I was able to get a bunch of photos of the kittens this evening. As we have discovered is typical, the older kittens start to get eye infections once they start eating mostly solid food and aren’t nursing as often. It’s a strain of herpes that we’ve since learned is particularly difficult in our area.
So… just fair warning that some of the kittens in the slideshow below look a hot mess, after getting their eyes washed.
A rare image of some of Inspector Japp’s white belly and chest spots!
It looks like Captain Hastings (next photo) is related to Ghosty. She has those shadows of colour on her head. When Ghosty was that size, she had those hints of pattern in her fur, but was otherwise almost completely a cream colour. Those shadows kept getting darker as she got older, and now they are very brown. Which is why we think she might be an albino tabby. That and her eyes that glow red when the light hits them. Hastings has a dark tail and dark ear tips, and such pale eyes!
Miss Lemon is the biggest of the three and very assertive! 😄
I’ve contacted a local large animal rescue that had reached out to me last year about possibly taking a more feral pregnant cat to socialize and integrate into plans for opening their rescue to the public for events and tours, but we didn’t have one at the time. They ended up not being able to open last year, largely due to weather. They’ll be having a grand opening later this month, though. If they could take in Poirot and her babies, that would be amazing.
The next image is Sir Robin the Brave. He was all curled up in the grass, napping, and did not appreciate being interrupted! His eye is actually looking much better right now. I didn’t see his sister, Kale, this evening. She was looking pretty sick. We’ve been bringing her into the house for eye washing in the mornings lately. I do hope she’s okay, and was just napping somewhere.
The next image is of Havarti and Little Rig, both of whom are looking much, much better now! I’ve been able to catch Havarti every now and then, but he really doesn’t like it and keeps his distance.
Then Grommet came by. His eyes are looking better, too, but he still got an eye wash after I got that picture. He’s slightly more socialized than his brother, Zipper. Zipper looks just terrible after his eye wash! The only reason I was able to catch him to wash his eyes is because they were both stuck completely shut! Normally, he would fight me off, but he’s so sick, he actually let me wash his eyes, while I had him on the roof of the cat house. Then he just stayed up on the roof, in the warm sunshine, making snorking noises.
The next image is Eyelet and Wormy snuggled for a nap. Wormy has one slightly sticky eye, but nothing of concern anymore. Eyelet’s eyes are… well… check out that last photo!
That blue is so pale, his eyes look almost white!
I also suspect he’s deaf.
~~~back from a quick run outside to switch soaker hoses in the garden~~~
Well, I found Kale! She’s sleeping in a kitten pile in the cat house. 😁
Adorable kittens aside…
Today, my younger daughter and I headed out for some errands. One of the things I needed was to get myself a pair of non-work shoes. Finding shoes for my messed up feet is never easy, so my daughter suggested we go into the bigger city, rather than the nearest Walmart in the smaller, nearer city. We had just started driving when my cell phone started ringing.
It was home care.
They weren’t going to have anyone for my mother’s morning med assist.
Which is supposed to happen between 7 and 9am.
It was about 9:20 or so when we got the call.
*sigh*
On the plus side, my mother’s place is along the way, so we were already part way there. I called my mom to let her know about home care, and that I was on my way. The hands free unit my brother gave me sure came in handy!
My mother wasn’t happy. When I got there, she started talking about hiring someone, though the home care office, to do med assists for her. Just one person doing her assists, all the time, and always at the same time (she says they keep coming later and later). I had to explain to her, they can’t do that – and she can’t just hire some random local person to do her med assists, either. There are laws about that.
She doesn’t accept that.
I couldn’t stay long, though, and was soon on my way. My sister was going to be showing up after lunch and taking her to the cemetery to visit our family gravesites. While it will be easier for my mother to get in and out of my sister’s car, I knew it would still take a lot out of her!
That done, my daughter and I continued on our way. Neither of us had had breakfast yet, so lunch was the first order of business.
Then my daughter, sweetheart that she is, busted her butt, trying to find me shoes. She knows me too well! I’m terrible when it comes to buying things for myself. Especially things I need. Add in how difficult it is to find shoes that fit, I would have given up after the first couple of pairs where I couldn’t even get my foot in. I used to be able to wear men’s size 9’s, triple wide. That’s the size of my work boots. That’s the size of my inside shoes I was wearing at the time, that are wearing out and falling apart. In the end, the only shoes I could get my feet into where men’s size 11’s, wide, and even then, some styles still didn’t work.
In the end, we found a pair that fit, but were absolutely tacky. The grey was okay, but the bright neon yellowish green accents were a bit much. Being the only ones I could find that fit the bill, I was willing to get them, until my daughter spotted another display shelf.
I got the same shoe, in bright red. It matches my new dress. 😄 They look like runners, but the “laces” are fake and stretchy, so they’re actually slip ons, not lace ups. I think they’ll work out just fine and, thanks to my daughter, I wasn’t going insane by the time we found them!
From there, we had our shopping lists to get. We were both pretty tired – my daughter actually fell asleep during the drive in! – so we took our time about it. Which worked out, since my husband remembered a few things he messaged us about, too.
We didn’t refill our water jugs in the city, though. We were going to do that locally, so I could get my “buy 10, get one free” freebie. During the drive from the city, though, I did end up pulling over so my daughter could take over driving while I tried closing my eyes for a bit. The energy drink I got for the ride accomplished nothing!
By the time we got to town, though, I was feeling much better, and was able to drive home after we finished in town.
I’d better get to bed early tonight and, hopefully, get some real sleep, because my daughter and I have an early start tomorrow! My brother and his wife got her a blacksmithing beginners workshop for her birthday this month, and we have to be there before 9am tomorrow. The drive will be almost an hour, as the forge is just past the smaller city. The workshop is all day, with a 1 hour break for lunch. I’ll probably pick something up in the city nearby, so we can have a picnic on the grounds (something they say is available) during break. It’s going to be a long day!
With that in mind, I’d better start winding down for the day, kick most of the cats out of my room, and try and get some sleep!
The dwarf Korean lilac is kicking into full bloom, and making the yard smell heavenly.
I had company for part of my rounds as Syndol and Stinky followed me around. They do love the high raised bed, when it comes to demanding pets, which you can see in the second photo above. You can also see the partial clearing of the path around the trellis bed in progress that had been just packed with dandelions gone to see. I still need to go over that with the weed trimmer, which will be a lot easier, after going through with the push mower, first!
While walking through the yard, I also spotted a clearwing hummingbird, flitting from dandelion to dandelion. They are remarkably large!
Today we were going to try for a trip to the dump. I’d brought out a heavier duty tarp to put over the load so it wouldn’t blow off while on the highway. It had been set over one of the old, broken tillers that have been sitting by the garden shed since before we moved here. There was some debris stuck in the folds, so I spread it out on the lawn to hose it down. It was so windy, I had to get tent pegs to tack it down!
Too windy.
I decided not to try and use the open truck box at all. Instead, we fit as much as we could of garbage and recycling in the back of the cab. We’ll just have to make another trip, later in the week, to get the rest.
My younger daughter came along to help out. The dump was an absolute disaster. The previous municipal council had fired the custodian that was managing it before, and things have gone downhill, ever since, even though we have a new council now. There was a brief period where I think some outside company was hired, and things were well taken care of, but now, the custodian(s) seem to just be seniors with mobility problems. As an almost senior with mobility problems, I take issue with that! It would be fine if all they had to do was sit in the shack and make sure people coming in just flashed their cards showing they are from the municipality and authorized to use this landfill site. The custodian is responsible for taking care of the entire site, though, and it doesn’t look like they’re contracting out to anyone to do the stuff the custodians can’t.
Like use the front end loader to push the build up piles of garbage at the edge of the pit, into the pit itself. Or to clear the area in front of the bit, so people won’t get flat tires, driving in to unload.
The garbage piled along the edge of the pit was so big, it was taking up space needed for vehicles to be able to turn around and back in. With three other vehicles already there, I was more than happy that one of them left, or I would have had a real problem getting to the pit.
Thankfully, we were unloading from the side door, not the box, so we could squeeze in that way. I couldn’t help but check around the tires after we unloaded. We got a flat tire after visiting the dump once, and I’m paranoid it’ll happen again!
After the garbage was done, we stopped at the recycling drop off, then headed out. We were running low on kibble for the outside cats, so we took advantage of this to go to the nearest Walmart and get a bit of stock up shopping.
Which I did not get a picture of. I’m happy to say that the big bags of kibble (9.1kg is the largest size the Walmart carries) have gone down in price by almost $5 a bag! We also got a 32 pack of canned cat food for the outside kittens.
