, when I was looking at the address and directions on the website last night, I saw the address that was in my phone. Yet, when I looked up the clinic last night, I used the street address that was on my phone, and found it.

So weird!

As we were leaving the clinic, my daughter made a comment about how much she appreciated our new doctor, but she was going to wait until we were out of the city, and I didn’t have to focus on traffic so much (dancing around more construction) before telling me how it went.

We did make one stop along the way. Gas prices in my mother’s down had dropped to $1.269/L, but I planned to get gas in the city. I’d seen a station on the way in that had gas at $1.239/L and was planning to go there – until we passed a station with gas at $1.199/L !! I was just over a half tank and put $40 in, which filled my tank! I can’t remember the last time I was able to fill my tank from half for only $40!

Once we were out of the city, I remembered to ask my daughter how the appointment went.

Not well.

It was a very short appointment and I won’t go into detail, but the doctor was very rude and “just an old b***”, as my daughter described her. Long story short, though, by the time she told me some of the things the doctor did, my jaw was dropping. She needs to make a formal complaint. The doctor apparently made it clear she was disgusted by my daughter’s body. My daughter has hirsutism. She was there because of her PCOS. How does an endocrinologist not encounter a PCOS patient with hirsutism before? Or maybe she has, and just treats all her hairy female patients with hormonal disorders with disgust?

As if that weren’t bad enough, my daughter was manhandled, without explanation nor consent, in a way that is considered sexual assault. Sure it was a physical exam, but NO doctor is supposed to touch a patient like that without first explaining what they were examining for, and getting consent.

She also tried to test my daughter’s reflexes, but kept missing the tendon, then getting ticked off because there was no reaction to her hammering on my daughter’s ankle.

I really hope my daughter files a formal complaint, because… damn!

Along the way, we stopped in the town our doctor’s clinic is in, to do her first blood tests at the lab in the hospital. My daughter went in to get her tests done, while I stayed in the truck to finally eat the rest of my breakfast!

I’m glad we chose to go to a lab on the way home. My daughter was out so quickly – with two people called in ahead of her – that I was just finishing eating when she came back to the truck! Had we stayed at the lab in the city, we would have been just getting out and heading to the truck, unless they fell behind even more.

Her second set of blood tests can be done whenever she is able, but for this one, she is supposed to take a medication at 11pm, then get her blood tested at 8am.

I don’t even know if the local labs are open at 8am. I think they open at 9am. We’ll have to figure that out. Either way, she has a prescription to pick up before she can do the second test.

After the results are in, she hopes to get a telephone appointment only, or pay extra to get the results emailed to her. She does NOT want to go back to this doctor. I told her that she needs to let her regular doctor know about what happened so that, if necessary, she can get referred to another endocrinologist. Apparently, there’s a new clinic being built and there’s already a long waiting list for it, but she’s more than willing to wait, rather than go back!

For the most part, my daughter is just angry, but she realizes that a patient with, for example, a history of sexual abuse, a visit like this would have been very traumatic.

So glad that appointment is over with!

By the time we got home, it was late enough that the first thing I did was get the outside cats fed. No crowd trying to break through the old kitchen door during the evening feedings! Then I got changed and head outside, focusing on getting all the now-dry stuff from the sun room packed up and put away in bins with lids.

As seems to be the usual around here, it took longer than I expected, but I finally got it done!

The storage area is now organized and packed. Before winter, more things will be added for storage but, over all, it is done. On the cat side of the room (second picture) I still need to figure out where to set the second heat lamp, which has a lower wattage heat bulb, but that’s pretty much it. That cats really, really like the new set up! More and more of them seem to have figured out the litter boxes, too.

Finishing the sun room meant I could finally move the cat isolation shelter under the canopy tent.

That took some doing. The wheels kept sinking into the soil! That thing is heavy. What I would like to do, once I have the spare funds for it, is replace the wheels with something larger. For now, I put scraps of cardboard under the wheels to keep them from sinking into the dirt. I also have some handles I want to add to the front and the back, so it’ll be easier to move around.

Meanwhile, the cats can still use it where it is now.

Or that one skunk I have been finding, napping in the cat bed!

The box to go over the ramp door during the winter needs a bit of work. The overlapping plastic cracked when I set it on its side to attach the legs. I did try to set it where it could overhang the edge of the well cap, but it kept moving while I tried to work on it. Nothing some duct tape can’t fix. 😜 The panel in front, with a smaller opening for the cats to get through, was broken by cats panicking and hitting the edges while running out, so that needs to be trimmed. I also want to add a couple of pieces of the same material used for the legs to the sides, as handles to make moving it around easier. Right now, it’s hard to get a grip on it without damaging that roof panel even more.

It might be a couple of days before I can do the painting. Saturday would be perfect for it – a warmer day and, more importantly, a warmer night in the forecast. I might be able to get just one coat on before it starts getting too cold for wet paint to cure, but even that is better than nothing.

I’m going to be out and about a lot over the next while. Tomorrow, I’ll be at my mother’s for longer than usual. Along with her grocery shopping, I will be cooking up some of the chicken she was so angry at me for buying for her. I even remembered to ask her to take it out of the freezer tonight, so it’ll be thawed out before I get there. She’s also asked me to trim her toenails for her. I want to take a good look at her feet, as she apparently is getting an ingrown toenail, and that might need to be checked by a doctor. Of course, I’ll be doing some housework for her, changing her bedding, probably doing her laundry. Some of this stuff, my sister would normally come out on Fridays (my mother’s scheduled laundry time with the shared machines) and do for her. Since my mother gets her Meals on Wheels at noon on Fridays, I don’t plan to be there until about 1pm, so she has a chance to eat, first, and I can take the tray out to the common room for pick up, later in the week.

