shopping is not my thing

A vehicle mystery

/ Re-Farmer / 10 Comments

My regular readers might remember a strange situation we had with my mother’s car.

The first was discovering the left from tire almost completely flat. It was pumped up and seemed fine, until it was suddenly flat again. I took it to the garage to have it checked. They accidentally checked the right front tire, which was fine, but they found nothing wrong with the left front tire, either.

Then, not very long ago, before going to my mother’s, I checked the tires and found all four of them low. This time, it was the rear left tire that was almost flat. I pumped them all up and they were still fine when I checked them again before taking my mother to the hospital for her follow up, just a few days ago.

Now that we’ve got the truck, we’ve got a vehicle with brand new tires. The onboard computer, however, started giving us low tire warnings, right from the start – even though a pressure check showed they were fine. We’re also getting a “service tire monitoring system” warning. After talking to the mechanic, he thinks it’s just a low battery in the monitor. That’s a repair by replacement. The part is not expensive, but replacing the battery was the priority for our budget this month.

The problem with having these warning lights on all the time, though, is not knowing if they’re actually legitimate or not. So when my daughter and I headed to the city today, we paused at a gas station to check the tires.

Three out of four tires were low. One, very low!

???

Then, on the trip home, I saw the oil pressure gauge was low. I am not sure if it was low as we were driving out, but I know for sure it was where it was supposed to be, the last time I drove it. I do normally keep an eye on all the gauges when I drive.

Once we were done driving around and the truck was in the garage, I popped the hood and checked the oil. Which was rather amusing, since I can barely reach the dip stick.

The oil was very low, too!

Yet, there was no evidence of a leak anywhere.

Also, I know the oil had been changed as the truck was prepped for sale, so we are the only ones to have been driving it since then. Same with the tires.

I was going to add oil to the truck, but it uses 5W30, and what we have on hand is 5W40, so I’ll use my mother’s car, tomorrow, and pick up some 5W30 and top up the truck.

And maybe find a stool of some kind that we can keep with the truck, so I can reach further into the engine compartment. I might be able to just reach the dip stick, but I can’t reach the cap to add more oil!

If it weren’t for the fact that there is zero evidence for it, I would think that “someone” has been letting the air out of our tires, but… the oil, too? No. If that was what happened, there have been tracks in the snow (for when it happened with my mother’s car), or scuffs in the dirt floor of the garage around the truck. Plus, the only person I can think of that would do something like this is our vandal, and he’s got too many mobility issues for him to have been able to reach all the tires on my mother’s car (it barely fits into the side of the garage it’s parked in, and can only be accessed from one side). Or slither under the truck to drain the oil into a pan, which is what would have had to have been done for there to be no oil on the ground under the truck.

I am perplexed!!

Aside from that, the day went well.

My daughter and I went to several places. One was a liquidation place I wanted to check out, as I’d heard they got a huge shipment of name brand pet food. It turned out to be mostly dog food, but what cat food we found… well, it may have been a deal from the regular prices for these brands, but they cost more, for less kibble, than what we have been getting at Walmart and Costco. We didn’t get any kibble, but we did get a few other things that were a good price, including a little Christmas tree. Since we will be limiting our Christmas decorating and celebrating to the cat free zone in the living room, I’d been wondering how we would find space for any of our trees. Certainly not the 6′ one, but even the one we’ve been using against the door in the dining room, well above the floor, would have been too big. My daughters have a smaller one they would set up, upstairs, but not with the kittens this year. I think it’s a 4′ tree, which would still be a bit large for what we want to do with the space.

What I got was a red sparkly cone shaped tree with baubles already on it that’s only about 2′ tall. It’ll fit on top of the piano. I later found some plain white string lights for it at Dollarama, and we already have small tree toppers that would work.

An almost instant Christmas tree!

Before we went to the Dollarama, we swung by the international grocery store for some dim sum for “breakfast” – neither of us had eaten yet! Along with the string lights we found at Dollarama, we remembered to get a small garbage can for the truck – my daughter chose one with flowers all over it. 😊 They also had more of the little puppy beds in stock, so we got another one of those, since the cats love the first one I got so much. They are thrilled with the new one, too!

One of the places I wanted to try for our shopping was Fresh Co. I keep hearing how they have such good prices. My daughter had their shopping list, so I just needed some basics. I didn’t find their prices to be all that much better, except for a couple of sales. They had bags of 4 avocados selling for under $2 a bag! These days, you can’t even get a single avocado for under $2! So I got two bags. They also had a brand of butter for under $5 a pound. They had a limit of 4 pounds, but I only got 2, since we still have plenty from the last Costco shopping trip in the freezer. Costco’s price is over $5, but in most places, a pound of butter costs almost $7 a pound – and that’s the cheap house brand or no-name ones. The other brand name butters are much more expensive.

My daughter had a longer list than me, and she wasn’t able to find everything at the Fresh Co, so we went back to the international grocery store, after I filled the gas tank. Today is Thursday, and Domo has 5¢ off per litre on Mondays and Thursdays. The gas prices had also dropped and were 138.9¢/L, so we were paying 133.9¢/L. While my daughter was at the international grocery store, I popped over to a Dollar Tree I hadn’t been to in years, just to check it out.

That done, we were going to head home, when I remembered I needed memory cards for the older trail cam, so we swung by a Staples. I only needed 8gig cards, and two of them, so I can switch cards when I do my morning rounds. The lowest they had in stock was 16gig – and they were almost $20 each! The 32gig cards were cheaper than the 16gig cards, and the sales person that tried to help me said 8gig cards would be even more expensive. I guess nobody buys such low memory cards anymore. I could have gotten even better prices if I were getting micro disks, instead, but those don’t work on the camera. If they did, I could have used the ones I already have on hand.

So now I have a pair of 32gig cards to replace the old 8gig cards for the older trail cam. Here’s hoping they’ll work! I know the cameras generally can’t handle the large memory cards, but that usually starts at 128gigs, if I remember correctly.

Once we have the spare funds, I’ve got my eyes on some solar powered trail cams. They don’t make the model we have now, but I’ve been able to find others where the solar panel powers the camera directly, rather than charging rechargeable batteries, and has regular batteries for when it’s too dark for the solar panel to do the job. There are other features I want, too, but I think that one is the deal breaker for me, when looking at the different models out there. That will mean needing more memory cards. I think I’ll buy them online, along with the camera, when the time comes!

But I digress!

We had ourselves a productive day in the city; my daughter found everything they had on their shopping list, and I got a few extra things as well.

And we have a vehicle mystery on our hands!

The Re-Farmer

What a lovely day!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

It is just gorgeous out there!