They are getting totally spoiled, but it is pretty much the only way to make sure they get at least some lysine in them. I’ve been mixing a cat soup by hand for them; just a couple of cans of wet cat food mixed with lysine/pumpkin seed powder, then thinned down with water. As the kittens are getting bigger, I’ve increased the water and have started mixing in kibble to soften up, too. Some of the adult cats get pretty aggressive in trying to get some, too, so I’ve been splitting it up among quite a few bowls, and setting them in the usual kitten spots. Poirot’s babies hang out in the sun room most of the time, though they do venture out the door now, so I try to make sure they get some in the cat cage, where only a few of the adult cats will go in, these days. They are so tiny – and so fast! We really need to watch our step these days!
Along with cat food, we got some grocery items, stuff to keep in the truck (wet wipes, snacks, etc.) I did get one splurge. Since I’m getting more calls to my cell phone, I picked up a dashboard holder that will work with my wallet style phone case. Now I have to go into my phone’s settings to set up hands free. Samsung used to have a really good set up for hands free driving mode, but they got rid of that, many models ago. Now it’s all with Bixby, and I really dislike using things like Bixby. Ah, well.
Once the shopping was done, we set the heavy stuff in the box. I’d picked up a 24 case of canned soup for the pantry that was on sale, so that went in the box, with a cat food bag sitting right on top of it. The case of wet cat food went back there, too, with a dry cat food bag up against it, so it wouldn’t slide around in the box as we drove. The rest went into the back of the cab.
The problem is, it was threatening to rain.
We took the route home that would have us going near town, first, so we stopped at a gas station there on the way home. My daughter was a sweetheart and checked the tire pressure for me, just in case, before we picked up some gas.
The drive out was straight into the wind, and brutal. I had been fighting the wind trying to push me off the road the whole time, and could practically see the gas gauge dropping. On the way home, the wind was at our backs, and the gas gauge barely moved!
During the final leg home, the “threatening to rain” became a downpour.
Thankfully, the larger bags of kibble in the box of the truck are in plastic bags, so they not only kept the kibble dry, but protected the stuff under them.
My daughter and I got completely soaked, unloading the truck! It was late enough that I did the outside cat feeding right away, while my daughter parked the truck. We didn’t have any concerns about cats going under the truck, though. They were staying well out of the rain until I was actively putting food out, and even then, it was just to dash from shelter to shelter. The bigger kittens were sleeping in big piles, one in the water bowl shelter, and others in the cat house. Poirot’s babies just had each other, and Mom, in the sun room.
The rain has since stopped, but I won’t be trying to get out to work in that garden bed I was planning on. We are expecting more rain off and on, all through tomorrow and into Monday morning. Hopefully, I’ll get some done in between rainfalls, tomorrow. No using the electric weed trimmer, though. 😁
Hopefully, there is lots of rain reaching the wild fire zones! The rain we’ve been getting is now over the fires to the east of us, but it doesn’t look like any rain is hitting the ones up north.
Now that we’re done with the running around, the rest of the day will be indoor stuff. I do wish I’d been able to get to that bed yesterday. I can’t help but feel a bit resentful that my mother’s behaviour towards the home care worker meant I had to come in and cover for her med assist. That’s very different from having to come in because the home care worker was home sick or something. Ah, well. It is what it is!
I don’t have much left to do in the garden for planting. I’ve decided to plant the Hopi Black Dye sunflowers and red noodle beans in what will be a permanent trellis bed, then transplant surviving strawberries from last year. While getting groceries for my mother in her town, I couldn’t resist picking up some free pumpkin seeds that they give out to promote their pumpkin fest in September. There were 5 seeds in the packet, this year! They have a number of contest categories going on. The main one is for the largest pumpkin, of course. Another category is pumpkins and gourds, with prizes for the “most perfect pumpkin” of various sizes, the most unusual pumpkin or gourd of any size (maybe I should try growing Crespo squash again!), and prizes for carved and decorated pumpkins. Then there are contest categories for fruits and vegetables, baking, canning, handicrafts, floral arrangements, and “junior artwork”, all with sub categories. There’s even a colouring contest for preschoolers. I’ve never actually gone to this festival. We really should. It sounds awesome!
All that to say, I got pumpkin seeds, and will be planting them in this bed, too, once I’ve finished prepping it. That will give me incentive to finish setting up the permanent trellis structure, that will eventually be part of a trellis tunnel with a matching garden bed. Those noodle beans will need something to climb!
For now, though, I’m going to stay inside and appreciate the rain we’re finally getting. We really, really need it!
With another trip to the city planned for today, I got my older daughter to help we water the garden and trees this morning, while things were still cooler. Much to my surprise, things actually looked damper than with just the morning dew. Then I spotted the turnip leaves in the high raised bed. It looks like we got a touch of rain last night!
All of these larger leaves had drops of water around their edges. Nothing else. I guess these ones had just the right “pockets” for it!
My younger daughter and I headed out later in the morning, making a stop at a gas station just outside of town, about 15 minutes away, to pick up some energy drinks for the road. While there, we decided to get a car wash, too. I figured, it was a good time to do it, while there’s no box cover.
The car wash couldn’t quite get all the gravel dust out of the corners of the box. 😄
By the time we got to the city, it was lunch time, so our first stop was at a mall near the Costco for food, then a stop at the Dollarama. I was looking for more buckets or watering cans to replace the ones we’ve been using. The buckets with plastic handles I’ve been using to water the walnut tree/seeds all have broken handles now. I had one small bucket with a metal handle that I’ve been using in the food forest area, and the bucket itself is breaking apart. These are all buckets I found around the property, so they predate us living here, and are either so old, or so exposed to the elements, that the plastic has become brittle and is breaking up.
Both the buckets and watering cans we found were too small, but we did find some other things. For the garden, I picked up 10 wire tomato cages that will go over the pepper and eggplant transplants – I’ll need at least 8 more. My daughter found another sparkly baseball cap that she got for my collection. 😄 Then we ended up spending some time choosing artificial flowers and a heavy vase for my MIL’s grave. The last time we tried to visit her grave, we never found it. We did eventually find a sign saying that, due to the spring flooding, a number of stones were damaged and removed for repair, and that they would eventually be returned. We haven’t been able to make it back, since. We want to fix that!
Once we were done there, we headed to the Costco, filling the gas tank, first. Gas was at $1.219/L, while elsewhere was about $1.309 in the city. In town, it had dropped from $1.359 yesterday, to $1.329 today.
That done, we finally were able to grab a flat cart and start shopping.
We did a much smaller trip this time.
This is what $586.66 looks like.
*sigh*
This time, I got a picture of the receipt.
We got two 9kg and two 11.6kg bags of dry kibble and two cases of 48 cats of wet cat food. We got more puppy pads as well.
This trip, we got a large bag of flour for under $10, which is a really good price right now. Everywhere else, I’ve been seeing the same size bag with sale prices of about $12. I get the cheap stuff. Going with the brand name stuff, a big bag of flour is closer to $20.
There’s a case of Monster energy drinks, which I will be paid back for, and we ended up getting a bulk sized box of instant oatmeal.
We got a couple of Kirkland brand jars of mayonnaise, plus a couple of jars of Peanut Butter, some brown sugar, and a large cannister type container of peppercorns, and a large container of ground pink salt. I prefer course, to use in our salt drinker, but this is what they had. My husband prefers the pink salt over regular table salt.
We still have butter in the freezer, so I only got two more, a block of Old cheddar cheese, plus we got a 3 pack of orange juice for the girls. I would have gotten oat milk for them, but my daughter told me they still have. There’s a 3 pack of all beef wieners and a pack of Spam – the only meat we got today. There’s a 9 pack of pasta, and my husband requested some tortilla chips, olives and dip. They didn’t have the 7 layer dip he wanted, so we got him roasted red pepper hummus instead.
They had a fundraiser thing going on. I could tell by the sudden bell ringing and cheering. When my items were all scanned and the cashier asked if I wanted to donate, I first made sure: no bells and yells! She just laughed and said yes. I think they get that a lot! So I donated a bit, too. That brought the sub total to $549.34, and we paid another $37.32 in taxes, for a total of 31 items.
[Edit: I completely forgot about the Pizza Pops! Which is what we’re having for supper tonight.]
We got almost no meat, there’s no eggs, no milk or cream, no breads or wraps.
And it still came to almost $600! A little over $250 (after taxes) of that is all cat supplies.
Part of the reason we did a smaller trip is because we had to squeeze so much of it into the back of the truck cab. The other reason is, we need to empty out the chest freezer and defrost it, so I didn’t want to get anything that would need to go into the chest freezer, other than the ice packs we brought to put with the cold stuff.