Saturday, I’ll be out again for a dump run, but that shouldn’t take long.

Sunday afternoon, I will be meeting to drop off cats near a Walmart, so if there’s any last things we need before Thanksgiving on Monday, that would be my time to get it.

Then I get to stay home for a while! The only appointment I have next week is a telephone follow up about the injection to my hip. I’ve got lots to do to prepare beds for winter sowing, as both day time highs and overnight lows will soon be cool enough to sow seeds but not have them germinate until spring.

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer

Getting things done, and which is it?

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I’m happy to day I did actually get some progress done outside.

Last night, however, I was up late doing some research on well pumps and pressure tanks.

I’ve been angsting about our well pump since we moved out here. I’ve never been able to ascertain what “normal” sounds like. Thanks go my brother, we do have a new pump ready and waiting to be installed, but no plumber has dared do it. I explain about it in this post from 2020. Basically, there was a possibility the foot valve was leaking, because the pump would start running, even when no one was using water, and they were concerned that if they switched out the pump, the foot valve could break apart. If that happened, we would have no water at all and could potentially need a new well dug.

Eventually, though, we figured out that we have phantom flush. I just happened to be on the toilet in the wee hours of the morning when I heard the water start going in the tank, to refill it. We replaced all the parts in pieces in the tank, but it was still happening. Finally, I just took the refill out of the overflow, so it filled directly into the tank instead, and the phantom flush stopped. Why it worked, I have no idea, but it did.

So with that problem “solved” (we actually want to replace the toilet, for a number of reasons), we figured it should be safe to replace the tank. We just don’t have a budget for it.

Well, in the last while, the pump sounding more and more grindy,. It runs for a normal length of time and the pressure is good. Most likely, it’s the bearings.

Which is bad enough on its own, but lately it’s been going off way too often. Every time the toilet is flushed, even if it’s been on person right after the other, using it. When someone is in the shower or the washing machine is going, it starts running so often, it may as well not have stopped in between (as I hear the pump starting up again, while my daughter is in the shower). We’re also losing pressure faster, which is always most noticeable in the kitchen, which is the farthest sink from the pump and tanks.

After looking things up, it looks like the pressure tank is starting to lose pressure. There can be a number of reasons for this, but the end result is the same. The tank can’t keep up the pressure, so the pump keeps having to turn on to refill it. Depending on the size, a new pressure tank can cost anywhere from about $200 to over $500. For the amount of water we use, we would need a somewhat larger tank (I think this one is a 7 gallon tank), I’d love to get a 20 gallon tank. That way, if we ever get those water fountains by the barn serviced, we could turn the tap on in the basement, and there would be continuous water available for any animals we might get, or even for the renter’s cows. These fountains are insulated and keep the water warm enough to never freeze, too.

But that’s not an option now, and to meet our needs, we’d want at least the same size as what we have no, no smaller.

This morning, I messaged my brother about it. The tanks I looked at all say “compatible with most deep well pumps”, but he’s the one that knows the system better than anyone living.

He doesn’t think it’s the pressure tank.

He thinks it’s the foot valve. He says it was last replaced 20 years ago.

Well, I don’t know how it can get replaced. The bottom of the well access is a concrete floor, with pipes running to the house through the side near the bottom. I don’t know how the well pipe itself can be accessed. The plumber seemed to think that the concrete on the bottom would have to be broken up. Which doesn’t make sense, if the foot valve was replaced 20 years ago. We should be able to pull it up somehow.

I’ll have to consult my brother about that.

Whether it’s the pressure tank or the foot valve that needs replacing, either way it would be a good time to install the new pump!

All these pumps and tanks are the greatest source of stress for me. Water related or septic related!

So that’s something I really would rather not have to worry about. There’s absolutely nothing we can do about it right now, either.

What I did instead was my morning rounds, after feeding the outside cats. While coming back from checking the gate, I realized I was seeing an amazing full moon, and just had to try for some pictures. I even found someplace to steady my phone against, so I could zoom in.

Now that I see the picture on my desktop, it looks so detailed, I’m wondering if the camera automatically “fixed” the photo. That was a bit of a “scandal” some years ago, and that “feature” was supposed to have been dropped.

As I was going through the garden, I checked out the sunflowers. This past frost has killed them off, so any remaining seed heads will never reach maturity. I did, however, find this one…

It is possible that this one has viable seeds in it! I’ve tucked it into the portable greenhouse for now, to dry out some more. It would be nice to try again from our own seeds. Every generation of seeds collected will be better adapted to our local climate.

While the frost killed up most of the things that were exposed (I still haven’t tried peaking under the cover for the winter squash), one thing is doing just fine.

The self seeded peas just keep getting bigger!

Once the morning rounds were done, I waited until things warmed up a bit in the afternoon before continuing with the stuff from the sun room that I had soaking over night. Most of it could be spread out, hung up or set up to dry. Except for the garden mesh. Today turned out to be ridiculously windy, so unraveling those will have to wait. For now, they’re set aside with their bin upside down over them, so they hopefully will not blow away.