We were supposed to reach a high of 4C/39F today. We’re at 7C/45F right now! It turns out we hit 7C/45F yesterday, too. The snow is melting away, and it feels like spring!

Before I go on, though, we must first have the cuteness.

Snorri is just enveloped by David! The Beast (aka: Tiny) is bigger than Snorri! He’s all fur, so he looks bigger than he really is. I have to be so careful at night. He has a thing for curling up behind my neck, or on my legs. He’s so light, sometimes I can’t feel him there at all, and I have to check if he’s on or behind me before I try to roll over.

He does have a thing for necks! If he can get at one, he’ll climb right up any convenient human and settle into a neck, purring.

Snorri’s eyes are still really leaky, but he’s most definitely getting better. I hope he’ll start getting some meat on those bones soon! He certainly has a good appetite.

When feeding the outside cats this morning, I did repeated head counts. I kept getting 37, though I did get 38 once. I think I double counted someone. All the usuals that sometimes show up later were there – Rolando Moon, Brussel and Sprout, Broccoli, the orange and white, both Adam and Driver, Judgement – plus the ones that are almost always here; the printer babies – all the white and greys – the orange tabby, Hypotenose, Syndod, this year’s lone calico and tortie kittens, etc. Then there are the black cats and the grey tabbies. We have so many gorgeous cats this year!

One of the places I put a bit of kibble is in the space the smaller cats use to get under the cat house. While trying to count, I spotted a little white face, eating at the opening. I could only see a bit more than the nose and mouth, so I couldn’t say for sure if it was one of our usuals. There is one white and grey among this year’s kittens that I thought it might have been, but when I went to count the cats in the sun room, he was there. I can’t think of any other small, white faced cat that it might have been. I also spotted a couple of tabbies that I wasn’t sure of. It’s entirely possible they’re from this year’s kittens that are just bigger, and we were bound to have kittens from litters the shier mamas kept further away, finally starting to show up on their own. These ones are adult sized cats, though.

Well, no matter. They are welcome to food, water and shelter! Even Sad Face has become a permanent fixture. The next time there’s a cheap spay and neuter day, I hope we can snag him!

How bizarre that the visiting tom we kept having to chase away because he was so aggressive to the other cats, is now more approachable than all the female yard cats. !!

With so many cats to feed, it’s no surprise that we were running low on kibble, so today I made a trip to Walmart. When I got there, I found that Black Friday sales have already started. Another bizarre notion. This is a US thing, since we have our Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October. Meanwhile, Black Friday doesn’t even happen in the US until the end of this week, but Canada has Black Friday, too, and the sales have started already.

I was able to juggle the budget a bit and take advantage of some of the sales. Along with the cat food I was there to get, I was able to get things like a case of 24 cans of tomato soup at 77¢ each – easily the best deal among the things I got, since those cans now cost closer to $2 each. One of the things on my list, however, was not on sale. Butter. Even their house brand butter is almost $7 a pound! It would be cheaper to buy whipping cream and make it.

I didn’t buy whipping cream, and got only 1 pound of butter. We’ll just have to use the ghee more often, until our next big city shopping trip. The next time we’re at Costco, I’ll have to stock up on more butter than usual. Another of their big buckets of ghee wouldn’t go amiss, either!

Once I got home and we unloaded the truck, I had to feed the outside cats early. I was just going back to park it in the garage when I saw a couple of cats under it; one jumping up into the undercarriage somewhere, and another jumping up onto a front tire!

Yes, I make it a practise to bang on the truck before starting it.

The sound of kibble was enough to get them away from the truck, though.

In other things…

I called my mother last night, and it was like talking to a completely different person. She went from yelling and raging at me the day before, to cheerful and pleasant. I asked how she was doing, and she went into her usual complaints about her breathing; this time, she tried to blame it on the macaroni she ate. *sigh* After she went on for a while, I more specifically asked about her mood. She was all ready to act like it never happened, and she was never angry or said all those horrible things to me. We talked about it for a bit, and I tried to stress with her that if our vandal starts calling her about me, it’s because he’s trying to cause problems between us. She did try to defend him again, saying he was just telling her what’s going on, and I had to tell her, he has NO idea what’s going on. She quickly changed the subject. She didn’t quite apologize, but she did seem to try and make amends, in her own way.

I told her about our plans to get the hand pump on the original well serviced, so that we can then change the well pump and have back up water if something goes wrong. It took some time to explain to her why the well pump in the house needed to be changed at all. It has been changed in the past, but that was more than 20 years ago. The foot valve in the well, however, is original and some 45 or so years old – I think it was dug in 1974, but it might have been the year before. She couldn’t remember the exact year.

So she’s happy with the plans. Her only thing was to tell me to talk to my brother about it first, and I told her, I talk to him about everything. No living person knows this place better than he does. He was old enough to actually do a lot of this stuff alongside my dad. My other brothers were still too young for much of it, and some of it was done before I was even born. My sister is older, but she wouldn’t have been allowed to be part of this stuff, even if she were interested, because she is female. My mother then started going on about how great my brother is, and what a good job he’s doing with the farm.

Just the day before, she’d yelled and hung up on him when he called her out for how she allowed our vandal to manipulate her and treat me like crap.

She was like a totally different person.

Meanwhile…

In checking the trail cam files, I could see our vandal trying to figure out what was going on. The day the guys where here to pick up the vehicles, I saw him pull into our driveway while the gate was open – but not far enough to be trespassing! – to turn around, then slowly back down the road, so he could better see through the trees to where we were. I even remember seeing a vehicle backing up on the road, while the guys were jacking the truck out of the dirt and putting tires on it. On the trail cam files, I saw our vandal go by again, later on. Then, after the guys were gone and the gate closed, I saw a different vehicle pull into our driveway and turn around. From another camera, I could see that the driver of this vehicle was a mutual friend he’d clearly gotten to check things out.

On today’s file check, I saw our vandal in the morning, slowly driving past our driveway, then slow down even more as he drove past the bushes, trying to see through them to the other scrap vehicles.

Needless to say, we are no longer fake locking the gate.

It amazes me how furious and possessive he is about the junk. Yeah, some of it was his, but he abandoned it years ago, and neither vehicle that was taken had ever been his to begin with. The ones he’d left are in such bad shape, they aren’t even good for parts. Just the scrap dealer. Which is why he dumped them here, instead of keeping them on his own property. He was using this place as a garbage dump.

So we’re going to have to keep an extra eye on things for the next while.

