septic

Still no change, but lots of changes!

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

First, that extreme cold warning is still on, and has been extended into tomorrow.

You can see the times I took the above three screencaps, showing this morning’s temperatures. It’s coming up to 1pm as I write this, and we have not only finally warmed up to -20C/-4C, but it’s such a sunny day that the “windchill” is -15C/5F. The last screencap I took, at 9am, was just before I headed outside to feed the cats (I skipped the rest of my morning rounds), and the south facing part of the house was feeling much warmer. The wind direction just managed to be blocked by the trees to the south, which made a huge difference.

Unfortunately, we still have no septic, and the tank was not pumped yesterday, so we can’t use our plumbing. The septic truck broke down and never made it.

This morning, I tried calling one of the plumbers back – they are supposed to be available 24 hrs, according to their website. I left a message, but no one has called back.

So, we’re still using the honey pot in the bathroom. No showers and using as little water as possible to wash our hands. To do dishes, we’ve got basins on the dining room table, then we dump the dirty water outside when we’re done. We’ve even changed how we’re cooking, to try and dirty as few dishes as possible, and nothing that involves washing things, or dumping cooking water down the sink. I made a “use whatcha got” soup this morning out up leftovers – even the last bits of charcuteries meat and vegetable sticks we’d prepared extra of for New Year’s – for a hearty one pot meal.

—— pause for phone calls and messages and more calls and …. everything has changed! ——

Okay, I feel like I’m going through mental whiplash right now!

I will get to that in a moment.

Where was I?

Ah, yes. Doing dishes!

Basically, we’re being careful to have as little water going into the septic tank as possible. It can handle being at least a bit overfull – we’ve certainly gone more than a little over full just this past summer! – but we really want to avoid that.

I’m actually getting used to using the honeypot, because we can’t flush the toilet.

Yeesh.

Anyhow…

The plumber I left a message with got back to me while I was writing this. The first thing he let me know is that they are booked solid and cannot come out.

He also sounded rather upset for me. I’d mentioned the ejector was replaced about a month, month and a half ago. Ejectors are made to work in the winter. He used to install them himself. He has one himself that was installed in the 90’s, and it’s working fine. It shouldn’t be frozen. He suggested I call the company that installed it and get them to fix it. I told him I’d already talked to them, and he asked what they said when I told them it was frozen. I told the plumber that, at the time I called, we were thinking the problem was somewhere else at the time, and he was the one who suggested the ejector might be frozen. I didn’t confirm that until after. I also mentioned he’d asked me to call him back today, which I was planning to do. He told me that, when I did, to tell them they needed to come put and fix the ejector.

*sigh*

I did call the owner of the company back and basically told him what the plumber said. He was quite frustrated by that; apparently plumbers pretty regularly do stuff like that, when they don’t actually know what’s going on.

The problem is not the ejector.

The system we have works like this. The plumbing in the house all drains into one side of our septic tank. The solids sink to the bottom and, once it fills, the greywater drains into the other side of the tank. That side has a float with a pill switch in it. When it fills, the float triggers the pump inside the house. The pump pulls the greywater from the second half of the tank – this inflow pipe is where we have the filter installed, to catch any bits and pieces that might be in the water that could damage the pump – then pumps it out to the ejector. The outflow pipe runs most of the length of the basement and out the wall. The pipe, along with water pipes that supplies the heated water fountains for cattle, and a tap in the barn, runs about 300 or more feet to the barn, then turns away from the barn towards a low spot. From there, the venturi pipe creates enough pressure to draw the water up the pipe and out.

With ours, we’ve got a sheet of metal roofing to reduce erosion and divert the greywater towards a low area, further away from the barn.

That elbow at the top is part of the venturi pipe.

When the septic pump shuts off, any water in the venturi pipe drops down below the frost line and collects at the bottom of the 4″ pipe. The next time the septic pump turns on, the venturi pipe drains what’s at the bottom of the 4″ pipe first.

Here’s the problem.

There has to be enough pressure for this to happen, and that requires a certain gallons per minute rate of flow (he couldn’t remember exactly what that was). If there isn’t enough pressure, the venturi pipe can’t drain the bottom of the 4″ pipe completely. Then the pump shuts off, the water drains to the bottom, but now there’s more than there was before.

Eventually, the water level in the 4″ pipe gets above the frost line.

The septic pump, he told me, should take only about 2-3 minutes to drain the tank.

Ours takes about 5 minutes.

Except, recently, we’ve been having issues with flow.

First, the pump would empty the filter, but there wasn’t more water coming in from the tank. I would have to stop the pump, prime the filter, turn it on again, and it would work. The inflow, however, wasn’t as powerful as it had been, before.

The night before it stopped working entirely, the pump hadn’t gone off at all. The only reason it would was if we were using enough water for the second side of the tank to fill and the pill switch triggered the pump to turn on. That just didn’t happen.

So not only was the flow of water from the pump low, but there was no flow at all during one of the coldest nights we’ve had this year. Flowing water would have helped keep it from freezing entirely – at least for a while longer.

Which means that, ultimately, the problem is the pump and the flow of greywater.

Now, the pump *is* wearing out and needs to be replaced, but that may not be the problem. There may also be an air leak somewhere, affecting the vacuum. Which may have been what I was seeing, with a leak from the filter and the O ring not sealing. Or, there could be an air leak somewhere else.

Now, we could install the diverter and an emergency measure, but we still need to get the ejector thawed out, and we probably still need to replace the pump. I’ve been checking the filter regularly, and even turning the pump on for a few moments. It’s not draining, and the filter is not leaking, which – in theory, at least – means there is no longer an air leak.

Other issues could be that the pipe leading to the ejector is also getting coated with gunk on the inside and getting narrower. This is something we have been aware of and have been taking steps to try and improve. One of those was to use the Septo Bac every two days for two weeks, and we really did see a difference in how things flowed after that. Currently, we’re using Free Flow pipe maintenance twice a week; that is more to clear the pipes inside the house, but it would be beneficial for the tank and the pipe to the ejector, too.

—– Must pause for exciting news. —–

The septic guy just arrived! Our tank is being emptied right now!

We’ll be able to flush our toilet again!

I did get a peek into the tank when he popped the lid off. The level had not reached the pipe that the pill switch cable runs through yet, which was quite a relief.

That guy deserves one helluva tip.

Okay, where was I…

Right.

So there are a number of possible reasons why the ejector wasn’t able to drain properly, which resulted in the freeze.

I then got instructions on how to thaw out the ejector (that doesn’t involve ice fishing tents and heaters, as one plumber suggested trying).

I wasn’t able to pull the venturi pipe out because it’s frozen, but could rotate the cap. I couldn’t take the cap off, because of the elbow.

Well, that elbow has a screw, and it comes off.

We could take off the elbow and remove the cap.

We could then start pouring boiling water into the 4″ pipe, around the venturi pipe. However, he said to put some copper pipe down, first. The pipe itself will heat up and help thaw things out faster, but it would also help get water down more directly and further through the ice on the bottom.

Once it seems like enough ice was melted, someone could turn on the septic pump and, hopefully, it would drain the water at the bottom, and empty the septic tank.

That would take a long time, and it’s still colder than -20C/-4F out there.

—- pause for more calls —-

Oh, my goodness. More changes! This time, for tomorrow, too. I’ll get caught up to that, later.

With all this, I’ve been keeping my brother and his wife up to date, pretty constantly.

Given our concerns with the truck, another thing I had to deal with last night was how to get my mother to her medical appointment on Monday. Plus, I was supposed to come early enough to do her laundry for her. She called last night to tell me she was able to get her laundry done herself and that I didn’t need to come early. I told her a bit about what was going on (I didn’t want to overwhelm her!) and that I wasn’t sure if I could get her to her appointment. She tried calling my sister to drive her (which she didn’t want, as I’m the one who normally accompanies my mother, so I’m on top of what’s going on), but my sister starts her shift at work less than an hour after my mother’s appointment.

I passed that on to my brother as well. Today, I was supposed to run the engine a few times, so see if the problem continued, then decide Monday morning, if I’d be rescheduling my mother’s appointment. Possibly mine and my daughter’s on Wednesday, too.

I got a call from my SIL. They were going to be coming home on Sunday (today), and she offered to drive us. She would pick me up first, then we’d pick up my mother, drive her to her appointment, then she’d drive us both home again, then head home herself.

I was stunned by the offer – that’s a LOT of driving for her! Once I was sure this would not be too much of a problem for her, I gratefully accepted the offer.

Today, I’ve been messaging them the whole time, while they are on the way home. My SIL was driving, so my brother was able to respond to my messages.

When I told him about thawing the ejector and needing to look for a long enough copper pipe (I know I’ve seen some, somewhere!), he called me. I was just bundling up to go outside and check the barn.

Which is jam packed with their stuff.