That old sheet I found that was repurposed to cover garden beds sure had it’s moments when I tried to hang it on the line. Lots of clothes pins needed! Sure dried fast, though. 😄

I’m so glad I though to put that old roof panel onto the shelf shelter! This little feral kitten could enjoy a warm sun spot while completely protected from the wind.

Eventually, I got things done as much as I could until things dried. After my daughter and I get back from her appointment in the city, I’m hoping to finally put everything in bins with lids, and get them out of the yard again! I need that space to paint the isolation shelter.

The next thing to work on was that garden bed I’d started on a couple days ago.

*sigh*

With all the years of amending the soil, prepping these beds for the winter should only have taken about 15 minutes each. Half an hour, if the rocks and weeds were really bad.

Instead, I’m fighting those !$%&$! tree roots!

Where I’d stopped, last time, had a bit root sticking up and I had to use the loppers to cut that. Then I just kept working my way down that side of the bed. In the first picture, you can see some of the roots I was exposing as I worked my way down. By this point, the soil was so dense with roots, I actually had a hard time pushing the garden fork through it!

The second picture was taken when I finally got that side done. I’d emptied the rocks bucket before I started, so these just rocks I’d picked today. When I stopped last time, I had worked past the half way point, so this was from about a third of one side of the bed. That pile I raked up at the end, near the bucket, is almost all tree roots. Very few normal weeds.

That last photo was taken from the unworked side of the bed. There were a could of bigger roots that I pulled up, but I won’t be able to get the rest out until I’ve worked the other side of the bed.

None of this was there when I planted the peas and carrots in it in the spring. All those roots are just one summer’s growth.

My mother keeps giving me a hard time for being such a bad gardener. Meanwhile, it’s the self seeded trees she deliberately left, after transplanting the raspberries they’d been growing through, that is causing me more problems that all the rocks! The roots are growing into where the soil is easiest to grow in – the soil I’ve been amending to grow vegetables in. So they’re filling the beds and taking up all the water and nutrients, and I’m not even finding it until the end of the season, after the damage is done. This, on top of dealing with drought conditions and smoke this year.

Trees are not always good thing.

One of these days, I’ve got to snag a daughter and our cutting equipment, and take down the entire row of elms and maples. Then we’ll have to find a way to make sure they don’t grow back! Otherwise, even as we build these up into high raised beds, the roots will still find their way up and into the growing zone.

It’s taking a lot longer than it should, but at least I did get some progress in today. Whether I manage to get any done tomorrow, after we get back from the city, will depend on how much daylight we have left.

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer

Frost damage, progress, good news, and what a cheeky bugger!

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It looks like we dropped to about -3C/27F last night. There was still frost on the ground when I headed out to do my morning rounds. I think the covered winter squash survived, but I didn’t want to uncover them to check, as it was still quite chilly at the time. Hopefully, they got a nice greenhouse effect during the day, as our high was only 9C/48F. We’re looking at a low of 2C/35F tonight, and they will need all the warmth trapped under the plastic that they can get!

There was obvious cold damage on other things as I checked in the morning, but it was when I did my evening rounds that the damage could really be seen. In the second picture of the slide show above, the Cosmos got hit quite hard. I don’t expect them to recover enough to continue blooming, and we certainly won’t have any seeds to collect.

The memorial asters, however, seemed to fair better. I suspect they were protected by the much taller Cosmos. Looking at the long range forecast, getting seeds from the asters might still happen.

I didn’t bother getting a picture, but the summer squash got hit the hardest.

I had picked the larger peppers (this mix is all smaller “snack size” peppers) before the frost hit, but once the leaves started to droop, I found one I missed. While the leaves obviously had cold damage, the pepper itself seemed okay.

In the herb bed, everything but the basil seemed to handle the frost just fine! I’m hoping that, if I mulch the bed deeply enough, the rest will survive the winter, as some of them are supposed to be perennials in warmer climates.

I had a few things I wanted to work on today but decided the sun room stuff was more of a priority. I had all sorts of buckets and bins to go thorough and sort.

The problem is, these were in a room full of cats, and no lids. Quite a lot of stuff had to be thrown out due to cat damage.

Other things were fine, but their containers had to be replaced. I found a few things I’d been looking for, including that last sheet repurposed as a cover for a garden bed! That’s now soaking in a bucket of water. I ended up setting a couple more bins with small plant pots and Red Solo cups to use for starting seeds or potting up, to soak overnight. One bin had some of the black garden netting on the bottom. Not only did it need to get a soaking, but I’m going to have to snag a daughter to help untangle it so it can be rolled up and stored properly.

Some of the stuff I was going through predated our moving here. I’m at a bit of a loss as to what to do with them. They’re not garbage, but some of the things, I don’t even know what they’re for, exactly. I also found a whole bunch of keys of all kinds, with no real clue as to what they belong with! The odds and sots are now in clear plastic jars with lids, so we can see exactly what’s in there.

I was able to sort some of the stuff out for storage in the garage, rather than the sun room. Other items are garden related in some way and I’m hoping to still store them in the sun room. The old garden shed doesn’t really have any space. Once the bins are no longer being used to soak things, and get a chance to dry out, I can finish organizing them. It turns out I have a whole lot of ground staples, still in their packaging, that simply got buried in other stuff!