By the time we got home, it was about 4pm, so once everything was unloaded and put away, I fed the outside cats. The ice packs around Poirot and her babies needed to be changed out, though when I picked up one water bottle, I found it was still cold, if no longer frozen, so I tucked it right into the cat bed. Before long, I came over and found the kittens all but hugging it! There’s a large ice pack under their bed that probably needs to be changed out, but I didn’t want to disturb the kittens too much. Instead, I changed out the ice pack that’s on the floor of the cube above the bed. The second level cubes have pieces of rigid insulation over the wire to create floors they can walk on, which I set on top of the ice pack. This way, the cook air will flow downwards, and the bit of insulation will slow down the thaw a little bit.
All their water bowls needed to be refilled, but the water in the hose was so hot, I used it to refill the garbage can “heat sink” in the portable greenhouse. I still haven’t found the leak in that thing, but at this time of day, filling it will actually help cool the greenhouse down. The only plants in there are the pots with luffa, and they seem to be quite liking the heat! The thermometer in there was reading about 55C/131F.
Filling the can in the greenhouse also gave me time to scrub the water bowls as best I could. With this heat, algae starts to grow very quickly. The plastic water bowls get pretty stained, too. When refilling the bowls in the sun room, I also wet down the floor mats, so the evaporation could help cool things down, too.
As I write this, at almost 6pm, we’ve cooled down to 26C/79F, with the humidex putting us at 29C/84F – which is the high we hit a couple of hours ago. Tomorrow is supposed to be at least as hot, and the day ever, we’re supposed to hit 32C/90F.
Heat or no heat, things need to get done. Tomorrow morning, I’m hoping to get some of the winter squash transplanted, as they are growing out of their pots, and my daughter is planning on mowing the lawn. With going to the city three days in a row, we’re pretty behind on things! It’ll be good to catch up.
Unless I end up doing grocery shopping for my mother tomorrow.
We shall see.
The Re-Farmer
addendum: yes, I’m doing my mothers grocery shopping tomorrow!
With yesterday’s stock up shopping getting cut short, with virtually no actual food purchased, my daughter and I headed in today to hit the international grocery store we had skipped yesterday.
We had a slight detour into town first, so by the time we got to the city, our first order of business was lunch, which we had in the dining area of the grocery store. Dim sum and sushi!
Driving to the city for our stock up shopping does have its perks!
My daughters had their own shopping list, so after lunch my daughter and I split up and met at the truck later. Without a cover on the box, we had to keep in mind that anything we got had to fit into the back of the cab. We already have a fair bit of stuff back there, from our supply of hard sided grocery bags to our emergency kit, etc. We did take out the bin of winter supplies, though, so that freed up a bit of space, but we are still limited. Basically, we used the space that’s kept open specifically to fit my husband’s walker.
We might have to split our Costco shopping up into two trips, because that’s where we get the most of our supplies for the month.
Anyhow.
This is what $209.20 after taxes looks like.
That’s… not a lot.
In the non-food category, I finally found a nail brush to replace the kitchen one that fell apart. We use it for scrubbing vegetables.
The only vegetable I got today was celery, which was on sale, and the only fruit, grapes, which was also on sale. I picked up some cheese wedges; Irish Whiskey cheddar, Porter Beer cheddar and Maasdam. The Maasdam is a new one for us. It looks much like a Swiss. There was a sale on antipasto sliced meats, so I got two packages of those, plus three garlic baguettes that were on sale. The girls and I might have a charcuterie movie night soon!
There was a good sale on New England Clam Chowder, which I usually get at Walmart, so I picked up a bunch for my daughters and I. My husband no longer likes it. I also got a couple of cans of clams. We like to add some to the chowder, but I haven’t seen any in ages. Not something I would have expected to be hard to find! That they were on sale, too, was bonus. Oh, and I got a bottle of my husband’s favourite Filipino soy sauce.
There was a sale on sirloin tip beef, plus I got an extra discount through my loyalty card, which was nice. There are also some locally produced smoked, and applewood smoked, slabs of bacon, both on sale. For the girls, I got some frozen cooked white shrimp, which was both on sale, plus extra off with my loyalty card, and basa fillets that were on sale.
Since no one is up to doing dishes and cooking in this heat, we picked up food for quick eating. For my husband, I got a huge Lumberjack sandwich; it’s big enough to be lunch for him tomorrow, too! I’m glad he likes those. It’s getting harder to find foods he can eat, these days! I picked a bento box for myself, and my daughter picked a couple of boxes of steak taquitos for herself and her sister. They’ve been looking for that flavour in that brand for years, but they just disappeared for some reason. Now they’re back, so she was really happy to find them. They are not fond of the other flavour options. There were some Verka cream rolls on sale, so I picked up a pack of 4 for desert.
That’s it. That’s all I got. All those sales, and it still cost over $200. Even my daughter’s purchases cost over $130, and their list was mostly jars of Asian seasonings we can’t get locally.
At least I got extra points on top of the extra sale prices, too. I’ve already got enough to get at least one free turkey when those promotions come up in the fall.
My daughter and I went in to the city for our first stock up shop today. In the end, we didn’t make it to all the placed intended, so we’ll have to go back tomorrow.
Our first stop was actually a mall next to the Canadian Tire for lunch. In the end, neither of us was hungry enough to finish, so we brought our leftovers home for supper.
We had a short list for Canadian Tire. A couple of 40 pound bags of stove pellets for the cat litters, plus I found replacement cord for our weed trimmer. I got two of those. Grand total of $48.12 With the pellet bags in the truck box and no cover for the box anymore, we weren’t worried that anyone would walk off with 40 pounds of compressed sawdust while we did our next stop!
Which was Walmart.
This is what $252.98 looks like.
There isn’t a lot in there.
There are two bags of dry kibble for both the inside and outside cats. We’ll be stocking up on that a lot more at Costco and, later on, one of the feed stores for 40 pound bags. The 32 packs of canned cat food is one for the inside cats, one for the outside kittens. The kittens have been getting sticky eyes, so I’ve been mixing up a couple of cans with water and a powdered mix of lysine and pumpkin seeds. The lysine seems to be doing the trick, as their eyes have gotten much better already. The pumpkin seeds should help with worms and poops, so we probably won’t actually see if that’s working or not. 😄
There is a case of giant freezies for my husband, for the hot days ahead. There are the XXL side puppy pads; I’ll be getting the Costco puppy pads, too, which are smaller. There’s a package of toilet paper under the cart, though we’ll be getting more of that at Costco, too. We grabbed a package of paper towels, too. We won’t need to get more of those at Costco.
I picked up a couple of Lavender scented air freshener cones. One is for the truck; I like these better than the scented dandling things. The other is for my bedroom. Lavender is supposed to be calming for cats, so I’m hoping it’ll help!
There are 4 cans of Monster energy drinks for my daughters and I; we’ll be picking up a case at Costco, so this is just for the next few days.
While making our way to the tills, we passed a display of instant oatmeal at 2 for $5, so I grabbed a couple of variety packs. Sometimes, we just want something really quick for breakfast, and I didn’t want to get boxed cereal. I also picked up a couple of cold drinks for the road. The only other item that can’t be seen is a small donation to the children’s hospital.
Normally, after this, we would have gone to the international grocery store. We even remembered to grab ice packs to add to the insulated bags so things wouldn’t thaw out on the way home. My husband, however, requested we bring home some McDonald’s for him. Since there was one in the Walmart, and I didn’t want to run around trying to get to a different one later, we got a meal for him and for my other daughter (my younger daughter and I still had our leftovers from lunch), and we headed home.
Not much of a stock up trip, at all. We didn’t even get any food, really. My daughters have their own shopping list for the international grocery store, so we’ll be making another trip tomorrow. The day after will be our Costco trip.
Part way home, I pulled over and my daughter took over driving, because I found myself feeling like I was falling asleep. So I got to close my eyes for most of the rest of the drive home.
I did get a text message from the autobody shop about the truck, just before we got home. I had to wait until my phone could connect to our Wi-Fi before I could respond. She’d included a photo of the truck box cover they thought was closest to what we had, and the total of what we would be paying for, asking me to call her about it. The “betterment” charge would be $225. Add in the deductible and extra charge for painting because rust damage is not included, we’d be looking at over $860.
I had found a cover almost identical to what we had, though, so I sent her an image of it, which included the price, then called the shop. I got her just as she was looking at the image I’d sent. It was a lot less expensive than what they were looking at, so she asked me to send her a link, which I emailed to her. She wasn’t sure if they could get the one I found – they’re not able to order things online, oddly enough – but she wanted to find out if they could. If they can get this one, or an equivalent, it’ll save us quite a bit of money. She’ll get back to me as soon as she can. We might be able to get this done next week, if all goes smoothly.