I’m sure there is one long enough in one corner of the old bull’s stall, but it’s full of my brother’s gardening supplies now. I wasn’t sure if it was there, and I wasn’t sure if I could reach it! I’m pretty sure there are lengths of copper pipe in the rafters, too, but again, I’m not sure I could reach them. The centre aisle of the barn is full of tractors and snow blowers and rotary mowers, and I’m… well… short.

My brother called to tell me not to bother trying to thaw out the ejector. They would go home, then come here with both their cars. My SIL would follow later. He would take a look at the ejector, see what he could do, then she would drive him home.

They would leave one of their cars with us. It’s already parked outside, so they know it can handle the cold.

My truck should, too – it certainly did last winter! – but that’s another story….

The thing is, they were still about 3-4 hours away from home! Add in the time to come here, and he won’t get here until after dark!

But he felt he had no choice. No one is coming out to install the diverter, and no one was going to come out to thaw out the ejector. The one company would have, but they are so far away, it would be a lot more expensive, and they didn’t want to ding us with a huge bill. It’s not like they’d be coming out to fix an actual problem with the ejector they installed, that would be covered by any kind of warranty.

Plus, by leaving us with their car, my SIL won’t have to do all that driving.

Then my brother told me to sit down with a cup of tea and relax for a while. He knows me well enough to know how all this has been stressing me out.

Which is about when my husband called out, saying “are you expecting someone with a big truck?”

I’d opened the gate for the septic truck last night, and never closed it. He was able to drive right in!

He’d backed into the yard, so I threw on my parka and headed out. We went over to where I’d cleared things to make room for the truck and the hoses, and got the insulated tarp freed from the frozen ground. He then went to back the truck up the rest of the way. I confirmed how much we owed him, and told him it might be a couple of days before I can get the cash to him. He was fine with that. We’ve done this before, and he knows he can trust us.

With that, I went back inside and let my brother know the septic truck was here. It didn’t take him long at all to empty the truck, so when my brother said he wanted to call, I delayed it long enough for me to go back out, put the weights back down on the tarp, which the septic guy had put back, and put everything away.

Not before using the toilet and actually being able to flush it!!!

Ooooo… Very exciting! 😂🤣😂

While it was great that the tank was emptied, it does make thawing the ejector a bit more complicated. It will take probably a few days before both sides of the tank filles enough to trigger the pump again. Which means that, if we thaw the ejector, there’s not way to test it.

My brother thinks he should be able to use his heat gun and the copper pipe to thaw the ejector.

We’ll see how it works out, though. We won’t really know what we’re dealing with until we get that cap off and can actually see how high the ice it – or use the copper pipe to find how far it goes.

When they reach their place, he’ll grab a few tools, but we really only need a screwdriver to remove the single screw to get that elbow off.

Of course, things never turn out as expected, so who knows.

They don’t have a lot of tools at their place right now. They brought most of them here, to the farm. However, they’re scattered all over. They didn’t have time to be organized about it, but just jammed things wherever they could. My brother won’t be able to start organizing things until spring, at the earliest.

Well, we’ll do what we can with where we are at.

Meanwhile, they will be leaving a car here, and it will need to be plugged in. So I headed out to the garage to get a 100′ extension cord and set that up through the back door of the garage, so the car can be parked in the more sheltered yard.

While I was at it, I finally got to the truck and got the engine running. Then, after puttering with the extension cord, I set up my OBDII scanner.

The first thing I noticed was that the oil pressure gauge was still sitting at 0 and not moving. The check engine light was on again, too.

I did a full module scan. What I’m getting is “Engine Oil Pressure Sensor/Switch “A” High. Five times.

Looking into more detail, the scanner tells me this code frequency is “very common”. The recommended fix is to replace the engine oil pressure sensor.

Which got replaced not that long ago. Unless “switch A” is a different sensor.

I took screen captures of the results. When I’m somewhere with enough data signal to send images through text, I’ll send them to the garage.

Otherwise, the truck sounded just fine. In fact, now that the MAF sensor has been replaced, I do hear an improvement in how it starts, when using the remote car starter. Definitely smoother. I’d checked the oil yesterday, and it was fine, too.

Phew.

This post took a lot longer – and became a lot longer – than I expected!

As of right now, I’m basically just waiting for my brother to arrive and will accompany him to the ejector.

My brother is the best. So is his wife! I am so glad my mother transferred ownership of the property over to them. I don’t know what we’d do without them!

The Re-Farmer

Yeah, it just got worse

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

I just got a call from the septic guy.

Their truck broke down. He can’t come out today.

The first thing he asked when I answered was if we got our ejector working again. I told him no, it’s frozen solid. We’re going to have to install a diverter.

Which is when he had to tell me he wasn’t going to make it. When he hadn’t shown up for so long, I was afraid of that.

We might have to call another company, but this is the only one that has been willing to come out as needed, rather than waiting until there are several costumers needing to be done in the same area. It means paying more, but that’s better than having to wait weeks to get it done.

I just set the honey pot up in the bathroom. At this rate, we’re going to have to invest in a commode. The honey pot is a seat that fits on a 5 gallon pail. Not very comfortable, not very stable.

We actually do have a flushing portable toilet in the basement that we found while cleaning up, but the base is missing, so there’s nothing for it to empty into. It won’t fit over a 5 gallon pail, unfortunately.

I don’t get it. We’ve had more severe cold, for much longer periods, in the first few years we moved out here. We had our vehicles frozen for a month. But we never had problems like this, with our septic system.

And it’s not just us. The Cat Lady had the well pump at their cottage freeze and flood the basement, on Christmas Eve. My brother’s sump pump is frozen, and he’s monitoring it through his security camera to watch for possible overflow. During their drive, they saw semi’s broken down all over. Their own car ran well, thank God. The plumbers all mentioned having vehicle troubles from the cold, and they’ve been dealing with calls for service because of the cold. It may be brutal out there, but we’ve had worse!

*sigh*

What a mess.

The Re-Farmer

How many things can go wrong at once?

/ Re-Farmer / 14 Comments

Someone just shoot me know. Put me out of my misery.

No, I’m not serious. Just hyperbole, but really?

So we’ve got our septic issues. The pump never turned on during the night. I did check it, and found that m it wasn’t until late morning that I finally heard it turn on, and I immediately went down to check on it.

There was no flow through the filter. In fact, it was still full and nothing had drained out the bottom.

So I did the usual. Shut off the pump, pop the cap off the filter to fill it…

There was no seal.

I primed it, turned the pump back on…

There was no water flow. Nothing.

At this point, it was looking like we needed a new O ring. I’ve been messaging my brother through all this, and he suggested using Vaseline to get a seal. I found a tiny little jar of Vaseline in the bathroom and gave it a try.

Still no seal, still no flow.

I then spent I don’t know how long, calling hardware stores, looking for a 5″ O ring.

No one had.

Even the one in the town to the north of us, which I knew carried their own version of a septic pump filter, didn’t have one. They had a 6″ one.

They did recommend I call an auto place on the same street as them, as they carried all sorts of O rings.

The first question I was asked was, how thick. I never even thought of that, because all the places I called basically had one thickness. It was never a question. I gave the closest I could and he went looking.

They had one.

Yeah!

I started heading to the truck to head out.

As I was unplugging it, the first thing I notice is the front driver’s side tire is really low. So I fire up the compressor to pump it up.

That poor compressor. It was NOT liking the cold!

I got the tire pumped up, then got the truck started to warm up while I opened the gate. As I’m backing the truck out of the garage, I see something odd.

The oil pressure gauge is at 0, and is not moving. At all.

I stopped most of the way out of the garage, so I had room to set up the foot stool to check the oil.

It was fine.

I started the truck again, and the gauge still wasn’t moving. I left the engine to run while I went inside for a bit. I tried calling the garage, but it went to voice mail, so I tried sending a text, instead. Then I went back to the truck.

Now the check engine light was on.

*sigh*

I did not have time to fuss with this. I parked the truck, plugged it back in, locked the gate and headed inside.

Then I started calling plumbers.

Long story short, after getting through to one place and explaining the situation, they recommended someone in the town where the O ring was. I called there and left a message.

Then I went to the basement to try the pump again.

As before, I turned on the pump, but nothing was flowing through the filter. So I shut it off and opened it up.

It was sealed so well, I had to pry it off. It took a while, but the Vaseline made the difference.

I checked things and even switched out the filter baskets, even though that had been done recently, so the one in there was still pretty clean, closed it up and tried again.

Still no flow.

So the problem was not the filter, after all. And the pump seemed to be running pretty normally. So why wasn’t any water flowing?

I ended up calling the first plumber I got through to again, talked to the receptionist and explained what was going on, which she passed on.

At this point, I had so many calls and return calls to so many different places – including the company that installed our new ejector – that I’m starting to get them mixed up.

Long story short, it was suggested the ejector might be frozen. With suggestions and advice from different places, I headed out with a couple of jugs of hot water to see.