Yesterday, I’d taken a bunch of garden gloves that had needed soaking and washing, and hung them up on the line to dry. Today, I found a whole bunch more that got soaked and washed, and hung on the line. There was at least six pairs, and maybe some strays as well. 😄 I’d been wondering where all my gloves were disappearing!

In the end, I was out there for several hours. It took a bit longer partly because I got cat pictures and started messaging with people from the new rescue.

I now have good news!

One of them volunteered to foster these two.

Originally, she volunteered to take Smokey, but when I sent the above photo of Smokey with her brother, she decided not to separate them, and will take both. !!! I’m really happy with this, as Smokey is getting big enough and old enough that she could potentially go into heat. Not that I would expect that, this late in the year, but it’s possible.

They do know that Smokey isn’t socialized, but isn’t quite feral, either. Well, I have more good news about that.

She let me pet her today!

Several times!

Granted, I wasn’t able to pet her for long, but it’s better than I’ve been able to do before.

The current plan is to meet the foster in the nearer city’s Walmart parking lot to transfer them over on Sunday afternoon. So I am thinking to simply close the catio door while they are in there, earlier in the day. Then my daughters and I can more easily catch them to put them into carriers.

That gives us four days to try and get Smokey more used to human contact.

Once I had done as much as I was able to with the sun room stuff, it was time to do my evening rounds. I had a bit of a surprise when I got to the isolation shelter, which is right next to where I had been working all afternoon.

The stinky kitty sure moved in fast! He had been all curled up in the cat bed until he heard me coming closer and started getting nervous. I stayed well away until I was doing the evening cat feeding. There’s a food bowl next to the cat bed. When I got there, he was sprawled over the bed like you can see in the second picture, with his chin on the edge of the water bowl, like it was a pillow!

Cheeky bugger!

He’s going to be most upset when I move the isolation shelter under the canopy tent for painting – and when it’s set up by the house for the winter! Once that heat lamp is set up, there will be a lot of cats using the isolation shelter. 😄

So that’s progress for today. Tomorrow is supposed to be a fair bit warmer so, once I’ve got the soaking things set to dry, I should finally get that garlic in, then get to preparing more beds for winter sowing.

Thankfully, it looks like the weather will hold for a little while longer. Lots of work to get done in the next few weeks!

The Re-Farmer

Little progress, and sadness

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The ground it still too wet to work in the garden, but that’s okay. I really needed to sort through the stuff we took out of the sun room and either get it back in there, or stored elsewhere.

I did not get much progress on it.

I got pulled away by other things. One, I remembered to finally bring the house plants in the portable greenhouse indoors. We’re now expected to drop to -2C/28F tonight, and the portable greenhouse isn’t enough to keep things from getting killed off by the cold.

I started going through the bins from the sun room and promptly had to empty several and hose them down. Everything was under the canopy tent, but it has no walls, so the winds blew quite a bit of rain onto everything, with some bins having quite a bit of water in them. So far, nothing seems to be water damaged, though. Still, it means having to let the bins dry out before they can be used again for sorting. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get things organized into bins that still have their lids, to keep the cats out.

Speaking of cats…

Another sidetrack was trying to figure out how to set up one of the heat lamps. I wanted to set the one with the 250 watt ceramic bulb over an area that is now open and has food trays in it. It took some doing, and a fair bit of twine for extra securing, but it’s now set up and turned on. I’m hoping it’s not too high, though. I still haven’t decided on where I want to hang the 150 watt heat lamp.

While I was working on various things, I started messaging with the new rescue. They were asking if the smokey kitten is still around, which it is. As we were messaging and I was figuring out the heat lamp set up, I spotted something poking out from under the cube shelf that is up on bricks.

A pair of hind feet.

It was a passed away kitten. The white with tabby grey markings that Frank adopted with her own littles. He had one eye that would get stuck shut, and I’d washed it for him, just this morning. As with the others I found, he showed signs of diarrhea.

I took the time to bury him right away, then decided to give the cats an early feeding, as they were doing a lot of begging. After all the kibble was set out, I brought a bowl of kitten soup for Frank’s littles and set that up in a shelf for just them.

I was on the look out for one of her three, because I hadn’t seen him this morning. This is another one that would have one eye getting stuck shut. There was still no sign of him. The one that would get both eyes stuck shut was there (and he got another eye wash with dinner), and the third one that has no issues at all was there, but no sign of the third tiny. I even used my phone’s camera to try and look under shelves, just in case. Nothing.

I updated the rescue while I was doing all this. They were asking about which cats/kittens were the priority for when the found an available foster. Frank and her littles, for sure. They are so young and tiny, their chances of surviving the winter are very low. There are a few others that are quite young and small, too, but Frank’s are the youngest and tiniest. Aside from them, any of the confirmed females that aren’t fixed yet are priority. There are kittens that are too feral to spot their genders, and would have to be trapped.

Today was a pretty chilly day – we actually exceeded our expected high and reached 11C/51F – and windy. Just windy enough that working outside started leaving me with ear aches, so I had to cut things short.

I did, however, spot these cozy cats.

Using that salvaged roof panel as a wall is working out fantastic! They get to be sheltered from the wind and can still enjoy the sun.

Before I headed inside through the sun room, I spotted this big cuddle puddle, also enjoying the sun.

There are nine kittens in this photo!