Then, I got very different phone call. It was the home care aide. She was at my mother’s place for her supper time med assist, but my mother’s walker wasn’t outside the door, and the door was locked. This is very unusual. She did check the usual places, like the common room or other areas my mother might be sitting and enjoying some fresh air. After we talked for a bit, she said she would do her next med assist, then come back, while I contacted my family to see if anyone knew where my mother might be. I thought maybe my sister might have come out on her day off and taken my mother somewhere, but I think yesterday was her day off. The other possibility that came to mind, which was more worrisome, was if our vandal had shown up and persuaded her to go with him somewhere. Neither possibility seemed likely, though.
I messaged my family but only my brother got it and responded. He had no knowledge of any appointments or anything she might have had. We were wondering if the Life Line people could find where she is, but I think to find out, I’d have to use the home base machine at her place to contact them. I was already prepared to go to my mother’s, since I have a spare key to her apartment, so that was a possibility.
Eventually, I got a call back from the home care worker. My mother’s walker was still gone, the door still locked. She was walking around the building as we spoke, looking for her. We were just about to say our goodbyes and I was going to head over, when she found my mother.
She was behind the fence in the garden area.
Hoeing.
I need to figure that out, because the garden area is on the side of the building outside my mother’s apartment. The fence is on the far side of the garden area. So if she were behind the fence, she would be off the property, where there are a number of trees and an empty lot. No wonder my mother was hard to find back there! But why would she be hoeing behind the fence? Or hoeing at all? My mother doesn’t have a garden plot anymore, though she does have some perennials against the fence, just outside her window. She wouldn’t need to go behind the fence to hoe anything there! With her mobility decreasing, it wouldn’t be safe for her to be hoeing anywhere, never mind going around to the other side of the fence. !!!
I’m just glad she was found!
I’ll be calling her to check in on her, very soon. Just in case…
I did at least get quite a bit accomplished today!
The main thing was to get our new plants into the ground. I did my rounds, as usual, then took the time to dig holes for the haskap, while waiting for the post office to open.
The old rain barrel was so empty, I barely had water to scoop with the buck to put into the new holes. Before refilling it, I decided to move it closer to the gooseberry and apple tree. That way, if it was going to leak, it could water them at the same time! I left the hose to fill the barrel while getting other things done, the water off before digging the holes. That didn’t take very long, even with the roots and rocks, since the holes didn’t need to be particularly deep. You can see by the water line in the barrel that a third of the water was gone by the time I was done!
Once the post office was open, I went and got our parcel. I’d brought the bucket with the remains of the brick of coconut coir that was reconstituted. The haskap plugs in particular were getting dried out, so after I’d added some of the soaked coir to the ground soil in the wheelbarrow, I added more water, then tucked in the transplants. That way, any soil kept with the roots wouldn’t get washed away.
We’d buried our Freya pretty deep, then added rocks on top to make sure no critters dug her up. The remaining top soil was left in the wheelbarrow, and I added the last of a bag of indoor-outdoor potting soil my brother gave us, along with the coir, and mixed it together. Then the plum tree was planted.
I used the rocks to create a ring around the “moat” I made around the plum tree. This area gets pretty dry, so I created a trench for water to flow into, then slowly get absorbed around the roots, while making sure the soil around the base of the stem didn’t get washed away. I used grass clippings to mulch on top of the trench, and returned the tomato cage to deter the deer from nibbling on it. Last of all, I returned some of my daughters flowers for Freya, and added some fresh dandelion flowers as well.
For the haskap, I returned the sod to the holes, root side up, to partially refill the holes, then added the rest of the soil mix in the wheelbarrow. The haskap plugs were pretty small, so I had to be careful not to accidentally bury them too deep! As with the plum, I made a moat around them and filled them with water before mulching with grass clippings. I also “stole” a couple of wire tomato cages from the raspberries nearby that didn’t survive. I’ll have to come back later with a rake to clean up properly around the transplants, but other than that, they are done! Yay!
Today I also had a trip to Walmart planned, so I made sure to NOT take my prescription painkillers, since they have a possible side effect of drowsiness. Not that I’ve notice anything changed on that. With or without them, there are times when I feel like I’m ready to fall asleep. If it’s at my keyboard, that’s not a big deal, but it is if I’m driving!
After I was done with the planting, I ended up asking my daughter if she could drive me today. This turned out to be a good thing. My daughters recently ordered an air conditioner for their upstairs “apartment”, which was to be picked up at a Home Depot in the city. She checked, and it was ready for pick up today. There’s a Walmart right next to the Home Depot location it was at, so it was a a trip to the bigger city, instead of the smaller, closer one, today.
When we got there, we stopped for a late lunch, first, then my daughter went to get the AC unit while I went looking at pre-hung exterior doors, since we need to replace the entire frame. That means no more storm door. Looking at the options, there is an exterior door that has a window that can be opened in it that would be idea. I didn’t have the measurements of our doorway, but we’re looking at what would be over $800, after taxes. Doors with no windows, or just some window in the top, where cheaper, of course, but we’re still looking at at least $600. They don’t do installations outside the city, so we’d have to find someone locally to install it for us, and the company my brother used that installed the new windows before we moved in seems to have gone out of business during the illegal lockdowns.
At least we have a ball-park figure for the door. Now we have to come up with the money, and get it installed before winter!
The AC unit my daughters got is the portable type, meant to fit into a window. The windows we have don’t work for that, so they’ll have to board up much of the window space. After picking up the unit, my daughter then went to the lumber section and found the supplies they needed.
The next thing we had to do was secure things in the box of the truck, since we no longer have a cover on it. Thankfully, we keep ratchet straps in the truck at all times now, and my daughter was able to climb into the box and get it secured.
That done, we headed for the Walmart. My daughter stayed with the truck, to make sure no one walked away with the AC unit (another reason we miss that box cover!). I picked up what was needed, but none of it came out of our household budget, so I didn’t bother with my usual shopping cart picture. I did get several more large bags of kibble, plus a case of canned cat food. These were heavy enough that we loaded them around the AC unit, so there was no chance of anything sliding around!
By the time we were done and heading out of the city, it was just past 4pm, when my cell phone rang. I am so unused to my cell phone being used as a phone, we were both confused by what the noise was!
It turned out to be home care.
No one was going to be available for my mother’s suppertime med assist.
Which would have been done shortly after 5pm, so that actually worked out perfectly. We would go to my mother’s down on the way home, and I’d run in to do get her meds out of the lock box and set up for her. I wouldn’t be able to stay long, though, as we had frozen stuff. They were in an insulated bag, but we didn’t bring any ice packs, so we had to get them home quickly.
I didn’t bother calling my mother to let me know we were on the way; a call with my mother while driving is not a good thing, even on hands free! She would be angry about home care not coming, and my having to cover for them, and I just couldn’t have that conversation while driving.
When I got to my mother’s place and went through the lobby to her apartment, I hear someone call to me.
It was my mother!
I never even saw her! She’s so small, she just disappeared into the chair she was in. 😄
I told her about the call I got from home care, and that I was there to get her supper medications for her. My mother, meanwhile, thought I was there because she’d called our place and left a message! My husband must have been asleep when she called, because he didn’t message me to let me know there was a call, like he usually does.
So I had no idea about her call but, she told me, she has her list…
She was wanting to arrange a grocery shopping trip.
Normally, I would have been able to come back tomorrow, but I’ve got the appointment for the insurance inspection of the truck. Once we got her back to her apartment, I told her about this. She actually seemed happy to hear that the insurance company could cover replacing the box cover and do repairs. We’ll see how it actually works out, after the inspection, though.
I got my mother’s meds out – she wanted me to take some of the pills that were lift in other bubble packs due to things getting messed up, but I didn’t even check to see what days and times they were for; I was just checking to see if my mother needed new bubble packs for her, which she doesn’t. She still got so very angry that I wouldn’t use the other pills, and started commenting on how stupid home care is for sticking to the exact days and times for the pills…
…
I just focused on recording my taking care of her pills in a notebook for the next home care person to see. It was still a bit early for her to take them, so they were just in the tiny tagine bowl I gave her to hold her meds and count them out.
Once everything was done and the lock box put away, and I was getting ready to leave, there was a knock at the door.
It was the home care aid.
We were both rather confused.
It turns out that someone had been added to her schedule and, for some reason, the scheduler started calling to cancel her other visits. When she found out this was being done, she told the scheduler to stop because it wasn’t needed – and especially wasn’t something that could be cancelled for a person with a lock box! But they did at least call me and, since we were on our way home from the city, there was no extra trip to do it. The home care aid was very frustrated that they’d called me at all. Obviously, she was still able to do the med assist!
This same person would be coming back for the before bed med assist, too.
I had to rush off, but the home care aid, on seeing I’d already done the med assist, left at the same time.
Normally, they would stay to make sure my mother actually took her pills.
Now that I’ve written this, I find myself hoping she actually did take them once she had food to take them with! I’m sure she did, but with my mother, you never quite know!