From how the ice and snow was on the diverter, clearly the expeller had been working all right until now. It obviously had quite a bit of pressure to create that ice wall so far from the expeller.

The cap is held in place with two screws, which I removed.

It was frozen solid. I couldn’t even rotate the cap.

I poured hot water over it and was eventually able to rotate the cap, but the venturi pipe would not move. I didn’t want to use too much force on it, or it would crack in the cold, but there was no way I could remove it to thaw it out, or to pour hot water into the pipe.

This is a serious problem. There is no way we can thaw this out, which means no septic for the winter.

I was keeping my brother updated through all this, though he’s currently out of province. When talking about the possibility of the ejector being frozen, he brought up something I completely forgot about.

With the problem we were having before, he’d brought over a massive hose for the diverter.

We could set up the diverter, if necessary. We would bypass the ejector system completely. A diverter pipe would be attached to the pump and run out hole in the wall, which is currently filled with spray foam insulation. The hose he’d brought over is now stored in the barn. We could set that up and the pipe from the basement would get drained into the maple grove for the winter.

With the ejector being frozen solid, that is now our final option.

More phone calls needed to be made.

One of those calls was to our septic guy. We need to get the tank emptied, since the pump can’t drain it. We can’t use our water. We still are, for small things, but no showers or doing dishes, and even flushing the toilet has to be avoided.

Thankfully, they will be able to come out today, so we won’t have to set up the honey pot. They’re a cash only business, though, and I don’t have any, but I can pay them later, which is something I’ve done with them before.

It will take a while for them to warm up the truck and get here, as this cold is causing all sorts of vehicle problems for everyone. As I write this, we are under extreme cold warnings, still. The temperature is at -21C/-6, and the wind chill is -29C/-20F

Once the tank is emptied, we’ll have a bit of a grace period and can use our water while waiting for a plumber to come in.

So far, I’ve had one tell me they’re booked solid for 2 weeks. I’ve left a message with the other, explaining what I needed and asking them to call back. I’ve also gotten through to the company that installed the ejector and asked if they could install the diverter for us. They are the furthest away and would be charging mileage, so he suggested I keep calling others. He then asked me to call him back on Sunday evening to update him. If I can’t find anyone, he’ll have someone come out. Otherwise, he wanted me to let him know if we found someone closer.

Which is where we stand right now. The septic guy hasn’t arrived yet, but I was able to get the insulated tarp over the tank lid freed of ice and snow and pulled back far enough to access the lid. Then covered it again, until he gets here.

As I write this, I realize it’s been at least an hour since the septic guy called me back. I hope he’s okay!

The extreme cold warning extends into the wee hours of tomorrow. We’re supposed to have a high of -19C/-2F tomorrow afternoon, and the days are supposed to keep warming up after that.

Just checking the weather now, and we’ve already dropped to -22C/-8F with the windchill now at -31C/-24F. Which could be worse; some places are getting wind chills of -40C/F

It’s past 3pm as I write this. I’d better go top of the kibble for the outside cats and – more importantly – give them more warm water. A lot of the kibble bowls are still really full when I head out. The ones in the kibble house may be sheltered, but there is no warmth. The bowl in the catio, wrapped in its plastic, gets emptied, but now the bowls under the nearby shrine. I’m rather surprised the plastic is making that much of a difference. The bowl in the isolation shelter gets emptied completely. So I try to leave more food at the bowls that get empties, so they don’t have to go into the cold to eat. I want them to stay warm and cozy as much as possible! Their winter fur is obviously helping, though, as I’ve been seeing them all over while outside.

What a day.

How many things can go wrong?

Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know!

The Re-Farmer

Some things don’t take a break for Christmas!

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas day!

First up, I will share the cuteness with you.

The yard babies are enjoying a roasty toasty Christmas in the isolation shelter.

After taking the above video, I fixed the hammock and tried again.

We had our non-traditional Wigilia dinner last night, so today, the outside babies will be getting some turkey bits, including the innards, for a treat. I’ll be deboning the turkey and making a stock for them.

Not right away, though. I don’t want to go anywhere near food right now. I’m feeling really gross and disgusting, even though I’ve washed up several times.

I discovered the septic back up the basement floor drain, today.

*sigh*

That’s what we get for falling behind on running the hose through the floor drain to the tank regularly.

For the past while, we’ve started hearing gurgling from the tub drain every time we flushed the toilet. Knowing that the main drain pipe from under the tub to where it turns and drains into the septic tank, this isn’t surprising. It kept getting worse, though. I checked the vent in the roof and it was clear of ice or snow, so that being a possible contributor was ruled out. I even plunged the bathtub drain. After a while, though, I finally decided to go into the old basement – something we don’t do often enough, but those stairs really suck.

Which is when I found the mess. Things were starting to back up through the floor drain.

Thankfully, it hadn’t been doing that for very long.

So I opened up the access pipe and tried running the hose we keep set up to flush the pipe through. There are two bottlenecks. The first is just a couple of feet from the access pipe opening. That one doesn’t usually get blocked, but it takes a few tries to get the hose through. The second bottleneck is about 5 or 6 feet through, so pretty close to the tank itself. The pipe in the floor is cast iron. At some point, it attaches to the more usual plastic pipe. I have no idea how long the cast iron pipe it, but I suspect the second bottleneck might be where the two types of pipe join. Either that, or it’s right before where the pipe enters that tank.

That’s the bottleneck that gets blocked.

This time, I couldn’t get the hose through at all. Normally, I’d run water while doing this, but when I did turn the water on, it just started backing up the floor drain more.

I could have set up the drain auger, but that would have had it sitting in water – something the instructions said to avoid, if possible. I didn’t think it was necessary, though. We have an old chimney sweep rolled up in the corner. It’s just thick, stiff wire with a brush at one end. The other end has the tip bent back on itself. That’s the end we push through the pipe. Using that, I was able to break through the clog. I could tell when it worked, because the floor drain started to immediately empty.

After getting the wire out, I was able to run the hose all the way through, with water running. Given the lengthy of hose I was able to get through, it was going all the way into the tank, and then some.

From there, it was time to clean up the mess I didn’t want going into the floor drain, then flushing that out. It’s a 4 way drain, but only two are used. One runs to the weeping tile under the new part basement, the other to the septic tank. The two unused drain sections run about 8 or 10 inches before they are blocked by concrete. All of these needed to be flushed out. Then the pooling water on the floor needed to be swept into the drain and cleaned.

One of our goals it to cover the floor with self levelling concrete to get rid of all those low spots. Considering the concrete walls themselves are crumbling, I sometimes wonder if it’s even worth it.

Anyhow.

All that got done and cleaned up, and a blower fan set up to dry the floor faster.

Once in the bathroom to clean up, I did a test flush on the toilet.

Zero gurgling from the tub drain.

So that was the problem all along.

*sigh*

Our own fault. We fell behind on the flushing of that pipe. I’m just glad it didn’t start backing up earlier, such as while someone was taking a shower or something.

I think I’ll be asking the girls to do all of our Christmas dinner today. Usually, we split up doing different dishes between us, but I just don’t feel up to handling food, no matter much well I’ve scrubbed up!

We had a turkey dinner yesterday, finishing off the last of our garden potatoes. Today, we’ll be having smorkchops (smoked porkchops).

Oh, and just to top things off, after messaging my family from the basement to let them know what happened, I put my phone in my pocket…

… and it fell out.

It has a wallet style case with a cover on it, which protected it to a certain extent, but I’ve got the moisture warning saying to let it dry before plugging it in. It’s now out of its case, all cleaned up, and sitting until the port is dry. It also has a screen protector, but there is now a small chip on the bottom – I have no idea how, as that spot should have been covered by the protective case. There is what looks like a small crack, but I can’t tell if that’s the screen, or the screen cover.

The phone still works, though, and it’s not interfering with anything, so I don’t care too much.

So… that is how my Christmas has been going!

I’ve been talking with both my daughters as I write this, and they are taking over all the Christmas cooking today!

Oh, how I wish I could take a bath.

Days like this, being broken really sucks.

No matter. All is good.

Merry Christmas!

The Re-Farmer

Being judged, wind damage, and it got done so fast!!!

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Good grief, it’s just past 10am as I start this, and things are already done!

As we were expecting the septic company to come out this morning to fix the expeller on our system, my daughter and I headed out together to do the morning rounds. Today, that included opening the main gate, as well as moving the chain and electric fence across the gate by the barn, for the equipment to get through.

Judgement came along.

Syndol did, too, but they were both moving around so much, I barely managed to get one decent photo of Judgement!

I just realized; one of his eyes looks more dilated than the other. I’ll have to monitor that.

Once the gates were done, my daughter went on to to the inner yard routine, while I went around to check some things in the outer yard. I’m glad I did! One thing I found was one of the missing cat collars. This time, the break away buckle was actually open. The last one I found, it turned out the stitching can come loose at one end and slipped off the buckle. The buckle itself is still together, so no missing parts. I’ll just have to sew it up.