I’m rather disappointed with how little progress I got done today. Tomorrow is supposed to be colder than today, but the overnight low is supposed to be warmer, and then we’re supposed to warm up again for a few more days. Hopefully, the wind will have died down. I’m hoping to get lots done over the next couple of days, because on Thursday, my daughter and I are headed into the city. She is seeing an endocrinologist, finally. Thanksgiving weekend is supposed to get downright nice, except for Thanksgiving Day on Monday.

Hmmm. I will need to head outside to switch out the trail cam memory cards before it gets dark. I might just be able to get the garlic in, too, since that bed is ready, already. I haven’t prepped the garlic, though. Might not have time before it gets dark.

I’d better get my butt out there!

The Re-Farmer

Winterizing progress, and a sad find

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This afternoon, I was finally able to get back to working on the sun room. I could tell the kittens were really wanting to have their beds back!

I’m not sure if there’s eight of nine jammed in that one shelf!

We have been able to finish deep cleaning the west facing side, and it was ready to have shelves brought back in. The other side was half done, but we still needed to move out the counter shelf and table saw so we could do a deep clean under them.

The counter shelf is something we have under a built in shelf between two smaller windows. The inner panes on both of the windows cracked a few winters ago – likely a combination of temperature differences and the entire room slowly shifting downwards at one corner. The pane on the bottom window broke apart to the point that there were shards, so I removed the broken inner pain as best I could, and then we set insulation against it, to protect both the glass from temperature differences between inside and out, and the cats from any broken bits of glass that couldn’t be removed.

The shelf itself is sitting on bricks to elevate it a few inches. Kittens and skunks like to hid under it, but the – and the raccoons – also get between the shelf and the window. Things that had been stored on top of the counter also got knocked in between the shelf and the window, as well as under the shelf itself.

So… basically, I was expecting quite a mess under there.

Before I started, though, we fed the outside cats. My younger daughter was on cat herding duty, getting any cats and kittens that made a dash while I stepped out with the food bowl. Once she got the doorway clear, she could close the doors for me – usually at least the storm door with the missing window screen that makes it so incredibly handy.

As I was scattering kibble in different trays, my daughter got the storm door closed and was waiting to see if I needed anything else. That’s when we both spotted something strange, sticking half out from under the counter shelf, near a kibble tray we keep under the table saw.

Strange, flat and furry.

It was the remains of a kitten.

My daughter was horrified and had to leave. I can’t say I blame her.

Once I finished putting the food out, I got a shovel to use to get the remains the rest of the way out, after moving the kibble tray and the table saw.

It turned out to be really easy. The sun room has been hot and dry all summer, which basically mummified the remains. My guess is that a skunk had gone under the counter shelf and, while scrambling around, pushed the remains out one side.

It was a larger kitten. A grey tabby. That’s all I could tell. There wasn’t much left of it.

With how often cats and kittens appear and disappear, we just can’t tell if any are missing because they’ve wandered off, or because something happened to them. This is the first time we found one that passed under that shelf, though.

After I buried the remains, I was pretty nervous about moving the shelf, but thankfully, there was just stuff knocked off from the top to clean up, and a whole lot of insulation bits from the cats scratching at it.

So all that got cleaned up, and then the area got soaked and scrubbed and soaked and scrubbed and soaked and scrubbed again!

When it was time to let the floor dry before moving the shelf back, I was able to start moving shelves into the other side of the room. I decided to put the cube shelf right against the west facing window, and then set one of the large plastic storage shelves next to it. The main goal was to fill the corner, so there would be no space for critters to do their business in it. Both shelves were set on bricks, just in case the floor gets wet, as water flows towards that corner.

We won’t be able to set up a platform again, with this set up. I’m going to have to figure out a way to hang one of the heat lamps there. The platform worked well for that, as they could be hung under it.

Something to think about.

Once the shelves were set up, the cat beds that were hosed out and sitting in the sun to dry were brought back in, along with the two cat caves, which now have wire supports inside them to keep them from collapsing and being smushed flat by kittens crawling on top of them.

The first picture is of the counter shelf corner, after clean up but before scrubbing and mopping. The window sill got a scrubbing, too, but I didn’t take the insulation out. The shelf shelter is on the other side of the window. Between the two, it should keep the now single pane glass window protected on both sides from temperature extremes.

The second picture shows the new set up in the west facing side. The cube shelf will be left empty, so that cats can sit and look out the window in their own little shelves. The second shelf from the bottom has the self warming mat, which is tied down so it won’t get knocked off the shelf easily. The blue striped cat cave has a loop at the top. I used that to tie it to the shelf above, so it won’t get knocked out.

The plaid cat cave above is a really weird design. It’s basically a bit drawstring pouch. It could never hold itself up so, for the longest time, I rolled the sides down to make a cat bed. It still got squished out of shape. It now has a wire frame inside to hold it up, while still allowing the drawstring cord to be pulled partially closed. It’s still tippy, though, and it’s now tied to the shelf above, too.

Cats were moving onto the cat beds in the shelf before I was finished setting it all up!

That side is now essentially done. Once the other half is finished, the kibble trays will be rearranged so that it’s not all on one side. Some of the cats get pretty aggressive at feeding time, so it’s good to split up the trays to give them more space from each other.

The cat bed from inside the cat cage is back in its cube, which now has insulation pieces on the bottom and outside walls. The bed itself will keep the wall pieces from falling in. So far, the cats have been ignoring the bed in favour of the cubes above, now that those have insulation pieces as floors.