From there, we finally headed home and got the truck unloaded. I’m really glad my daughter was able to come along. I was feeling well enough to drive home, and just having someone there to talk to seems to have been enough to keep me from getting sleepy. I’ll have to bring my daughter along for trips to the city more often!
By then it was late enough that, once everything was put away, the outside cat feeding and evening rounds needed to be done. Some kittens needed eye washing, too. There was one we couldn’t catch, though.
Once that was done, I got a few more things done outside. My daughter and I went to check on the new trees, and we ended up moving the rain barrel to the opposite side of where I’d set it this morning. Then I refilled it, while watering everything but the silver buffaloberry (there are just too many of those, and they are looking really great). I didn’t fill it all the way to the top, but got the barrel at least 3/4 full before I switched the hose so I could water the garden beds.
In the old kitchen garden, I removed the plastic on the raised bed cover, then re-covered it with mosquito netting. I’m really, really hoping to be able to keep the flea beetles out and finally get some kohl rabi! Plus, it can be watered through the netting, without having to move the cover off.
That done, I made some recordings for a garden tour video. I’ve gone through them, but I don’t know that I’ll use them, or if I’ll make new recordings tomorrow. The ones I took aren’t bad, but they just don’t seem good, either – but that could be because by the time I watched them, I was just too tired!
It’s been a longer day than planned on, and I am more than ready to hit the hay! Hopefully, I’ll even get a decent night’s sleep. Between the cats and the arthritis pain, even with painkillers, my sleep is frequently interrupted.
One of the things I picked up today is the same stuff my mother uses on her knees, and now on her lower back, and she finds it makes a huge difference. I’ve used up my tube of Tei Fu lotion and, while that stuff helps, it isn’t a topical painkiller, like this other stuff is. (Voltaran, I think it’s called) I’ve actually had prescription topical painkillers before and found they didn’t make much difference. It would be rather funny is this stuff works better than the prescription stuff!
I’m not holding out much hope that it’ll work, but it’s worth a try!
It’s just past 5:30pm as I write this, and it’s all I can do to keep my eyes open. I am SO tired! Please forgive any odd sentence structure or typos, because I’m sure I’m going to miss many when I got over things before hitting publish!
The cats had me up at about 5am this morning. I got up and fed them – the morning feeding includes kicking all the cats out of my bedroom except Butterscotch and Freya. After the dry kibble is dispensed, I pour some cat milk into a small bowl for our elederly Freya (Butterscotch gets the rest of the little carton), and then I sit beside her on my bed, holding the bowl for her while she eats until she is done. This saves her from having to jump down from the bed to eat, and she can stay all curled up in whatever cat bed she’s in.
Yeah. I’m a suck for the cats.
After a while, I let the other cats back in, then tried going to bed for a couple more hours. I swear, the cats know exactly when I fall asleep for real, and that’s when they start getting into things they shouldn’t, and start making loud noises. Or just going crazy. Tissue got the zoomies this morning. So what sleep I did manage to get was highly interrupted. I can’t even keep the door closed, because then they start scratching at it and that keeps waking me up.
The temperature had dropped to 2C/36F at 5am. By about 8am, it had warmed up to a whole 8C/46F. Which was about when I started heading out. First, the kitties got fed, and I got a daughter to help out. Not with the feeding, though. With kitten catching! Kale and Sir Robin the Brave are incredibly fast about getting into the old kitchen, and haven’t learned to stay away from moving feet, or closing doors! After luring the adult cats away with kibble, I closed the inner door into the sun room and my daughter started handing me bowls of wet cat food to set out for the littles, plus one with both wet and dry cat food for Poirot at her cat carrier nest. Another bowl with part kibble and part wet cat food went into the cat house for Caramel and her babies.
Then I continued my rounds, leaving the sun room closed up, even though all three mamas were out. The white and grey mama has been seen nursing the creche babies more often, now that her third baby is in the sun room again.
Poirot’s grublings are getting more mobile, so I set up a a bit of a shield for them.
I’ve been saving cardboard for the garden in the old kitchen, and there just happened to be a couple of pieces of cardboard that was used as spacers inside a box that were just perfect for this. In the second picture, you can see how they’re set up to cover the gap between the shelf and the wall, and cat carrier and the wall. This should be enough of they accidentally squirm out of the carrier. As they get more mobile, we might just move the carrier to the floor, so they can go in and out as they wish.
Once done with tending the colony, the first thing I do it switch out the memory cards. As I go out to the sign cam, past where the food forest is being built up. That corner gets very sun baked and dry in the summer, but these guys don’t seem to mind at all!
They are absolutely everywhere. It’s impossible to not walk on them, but they don’t seem the least bit bothered by that. I don’t know what they are, but if I had to guess, I’d say they are some type of pansy? Whatever they are, they are pretty indestructible!
The next thing was to check on the garden beds. Especially the one where I just planted peas, yesterday. I thought they were fine until I got to the northernmost end, where I saw the cats had been digging. *sigh* Hopefully, they didn’t actually dig up any seeds, but I really couldn’t tell. I was trying to figure out some way to cover things when I remembered I still have grass clippings saved to use as mulch. There isn’t a lot left, but enough to do the job!
The soil got a gentle watering, first. After the grass was laid down, that got watered down, too. Partly so it wouldn’t blow away too easily.
The plastic covered beds all got watered, too. With the sprouting seedlings, it’s hard to tell which are what I planted and which are weeks. Some that I suspected to be weeds were starting to show their true leaves, and I was correct: they are maple seedlings. So I pulled as many of those as I could, along with identifiable stuff like dandelions – so long as pulling them wouldn’t disturb any other sprouts.
The low raised bed that no longer has plastic on it got watered. I’d tried blocking off one end of the cover and hoped that would be enough protection until I could do the other end. This morning, I discovered, I was wrong.
*sigh*
After repairing the digging damage as best I could, I got creative. This is all temporary.
In the first picture, you can see I just stuck some boards across the opening. The stick holding them in place is secured at the top through the mesh, so those could only go so high, so I used what I could find to add verticals on the inside. Hopefully, the cats won’t try to jump through the gaps.
In the next picture, you can see the twine I wove through the mesh to close up the end. Again, temporary, but this should hold for a while.
After the watering and weeding was done, I headed inside for breakfast, before going back out and continuing what I hoped to get finished today.
It was almost exactly 10am and I just sat down with my food when the phone rang.
It was my mother.
No one showed up to do her med assist this morning.
I should have gotten a call, but I got nothing. My mother had tried calling the case coordinator, but it’s Saturday; her office is closed.
So I told her, I would quickly finish eating, then head out to give her her medications. She wanted me to dispense her other two meds for the day, too, in case her med assist didn’t show up for those times, either, but I refused. Got quite a mocking for following the rules. So what will you do? she asked me. Come out two more times?
I said, yes! I will!
I told her, there’s a reason your medications are in your lock box. You were messing with your medications, forgetting if you took them, etc. Oh, I wasn’t that bad, she said. Yes, you were, Mom. That’s why you have a lock box! She actually seemed to stop and think about that!
One of the things I did was write up a note and leave it in their notebook, stating that I had dispensed that morning’s medications and at what time.
I also told her that, since I was out anyhow, I would make a trip to the nearest Walmart to do a bit of shopping. I had planned to do it later in the weeks, but I could do it now. The Walmart carries 2L plastic milk jugs, which she finds easier to handle, so I told her I was thinking of getting a plastic jug for her. I did just get her a carton, but…
She does still have milk, but it turns out she had dropped the carton while trying to open it and spilled some. So more milk, in a better container, was a big yes from her!
I ended up leaving with a small shopping list and some cash. One of the things she was running low of was the topical pain killer she’s been using on her knees. She’s now using it on her back, too, so she’s going through it faster. I had already been thinking of checking that out, too, as I figured it would be a better price.
Since it was well past 11am by the time I was going to head out, I offered to make a lunch for her, but she said she had leftovers from yesterday’s Meals on Wheels, so she was fine. Once I knew she was settled, I headed out.
My first stop was actually a Dollarama that shares a parking lot with the Walmart. There were a few small things that I wanted to pick up and, of course, I went through the garden supply section. I ended up picking up four 4′ metal posts. Not T posts, but the same idea. They have hooks in the metal to hold trellis netting. They would have been perfect for what I was doing yesterday – and easier to set into the soil! We will be trellising pole beans and more peas, though, so new posts will not go amiss. I probably should have gotten more, but I should be able to get some more next month, if I need to.
After I was done at the Dollarama, it was across the parking lot to Walmart.
I got a few things that were not on my list. 😄
One thing that was on my list was more wet cat food. Since we are giving wet cat food to the kittens, we’re going through it faster. Normally, at Walmart, I pick up cases of 32. Looking at the new prices for the individual cans, though, I realized it would actually be cheaper to buy them loose, than by case lot! I ended up using some of their cardboard flats and got 48 cans of paté for the inside cats (paté works better when making cat soup) and 24 cans of chunks in gravy for the kittens.