As for the one I found this morning, I spotted Nosy in the sun room as I was coming back in and was able to get it on him.

After checking things in the outer yard, I made my way back into the inner yard through the gate by the fire pit, and started checking the maple grove for fallen branches.

Well… I guess you could say I found a few!

The winds finally broke two of the three rotting trunks on the ancient willow. They’re hung up on other trees, still. My daughter joined me while I was checking it out. As we were going over it, we could hear popping noises and, every now and then, another branch would break off and fall down.

How it is right now is quite dangerous. We’ll have to find a way to safely pull it down the rest of the way. One of the trees that’s holding it up is another willow with a rotting trunk, and it may well pull that one down with it, too.

It was just a matter of time for this to happen and, to be honest, I’m just surprised it was this part that fell, and not the trunk with a super long branch extending horizontally over the fence.

While we were checking it out, my cell phone started ringing. We get a better signal outside than in the house!

It was the septic company, asking about where we were. Turns out, they drove right past us. I’d told him, “first driveway on the right” – and he even had that written down on his printout – but he was looking left, instead!

There are no driveways on that side of the road, other than into hay fields!

So I went to meet him at the driveway while my daughter quickly went inside to use the bathroom before they started work.

As I was talking to the guy (the company owner), I brought up about not using water in the house, and he said it should only take about an hour or two.

?!!!?

I was expecting at least four to six hours, based on what the other company had said.

As we were talking, the truck hauling the excavator made its way over, but parked on the road to unload.

I went along to show them where the expeller was, and explain to them what direction the pipe was running underground. Normally, it would have had a pipe going straight to the house, but this pipe followed the water pipe to the cattle fountains and barn, first. Which meant it was basically at right angles from where they would have expected it to be.

The job was a repair by replacement. The leak would have been at the bottom of the expeller pipe. How the pipe was leaning back like it was, instead of being straight up, would had contributed to the damage. They then dug a hole about ten or so feet away from the existing expeller.

When I mentioned, I thought the pope would be maybe twelve feet down, the owner said it was more likely about six feet. That would have been typical, I guess, and with how much of the original expeller pipe was showing above ground, that would have been a logical conclusion.

After the guys got started, the owner left them to it.

It was definitely more than six feet down.

There were also a LOT of rocks.

The excavator was able to pull a few larger ones out, but there was one huge boulder that was not going to move.

Every now and then, the excavator would stop, a ladder would be put down, and a guy went down with a metal tool to poke around in the clay and gravel, trying to find the pipe. Then he’d climb out, and the excavator would dig some more.

That process got repeated a couple of times before they found the pipe, and then had to dig more to access it.

Watching the excavator operator was truly amazing. He was making that thing dance! It was beautiful to watch.

By the time they found the pipe, there was water on the bottom of the hole. I asked one of the guys about it, and if he thought they’d just hit water, or if he thought it was from the leak.

He said it was most likely from the leak.

The guy that went into the pit was eventually able to clean the pipe of clay residue and start cutting it.

There was a whole lot more water after that!

The excavator went back to work, clearing space for the water to drain away to. Then the guy went back down and finished cutting the pipe. The new expeller’s end was lowers, and he used a torch to soften the plastic of the pipe, so he could insert the brass fitting before tightening it with screw strap bands.

Then he got to hold the expeller straight while a couple of guys started shoveling clay down! The guy in the hole ended up taking one of the spades and digging clay and gravel from the sides while a guy on the surface used a tool to hold the expeller straight. Once there was enough clay and gravel around the base to hold the expeller, the guy climbed out and the excavator took over.

The first of the photos above is how it looks right after the guy climbed out.

This is an excellent visual cross section of what our Dark Grey Zone soil is like. There’s just a few inches of top soil, and the rest is a mix of clay, sand and gravel.

This is why we do raised bed gardening!

Filling that hole back again was when the excavator operator truly showed his skill! He had to carefully lay the soil around the expeller without pushing it aside. There was still a guy using a tool to hold it straight, but there’s only so much that can be done from a distance like that.

When it got close to the top, the excavator pulled down the old expeller, breaking the pipe and pulling out the venturi pipe inside. He then leveled that area and covered over the old pipe in the process, filling an eroded hole near it, while filling and building up the soil around the new expeller.

Which is much lower down than the other one was! I’m guessing the old expeller was on top of a vertical pipe, for it to extend that far above ground. These expellers only come in one length.

Once the hole was filled and leveled, the excavator operator moved aside some of the bigger rocks he’d pulled out. Then the guys put the sheet of metal roofing back and weighed it down, while turning the nozzle so the water would be expelled towards the low area it’s intended to drain into.

I checked the time stamps on the photos and video I took. From the time they started digging to when they were done filling the hole and leveling around the new ejector, was only about 45 minutes. From the time of arrival to when they left was maybe an hour.

I can’t believe how fast they were! It was amazing!

And here we were worried about having to set up the diverter, so we could use our plumbing and the septic pump could empty the tank into the maple grove while they worked. It wasn’t long enough to be even a slight inconvenience!

As for the bill, that will be sent to me by email, which I’ll pass on to my brother. Between him and my mother, it will be covered. The total, before taxes, was even a little bit less than the estimate I got over the phone. After taxes, is should total under $2300.

Getting this done is SUCH a huge weight off our shoulders! Especially getting it done now, before winter. We might have been able to make it through the winter, if this didn’t get done now for some reason. The pipe is well below the frost line, so the saturated area around the pipe probably would not have frozen, and the expeller did start working again, somewhat. The fact that at least some of the water was being properly expelled is the only reason they weren’t digging a hole in a quagmire.

I’m just so happy – and thankful that my mother offered to pay for it, or we would not have been able to get it done at all!

As for me… well… I’m going to be taking a nap. I woke up somewhere between 3:30 and 4am, and wasn’t able to get back to sleep. A couple of hours sleep, and I’ll be heading back outside to get some work done!

Today is already a very good day.

The Re-Farmer

Well, now! That’s short notice.

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First up, I’m happy to say that I did NOT end up having a bad pain day today. With how I was feeling last night, I was rather concerned, but it seems to have worked itself out. Plus, my daughter is doing the morning rounds, and that allowed me to sleep in.

As for my potential plans to work outside, that didn’t happen. It was too wet out for the sort of work I wanted to do. It wasn’t even really raining, either. More fog and mist all morning.

So I was just about to start cleaning out litter boxes when I got a phone call from my mother.

She started out asking how things were going, so I told her about some of things I did yesterday, and things I planned to do tomorrow, which is supposed to be warmer and mostly sunny – though the predicted high keeps changing! At one point, my weather app was telling me we could get as warm as 10C/50F, but I just checked it, and it’s now saying the high will be only 7C/45F Which is still nice. More importantly, it’s supposed to be dry, so I should be able to get certain jobs involving power tools done!

Then I asked how she was doing.

Well… she’s out of milk, of course.

*sigh*

I keep asking her to please have me do her grocery shopping before she runs out of everything, but she refuses. If there’s food in the house, she says, she has to eat it. Temptation.

She wanted me to come tomorrow, of course.

It was barely mid afternoon when she called me (though it was already starting to get dark!), so I suggested I head over right away, instead. That threw her for a bit, as she thought it was much later. She wanted to go to the bank, and wasn’t sure it if would be open still.

It would be, of course.

So I updated the family, quickly changed and was soon out the door. When I got to her place, my mother was ready and waiting, with her winter parka on! We quickly went over her list, then headed out, first to her bank.

Going in and out of the vehicle for that was the limit for her, though, so she stayed in the truck while I did the grocery shopping next.

By the time everything was done and her groceries put away, she wanted me to stay for a visit, but it was getting near sunset. I didn’t want to be driving home in the dark. Too many deer!

When I got to the truck, I checked my phone before I headed out. I’m glad I did! There was a message from my husband, with a phone number. The septic company had called and needed me to call back for a confirmation that they could come over.

Tomorrow morning!

I called them immediately.

The first thing they needed to confirm was where we are. He tried finding our physical address on an online map, found a road with the municipal number, but it ends well to the south of us. I had to explain that the part that goes past our place isn’t listed on the maps, and gave him country directions. Then we confirmed things like making sure the gate would be open. They should be here around 8:30-9am. I also told him about the other gate, with the chain and electric fence across it, that they’ll need to go through, but that just needed to be unhooked. The renter’s cows aren’t here now, so the electric fence isn’t powered.

That done, it was time to go home. I did take advantage of being her town, though, and stopped at the feed store for a 40 pound bag of cat food before heading home.

Now I’m doubly glad I convinced my mother to let me do her grocery shopping today!

What I’m hoping is that we won’t need to hook up the diverter for the septic tank. I really don’t want to punch a hole through the insulated opening and run the septic into the maple grove. So tonight, we’ll be doing as much of the water stuff as we can. Showers before 7:30am. Dishes washed. Cooking that included draining off water. The only thing we don’t have to worry about it the laundry, since we’re still running the drainage hose out the front door, anyhow.