When that was all done, the floor was dry enough to return the counter shelf and table saw to their spots. Then the rest of the floor in that corner got another sweeping, soaking, scrubbing and mopping.

By then, it was getting dark, so that was in for the day. Tomorrow, I’ll start bringing in the last two storage shelves and figure out how to set them up so that cats won’t use the corner on that side to do their business, either. Drives me nuts when they’ll use the concrete floor, right next to a litter box!

Then I need to go through the storage bins and other stuff that were on the shelves before we took them out. It’s all sorts of tools and supplies that I want to have easy access to, while also keeping the cats out of them, or keep them from knocking things right out of the shelves. There’s no way to stop the cats from going into the shelves, so I want to plan around that.

There’s still the things we used to make the platform, which need to be stored somehow/somewhere.

That’s something we’ll figure out as we go along.

For now, though, the cats have their beds in the sun room again, and they are very happy about it!

The Re-Farmer

Catch up time, and garden progress

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I am finally able to settle in to start this – though I’m also waiting for a phone call and might be making a trip into town, still, so we’ll see if things get interrupted!

My plan had originally been to drop the truck off this morning, then use the courtesy vehicle to do the stock up shopping in the city. CPP Disability came in yesterday, though, so I figured I may as well do that right away, and not have to worry about driving a strange vehicle in the city. I’ll do another post about the stocking up.

Once home and everything was put away, I grabbed a quick supper, then headed outside. I really wanted to get that bed cleaned up and finished.

Of course, it took longer than expected.

I started working my way down the unfinished side from the North end, closer to the trees. Almost immediately, I could feel I was hitting something not rock with the garden fork. I kept working my way down and around it, but it was a while before I could actually uncover it and start moving it around with my hands.

Yeah, it was a big ol’ tree root.

In the first photo, I’d worked maybe 8 ft down the side before I could uncover it and not have the soil immediately fall and cover it again. The further down I went, the more I could get under it and loosen things up around it.

In the next two photos in the slide show, I’d finally reached a point where the root veered off to the side and out of the bed.

Yes, Sir Robin was helping me the entire time. He was really, really interested in where I was digging!

One I cleared a bit more of the root into the path, I went and got the loppers to cut it. With all the digging I’d already done, it was pretty easy to pull the rest up. It didn’t all some out, though. About a foot or so from the end, it broke free. I think this was actually a piece that branched off an even bigger root, further down!

Before we planted potatoes in this bed, I trenched it. That root was not there in the spring!

Given how far I got before it veered into the path, I can certainly see why I was finding so many tree capillary roots at the south end of the bed.

I got the bed done, though – with another bumper crop of rocks – and used the landscape rake to level the soil and make it all niche and even, as much as I could.

I then hosed it down before I got my second package of painters plastic drop sheet. It’s 10′ wide and 25′ long. It was really calm at the time, so I was able to open it up, then fold it in half, lengthwise, so it was only 5′ wide. Then I covered the bed and made sure to get everything as tight and snug as possible, with the excess length folded over at the south end. I took boards that were around the carrot bed to weight down the ends, rolling the boards in the excess plastic and pulling it tight again, before using the remaining boards I had to weight down the sides. The plastic has good contact with the soil surface, which means it should solarize properly, unlike when I’ve tried to do it over less level beds, or over areas with grass stubble on it. Well. Maybe not “properly, but at least better!

As you can see in the next picture, taken with flash, it was dark by the time I was done.

I stayed out longer to cover the winter squash, summer squash, peppers and remaining eggplants. The overnight low they were predicting had changed again, and we were to expect 5C/41F.

I am so glad I covered all the beds.

We dropped to 3C/37F last night.

The last picture in the series was taken this morning, while I was doing my rounds. It was still too cold to uncover them, though, so it got left until later.

I then headed out to town to drop the truck off at the autobody place for the insurance repairs. Before taking the courtesy vehicle – a 2020 Caravan – we did the necessary paperwork, and I signed an insurance waiver. If I were to get into some sort of accident or damage the vehicle, I’d be responsible for a $750 deductible. Or, I can sign the waiver and pay a little under $8 a day to cover that.

I’ve got the van for four days, or one day. Looking at the time as I write this, I’d say, four days. There was the possibility that they’d get the frame repaired and painted today, to a point that I could bring the truck home while it cured. I would then bring it back on Monday and they’d install the new cover. I would get a phone call before they’re done for the day to find out. I’m pretty sure they close at 5, and it’s past 5 as I write this, but maybe they close at 6. I can’t remember.

I was warned about some unusual things on the van. The first, I misunderstood. She was telling me where the shifter was, and I thought she meant it was behind the steering wheel on the column, like our truck, instead of in the front of the console between the seats, like my mother’s car.

It was neither. It’s behind the steering wheel, on the dash.

It also has a “square” key, which I’d never heard of before. Instead of a metal key, it has a plastic square that gets inserted, just like an ordinary key. The disorienting part of that isn’t just the shape of it. On one side of the square is the bright red panic button!

After spending a bit of time figuring out where things were and adjusting my seat, I headed off to the town to the north of us to pick up more 40 pound bags of kibble. I had just parked when I got a call from the autobody place.

The tech working on my truck, on seeing the condition of the rails that would be painted (only the rails, not the sides and fenders, as that would not be covered by insurance because of the rust), he wanted to know if I preferred to have it done with flatbed paint, instead. There would be no extra cost, and he felt it would give more protection to the rails. After talking about it for a bit, I agreed. It should be interesting to see how it turns out!