Something else we might be able to keep an extra eye on is the sun room critters. My SIL gave us a camera. It was a Superstore freebie for purchases over X amount of dollars, and they had no use for it. It’s one of those little security cameras you can link to your phone to keep an eye on things through a live feed. It is not an outdoor camera, but if we can set it up in the sun room, we should be able to confirm what critters (most likely racoons) are knocking things over in there during the night. If it could handle outdoor conditions, I’d want to set it up facing the cat, kibble and water shelters, so we can see what, besides cats, is eating all the kibble, and sometimes knocking the heated water bowl right out of the shelter! Having a critter cam in the sun room, however, would be a good thing! It mostly comes down to how the device is powered. If it’s USB, we’ve got nothing to plug it into in there. We just haven’t had a chance to even take it out of the box, yet!

Who knows. I might be posting critter cam pictures on here, soon!

The Re-Farmer

Biggest morning harvest, and choices

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

This morning, I had the largest harvest out of the garden for this year, and it was almost all tomatoes!

There are a couple of handfuls of green and yellow beans under all that.

I wasn’t sure about the Indigo Blue tomatoes, and how to tell if they were ready. Last night, I was reading about an almost identical Indigo type tomato (honestly, I think it was the same tomato with a slightly different name, because it was from a different company than where I got these), and it mentioned the bottoms getting very red when they ripened. We had some that have been red on the bottoms for a while now, so I decided to pick them. I’m glad I did, because they were starting to split!

As for the Romas, I picked the ripest looking ones, including the one I found had fallen off on its own. Some might have been good with a bit more time on the vine, but I wanted to get the weight off the vines. These are very prolific! According to my daughters, they’re not very good for fresh eating, though. There are enough to make some tomato sauce or something along those lines. Probably not enough to make it worth breaking out the canner, so likely just for the fridge and immediate use.

After finishing my morning rounds, I headed out to do some errands. My first stop was the post office; my husband had ordered a new exercise ball, now that we have a cat free zone to store it in, in between uses. Then I gassed up before heading to the nearest Canadian Tire and Walmart stores. It started to rain while I was heading to the gas station, but while driving to the next city, it cleared up – though it was still hazy from all the smoke! I was amazed all that rain wasn’t enough to get rid of the smoke. In the time it took me to get home, though, the winds have picked up and are now blowing from the south, so the smoke is being blown away from us, instead of towards us. I can finally flip the fan in my window to blow air in, instead of out!

[Update: Well, I’m confused. We’ve got 3 weather warnings right now. Two for wind, one for smoke. According to the weather maps, the winds are coming from the north/northwest. But as I drove home, the car was being buffeted from the south side of the road. As I look at the security camera live feed, I’m seeing trees being blown around, and it looks like it’s from the south. I look out my window, and it looks like they’re being blown from the west. So I guess things are swirling around a lot! I’ll be looking for downed trees and branches, when this is over.]

At the Canadian Tire, I was after pellets for the litter boxes. They keep them in the vestibule by the exit, and I saw the hardwood pellets, but when I was ready to pay for a couple of bags, I was asked if I wanted hard or soft wood. The hardwood pellets had gone up in price awhile ago, so I got the softwood pellets.

Then I picked up the bags on the way out and realized the price on those had gone up, and they now cost more than the hardwood pellets. It’s only a difference of 50¢ a bag, but I’ll have to remember that. I do wish Walmart had them in stock more regularly, because they’re almost $3 per bag cheaper.

While at the Cdn Tire, I went looking for puppy pads, but the ones they had were far more expensive. I did, however, find some carpet powder designed for cat or dog mess cleanup. I’d run out of that awhile ago, but couldn’t find any the last time I was in the city. I also found the fire bricks I’ve been slowly stocking up on. The last time I was at a Canadian Tire, it was a different location, and I couldn’t find them, nor even the section they would have been in. The lady I asked didn’t even understand what I was asking about, and assumed they were a seasonal item. I’ve been buying the bricks in groups of four. By the time we will need them when building our outdoor kitchen, I hope to have enough to spare for other projects.

I found the puppy pads I needed at Walmart. Things seem to have improved in that respect. I’m no longer finding giant turds under my desk. Just giant pee spots. It seems Two Toes has figured out the litter boxes for at least one job! I came home to no mess at all, so maybe she’s figured it out for the other job. Thankfully, the kittens seem to have all figured out the litter boxes. Finally! Still, I was almost out of puppy pads already. I need at least 4 of them to protect the space. Two folded in half, and partway up the wall, and two fully open, layered on top and covering extra carpet. I’m also using pet odour eliminators and, now that I have it again, the carpet powder to dissuade cats from the area.

After talking it over with the family, we decided it was worth it to dip into savings a bit and pick up a new “toy” for the kitchen.

I got a bread making machine.

These were our choices.

The box on the right, with the white background, is a larger machine and has two different size Express settings, while the other, with the blue, has one Express setting, but also a yogurt setting. We’re more likely to be making yogurt than Express bread, which needs both bread flour and fast acting yeast. I did get fast acting yeast, but we never buy bread flour.

I believe the one on the right was a Hamilton Beach brand. It was $10 cheaper. I went with the blue boxed Oster brand for one simple reason: the other brand had only one box on the shelf, and it was bashed up. The outer packaging of the Oster brand didn’t list what its 12 functions were, so I couldn’t use those to decide. I didn’t see the list until I opened the box at home and read the instruction manual.

We’ve considered getting a bread machine for some time. With the summer heat, it’s really unpleasant to be kneading dough during the day, then the baking heats up the house even more, so my daughter would stay up all night, baking bread. All of us are also broken, one way or another, and it’s been getting increasingly painful to knead dough. So we’ve been buying most of our bread. With this, we can put everything in the machine and have fresh baked bread by morning, without wrecking anyone’s back or knees, and without heating the house up. Plus, if we want, we can set it to just make the dough during the night, then take it out and bake it in the oven in the morning. A friend of mine does that and says it really improves the taste and texture that way.

The only thing we’ll have to be careful of is, where to set it up and plug it in. As it is now, we can’t run the AC and the kettle at the same time, without tripping a breaker! The kettle is on a power bar, but the AC has to be plugged directly into the outlet.

That’s one way to find out that particular outlet is on the same breaker as the dining room outlets – plus the living room ceiling light and the kitchen’s range hood!

Hopefully, we’ll be able to get it set up and bake our first loaf of bread tonight. 😊

The Re-Farmer

Second stock up shop: this is $224

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today, I decided to go to Superstore instead of to Costco again, as there were a couple of things on my list I either didn’t see at Costco, or what I did see wasn’t in good shape. Plus, I had a hankering for Superstore’s torpedo buns! 😂

I passed on the photo of the fallen tree to my brother and his wife to let them know about it, and ended up arranging to meet with my SIL for lunch. We had a fantastic visit! After we parted ways, I decided to take advantage of the location and made a quick run through the Home Depot that was next door to the Superstore. I found the plastic conduit pipes I want to use to bury and protect the hose we want to run to the garden tap, which gave me an idea of how much we can expect to spend. While looking for something else, I found short lengths of rebar with a protective coating for under $3 each, so I got 10 of them. I think I need only eight. We found the parts and pieces for a car port in the barn, but if we want to set it up, we need to secure it to the ground somehow. These rebar pieces can be pounded into the ground, and the supports should fit right over them.