As for how long things will take, it’s hard to say. If everything goes smoothly, it could take as little as 4 hours. If things don’t go smoothly, it could take 8 hours.

The fact that the expeller started working again, though not to its full capacity, may be a good thing. It means the area that was so saturated before isn’t a quagmire anymore.

Well, we’ll see how it goes.

It’s going to be an interesting day, tomorrow!

The Re-Farmer

What a great day, with some excellent updates

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I am really happy with how things have turned out today!

First, we have the cat isolation shelter.

It took all day, but it is now useable! It has been moved close to the house, and the cats love it. Here is a short video I took to post on Instagram.

I was able to make the sliding doors, but one of them turned out to be a real pain. The wood lath covering the insulation on the other side, were not all the same widths, with some sticking out further than others. There was no way the panel could slide over it. So I made a stopper, instead, and it can only slide the other way. We’ll just have to be careful not to slide it out so far that it’ll fall out.

The other side was downright easy, after that!

Once those were in, I got my daughter to hold the front window in place while I drilled some pilot holes and put screws into the corners. Once that was done, she could let it go, and we added more screws to secure it.

Then, finally, we could put the roof pieces on.

Which turned out to not be as long as the boards they were being attached to. We have excess wood sticking out, front and back The back is the “handle” to lift the roof, anyhow, so I’m not too concerned about that, though at some point we’ll want to replace the strip of wood lath across the back with something sturdier. As for the pieces sticking out the front, I ended up using them to help steer as we moved it. We might cut them flush with the roof later, though.

I had to abandon my daughter part way through moving it, as my brother arrived with another load to drop off. After greeting him and he went to unload, I had a chance to take a short video of the isolation shelter. My daughter had left it in an open spot for me to do that. Eventually, I will put together a video of the entire process, which dragged on for so much longer than expected. After that, I moved the shelter closer to the house.

The door/ramp doesn’t have a latch, though – the ones I had were not large enough – so it kept dropping open, even though we’d taped it shut. The down side of using salvaged materials. One of the boards of the ramp cracked after hitting the ground. I had to add a couple more screws to fix it. Which was fine, but it required closing the door to do it.

The kitten that was inside the shelter was not happy about that! 😄

The last thing that really needs to be done is to find a latch for the door/ramp. We also need to get more paint, but that’s mostly cosmetic.

Once we work out exactly where it will stay for the winter, we’ll hang the clamp lamp with the heat bulb under the roof and get that ready for plugging in for the winter, preferably with a timer. I’d also like to attach handles to make it easier to move. The handles I had that I thought we could use are not strong enough.

After moving the isolation shelter closer to the other cat shelters, I grabbed a couple of winter squash as a gift for my brother, and went to join him while he worked. While we were there, we started hearing a noise.

A noise he identified as splashing water on metal.

From the septic expeller.

I couldn’t believe that’s what we were hearing, so we went to take a look. Sure enough, there was water coming out of the pipe!

It was not coming out as well as it should have been; it was almost dribbling down the outer pipe, and the sheet of metal that’s there to prevent erosion at the base was being partially missed. The pipe itself is leaning a bit back and to one side, instead of being straight up, which I’m sure isn’t helping, either.

I’m amazed that it was working at all. I was just there earlier today, taking photos, and saw no sign that water was being ejected from that pipe.

Oh! I completely forgot to mention!

With the one septic company ghosting us, I called the other and left a message this morning. The owner called me back less than half an hour later. They will be able to do the job for us. They are really busy and he couldn’t tell me when they can come out to fix the leak – it might be 3 or 4 weeks – but he told me that they could do the work even if the ground were frozen.

So that was definitely good news!

He asked me for photos of the expeller. While I was there, I made a point of looking to see if there was any sign that greywater has been flowing over the sheet of metal. That fact that there is some water flowing out the pipe, and not all just seeping into the ground, is actually a bit of a weight off my shoulders, making the timing of getting the repair done is not quite as urgent.

So that was more good news.

My brother had been able to come out sooner than he expected. It was still light out when he was done unloading, so he and I did a walkabout, including out to the car graveyard and the old farm equipment. I now know which things he wants to keep, and what can go to the scrap dealer – and it’s added a lot more to what the salvage company can come out for!

Oh, it’s going to be good to clear out this stuff.

My brother then came in to take a look at the bathroom, and the rot on the walls.

In the end, he said it’s not actually that bad. He said he wouldn’t bother taking it out at all, which would require taking the tub out. He suggested we just fix the taps from the other side, then cover it all with the new tub surround we already have.

Then we went around to the other side of the wall to talk about cutting an access panel. He’s pretty sure there is more aspenite under the paneling. We could take off the entire panel, but that would require removing the molding that’s over it, too. He suggested drilling through from the bathroom side to mark where to cut. Which is what I had been thinking, but only after cutting away the rotted aspenite around the taps. We have to figure out where the joists are; they should be 16″ apart, but the bathroom was installed while he was away in college, so he never saw how things were done.

So that is more good news. We don’t have to remove the tub and cut more of the walls away. He recommended we treat the aspenite with bleach, but we have some anti-mold product specifically for bathrooms we can use.

We can now put together a plan of action to get things fixed so we can use our tub and shower again!

Then my brother got his meter and we went to check the hot water tank – after shutting off the breaker! He tested the elements, and it turns out that it is the top element that is burnt out. The bottom one is working fine.

So we’ll be looking into getting a replacement for the top element.

I told him about the powered anode rod we are getting. Looking at the outlet near the hot water tank, I mentioned my thought of unplugging the extension cord that goes into my husband’s closet, then moving the plug for the well pump up, so we have room to plug in the new rod.

He advised against it.

As he put it, we’re already on borrowed time with that well pump, and he wouldn’t touch anything if it can be avoided.

We looked at the other outlet, where the sump pump is plugged in. He suggested running an extension cord from there, instead.

I will trust his advice and do that.

So we’re still without use of the tub and shower, and have only tepid water, but we now have a better idea of what to do next.

Which will be to get at the plumbing for the faucet set from the bedroom side and get that working, first. Then, even if it takes longer to get to the point we can install the tub surround, we can temporarily put plastic over where it’s cut open, so we can use the tub and not have to keep sponge bathing!

So… I rate that as more good news.

There was only one hiccup in the day that is more strange than anything else.

While my brother was unloading his truck, he got a voice mail notification on his cell phone – but his phone never rang. He joked that it was our vandal, because that’s who it was the last time this happened.

Well, after he left our place, my brother checked the voice mail, and it really was from our vandal!

I’ll get a copy of the message later, but it was much the same as last time. He’s wondering why my brother is “catering” to me – and we have no idea what he’s talking about. He also said that his doctor told him that the reason he got cancer is because of us, and that we are evil, evil, evil! He’s dying of cancer, and it’s our fault.

???

I’d say, he was drinking behind his wife’s back again.

At least he didn’t threaten us with “retribution” so extreme, even the Pope would be reading about it in a magazine, this time.

We are perplexed as to what triggered the call. Particularly since my brother was here when the voice mail was left. My brother thinks our vandal has been watching us, and saw that my brother had arrived, but I don’t see how.

Whatever the reason, my brother has our vandal’s number blocked, so he shouldn’t have been able to leave any voice mail message at all. The phone company is going to be getting a call about it, that’s for sure!

One thing else is for sure. When the scrap metal company comes to clean things up, we will have to watch out for our vandal, because he is going to go ballistic. He believes all this stuff rightfully belongs to him – but then, he thinks the entire property rightfully belongs to him.

Well, we’ll deal with that when the time comes. I’ll just be glad to get all this stuff cleaned out – and I’m sure the renter will be glad to see it gone, too, since his cows graze around almost all of it!

Oh, and I told my brother about the guy that wants to buy a couple of cars for parts, and how he will need to bring in special equipment to be able to get them out. I also told my brother that I’d arranged for him to use part of the money for the cars to pay back the guy that put a down payment on the old Farm Hand tractor, since I could see my brother wasn’t happy with the sale. My brother was happy to hear this.

So good news for him, too!

It’s just been a good day, overall, I’d say!

The Re-Farmer

Trying something new

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With all the problems we’ve been having with our plumbing and septic system, we’re doing everything we can to find ways to not just fix them, but to prevent them from happening again.

Once of those things is the use of enzymes, both for the septic tank and for the drain pipes.

The drain pipes are one of our biggest problems. There’s a section that needs to be cleared. We have the commercial drain auger, but access to the pipe is almost directly over the sump pump reservoir and hard to get at, between the mess of pipes around it, and a wall. We will get that done, eventually, but I will be doing it with the help of my brother, when he is available. The alternative is a $300 minimum visit from a plumber so he can use his commercial drain auger, instead… 🫤

Until then, we are doing everything we can to get the drains clear using bacteria and enzyme products. Since I had to go to the town north of us to pick up kibble at the feed store anyhow, I went to the hardware store there that carries a produce we’ve been using quite a bit.