I then went into the feed store and paid for four 40 pound bags of kibble. The woman who processed my sale then came and helped me grab the bags. I’d mentioned it was the first time I’d driven this vehicle and, as we came out with the first two bags, I realized I didn’t even know how to open the back of the van. Was there a handle, or would I have to use the key fob, which I would not be able to reach without putting down the bag of kibble?

There was a handle. 😄

Once the bags were loaded, I tried to close it manually, but it didn’t want to close until it got past a certain point. I looked around later, and could see no buttons or anything to make that easier.

When I parked in the garage and took the key out of the ignition, though, I accidentally opened the back of the van! I did figure out how to close it using the fob, at least.

I couldn’t bring the bags in right away, though. It’s been a while since we had to store that many bags of kibble, so I had to organize and make space in the old kitchen, first. Which I did, after finally having breakfast.

Much of what I had to deal with was cardboard. Some was meant for the garden. Others had glossy coatings on them, so they needed to be sorted out. Normally, they would have gone to the burn pile, but we haven’t been able to do a burn in over a year. Between things like the weather, or fire bans, I already had quite a mess to clean up recently. I plan to take it all to the dump, but I won’t be doing a dump run until we get the truck back.

After sorting that out, it was back to doing clean up in the yard and garden. The garden beds got uncovered, though high winds made that a challenge! Then I started working on things like taking down the wire that was used to trellis the peas, and to protect the Arikara squash from critters.

For now, I’ve been putting all the garden stakes, poles, ties, netting, etc. in one spot, before they get a final organizing and bundling and putting away for the winter. I’d put the bent up wire supports that failed to hold up netting under the weight of playing kittens. One of the things I’d done as we emptied the sun room was hose down a cat cave that kept collapsing. I ended up rolling down the sides to try and make it into a sort of nest, but it keeps getting bend out of shape. The “cave” itself is basically around, thick bag with a drawstring cord to close up the top.

Those bent up wires might not be useful for holding up the netting, but I decided to try something with several of them. It’s a heavy gauge wire, but still flexible enough to bend into shape, and keep the shape.

I ended up using three of them to make a wire support for inside the cat cave. Two were formed into rings, with the top ring slightly smaller than the bottom, and a third was wound and bent and wound some more, to hole the top and bottom rinds apart. Then I stuffed it into the cat cave and closed up the drawstring top.

With the top ring where it is, the to can’t close completely anymore, but that’s okay. The sides are now being held up.

The ultimate test will be what happens when the kittens decide to climb all over it. So far, it’s holding!

I’d used three of the wire supports to make that, but had brought four, just in case.

I found a use for that one, too.

Yesterday, I’d picked up replacement sump pump hoses to replace our broken one.

The hose runs along the base of the house to drain into the old kitchen garden. That bend to go to the side instead of straight out (which is how it used to be, before I replaced the old one) was enough to finally break the hose.

Taking off the broken bit and replacing it was easy and fast enough, but I wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again. If only I had something strong, yet flexible, to brace the hose at the bed…

Enter that fourth wire support, some wire cutters and electric tape.

In the last picture, you can see that I set two lengths of the wire on either side of the hose. I taped it to the piece coming out of the wall, first, just to secure it while I worked. The lengths of wire were give a gentle bend, then got taped into place. Only then did I give the hose, which was already stretched along the base of the house, I final straightening out and setting it in place. The new hose is slightly longer than the old hose (which I’d bought from a different company). Which will come in handy in the spring, if it’s wet enough to trigger the sump pump. It reached the rectangular garden bed in the old kitchen better. I’ll want to make a larger, longer, opening under the logs at the end of the bed, and it can then be set right into the opening to drain under the bed, instead of running down the paths, and water whatever gets planted in there from below.

Aside from that, there was just a lot of small things that got done around the yard. It was so incredibly windy, it limited some of the things I could work on. Thankfully, the winds seem to have died down a bit since then.

My daughter, meanwhile, has been going all out on cleaning the sun room – way more than I would have done, I’ll be honest! She even got a household step ladder and a small hand brush to get into less accessible areas. When it comes time to bring things back in, she plans to scrub, then oil, anything with wood. Since we can’t take the cat cage out without dismantling it, she floor can only be washed one side at a time. With the cat cage going on top of interlocking mats, to protect from the cold concrete floor, it has to be thoroughly dry before things can be moved over and the other side can be done.

While she was working on that, I took the hose to pressure was the larger plastic shelves that supported the platform above the cat cage. The bottom shelves, in particular needed a thorough cleaning.

We need to figure out some way to keep critters from using the corners of the room. There’s no room for litter pans there.

Oh, I just got the phone call I was waiting for – and it came after they closed!

We’ve got the van for the weekend.

I also got a final tally on what it will cost. There’s the $500 deductible, of course, but the “betterment” will cost $193.92 after taxes. Add in the waiver I signed, as extra insurance should I get into an accident with the van, there’s another roughly $35 on top.

That’s a solid Costco shopping trip right there. 🫤

It will be so good to have that fixed and a cover on the truck box again. I hate having things in there without a cover, when driving at highway seeds – even though I know that there’s nothing I put back there that might blow away! It’s more that things can be seen and walked off with. Granted, it would take some effort for someone to walk off with a 40 pound bag of litter pellets, but not so much for a 9kg bag of kibble.