I hope.

If it doesn’t work, I can find many other uses for them!

Then it was off to the Superstore. This is was $224.45, after taxes, looks like.

I won’t list the prices for everything on there, but this is what I got.

At my husband’s request, I got nacho fixings – olives, chips and mozzarella cheese. He also requested canned beans as a quick heat and eat. There was a sale on one brand, with a limit of 4 of each type, so I got two flavours. Eight cans at $1.50 each. I had intended to buy a case, but a case of 9 cans was almost $16.

I stocked up on distilled water for my husband’s CPAP humidifier; the cost/4L jug was about half what they cost locally. There’s a 20 pound bag of “almost perfect” potatoes for $11, and a large package of house brand paper towels. I got another case of Coke Zero, even though I got one at the recent Costco trip. This one it to tuck away for later. There’s a couple of boxes of tea; Maple Rooibos and Vanilla Earl Grey. There’s a bag of Basmati rice that I hope is good. I couldn’t find it at Costco, and this is a different brand. We have not had much luck trying different brands! I also stocked up some more on Beaver Buzz energy drinks for my older daughter and I. The citrus flavour was on sale, but I also got root beer and saskatoon flavours. There’s a 2 pound clamshell of blueberries. Regular price was $6.99, but there was a sale at $3.20, with a limit of 1. For fruit, I also got a couple of bunches of bananas, as they were only 35¢ each, instead of the usual 79¢ or more.

There’s a couple of jars of mayonnaise, a loaf of French bread, 4 packages of 12 hamburger buns and a sourdough loaf. I also picked up some fresh Fettuccini noodles, to make the original Fettuccini Alfredo I’ve been wanting to try. I would make the pasta ourselves, but no one wants to do that in this heat.

Last of all, I got cold bottles of water and Coke Zero for the drive home. I ended up only drinking the water, so I’ve got a Coke for later.

All of that, before taxes, came to $216.38 The one thing on my list that I did not get was cat kibble. For that, I will make a trip to Costco. Their cheap dry cat food is too cheap – not even the outside cats want to eat it – but the other large bags cost more than Costco by quite a bit. We’re okay for cat food supply right now, but the difference in price is worth the extra trip to the city.

The shopping done, I swung by the nearby Costco to fill the gas tank. Most places have their gas prices from 157.9/L to 160.9/L for regular. Costco is still at 144.9/L That’s a significant difference!

Now that I’ve been home for a while and recuperated from being around so many other human beings for so long, I’m going to re-watch a video on how to make the original Fettuccini Alfredo, then make some for supper!

I’m really looking forward to trying it!

The Re-Farmer

Second stocking up trip: this is what $350 looks like

/ Re-Farmer / 8 Comments

Well, I’m back from the city, with a mostly successful shopping trip to the Wholesale Club. I didn’t quite get everything on my list, while also getting a few things not specifically on my list, but that I either keep an eye our for, or get only while at this store.

The grand total, after taxes, was $350.17

I like that their receipt organizes everything by category, rather than the order they were scanned in.

Under “grocery”, I got a package of heavy duty scouring pads, having taken out the last one from our supply recently. We were also low on parchment paper, so I got a cheap no-name brand, as well as a package of paper towels.

There’s a 10kg (22lb) bag of white sugar. Icing sugar was on my list, too, but I didn’t find any. A bottle of lemon juice, a big thing of iced tea mix, and giant bags of Fusillli and Farfalle pasta.

In dairy, there’s a tub of sour cream, a big block of Old cheddar (more expensive than Costco, except they didn’t have any in that size at all), and a couple of pounds of butter. The no-name butter was $5.99 each, but the whipping cream was $4.89 each, so I got two of those and will be making more butter myself.

I got 4 big bags of pierogi in two flavours; the no-name brand, at $4.99 each, was about a third the price of the name brand variety in comparable sized bags. There’s also a gallon of vanilla ice cream my husband requested.

There’s a 2L of soy milk for my daughters in the “natural foods” category. They are lactose intolerant, and the soy milk is cheaper than lactose free real milk. That’s the main reason I want a milk goat!

Under “produce” there’s a bag of “imperfect” avocados, and Medjool dates.

Those dates are quite addictive! Excellent stuffed with a bit of goat cheese. Better still stuffed with a mixture of goat cheese and crushed nuts, rolled in salt and pan fried with honey – something we did when the girls were younger and we were recreating recipes from ancient Rome. Sublime!

Under meats, I splurged a bit. Oddly, the $10 bag of frozen vegetable samosas is listed under meats! I got a giant package of wieners (and buns) so we can have a cookout if we want. We still have meat in the freezer, but I wasn’t going to say no to the excellent price for pork butt. There was a lot of meat for just under $30. Unlike their chickens, where a three pack of small birds was almost $40! As a treat, I got one of their $20 boxes of chicken balls. I also got their $10 pack of sole filets for the girls, who like their seafood.

Under deli, we got a giant beating stick of summer sausage, Lyoner sausage and salami. I was planning to only get the big summer sausage, but these are handy for those days when we don’t have the energy for cooking. Plus, I want to experiment with something.

Last of all, I got a jug of windshield washer fluid, rated to -45C/-49F. With how warm it was today, I quickly ran out and pretty much emptied the jug I had in the van when I refilled the reservoir. I always try to keep a full jug in our van, and my mother’s car, just for times like this!

One thing I did not find was the bucket of Ghee. When I didn’t find it at Costco, I was sure I had to have found it here. I ended up asking an employee and as far as he knew, they never carried the bucket size! All they had were smallish tins. Maybe Costco was just out of stock? I do hope they get more, because buying it in that bucket size is SO much more affordable.

I went through the restaurant section and there were a few things that I’m eye balling for the future; especially for when we’re cooking outdoors more often. I also went through the pet food section, and there were none of the large bags of dry kibble I try to get. Not that I would have bought any. There’s no savings on kibble by buying it there.