After looking over their display, though, I decided to try something different.

One of them is specifically for the septic tank, so we won’t use that until after we get the tank emptied for the winter, which is a call I need to make today.

Looking at the instructions for the other one, I decided it was worth trying. It is to be used in stages, starting from the pipes closest to the septic tank. Which would be the accept pipe in the floor, right next to the pump. That’s where I’ve already been having to shove a hose through on a regular basis, to clear what feels like two bottlenecks between the opening and the tank.

The next closest would be the bathroom. Tub, toilet and sink are all really close to each other, so any one of them can be used to apply the product.

After that, it’s the drain for the laundry, and finally, the kitchen sink.

We really need to get things cleared up. We’re still draining our washing machine through a pipe running out the storm door window and into the lawn. When a large amount of water drains out of the kitchen sink, like draining a sink full of wash water, we can hear the water gurgling and backing up to the drain pipe for the laundry, with is just a few feet away. The pipe from the kitchen to the corner of the basement has already been cleared by a plumber. It’s the rest of the pipe, from the corner of the basement to where it goes through to the septic tank, that hasn’t been done yet, and that’s the one that needs to be worked on the most until we can get it augered.

We also have to consider the pipe from septic pump to the ejector, out by the barn.

Which still needs to be repaired.

Another call I need to make today!

While at the hardware store, I asked about a septic pump. With all the problems we’ve been having, and with how often it’s been running dry, it’s going to wear out. It already sounds wrong, but at least it’s working. I’ve been searching online to find out where we can buy one, and I’m even saving my Canadian Tire dollars towards the cost of one – but have had no luck. Any searches bring up septic pumps that are designed to be installed in the tank itself. Ours is in the basement.

It turns out, they are marketed as utility pumps, though when he was looking through his computer, he ended up having to search under sump pumps, which is something else entirely. The hardware store does carry them, but none were in stock that I could see. He was able to give me a printout, though.

As for the price, it turned out to be pretty much what I was expecting. $500

A quick search at Canadian Tire, though, and it seems they don’t carry the type of pump I need. The closest they have is a transfer pump for irrigation. It’s designed to pump water from a pond, creek or lake into an irrigation system. My sister has one of those her husband set up to water their garden from the creek their home is next to. I suppose, technically, it would do the job, but that’s not what it’s designed for.

So… we’ll have to come up with $500 over the next while, so we can pick up a “spare” before the current pump wears out!

Until then, we will be going everything we can to keep the system maintained as best we can, starting with using these new-to-us products.

Here’s hoping they do the job as promised!

The Re-Farmer

Just chugging along

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Today started quite late for me. For some reason, I was completely unable to sleep. I finally got up at about 5am, when I heard my older daughter come down for what, for her, would be her supper. After having a chat with her, and making myself a couple of sandwiches, I tried going to bed again. The girls, sweethearts that they are, took care of my morning stuff for me, including feeding the outside cats (they usually already do the morning feeding of the inside cats).

I managed to get maybe 4 hours of sleep and, apparently, that was all I needed.

The first thing I needed to do was make some calls. I tried calling the home care guy and left another message, letting him know I wouldn’t be home after about 2. He didn’t call me back.

Then I called the two septic companies that hadn’t responded to my messages. With one, I left another message. With the other, I tried their cell phone number instead of their land line, and actually got someone. Considering what town they are in, chances were pretty good their cell phone coverage wouldn’t be any better than hours, so I was glad it worked.

This company charges by the hour. We talked about our system and the problem. He didn’t even mention that these ejector/expeller systems are not supposed to be repaired anymore, but replaced with a septic field.

Given that they charge by the hour, he couldn’t give me a firm estimate, but figured it would be at least $1500. They charge $250/hour and that covers all costs, including transportation, parts, etc. After asking a few more questions, he thought it might take 4-6 hours. At 6 hours, that’s $1500 (before taxes).

I’m just going to assume it will take longer. That’s generally how things tend to be out here!

I greatly appreciated the information, and passed it on to my brother.

So we have one company that charges by the job, regardless of time, and the estimate was $2032 before taxes, for all the materials, labour and transportation (both companies are located about a 40 minute drive away from us). The other charges by the hour, regardless of what the job ends up entailing. Based on his time estimate, it could cost anywhere from $1000 to $1500 – though he did say that it would likely be “at least” $1500. If it took 8 hours, that would be $2000, plus taxes.

As for the third company, since we’re not hearing back from them, and this job really needs to get done soon, I figure they are going to be dropped from the list.

That done, I went outside and checked a few things. I didn’t bother taking any pictures, but I ended up picking what is probably the last of our corn. There are a few cobs left that are pretty immature, and are unlikely to have been pollinated. I grabbed a few Forme de Couer tomatoes, too. I probably could have left them longer, but I wanted to take some of the weight off the vines!

In the afternoon, I loaded the truck up with three empty 18.9L/5gallon water jugs to refill. I made a quick stop at the post office on the way out, and found that my replacement Mastercard was in, and just needed a PIN purchase to be activated. With Disability coming in tomorrow, I’ve already changed the info in my online banking to pay off the balance, then do the Costco shopping.

On a Friday before a long weekend.

May as well get it over with!

Oh, I forgot. Before I left for the grocery store, I had to pause and get a shot of Ginger.

That’s him on our dining table, which is currently protected by a giant self-healing cutting mat. Ginger is the only cat that is allowed on the dining table, because he still gets bullied by several of the other cats. My daughters even gave him his own bed.

He’s bigger than the bed. 😄

Now… where was I?

Oh, yes. The grocery store.

Since I was at the grocery store, anyhow, I got a few more things. My husband requested nacho fixings, so I got that – including lactose free cheese – and I found the last things to go with the fancy meats and cheeses I got yesterday. The girls and I can now have ourselves a charcuterie and Columbo marathon night again. 😁

When I got home, and my younger daughter helped me unload the truck, then I reloaded it with our garbage and recycling, in time to get to the dump just as it opened for this evening.

I now wish I’d left it for Saturday. It’s open longer hours on Saturday, but that’s not why I wish I’d waited.

When entering the landfill area, there is a little hut for the attendant, where I can show our card that shows we live in the area and can use the dump without charge. They had to implement this because too many people from rural municipalities with landfills that charged a fee, would come to one of the three landfills in our RM instead.

Next to the attendant’s hut is a row of recycling bins – those get emptied and the contents shipped to the city for processing – plus one bin for glass only. There are other sheds and areas set aside for batteries, oil, paint, etc. that we drive between, while on the way to the pit.

The first thing I noticed about the driveway to the pit – aside from it being half underwater, due to having rain almost all day today – were tracks in the clay, filled with garbage. There was no way to avoid driving over them.

The tracks were from the front end loader that was in the enclosure around the pit, which had literal tracks rather than wheels. It was going back and forth, pushing garbage into the pit.

Another problem is all the people who just dump their garbage on the edge of the pit, rather than into the pit. It builds up until there’s no more room for vehicles to turn around in, or pass each other.

So it was a good thing that the front end loader was pushing the garbage into the pit.

The bad thing was that its tracks were not only tearing up the clay heavy gravel, but dragging garbage all over.

Normally, I would drive forward, then back up and turn the tailgate towards the pit, but I didn’t dare drive over the area the loader had driven over. I could see all sorts of wire, metal objects, and things I couldn’t identify. I’ve already gotten a flat after a visit to the dump, once before, and did not want a repeat!

I decided to not even try backing close to the edge of the pit. Instead, I tried to drive a bit further forward in an area that the loader had only partially driven over.

Which is when I heard a horrible popping sort of noise, and could actually feel that something broke under my front tired.

I stopped to take a look and discovered…

… I had driven over a glass jar and broken it.

There were some larger shards that I picked up and tossed into the pit, then I started checking the front and back tires that would have driven over it.

There was no obvious sign of damage.

So I moved forward a bit more, then emptied the truck box of garbage bags, without bothering to get closer to the pit.

The driver of the loader seemed to appreciate me keeping a distance, as it gave him room to drive along the edge of the pit, then go in reverse, dragging the bucket on the ground, pulling all the stuck garbage back with it.

Too little, too late.

I’ve never seen the area in front of the pit look so bad, and that was from the cleanup, not the garbage piles!

I checked the tires again, then found space to turn around. I stopped to unload the recycling and glass into the bins near the attendant’s shack, then checked the tires again.

Still fine, so far.

I did go to the shack and tell the attendant what happened, just so it would be known as a problem, and a thing that happened.

After giving the tires one more check, I finally headed home.

Once at home, I made sure to park the truck so that my husband can see it through his window, and let me know of we suddenly have a flat!

I am not a happy camper.

It’s been a few hours, though, and it’s still all right. I may have gotten lucky.