So there’s all that caught up with!

Next, we’ll take a look and what my stock up shopping trip looked like for the money.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Starry night, and the start of a huge job

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I went for a walk last night. Yesterday was the solstice, so it’s already getting dark a lot earlier. The sky was clear, so I tried some of the “pro” settings on my phone to try and get some pictures.

I didn’t have any sort of tripod set up, so I lay my phone on a surface and used voice commands to take the pictures – turning off my flashlight before I did, of course. Which worked for the most part, except the cats were very curious. Especially when I used the wall of a raised bed to set my phone on. Photobombing a camera while taking night results in some rather unusual glowy fuzzy shapes. 😄

Today, meanwhile, my younger daughter and I got started on the sun room. It needs to be cleaned out and prepared for winter.

The first part of the job was just… aweful. I did not take “before” pictures. Too gross! One side of the sun room was supposed to be for storing some of the yard and garden tools, folding camp chairs, a large garbage can and spare litter pans. Of course, the cats knocked things all over the place and, despite having a litter box available to use, they would go into the tiniest corners to do their business. The skunks and raccoons sometimes did, too. It should have had a spring cleaning, but that didn’t pan out, so basically it was a year’s worth of critters getting into things, knocking things about, and making biological messes.

Thank God it’s just a concrete floor in there!

We started off filling some garbage bags first, until I could get at some of the storage bins and whatnot and started moving them under the canopy tent. I’m going to have to go through the bins themselves to organize and probably throw away some things. Yeah, they even found a way to make messes in some of the storage bins!

We also took out all the kibble trays to hose them off and set them soaking, along with various buckets, the extra litter pans. The broom I keep in the sun room has very stiff bristles so, once we got the floor clear enough, I hosed it down a bit and used it as a scrub brush.

The problem with hosing the floor down, though, is that the sun room’s floor is no longer level. I’m guessing the rain barrel was allowed to overflow too many times, and the corner is undermined. Mostly, the concrete sidewalk block the rain barrel rests on is sinking at one end, but when I was cleaning up the old kitchen garden after we moved here, I found that the corner of the sun room floor next to it was losing the rocks and gravel from under it. This is why we had such a hard time replacing the outer sun room door. The door frame is no longer straight.

Anyhow, as I was scrubbing the floor on one side of the room, the water started draining towards the sinking corner. Which meant it was going under the cat cage. The cat cage is sitting on top of interlocking foam mats for insulation, so at least it wasn’t getting anything inside the cat cage wet.

The first picture was taken after sweeping, but before scrubbing. The table saw still needs to be taken out, and that counter shelf will need to be moved out so we can clean under it. The cats have knocked all sorts of things under there, and both kittens and skunks like to hide under there. The skunk has gotten so big, it can barely fit anymore, but it still squeezes its way under!

The second picture is after the initial scrubbing. The floor was still wet and the interlocking foam pieces were outside, getting cleaned in stages, so I grabbed some of the rigid foam insulation that used to be used between the main entry doors to try and keep the frost from building up inside. Now that the inner door is removed, since it can no longer be closed, we’d set the insulation sheet up against the storm door when we had a few really cold nights a while back. The cats, however, LOVE this insulation for scratching, which they would do when no one was around to chase them off. They scratched their way through until it broke. So I used the pieces to put on the still wet floor and moved the cage cage over it.

A couple of kittens got a ride in the process!

When Brussel had her litter in the cat cage so early in the season, I’d put the windshield sun shade around the back of the cat cage – the window side – to try and keep the chill out. It eventually got knocked out of reach, but once the cat cage was out, I could get at it. I decided to set it on top of the cat cage. Cats like to hang out on there, squeezed under the platform, and there’s carboard to make a floor over the wire panels, but one corner wasn’t covered. I decided to put the sun shade on to, making sure the open corner was covered. I think the cats will like sitting or lying on it.

Once the cat cage was out, I could clear under the platform. Huge mess around where the cat cage was, including from the water that had just drained under there while I was scrubbing the floor on the other side. Of course, there was also stuff that got knocked about. Under one of the heat lamps was a cat bed that needed to be hosed down. In the next picture, you can see the initial cleaning. Tomorrow, we’ll need to dismantle the platform and take it, and the shelves, out completely, so we can give the area a good cleaning. Kittens and other critters would hide in the corners and left “presents” for us to clean up.

Just barely visible behind the inner door is a metal garbage can. That’s used to store things with long handles – hoes, rakes, spades, etc. I made sure it was resting on scrap pieces of rigid insulation, not directly on the floor, and I’m really glad I did that!

When it was time to stop for the day, and brought the cleaned food trays in and set them near the cat cage. Then I did an early cat feeding. I am still giving some cat soup for Frank’s babies, inside the cat cage, so I hope they’ll accept it and be okay with the new location. I put the littles inside the cage with the cat soup, but they left right away. They seem to prefer dry kibble more! Hopefully, Frank will also be good with the new location. While I was cleaning under the platform, she kept running in and out, looking pretty alarmed about the while thing.

Good grief. It feels like the day should be almost over, but I’m looking at the time and just realizing it’s not even 5pm yet!

I am not at all up to working on the sun room more, but there’s plenty of time to do some clean up in the garden. A much more pleasant job!!

The Re-Farmer