I did decide to make one other stop before doing this shopping, checking out a liquidation store. We don’t go there often, but there’s something my daughter is wanting that I thought they might have. They didn’t, but while there, I did get a dozen packages of vegetable bouillon cubes at 4 for $1, or 29 cents each, restocking our supply from the last time I got a whole bunch of these! There wasn’t much else; mostly cheap Valentine’s day treats, though I did get a chisel tip paint brush that was on the list my daughters have for painting the basement. A long handled one would have been preferable, but no place I’ve looked seems to have them. Which is fine. We can always extend the handle ourselves, if necessary.

My younger daughter helped me bring everything to the house, and the poor thing really struggled with the heavier bags. She’s been working on the basement all day, so her back is killing her. I’ll have to make a point of hobbling down the stairs and see how it’s going, later on.

Speaking of hobbling…

The new medications my doctor is trying me on for my arthritis are… a thing. There is definite improvement in joint pain and reduced inflammation. The problem is, I seem to have just traded one pain for another. These medications are prescribed in tandem, with one of them pretty much there to protect the stomach from the other.

It’s not working very well.

Usually, it’s just a feeling of bloating, without the gas, but while driving and walking around today, it got really bad. At one point, as I was walking into the Wholesale Club, I suddenly wondered if I was going to throw up! I wasn’t feeling nauseous. It felt more like I really needed to burp, but was afraid to because it might be accompanied by something – and my stomach would have been pretty empty by then! According to the papers that came with the meds, side effects should subside within 2 weeks, and I only got 2 weeks of the medication. If this keeps up, I’m not going to request the prescription be continued, but will drop them completely. I’d rather deal with the pain from the OA than this abdominal pain and… insecurity, shall we say!

More motivation for me to try going carnivore, but if I do that now, we’ll go through the meat in our freezer way too quickly, and that’s supposed to be for all four of us, not just me! Very frustrating. But I can still work towards it.

Juggling what we can afford for the household can really conflict with what we’d like to do! Meanwhile, with the prices continuing to increase, we’re going to have to rely on food we grow ourselves a lot more, and that’s going to require more preparation if we’re going to start raising animals, too.

Ah, well. Self sufficiency was our goal from the beginning. I just hoped we’d have more time and resources to accomplish it!

The Re-Farmer

Those eyes! And this is $223

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I counted 22 cats outside while doing their kibble and warm water this morning!

One of them was Pinky, the only kitten with orange we had last year. I was even able to pet him a bit, though he’s not quite comfortable with attention. I heard from the Cat Lady this morning; it’s been a while, due to her health issues, so it was quite a relief to hear from her. She had someone who was looking for an orange kitten and asked if we had any, so I tried to get pictures of him. This person might be okay with a young cat, instead, so I also sent a picture of Turmeric.

This, however, is not Pinky, nor Turmeric. It’s one of the cats we can’t come near, and I don’t usually see him sitting still when I’m around. I just had to zoom in to take some pictures, because this is the first time I’ve had a really good look at his eyes!

They are so very pale! Most of our cats have eyes that are gold or green, but this one’s eyes look almost like a pale blue! The photo doesn’t do justice to how light they really are. In the shade of the water shelter, they seemed to glow white. Just gorgeous!

After finished my morning rounds, I had to make a trip to a Walmart to get more kibble. The outside cats may be eating less again, but we still weren’t going to have enough to last until our next stock up trip to the city. I just went to the smaller, closer Walmart, and used the trip to pick up a few other things – including some extras for the freezer, and even some treats.

This is $223.46 – after taxes.

Usually, I get the biggest bags of kibble they have – and this time, there was plenty of cat food in stock – but I got the sense the cats were getting tired of it. There’s just one brand and one flavour in the 10kg size. So this time, I got two 9kg bags for the outside cats, and a 7.5kg bag for the inside cats, all in different flavours. The larger bags were just under $30 each, and the smaller one just under $22. Once I got home, I topped up their food, and they were eating quite enthusiastically, so I think I was right about the “getting tired of it” part.

They also had stove pellets in stock this time, so I got a bag for the cat litters. Just one, and it saved me from having to go to another store. When it’s time to stock up, I’ll get several bags from Canadian Tire. This bag cost almost $8. Canadian Tire has softwood pellets for just under $7.

Eggs were on my list, and the 18 count eggs were a good price, at $5.58 each, so I got two. Bread was on my list as well, so I got a couple loaves of rye bread ($3.47 each) and a couple packages of wraps ($6.27 each), which are bread products we don’t make ourselves. I also got a larger Walmart brand of hot dog wieners at $5, so there’s a couple of bags of hot dog buns ($3.67 each) to go with those. The weather has been so mild, we’ve been talking about getting the fire pit going, so these are a treat for the girls to cook over the fire. Also on my list was cheese, so I got Havarti, old and marble from the 2 for $10 selection. I had butter on my list, too, but I got just one pound. The cheap, no-name butter was $5.97. Much better than the local prices, but still getting quite high for no-name!

Not on my list, but at an excellent price, were a couple of chickens for the freezer. They were selling at under $2 a pound. I got the biggest ones I could find, but they’re still much smaller than the ones we got from my homesteading neighbour. At less than $10 a chicken, I won’t say no to something I can add to our supply if I can get it! I also got some sour cream, just because we were out, but I also got some carrots that were a very good price. We do still have the Black Nebula carrots, but we’re just not using them. They’ve got so many root hairs on them, and they’re so small, they’re not worth cleaning. Plus, the colour makes anything cooked with them look pretty unappetizing, to be honest. They’d be good for fresh eating or for juicing, if we could get all those root hairs off, but I think the last of them are just going to get composted.

Too bad we don’t have chickens yet. They’d love them!

Oh, and I got another bag of seed starting mix. We’ve got to get those onion seeds started! I was gong to do that this afternoon, until I realized I couldn’t put off getting more kibble. One last thing I got that wasn’t on the list was a deodorant for the girls to try. The price was really, really good, but it’s not a brand they usually use (my husband and I use antiperspirant), and I wasn’t sure they’d like the scent. I like to pick up stuff like deodorant, tooth paste and other toiletries when the price is good, to stock up our supplies, just in case. With this year’s mild winter, we’ve been able to get out as needed for a change, but last year, with the vehicles freezing and/or not being able to get through the roads or driveway at times, we definitely started to run low on such things before we could finally go shopping!

I also got some treats for my husband and I. The Valentine’s Day stuff is out, so I got some Cinnamon Hearts for my husband. One of the side effects of all the drugs he’s on is that he’s lost much of his sense of taste, so something that’s spicy hot is appreciated. He can actually taste it! It’s something handy to have, if his blood sugars suddenly drop again. He’s definitely had some scary moments. Which isn’t supposed to happen, since he’s on a slow release insulin that is taken only once a week, but it does. 🙁 For myself, I got some dark chocolate mint wafers. I also got a vitamin water drink for the road, and a bag of chocolate almonds to keep in the van. I like to have some sort of munchy in the van for those days when we’re running around, but aren’t able to stop and eat. Usually, it’s a big container of mixed nuts from Costco, but we aren’t going to make it to Costco until the end of the month for our regular stock up trip. Not making it to Costco for our January stock up has left us making way too many smaller trips.

With what I got today, we should not be running out of anything until the end of the month, when we do our February stock up trip. This time, Costco is going to be done first! It seems that if we try to split our shopping days and do the other locations first, we end up not making it to Costco at all, but doing more smaller trips instead – and that takes more out of the budget, for less supplies.

December and January are always odd months for trips, but this winter, even more so than usual. Extra trips involving cat stuff certainly changed things, too!

Hopefully, things will start settling down again, and we can be our usual hermit selves. 😉😄

The Re-Farmer

Van news, and this is $265

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Oy. What a day this has turned out to be!

I’m glad to be home and done with it, though. Looking at the life security camera feed, I’m seeing a lot of whiteouts from blowing snow!

So… First the sort of bad, sort of good news.

I dropped the van off early and talked to the mechanic in detail about what was going on, including that the warning light had turned on again when I drove in, then went for lunch. Normally, I would have walked around town to run as many errands as I could, on the way to where I usually go for lunch, but the winds were too brutal today. Instead, I basically crossed the parking lot to a hotel across the way, and went to another Chinese restaurant. Just that short walk was more than enough to convince me to stick close!

The van was done by the time I got back. He’d done the oil change it was booked for. As for the rest…

*sigh*

When he hooked up his reader, about 40 codes came up. He cleared them, but two wouldn’t stay cleared. There is a bearing in each of two tires that is starting to go. This was a known problem, and not extremely urgent, but they do need to be replaced. The problem is, replacing them will cost at least $1000 – more than the van is worth. Getting the rest fixed as well would bring the cost to over $4000.

So… I paid for the oil change.

The bearings will last a bit longer, so we can use the van, but it’s on its last legs. I’d already talked to him about replacing it, and to be on the lookout for a truck or van for us for January or February, but it looks like we can’t wait.

He has used vehicles for sale that I walked past, and I noticed a 2008 SUV, among several others. My husband’s walker should be able to fit in the back of an SUV all right, plus it would be something he could climb up into, like a van or truck, rather than down into, like most cars, which is incredibly painful for him. We hadn’t considered an SUV because we wouldn’t be able to do things like haul the gas powered snow blower to be serviced in it, but we don’t have the luxury of choice right now.

I asked him about it, but the 2008 was already sold. Of the others he had, and discussing our needs, he suggested a 2013 Ford Explorer. It was actually a lower price than the other, older ones, but it has 260,000 km on it, which brought the price down – and he lowered it even more, for us, if we’re interested. And yes, he will take the van as a trade in, though it’ll only get us about $300 towards it. This particular vehicle is all wheel drive, and has a number of amenities that would be quite useful. It also happened to be owned by a family member of his – just one owner – and he’s been the one that serviced it the entire time she had it. He told me about some of the work he’d done on it.

In the end, I got information about it from him, along with a form to apply for financing. We’ve already talked it over as a family and have decided to go for it. We just can’t be without a reliable vehicle, and with my mother’s car – which doubles as our back up vehicle – sometimes not starting on us, that means we have two unreliable vehicles right now! What choice to we really have? I’d much rather have another van, but beggars can’t be choosers. Plus, the price is really good for a 2013 vehicle!

So we’ll have to start that process. It’ll be a moot point, if we don’t qualify for financing, anyhow.

Once I had the van back, I contacted the lady about the eggs, then went to the grocery store. I also updated the family and asked my husband to send our regrets to his brother; we’d been invited to do Christmas Day at their place, but we will be driving as little as possible until the van is replaced.

We traditionally do our main celebratory meal on Christmas Eve, as part of Polish tradition, and already have a turkey thawing out. I got more for the meal, plus a few things to make sure we won’t be running out of things until after New Year’s.

This is what $264 and change looks like. Though I got a lot of things on sale, it’s still about $50-$60 or more higher than if I’d been able to get to the city to buy it. Especially when including the cat kibble.

My husband requested some Caesar Salad mixes, plus I got a couple of kit salads for our Christmas and Christmas Eve dinners. Potatoes in 10kg bags were on a very good sale – less than $5 a bag – so I got one of Russets, one of red. There’s sweet potatoes, broccoli, rye bread and wraps, Mandarin oranges, Caesar Salad dressing, cheddar cheese, mozza cheese, some chicken “fries” as an appetizer for Christmas, and a cake for dessert. There’s bacon to drape over the turkey when we roast it (we plan to spatchcock the turkey), and some pork chops that were a good price. Oh, and a big bag of potato and cheddar pierogi. Last of all, an energy drink for the ride home!

I think I remembered everything.

That done, it was off to pick up the eggs!

Two flats of farm fresh eggs, for $25.

That done, I stopped for some gas on the way home – I considered getting a car wash, to get rid of any ice and snow built up under the van, but it was closed due to the cold temperatures. Their convenience store had a lot of stuff for Christmas, including a big box of Stroopwafels, which is a rare treat for us, so I had to get that!

And yes. I bought lotto tickets, too!

One last stop on the way home was the general store and post office. I got some drinks and alcoholic eggnog for Christmas and picked up the mail. I knew there was one package waiting for me, but there turned out to be three. I was very excited when I opened them, with one of them being an incredible surprise, but those will get their own posts!

After that, I finally headed home. One of my daughters got the wagon to the garage for me, since we can’t pull into the yard to unload right now, so that got loaded up. By then, it was late enough to give the outside cats a feeding and top up the sun room water bowl.

Shortly after I got home, I started getting messages from the cat lady. The vet that does the spay clinics just set a date for another one, and did we have any females to do? She also wanted to take the bitties.

Long story short, I now have one white and grey kitten that’s female in the baby jail. My daughter was able to catch the grey and white bitty tabby, but not the bitty tuxedo. We don’t know if the bitties are male or female.

Oh, dear.

The bitty is so small, it has already managed to get out of baby jail, but the white and grey just squeezed out, too!

Marlee does not like the kittens, and has been snarling any time she sees them!

Ah, well. I will let them explore until it’s time to do the evening wet cat food feeding. Hopefully, I can get them into the baby jail to eat in peace. After that, I suppose I’ll have to watch my feet during the night!

The date for the spay clinic is Jan 2 and, after I explained about our van issues, the cat lady said she will come out, likely Dec. 31, to pick them up. We should be able to catch the bitty tuxedo by then, and maybe another outside female, but we’ll also get Tissue done – the last inside cat to get fixed. This will give us time to socialize any we can bring inside, too. The bitties will stay with the Cat Lady and she will adopt them out, but the others will come back to us. The vet does ferals, so if we can catch any of the unsocialized females, they can be added to the list, too!

The bitty tabby is hiding somewhere, but the white and grey is busily playing with the cat tree behind me. 😄

So… it’s been a much busier day than expected, that’s for sure!!!

The Re-Farmer

Tiny fruit!

/ Re-Farmer / 7 Comments

Look at the itty bitty fruit I found in the mock orange this morning!

He was not impressed with my shoveling the paths after doing the food and water!

Also, it is confirmed that he’s a he. I was able to pluck him out of the tree and cuddle him for a bit, and finally got a chance to check.

We are all sort of dancing around when we will be bringing him inside. He is so tiny, it’s actually startling to come out with the kibble in the mornings and see him there in the snow, so small he looks like something one of the older kittens coughed up rather than another kitten!

We want to leave him with his mother as long as possible, or at least with whichever of the mamas is nursing him. So far, I’ve only seen Junk Pile nursing him with her own kittens, once – and I haven’t seen her nursing even her own kittens since! So it’s entirely possible that he’s on his own, weaned early, and getting only the food and water we’re providing. However, we can’t be sure of that.

So when do we bring him in? We have one cold day coming up, with a high of -11C/12F, in a couple of days, then it’s going to warm up quite a bit after that. We definitely want to bring him in before the winter temperatures really kick in. So far he doesn’t seem to be having any trouble with the temperatures we have now, and seems quite happy to run around and play in the snow. If I look at the long range forecasts, including those that extent to January, we are looking at a very mild December but, of course, the further ahead the forecast, the less accurate it is, so who knows right now.

Do we assume his mother has weaned him and bring him in now? Or do we give him a couple more weeks, to be sure?

Well, we’ll probably made that decision in the next couple of days, before we get that one day cold snap that’s been forecast.

In other things, my younger daughter and I headed out today. I was originally planning to go to the nearest Walmart, but my daughters had their own shopping list for the international grocery store, so we hit the city, instead, where we could do both very handily. Mostly, I needed to pick up more kibble. The difference in price on that alone makes it worth the cost of gas to go into the city. I was able to get 10kg bags for just over $25 each. Locally, the biggest bags they carry are 7.5kg or 8kg bags, and they cost almost $35 each – if they even have them in stock.

Of course, we picked up a few other things while we were there, then headed to the international grocery store for my daughter’s shopping. They have take out food, too, so we picked up some steamed dumplings in a dim sum combo for the drive home. I was leery of doing that, as the last time I got dim sum there, not only was the service terrible, but the dim sum was way over cooked and tasted horrible. I’m happy to say, I had no problems at all this time. Service was immediate and, oh my goodness, did those dumplings ever hit the spot!

Things like this are the treats we allow ourselves to make up for creeping out of our hermitage, making the drive to the city, and putting up with other humans. 😉

Once at home, I backed into the yard to unload. We used my mother’s car today, and one of the snow piles I made from clearing around the cat shelters was almost too deep for it! 😂 I think maybe tomorrow, I’ll shovel out a lane for driving into the yard and backing up to the house. May as well do that while the snow is light!

Once everything was unloaded, we gave the cats their evening feeding as much to get them away from the car, and out of the sun room, as anything else. After I finished parking the car in the garage, my daughter was still trying to get one last kitten out of the sun room! I never saw the bitty baby while we were doing all this, though. Which may be a good thing. Now that we’re all pretty much in agreement about bringing the bitty in (which will bring the number of indoor cats up to 15), it’s hard not to just up and grab him! But more time with the mamas is better for him right now.

Must.

Resist.

The bitty!

The Re-Farmer

More off the list, an anniversary – and that didn’t take long! (Updated)

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

I made it into the city today, but not for a Costco stock-up shopping trip. In fact, very little of what I got today was for stocking up.

After I got home and settled in to start this post, I found a notification from WordPress.

Today is our 5th anniversary since starting this blog!

Five years ago today, my husband and younger daughter were already here for almost a week, having left even earlier than planned when my FIL was suddenly hospitalized. My older daughter and I were downsizing, sorting, and packing things like mad before the movers arrived to finish packing, and we would make the drive out.

Somehow, in the middle of all this, we thought it would be a good idea to start a blog.

What were we thinking? 😂

Things sure have changed in five years!

Anyhow.

I’m happy to say that I took my mother’s car into the city and there were no issues at all with the repaired tire rim. Nothing else broke down either. That’s something I’m always grateful for!

All the stops I planned to make were along one strip, and all pretty close to each other, which made it very convenience.

Not any shorter, though!

My first stop was somewhere I’ve never been to before; Tool Town. I needed to get an affordable tarp large enough to cover that shed roof for the winter.

Oh, this is a dangerous place for me to be in!!! The location is actually pretty small but, my goodness, it was jam packed with so many things we could use!! I had to stick to my budget, though. I got a 20’x30′ medium weight tarp that should do well to cover the needed parts of the shed. Then I just walked through the aisles, ogling all the stuff I wanted to buy! I did get one more item that was on my list, though I was expecting to get it at Canadian Tire. Some time ago, we got a solar powered motion sensor light that’s facing the old kitchen garden, and it works quite well. We have a motion sensor light over the main entry door, but we use the sun room door almost exclusively now. That’s where the cat shelters are, and with things getting dark so quickly, we decided it would be good to get another motion sensor light for over the sun room door. There’s no wiring there, so it has to be solar powered. They had a sale on a larger size light, with two brightness options, for the same price as the smaller size, which was the same was what we already have. So I got the bigger, brighter one. The two items together was still under budget, so that was an added bonus!

My next stop was Canadian Tire, where I got a couple of bags of stove pellets for the litter boxes. I would have gotten more, but I didn’t want to put too much weight in my mother’s little car, and I still needed to get more kibble. I also went looking for a new kibble bin, since the racoons broke apart the lid on the one we have now. There was a sale on 80L bins, making them the same price as the 72L bins. It was the right size for our shelf, so I got the 80L bin. I also got a couple of little things, including a new pair of safety glasses. I bought some not long ago, but they’ve gone missing!

I also checked the prices on tarps. Canadian Tire didn’t have the same size as what I’d about, but the one I got was about a third the cost of their closest size – and that’s before the sale price I actually paid!

It was as I was loading the stuff in the car that I noticed a corner of the bin’s lid was cracked. So I grabbed the lid and went back in to customer service. I left the broken lid and my receipt with the employee after explaining what happened, then quickly went to grab a different one. I figured it would be faster that way.

Well, not quite.

Despite there being so many of the 80L bins on display, there was only 1 matching lid left – and it had a chunk missing from one corner! This was a temporary display, and I knew they had some in the regular aisle for storage bins, so I went there, only to find there were no lids at all in that size.

I went back to customer service and told the employee there weren’t any other lids, except one broken one, on the floor. She called it in to get someone to look elsewhere, but after some time he called back to say he couldn’t find any at all, anywhere.

A bin isn’t much use without a lid, so I returned it. I just hoped I would find something somewhere else.

My next stop was at the international grocery store, where I could also grab a late lunch. There are a few things that we only find in this store, such as the big slabs of uncut bacon, which also happened to be on sale today. I even remembered to go through their pharmacy section and did find some lecithin for the outside cats that was NOT soy based. It was in capsules, but we can open those. I have to remember to ask the cat lady where she gets hers. We might have to order the containers of powdered lecithin online, which I would really prefer not to do, but for so many outside cats, we’d need containers with a whole lot more than what I found! I don’t want to be paying extra for capsules we’ll be breaking open, either.

Update: I messaged the cat lady, asking where she got her lecithin. You mean lysine, she asked?

Oops!

Well, lysine is a lot easier to find, and cheaper. She’s been buying the capsules for humans (the same thing marketed for cats is more expensive) and breaking them open. With so many cats, that’s going to get old fast, so I found and ordered a couple of tubs of the powder. Until it gets here, I can pick up the capsules and use that. So many of the little kittens are dealing with the gooby eyes and stuffy noses right now, I won’t want to wait before treating them.

That done, my last top was at Walmart, where I got a couple of 10kg bags of kibble, and a small cat bed for inside the cats’ house. I had looked through the window where the cat bed is set up, and it was full of bigger kittens, while the bitty baby was by the box bed it’s too small to climb into! I was able to find a small bed that should do nicely. I did also find a new kibble bin that was affordable – and with an intact lid! There weren’t a lot of options for the size and shape I needed. I would have preferred a semi-transparent bin, so we can see how much is in it, but I had to settle for a completely opaque one. After that, I just got a few small items.

When it came time to pay, I went to the single line for the cashiers, instead of the self checkout. There were plenty of tills, and one guy that kept an eye on them before telling the next person in line which till to go to next.

He goofed with me.

The till he sent me to had a couple with a very full cart. It looked like they had to do some price checks, too. They split their purchases into two bills, which made things take longer. The second bill included a microwave, which they got the extended warranty on, so that added more time, too. In the end, they had over $500 in stuff on the second bill alone. Which is fine, but while I was standing there waiting, the guy was sending other customers to other tills, instead of redirecting me to a faster till. At least 8 people who had been in line behind me were through with their purchases, before I was even able to start unloading my cart.

Then he sent a customer to wait behind me, and the couple in front of me wasn’t even paying for their stuff, yet!

It’s a good thing I wasn’t in any hurry, but I sure was glad to finally get out of there.

That done, I could finally start heading home.

While I was gone, the girls started working on the sun room, so there was quite a bit of stuff outside when I drove into the yard to unload. They didn’t get everything out, but they did get the swing bench out, which was the main thing to move. We haven’t been able to get around it to clean up, and when we’ve had yard cats in there for varying lengths of time, they don’t always use the litter box we had in there. Instead, they’d go behind the swing bench.

My daughter was able to get that mess cleaned up, and what a difference that made!

After unloading, I started setting up the new kibble bin, but discovered a problem. The bin just barely fits in the shelf – but only with the lid off! With the lid on, it’s too tall.

Ah, well, It will just have to sit on the floor.

We didn’t open the cat shelter to put in the new cat bed. For the time being, it went onto the swing bench.

It immediately had kittens in it, checking things out.

Then the tuxedo claimed it. That didn’t take long at all! 😄😄

Last I saw, he was asleep in it!

One thing I did make sure to do right away was set up the motion sensor light. I was going to put it above the sun room door, only to realize the solar panel would be shaded by the eaves, so I ended up attaching it to the outer door itself. There was just enough room above the window to screw it in place.

It’s full dark now, so I will be going outside to test the motion sensor later. Before setting it up, I put it on the brighter setting. If it works as it should, it will probably be triggered by cats a lot, but I don’t mind that! 😁 Mostly, I just want to be able to see when we’re topping up the kibble for the evening. It gets dark quite early right now!

So this trip is done, and we only have the Costco trip left for the final stocking up for the month.

That one can wait until after Halloween, though!

The Re-Farmer

One last shop and… ouch

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

I saw one good thing when heading into town with the cats this morning. The gas prices dropped 10 cents per litre, overnight. At 169.9 cents per liter, it’s still higher than it should be, but every little bit helps.

I was going to fill the jerry can after dropping off the cats, but the cats didn’t get dropped off. On deciding to head into the city, that will just have to wait again.

Before hitting the Costco, I went to a Canadian Tire to pick up a couple of bags of stove pellets for cat litter. I also picked up some ant traps. I would prefer not to kill off ant hills, since ants are also pollinators, but there are a couple of hills that are large enough to damage some garden plants, plus we’re seeing more of them in the house.

We’ve hardly used the van this month at all, and the gas tank was almost full when I left home. Costco gas prices were 159.9 cents per liter for regular. A considerable difference! So I topped up the tank, anyhow.

I had expected doing a Costco shop in the middle of the week would be quite, but nope. It was insanely busy! At least I wasn’t fighting a flat cart around crowds of people. With the other stock up shopping done already, I didn’t need to get more dry cat food. I was able to just just a regular cart for a change!

In the end, I didn’t get much at all.

With reason.

This is what Cdn$350 looks like. Plus change.

Under the cart is a package of Kirkland brand toilet paper, a package of 60 eggs, and a case of the cheaper canned cat food. 48 cans in that size.

I also got 10 pounds of butter (at $5 a pound, that’s at least a dollar cheaper than other no-name or house brand butters, but higher for Costco prices), a package with 3 whole chickens, a triple pack of all-beef wieners, and a pork tenderloin. There’s a 6 pack of canned chicken, mayonnaise, peanut butter, cooking oil, AAA batteries, 2 packages of tortilla wraps, and a 2 pack of hot dog buns. Oh, plus a package of white button mushrooms and a big block of marble cheese.

That’s it.

This is one of the smallest Costco shopping trips I’ve done, but it still came out to pennies over $350

That’s just painful! There aren’t even any fruits or vegetables in there, either.

I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad if our own garden was producing, but it just barely is. Most things are, if not a complete loss, at least a month behind in growth and development.

Ouch.

The Re-Farmer