Meanwhile, I started to get messages from the Cat Lady, along with some photos. She just picked up a new cat tree – 9 feet tall! – for only $60 on FB Marketplace. In the first picture she sent me, I could see several cats all over the cat tree – but almost missed the tiny face of Button, barely visible on a bottom shelf!

He was all over that thing, along with the other cats.

He is also apparently becoming very fussy!

The Cat Lady wanted to know if I would be in town this weekend. She has some bags of kitten food that Button won’t eat. He’ll only eat one brand, now! Among the brands he now rejects is the very brand we usually feed the outside cats!

They also have a 5 foot cat tree that cats weren’t really using, that she wants to pass on to us.

The girls have already called dibs on it, for upstairs.

pause for interruption

I’m back!

My mother called, and I had a lot to update her on!

We talked about the numbers I have so far for the septic repair. She confirmed, she will pay the full amount. That is so awesome of her!!! There’s still the one company I had hoped to hear from, but expect that tomorrow, I will be calling the company that charges by the hour, and make arrangements for the excavation and repairs.

We also talked about her pending visit from the home care guy. I told her, he left a message while I was out, and we haven’t been able to connect yet. She couldn’t quite remember what it was about, but when I reminded her it was about her application for supportive living, she was quite happy. She would rather be in a particular nursing home, but to live somewhere that provides meals, snacks, laundry and light housekeeping is exactly what she needs right now – plus access to 24 hour home care support, if something happens. She was concerned about the cost, and I explained it will be 30% of her income (which is what she’s paying now), plus the package that includes the services (meals, etc.) She won’t have to cook for herself, though she’ll have a “kitchen” with a mini fridge, probably a microwave, a sink, and room for a kettle or or coffee pot. She won’t have to buy groceries anymore, unless she wants something to keep in her own apartment.

The application process, of course, will just get her on a waiting list. The website doesn’t say if there are any vacancies, and it’s unlikely there are any. There just isn’t a lot of supportive living housing out there, and the demand is high. There would be a triage process, I’m sure.

I’m glad she called, because it was getting late and I wasn’t going to call her to update her until tomorrow.

So there’s that…

Now… where was I?

Ah, yes. I was chatting with the Cat Lady!

As we were talking and she told me she wanted to pass on the kitten food and cat tree to us, on the weekend, I mentioned the possibility of going to the city tomorrow. She asked me to message her if I do end up going. Chances are, she’ll be able to meet me in the city, instead.

I hope I have room in the truck box for the cat tree, plus the shopping!

We shall see.

After we chatted, and it was still light out, I did my evening rounds, and I just have to share this picture with you.

The Crespo squash is getting so huge! The leaves reach about waist height on me. You can see a squash under the leaves in the foreground. In the distance, you can see the vines climbing a cherry tree – and there is at least one squash developing among the branches! It is also trying to climb the pole bean trellis, and there’s at least one baby squash in there, too, though it’s still too early to know if it got pollinated. With that one, I hope not, because the trellis was not made to hold the weight of squash!

What a difference from when we tried to grow it last year! Clearly, it likes having more shade than where we tried to grow before. Plus, this area gets much wetter, and stays wetter longer. Perfect for a thirsty plant like this!

While doing my evening rounds, I was checking on the San Marzano tomatoes in the main garden area and actually found a couple of red tomatoes! One was ripe enough to pick, while the other was not ready but close – and fell off while I was tending the plant! I also picked more Forme de Couer tomatoes that probably could have done to stay longer, but the plants are getting so overloaded with tomatoes, I wanted to take some of the weight off!

By the time I was done that, it was getting time to tend to eye baby. She was in the cat cage in the sun room and did not make it easy to reach her, but once I picked her up, she started purring like crazy.

Her eye is still in that terrible “she looks better, but her eye looks so awful” state.

My daughter got her all wrapped up in a towel and held her during her ministrations. She’s gotten very good about taking her antibiotics, though, and quite enjoyed a feeding of warmed up cat soup. She also seems to be okay with being held pretty restricted, the entire time.

We aren’t washing the eye anymore, as that would cause more injury, but we do try to get the fur around her eye at least somewhat clean of gunk. Then, after a snuggle with my daughter, she went back outside, where she can go back to her cuddle pile in the cat cage!

So that was the gist of my day today.

For now, I need to try and get to bed early – and hopefully get some actual sleep! I want to head to the city early – if I don’t have a flat in the morning – so that I have plenty of time to make a call to the septic company when I get back.

I guess it’s time to say good night.

Good night!

The Re-Farmer

Have I mentioned my brother is awesome?

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

So is his wife!

For those who have followed this blog for a while, you might be a bit surprised to hear this, but …

… so was my mother, today. Hopefully, that won’t change.

Let me step back a bit! Things went so different than expected today, it actually feels like it’s been two days!

After I finished my rounds this morning, I grabbed the inner pipe for our septic expeller and headed out towards the barn. Once I got to the outer pipe, I could see that nothing had overflowed the pipe while the venturi pipe was out. I made sure to have my rubber boots on this time and walked around. The saturated area is quite large. Which, I suppose, makes sense if it’s been leaking for at least 6 weeks.

When I put the venturi pipe in, though, I did hear splashing, so there was at least some fluid making it into the pipe.

I had really hoped that somehow, it would be something as simple as seating the venturi valve at the bottom properly, but no. We will definitely need to get it excavated and repaired. Which is something I’ve been really dreading. The last time my brother had to get something excavated here because of a septic problem, it cost him over $5000.

Once I was done and cleaned up, I made myself some breakfast, then sat at my computer so I could start looking up companies while I ate.

Which is when the phone rang.

It was my mother.

Before I even picked up the phone, I knew what she was going to say. Even from the tone of her voice when we said our hellos, I could tell.

She did, however, ask me how I was doing, first. So I was honest with her.

I was doing terrible.

I then – very briefly – told her about what was happening with the septic, that we would need to have it excavated, but we had no way to pay for it. The stress of the whole thing was worse than I realized, because by the time I finished telling her that, I was almost crying – and it takes a LOT for me to cry!

Then, much to my shock, my mother said that she would help.

I never, ever, would have asked my mother for money for this. I know she has it, but when it comes to money, my mother’s behavior is particularly… unfortunate.

I’ll just leave it at that.

I told her that I was going to call for estimates, but couldn’t even guess how much it might cost. She just said, make sure it’s professionals doing it, and she would help.

Which just blows me away.

Unfortunately, my mother does have a history of offering help, and then trying to back out of it. She did it when she said she would pay for the movers, which was part of the deal for us to move here in the first place (in the end, she did pay most of it, but we still needed help from my brother to cover the rest). She tried to do it again after she agreed to pay for the new roof on this “perfect” house she asked us to move into. She’s done it to my brother, many times, over the years.

Still, just that she offered to help at all was greatly appreciated and a wonderful surprise.

After we talked about it a bit more, including my telling her I’ve been talking to my brother about all this, and that he also said, get an excavator, she told me why she was calling in the first place.

It was exactly what I expected.

She thought she was going to die last night, again.

Now, when she’s having these issues, she says she’s struggling to breathe, can’t breath, feels like she’s dying…

She said she tried taking “medicine” for it (most likely Tylenol), but it didn’t help. Then she took the “pink stuff” I’d bought for her.

The no-name Pepto.

I know she’d taken it before and found it helped, but I didn’t realize she’d stopped. She’s already on a prescription medication for acid reflux, so she shouldn’t need it.

She took some last night, and it worked. She felt much better!

She was, however, now out of it.

So we worked out that, after I had my breakfast, then made some phone calls, I would go pick up some more for her, and bring it to her.

My mother hadn’t slept during the night, so she was going to try sleeping in her comfortable chair while waiting for me to arrive.

I then started looking up some local companies that service septic systems, then made some calls. One of them was to the guy my brother usually called for work done here, but I was pretty sure he didn’t do plumbing anymore. He does do excavating, though, so maybe? The last few times I called him and left messages, he never called back, so it was a surprise when he actually answered the phone. I explained the situation, but I was right. He bought a memorial business a few years ago, and that has become his focus. Most of his excavating now is digging graves. He was apologetic, but I was expecting this.

I left messages with two other companies, but got a real human with a third.

I explained the situation and said that I was looking for estimates to pass on to my brother, as I don’t own the property. I know my brother would trust me with whomever I chose, but I would run it by him, anyhow – and it buys me the time to get multiple estimates.

When I described our ejection system with the expeller rather than a septic field, I was told that these are not supposed to be repaired anymore! If they break down, they are supposed to be replaced with a septic field.

I don’t think we can even do that. There are just too many trees and roots to mess with a field. That’s why we have the ejection pump system to begin with.

He was clearly familiar with systems like ours, though. He asked a few questions about what was happening and started looking things up, rattling off the parts and pieces we’d need, factoring transportation from the town they’re in (about 40 minutes drive away), then gave me a number.

$2032, before taxes.