They had sales on canned food for humans, too, and I got a flat of 24 cans of tomato soup for the pantry, too.
I also went through the garden centre. I picked up some replacement Yukon potatoes, since I’m sure the ones I’ve been chitting are no longer viable. Their herbs and vegetables were out, so I went hunting and found a few herbs. I got English Thyme, Golden thyme, two containers of oregano, lemon balm and basil. These will go into the tiny raised bed in the old kitchen garden, which has a cat proof cover already.
As for my mother’s list, the topical painkiller she uses was there – and cost $11 less than at her local pharmacy! That’s a huge difference!
The store was very busy, so it took a while for me to get everything I was looking for (and then some), and I was really tired and hungry by the end of it. I had some frozen stuff in my cart, so I stopped to get some take out that I could eat while driving, then headed out, making sure to update my family and let them know I was on my way to my mother’s, then home.
Which is when things went sideways.
Literally.
The last part of my route to my mother’s is a provincial trunk road, from one highway to another, that leads to my mother’s town. This is an east/west route.
The wind was coming from the south.
As I was driving towards an area of wide open fields, I saw the entire horizon was covered with what looked like black smoke. Once clear of some trees, I could see it swirling over the fields – but no flames.
It was dust.
Basically, the topsoil from the south side of the road was being blown to the north side of the road.
As I was being buffeted by the wind, driving through it.
Which is when I heard and felt something behind me and looked in my mirror just in time to see the cover over the box of our truck blow off, into the ditch and keep on going!
I pulled over, but by the time I did, there was no sign of the cover. I’m sure it was still being blown across that field for some time!
I had stuff in the box of the truck, and it was already getting scattered across the box. I gathered it all together and crammed it mostly into the back of the cab, making sure nothing went to the front that could get mixed up with my mother’s stuff.
I made sure that there was no way those metal posts would be able to slide and hit a window!
Once everything was put away, I continued to my mother’s place. Wow, what a difference in how the truck felt while driving! The wind swirling into the box of the truck was very noticeable.
When I was done at my mother’s, I was able to get for damage, which you can see in the second image in the slideshow above. There was enough flex on the box when the cover was torn off that it cracked the tail light cover.
But I didn’t get a chance to see that until later.
As soon as I entered her apartment, my mother, who was lying in bed, started saying, Oh, I’m so glad you’re here! I’m so glad to see you! while getting up to sit on the side of her bed.
I’m doing poorly, she tells me. Maybe I should go to the hospital. What do you think?
I certainly did not voice what I was actually thinking. My mother has cried wolf so many times, and uses having us take her to the hospital as a way of getting attention.
I asked her questions about what was going on. She was pretty vague about it; as if she expected me to already know. She told me she took one of the new pills (the T3s), but it didn’t seem to make a difference.
I told her, these pills aren’t magic. They are just stronger painkillers. As she kept on basically about what her expectations were (take pill: pain ends utterly and completely), I told her that her prescription for these is just a couple a day, morning and evening, as needed. I’m on the same pills, same dosage per tablet, and I can take up to 9 of them in total, per day. So it really depends on the individual.
She was pretty shocked that I could take so many per day, when she had a limit of two per day.
As I was putting things away, she lay back down in bed and suggested that maybe using the topical painkiller would help (confirming, finally, exactly what it was that was causing her problems this time). So that’s what we tried. She asked me to do, not only her hips (the pain is mostly just on one side), but her entire back as well. As I was doing that for her, she said to add lots, so I did it second time. As I was putting away the tube, she started saying she could feel a difference, already!
Hopefully, that will be enough.
My brother and I are planning to be there tomorrow for Mother’s Day, so we’ll be able to check on her more thoroughly, then.
Meanwhile, whenever I had a few moments, I kept my family and my siblings updated on things. I told my mother that I had frozen things in my vehicle and had to get them home, so I was soon back on the road. A daughter was sweet enough to have the gate open for me when I got in.
After everything was unloaded, and the new transplants and bags of seed potatoes secure in the portable greenhouse, it was time to feed the outside cats. I had another daughter on kitten duty, too! Other than doing a quick check to make sure none of the raised bed covers were blown away, I was more than happy to finally settle in at home.
So much for my garden and planting plans for the day! As I write this, we have continued to get warmer. It’s past 7pm now, and the temperature has risen to 24C/75F, though with the wind, it does feel a bit cooler. Not much, though! One of the local weather groups I follow on Facebook has been posting information and the coming heat way, with significant heat warnings to come.
We’re supposedly getting rain right now, though the current systems are skirting right past us. Later this evening, we’re supposed to be getting real rain. One of the things that the weather nerds that run the group noted is what appears to be pyrocumulous clouds forming in some areas! These are thunderstorm clouds that are created by heat; you might typically see them form over volcanoes, but can also form over forest fires, if the conditions are right. Scary stuff!
Tonight, the coolest temperatures are supposed to be at around 5 and 6am, at 14C/57F, and then start heating right up. The heat wave is supposed to hit us the hardest on Monday and Tuesday, but still be very hot on Wednesday and Thursday.
On Friday, the temperature is supposed to drop right down, with overnight lows of 0C/32F, and a mix of rain and snow. Saturday is supposed to be only slightly warmer.
Spring weather is so chaotic.
Well, if we can work around the hottest parts of the day, I should still be able to get at least some of those walnut seeds planted, get more areas prepped in the garden and, if all goes well, even do more direct sowing done. Chances are, though, that very little will get done until after the heat wave passes, and we’re back into cooler temperatures. At which point, we’ll be needing to protect some things from frost! For now, we’ve been able to leave our transplants in the portable greenhouse day and night, but we’ll have to bring them inside on those coldest nights.
As for me, it’s time to pain killer up and get to bed. If the cats are going to be waking me up at 5am anyhow, I may as well take advantage of it and get work done outside, before it gets too hot! I just have to work out what time I’ll be meeting up with my brother at my mother’s place tomorrow.
I made a point of heading out later than I would have, because I wanted to make sure I ate a lunch before I started shopping. The Costco cafeteria doesn’t have anything I enjoy eating anymore (I miss those Montreal Smoked Meat sandwiches they used to have!), so I was going to go to a nearby mall’s food court. Which doesn’t open until 11. I didn’t need to stop for gas along the way, so there was no point in leaving before 10.
Unfortunately, I had a heavily disturbed, and my mornings are early no matter what time I get to bed. The cats start going bonkers by about 5:30am, and by 6, I’m kicking most of them out of my room to feed them, so that Butterscotch has a change to use the litter undisturbed, and I can give her and Freya their extras, which currently includes the cat milk I picked up not long ago. I’ve taken to putting a container with cat milk or wet cat food right at Freya’s face, wherever she happens to be curled up, so she doesn’t have to jump down from my bed to to eat.
She really likes the cat milk.
Once that’s done, I do try to get a bit more sleep, leaving my door closed to give Butterscotch a break from the other cats. She has gotten used to the routine and now tends to run around and play like a kitten while the other cats are out. Unfortunately, the other cats know there is special food in my room, so they keep trying to scratch their way through my door, making sleep impossible! When I finally do open the door, there’s a stampede of cats dashing straight for the food bowls, as if they hadn’t just been fed, finishing off whatever is left of any wet cat food or cat milk there is.
Well, that’s what we get for rescuing so many cats.
Which is a long was of saying, I was really tired when I headed out. Tired to the point that, if my younger daughter had come with me, I would have traded driving duty with her. She stayed to keep an eye on the grublings and the transplants.
I hoped I would feel better after I had lunch. I chose Chinese food this time, with turned out to be rather disappointing. This mall doesn’t have a lot of options, though. Lunch was about $18.
After I had my lunch, I went through the nearby Dollarama. In the gardening section, I found the spike strips I was looking for at other locations. These are meant to lay down in the garden to deter critters. I intend to use them in certain areas of my room that the cats have been getting into, no matter how many barricades I’ve set up, and causing damage.
If these work out, it might be worth getting a whole bunch of them to cover the floor under my husband’s hospital bed, where some of them make messes, too.
The last time I was at a Dollarama, I picked up a giant glass mug as something to keep in the freezer in between uses, to help keep our drinks cold. We weren’t sure if it could handle the freeze, like the old A&W mugs we used to have that broke after many years of use. It seems to be working very well, though, so I grabbed another one. In total, I spent $15 and change there.
When I got back to the truck, though, I realized that I was still way too tired, so I set the timer on my phone for half and hour, leaned my seat back and took a nap.
I’m very glad I did that. I could have used another half hour, but it was enough to keep me going!
From there, it was across the street to the Costco. First stop was to fill the gas tank. I was just below half, and the Costco price for regular gas was $1.179 It cost $56.09 in total to fill my tank.
The parking lot was insanely full – this on a Wednesday afternoon! – but I happened to catch someone leaving and was able to park decently close to the store.
Then I grabbed a flat cart and took my time shopping. The nap helped, but I was still really low energy – and yes, I did have an energy drink during the drive out! I try to keep at least one among the drinks and snacks I keep in the console between the seats.
I took a picture of my shopping while waiting in line, while it was still pretty organized. It never gets repacked as well, after everything’s been scanned.
This is what $782.43 looks like – including a $5 donation, which I would only do after getting the cashier to NOT doing the loud dingdingding and cheering thing they do during fundraising drives, every time a donation is made. Gosh, I hate that.
I ended up taking a picture of both sides of the flat cart, since so many things could only be seen from one side.
This is what I got today, in the order it is on the receipt. I got a two pack of lemon juice and a jar of green olives (my husband requested nacho fixings, but I never found the corn chips). There’s a 3 pack of Spam for the pantry, Kirkland brand mayonnaise and some iced tea mix. For my daughters, there’s a 3 pack of oat milk. I got 5 pounds of butter (we still have plenty of oil and ghee), a case of Monster energy drinks (which my older daughter pays me back for) and a case of Coke Zero for my husband and I. I got some laundry detergent, plus two cases of 48 cans of wet cat food and four 9.1kg bags of cat kibble. There’s toilet paper, of course, and a case of water bottles. I haven’t picked up one of those in a while; we like to have them on hand when it gets warmer, so I can keep a bottle or two in the truck without it freezing. There’s also a double flat of eggs.
There’s a bag of basmati rice for my husband and a box of Pizza Pops as our supper heat and eat, because no one has the energy to cook on shopping day, and a box of frozen pierogi. I spotted a Peter Rabbit tin with English Breakfast tea in it; I remembered my younger daughter still likes Peter Rabbit stuff, and she will enjoy keeping the tin, after the tea is done – and we all like English Breakfast tea. There is a litre of whipping cream, a package of Old Cheddar and another of mozzarella cheese, and a 9 pack of variety pasta. I picked up a couple of panini packs and another variety pack of sliced meats for sandwiches, a 3 pack of all beef wieners, some pork chops, pork ribs, a pork loin and a 3 pack of whole chickens. I was planning to pick up some beef, but the prices are insane.
I picked up two 2 packs of rye bread, but did not get any wraps. They were out! At least of the type we normally get. There were other varieties, but we don’t like any of them.
While I was in line and passing the clothing section, I spotted a display of women’s pajama sets that were on sale. My older daughter is in need of new pajamas, so I grabbed a set for her. The last ones I tried to get for her didn’t work out, and they went to her sister. I’m hoping these ones will work out. If not… well, I’m sure either her sister or I could use them!
I had intended to get popcorn in this trip, but by the time the flat cart was full, I had no desire to wheel my way through the crowds in the section, trying to find it. I just got in line!
So that’s it. That’s our Costco trip for the month. Even with the things that got missed, it took more of our budget than I had hoped to spend on this trip. I’ll still need to pick up more kibble – 40 pound bags at the feed store, next time – before long. We might need to get more wet cat food, too, since we are currently giving Brussel and her brood wet cat food twice a day.
And now it’s time to snag a daughter and dodge kittens while we bring the transplants into the old kitchen for the night.
My daughter and I left rather early to take in a homesteading event near the city. We stopped for gas on the way out and picked up some sandwiches (made by the one restaurant in our little hamlet) and drinks for breakfast, and some pastries (from a very popular bakery in the town to the north of us) for later on. I picked up some lotto tickets, too, so that totaled about $76 and change.
I’m glad we gave ourselves extra time, because the entrance to the location was really hard to see! We drove right past it – then had to find someplace we could turn around!
It was held in a building that was on grounds that included a church and cemetery, and was surrounded by trees. The few parking spots were full, plus there were the vendor vehicles parked closer to the building, rushing to finish unloading. We found a spot to park, though I’m not entirely sure it was actually part of the parking area! We were early enough that we stayed in the truck for a while before going in. Things hadn’t started yet, but it was already full. The room was not particularly large, but it wasn’t small, either.
One vendor caught my attention very quickly; someone local had saplings for sale. He was talking to a customer while frantically trying to put labels and signs up before he had to dash away, so I heard him talking about a few things he had. His was the first talk of the day, though, and he soon had to disappear. I had to ask one of the other vendors where the talks were happening, as I thought it was in another room, but I couldn’t see any other rooms. It turned out to be behind a curtained off area at the far end of the room. When we got there, all the seating was full, and more people were crowded against the far wall, blocking off the canteen! Unfortunately, with all the people talking in the market area, I could hardly hear anything he was saying, though I could make out some of it. My daughter tried going to the opposite corner of the curtained off area to see if she could hear better. She couldn’t, but she did end up talking to the vendor that was there. She had a display of skin care products next to a display of honey products her husband was covering. It turned out they were the organizers for the event! With my daughter discovering she’s allergic to ingredients in a lot of shampoos, deodorants, etc., she was very interested in the skin care display. After I finally gave up trying to hear, I joined them. The vendor not only made all of the products, but grew all of the plants, berries and herbs used in them, plus honey from their own bees. We ended up getting a sample pack of their products, plus a tube of hand lotion made with sea buckthorn, among other things, for the scraggly skin on my hands. Both together cost about $45. I didn’t bother getting a receipt for it.
The vendor with the skin care products was also doing the next talk, which was on regenerative farming. My daughter and I snagged a couple of seats right in the front. It was a very enjoyable talk. It was a lot of stuff I was already familiar with (what is now called regenerative farming was what used to be called subsistence farming, when I was growing up here), but with her, it was all from the perspective of planting for their bees, so heavy on successive flowering plants to provide pollen and nectar from when the bees first emerge in the spring to when they settle in for the winter.
After each talk, there was 10 minutes scheduled for Q&A. I left my daughter to that while I went to hunt down the tree guy. He was busy with customers, so my daughter caught up to me before it was my turn. We ended up looking at another vendor nearby that had soaps, bath bombs and other related products. We ended up getting a bar of herbal soap there that cost about $12. I would normally never spend that much on a bar of soap, but I’m willing to do it once in a rare while!
Then it was my turn with the tree guy. Quite a few of the things he had, we already have, but what really caught my attention was the walnut. I’ve been looking at getting walnut for years, but while they will grow in our zone 3, our growing season isn’t long enough for the nuts to fully ripe.
Well, he not only had year old saplings, but walnut seeds, already cold stratified. He grows them himself, in a smaller city a few hours drive to the west of us. If he can grow walnut to the seed stage there, that means we can, too!
Bundled together is a gooseberry and a zone 3 variety of eating apple; he showed me so many different ones, I forget the name of the variety I chose. I’ll be able to see the tag when it’s unwrapped. In the pot in a year old walnut, and the bag has 8 walnut seeds in it. He said the trees grow pretty fast, too, and can get up to 40 feet high. He recommended planting them about 20 feet apart. I already know where I intend to plant those. The gooseberry, which already have leaf buds, and the apple tree will go into our food forest area, where we already have highbush cranberry, silver buffaloberry, sea buckthorn and mulberry.
All of these together cost $73.50 after taxes – the total before taxes was actually higher, but he gave me a discount, simply because the mental math was easier! 😄
While there were many other talks my daughter and I were interested in, it was too busy and too noisy, and we were already reaching our limit. They definitely need a larger venue, and a separate room for the speakers. Which is a good problem to have! As we were trying to leave, I ended up having to exit through the entrance simply because parked cars were blocking my way to the exit. When we got to the highway, we found more cars parked on the shoulders!
From there, we headed to another area of the city to do our non-Costco stock up shopping. By then, it was almost noon, so we went to the international grocery store, first, where we could have some dim sum and sushi for lunch. I honestly can’t remember how much that cost, but it was under $30.
There wasn’t a lot that we needed at this store, this time. This is what $175.36 looks like.
We got the short grain rice my daughters prefer (and it does very well, cooked in the Instant Pot), plus some salmon, frozen cooked and frozen raw shrimp for them. I got a bunch of teas that were on sale, including something called Breakfast in Paris. There is also a bag of instant milk tea. We picked up a goat gouda with honey to try, regular milk plus oat milk for my lactose intolerant daughters. There’s the oyster sauce they prefer, plus the soy sauce my husband prefers. We two pieces of slab bacon, one applewood smokes, one regular smoked, a flat of eggs to tide us over until we get our usual double flat at Costco, plus I got myself a Cherry Coke Zero, since I neglected to get myself something to drink with our lunch. Our loyalty card savings came out to $23.54, which was nice.
After we were finished here, our next stop was the Walmart. That turned out to be a much larger trip. This is what $417.73 looks like.
The main things we needed to get was cat food to last us until Costco and feed store trips. There are three 7kg bags of kibble, plus two 32 packs of canned cat food buried in there. My husband requested some sours, but they didn’t have the kind he prefers in stock, so we got two packs of mixed sours that hopefully will still work. There’s a case of Coke Zero and a package of facial tissues under the basket, plus a small package of paper towel buried in the cart.
We went a bit nuts on the frozen heat and eats. These are all things that my husband can cook himself in the multifunction air frier/toaster oven we got to replace the broken microwave. With his medications, his hunger cues and appetite are pretty messed up, so having something he can cook for himself when he does feel able to eat comes in handy. So there are a whole bunch of $10 bags of different types of stuffed chicken, popcorn chicken, meatballs and even corn dogs. Plus, some Pizza Pops to be our heat and eat supper when we got home.
There is a bag of carrots in there, two clamshells of strawberries, four different types of cheese, frozen Basa fillets, three different flavour packs of bouillon cubes, a couple of loaves of bread that my daughter chose and, completely hidden in the cart, a dozen cans of Monster energy drinks, to be split three ways. Last of all is a cold Gatorade my daughter got for the drive home.
So, including the items not pictured, we spent around $830 in gas, groceries, etc., though the food forest items did come out of a completely separate budget.
By the time we got home, it was late enough to feed the outside cats for the evening, but our day wasn’t over yet! My brother and his wife had come here to the farm while we were gone. They had a few things to do around their trailers and stored items, but they also did a huge job that I was able to help out with – which I will cover in my next post!
As far as a shopping trip goes, this one went quite well. There weren’t that many people expecting me, with my loaded flat cart, to stop on a dime or give way to them, and the lines went fairly quickly.
I just hate shopping.
I’m so glad my daughter was able to come along this time. She helps keep me sane.
There were a few things outside of the Costco trip, though, so I’ll start with that.
As we headed out, we stopped at my mother’s to do her med assist for the morning. We remembered to bring the LED Jesus candle I got for her. My daughter took it out of the packaging before we went in. Which is when we discovered it didn’t come with batteries. I’m used to these coming with their own flat disc type battery (I never remember what they are called). Instead, it took two AAs. Ah, well. She still seemed to like it. Then got distracted by my daughter’s gauged earrings and told her she should have “pretty” earrings. She should wear gold earrings, because some people in her building were saying that wearing gold earrings helps to prevent headaches.
…
Okay…
Well, it could have been worse. It usually is.
She also wasn’t sure with of my daughters had come along, because it has been sooooo long since she’s seen them. She also didn’t have her glasses, but it couldn’t be that. 😁😉
We didn’t stay for long, though. I made sure to make my notes for the med assist to put into the lock box for the next home care aid, and we were soon off.
While I intended to fill the tank at Costco, we were below half, so we stopped at the gas station. I only put $30 of gas in, but we also got some pastries (locally made) to tide us over, and a couple of energy drinks. That came to a total of $49.78
The next planned stop was for in the city for food – breakfast for me, lunch for my daughter. We stopped at a mall next to the Costco and went to the food court. My daughter chose Subway, and we both got foot longs and drinks. That totaled $34.01
There is a Dollarama next to the food court, and there were a couple of things I wanted to pick up there. For sure, I wanted to get batteries in smaller packages for my mother, plus there were a few other things I want to look for. I didn’t find them, but we did end up getting some non-disposable cleaning gloves for my daughter – her hands crack and split like crazy after doing dishes – and several rolls of clear self-adhesive shelf liners. We put those on the floor under the litter boxes, and they are in need of replacing. We also picked up several bowls. I’ve been eyeballing these bowls with a particular pattern for months now. We’ve lost a few bowls to breakage in the past while, there were only 4 of this pattern left, and they were only $2.50 each, so we went ahead and go them. Total spent at Dollarama was $31.25
Then it was pretty much across the street to go to the Costco, and I filled the gas tank, first. When I got gas in my mother’s town, it was at $1.579/L At Costco, it was $1.429 Even with the $30 I put in earlier, it cost me $64.07 to fill the tank.
*sigh*
Finally, we got to do the shopping we’d gone to the city for! We took our time about it, and I was quite happy to have an assistant today. My daughter ran around to get a few things on the list for me, so I didn’t have to maneuver the cart more than I had to. By the end of it, I was most definitely using the cart as a walker! When we got to the counter, my daughter insisted on unloading, and would not allow me to touch anything. This when she is mostly one handed because of her write ganglion hurting so much! What a sweetie!
This is what $841.29 looks like.
Sort of.
What’s on the cart isn’t quite how the totals on the receipt worked out. My membership was up for renewal, so that got added on. I have the executive membership (every time the cashiers see my flat cart, they ask to confirm I have an executive membership!), and the renewal fee was $130. I also got my rebate, which took $171.52 off my bill, so I came out ahead on that. The actual total, with the membership renewal but before the rebate, plus taxes, was $1012.81
I rather choked when I saw that.
Then she processed the rebate, and the total was pretty much exactly what I was expecting.
*phew*
The receipt was so long, partly because it got pulled out so she could check items, so there were big blank spots. I ended up taking 2 pictures of it rather than trying to fold them all short.
Here is the top half.
For our pasta this trip, we just got one of the big flats of Ramen noodles, as I was able to pick up pasta in our last stock up trip. There’s a 3 pack of oat milk for my daughters.
The baby wipes are something we realized we needed, when we couldn’t use our plumbing for so long, recently. We need to wash our hands quite frequently, and having to wash into bowls or buckets, then dump them out, was a pain. We used to regularly buy cleaning wipes before. The ones we got before were sold as “flushable” toilet wipes, which we found laughable. With my husband’s mobility issues, he would sometimes use them in general. After a while, we just stopped buying them. Now, I think we will try to keep some in the pantry for the next time we have plumbing or septic issues!
The next item is the membership renewal fee. Then there’s some Basmati rice, two big jars of mayo, and some ice tea mix.
The cowhide gloves were something my daughter spotted. We are in need of better work gloves than just the gardening gloves we’ve been using. It comes in a two pack, so she and I now both have good, leather work gloves.
Next on the list is a 3 flavour mix of granola bars. Yes, we did just get one at our last shopping trip, but that turned out to be a 2 flavour mix, so we have another.
Then we get to the stuff that stayed on the flat cart instead of going on the belt. There’s a flat of Coke Zero for my husband and I, and another of energy drinks for my daughters and I. It was nice to see the energy drinks were on sale! We also got paper towels, toilet paper and facial tissues. For the cats, we got a case of wet cat food, puppy pads and kibble. The 11.6kg size kibble was only a dollar more than the Kirkland 9kg kibble, so I got three. I almost never see those on sale, so I got more than planned. We also got another case of puppy pads.
The big expenditure was not a planned one, but a needed one. For quite some time now, I’ve been looking up steam cleaners. With so many cats, it has become a necessity. The Shark brand one we found was on sale, too. After some debate, we decided to go for it. This will probably save us a couple of armchairs, at the very least!
Now we’re into some actual groceries!
There’s a package of crimini mushrooms (mini bellas, on the list), and two 2 packs of salad mixes in two different flavours. I told my daughter to pick a seafood for her and her sister, and she picked up a salmon filet. We also got a family size pack of pork chips. There’s a 4 pk of cream cheese and a wheel of double cream brie, 5 pounds of butter, two packages of panini sandwich meats and a 3 pack of chickens.
Next are two 2 packs of rye bread, a double flat of eggs, and two packs of tortilla warps. The California rolls and the lasagna were for our supper. In fact, mine is cooling down next to me, right now, served in one of the new bowls we got at the dollar store!
In total, we had 44 items on that cart and, aside from the rebate, we has $66 in discounts taken off.
The sad thing is, we got almost no meats in there. I was looking at the beef and was shocked by the prices. The stewing beef – one of the cheapest options – was $22.29/kg. I saw a package that weighted 2.260kg and cost $50.28
1kg = 2.2 pounds.
I used to regularly buy packages this size, when they were typically under $20.
Thankfully, we still have some of our beef pack in the freezer, but we’re basically down to steaks. 😄
So that was our stock up shop!
Once we were packed up, we headed for home, stopping at my mother’s to drop off the batteries I got her, and put some in the LED candle we’d dropped off earlier. We also remembered to stop at the post office, then finally home.
The sad thing is, there were still things we need to get, but not at Costco. We’re going to need to make another trip to a Walmart.
Which my daughter and I have decided we will do tomorrow, and get it over with!
*sigh*
I will be so glad when we are done our stock up shopping!
The Re-Farmer 