Which was way less than I expected! In fact, it makes me wonder if he somehow didn’t include excavation in the estimate.

And estimate is an estimate, though, so I left it at that, and thanked him for it.

That done, I then got ready to head out to my mother’s, making a quick stop at the post office before they closed over the lunch hours. Not that I was expecting a package, but I’ve been surprised before. 😁

Then it was off to the pharmacy in my mother’s town, I got her “pink stuff”, then headed to her place.

When I got there, I found she had all sorts of food set out, including a hot lunch for me! She had just finished eating herself. I had to say no, as I’d just had breakfast and was still full. I did stay for a while, though, and we had a chance to talk. Long enough that I ate a muffin. 😄

I was very curious as to how she was feeling, before and after she’d taken the Pepto during the night. Particularly when it came to her breathing. She’s confused about it, too, but mentioned she was also dealing with anxiety and panic attacks. Which makes sense, if she literally felt like she was dying, and would also add to the problem.

If the Pepto helps, then it helps. Even if it’s psychosomatic, who cares? She feels better!

It did remind me to tell her the OT that visited her a while back had called me recently, and we talked about their visit. One of the recommendations she’d made to my mother was moving to a larger apartment, where she would have the space to use her walker inside (my mother parks her walker just outside her door, and uses a cane, or hangs onto the walls, counters, etc., inside).

I said that I told her, we want to get my mother into supportive living in the town where my brother lives, and that the OT said she would contact the guy in homecare. He will call one of us to arrange an appointment to go over the panel questions and application process with my mother. The last time he was there, it was a panel for a nursing home, which my mother feels she needs to be in, but she doesn’t qualify. She didn’t even qualify for assisted living.

Given how long it’s been, I said that I should probably call him myself and see if I can get an appointment made. My mother said to tell them, it has to be soon, because she might not be around much longer!

She’s turning 93 within a couple of weeks. She’s not wrong. But then, that could be true of any of us, at any time, as we painfully learned when the youngest of my brothers died at only 45.

We also talked about the septic issue a bit, but not too much, as it was making her feel anxious. I apologized, and told her that for me, right now, it’s hard to think of anything else!

While I was still with my mother, I got a message from my SIL. I just quickly skimmed over the preview, and saw that she was confirming they’d received my earlier updates about the septic system, but that my brother would get back to me about it, later.

I was able to stay a bit longer, but I could see my mother was starting to want me to leave. She was very tired. Her attempt at napping earlier had failed, and she wanted to try again. So I left soon after.

It wasn’t until I got home and on my computer again, that I finally read the rest of my SILs message.

It turns out that my brother is taking vacation days on Mondays now, they’d loaded up the trailer, and were coming out here today!

They must have been on the road already by the time I saw this and responded. I had some stuff to do inside, and planned to be back out before they got here, when I got a message saying they were here!

It’s a good thing my brother has a key for the gate!

By the time I threw on my outside shoes and headed out, they were pulled into the outer yard with their truck, trailer …

… and a bread van?

A large, formerly commercial bead van. Images of bread loaves on the side had been painted over, but the shapes were still very visible.

I had no idea they had one. Was it even theirs?

Then I saw the cement mixer.

*melt*

They had to get the tractor and rotary mower out of the barn first, then back the trailer up for unloading. I helped unload almost everything around the cement mixer. That was on skids. My SIL was on the trailer, moving things, and was able to drag it closer to the end. Once she and my brother got it off the trailer, I helped him move it into a space he prepared in the barn.

Not where he originally intended. He was going to put it in the lean-to side, but I told him, it rains in there! When the metal roof was put on the barn, the lean-to roof was not included.

It should have been.

To get the cement mixer to the space he prepared, we had to skid it over a massive board he’d brought last time, which now had three huge posts – posts he uses as a tripod to lift engines – on one side. Now, the posts would make it easier to move the skid over to the prepared space in an old cow stall, as they would roll, but as we were turning it, my brother stepped on one of the posts and it rolled out from under him. My heart almost stopped as I watched him fall!

Okay, it was a controlled fall. His old Tae Kwon Do lessons didn’t get forgotten. What really got me was how close his head came to the corner of a board on the other side of the barn’s centre aisle! I don’t think he realized just how close he came to a severe head injury!

My brother is my brother, though. He just got up and kept going, like nothing happened!

Gosh, he’s amazing.

Once that was done and the trailer moved away – the stuff remaining on it needed to go somewhere else – my SIL got on the tractor and went to do a bit more mowing. She was going to go where the storage warehouse is, but the truck and trailer were in the way! It was near the burn pile, though, so they moved it closer so we could unload some scrap wood to burn.

As she started digging the pieces out and passing them to me, I found myself setting pieces aside, as they were in good enough condition that I could use them with the small projects we build.

When it became clear that most of what they had was useable, I went and got my utility wagon. We loaded that up with almost all the wood they’d brought for the burn pile, then took it over to the garage. I cleared the top of an old shelf, and we stacked it on top.

I think I have what I need to make a door/ramp for the cat isolation shelter, now!!

Then my brother borrowed my driver, a short board, and some screws. The door to the hay loft on the barn was getting blown loose. It was tied closed on the inside, but that was giving out. So he basically just boarded it up. It’s not like we’re going to go up there. It’s too dangerous. If we need to access through those doors, we can just take the board off.

Over the next while, they traded off doing more mowing. My SIL started expanding the area around the storage warehouse while my brother and I moved some things out of the way. I had a chance to talk to him about having the scrap guys coming out, and what he was okay with them taking.

In short, there’s 5 cars, something we think is part of a truck (it’s almost completely hidden by grasses and burdock) and a threshing machine. With having the aluminum and batteries only, they would come out if they were already in the area. With a threshing machine and several vehicles as well, this should warrant a special trip.

All of this belongs to my brother, so any funds from selling the scrap metal will go towards taking care of the place.

That would include things like repairing the expeller on the septic system!

I don’t know how much we’d get for it all, but this company weighs things on site, and pays the going rate. I assume things like transportation and clean up will be taken off. I can’t even guess what we’d get for it. Probably not enough to cover the entire cost of the septic repair, but who knows? Prices might be good, whenever they get here.

I will just be happy for this stuff to be gone, and look forward to being able to clear out the vehicles in the old hay yard, too! All but one truck can go. I’m pretty sure my brother thinks he can get that truck going again. He’s the one who gave it to our father to use around the property. I don’t think it’s ever going to be roadworthy.

Meanwhile, my SIL cleared more of this area…

Gosh, it looks so much better! Plus, I should be able to collect some of the “hay” for mulch. Not anything close to the warehouse; there are too many burrs in there! There is lots that should be clean and not gone to seed yet, though.

My brother had already done part of this area, the last time they were here and brought the tractor. My brother took over the mowing after a while, as he had specific areas he wanted to get particularly clear, and went over them with the mower set lower.

He also cleared in front of the storage warehouse up to the three cars that are there, that the scrap dealer can now access. Eventually, they will most a lane to the secondary driveway.

Over the next few days, I’ll have to make a point of putting markers where the surviving Korean Pines are, as well as the ash tree my mother gave us, so they won’t mow over them by mistake!

With all this mowed, we can now access areas where we need to cut saplings away from buildings, before they start causing damage, too! It’s amazing how quickly areas I cleared out have become overgrown again.

Once the space he wanted was mowed to his satisfaction, my brother moved the bread van over and parked it. It turns out they’ve had it for years; I just never saw it before! Since they will be bringing more equipment to store out here over the next while, my brother plans to use this as his “house”. A place where he can change, or even sleep, whether or not we are around. Not that there isn’t someone home at all times, but since my husband has to have his hospital bed in the bedroom closest to the bathroom, we don’t have a spare bedroom to offer. They want to avoid disrupting us as much as possible.

The good thing about my brother doing all this in preparation for his retiring, and no longer haying on their property, is that we’re going to be seeing a lot of them over the next while!

Once all this was done, they had to head home right away. That’s going to be pretty much the pattern, over the next while. Whenever they can manage to come out here, they’ll bring another load of stuff, then will have to leave as soon as it’s unloaded stored.

We’re just happy to be able to see them so often!

I think this would be a good time for us to start going through the storage warehouse. My mother is adamant that we keep her stuff, though I do have permission to sell some of it (she keeps saying I should have a garage sale, which I will not do!), but there are bags and bags of old clothing and similar items, much of it belonging to my late father. My mother even left behind a whole lot of clothing, including a lot of underwear.

Packing those into bags was not the most comfortable of things! 😄

These bags of clothes can’t even be donated. They need to be taken to the dump. Once those bags are out, we’ve got boxes that are starting to collapse on themselves that need to be rearranged. They were labelled as detailed as we could when we packed them, and there is probably stuff we can still use. We just can’t get at things, the way it is now!

What I’d really like to do is get that building cleared out, so it can become a workshop again, and not a storage building!

But that is something we will have to deal with in time.

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer