After checking on the road conditions, I continued checking areas of the inner yard we can now access again. I also checked on the old kitchen garden. It just happened that the sump pump was running, and I was quite amused by what I saw.
Along with the water coming out the end, there was water spraying like fountains out of the hose! There are three areas with holes in them. Once I saw the two smaller holes next to the rain barrel, I pulled up the slack a bit, so that they will hopefully spray on the paving slabs, instead. Once things dry up a bit, I’ll just patch it with some electric tape. We do have spare hose, but I’m still considering adding it to the end of this one, to send the water further away from the house. The ground does slope away from the house rather well, here, so I really don’t need to, but it does give us more options.
Walking through the old kitchen garden, I could see deep hoof prints in the garden beds from the deer. Which made a good indicator of how thawed out the ground is!
Going into the maple grove, I noticed an area was clearer of snow that I wanted to get a closer look at.
Between these two rows of trees is where we planted crocuses. About a quarter of it is still too covered with snow, but I wanted to see if there was any sign of them, where it was clear.
Yes!!! In one section, I found so many little crocuses coming up! Including the one you see here, that has pierced its way through a leaf. :-D
I am just thrilled that they survived the winter. I went to check the area we planted the grape hyacinth in, but it’s still too covered with snow.
With the crocuses coming up, I was curious. Was it possible? I had to check.
YESSSS!!!!!! We have tulips coming up! Just look at them all! I put arrows pointing to the ones I could find. It’s entirely possible there are more, camouflaged among the leaf litter.
There are even a few visible in a section my daughters planted fewer, more unique, tulips. Only a couple are visible in this photo, but there were more.
This is just so exciting! After the deer and other critters decimated the tulips last year, we thought they were done for. It was their first growing season, and we didn’t think they had the chance to establish themselves.
My daughter is so happy. She was heart broken when all her tulips were eaten! One of the things the girls had done was make sure the bulbs were buried extra deep, as recommended on the package to keep them as perennials. A lot of people buy and plant tulips and other bulbs every spring. If they’re buried closer to the surface, they can’t survive our winters. We didn’t want that, so my daughter made the extra effort. It looks like all their hard work paid off!
Now I’m wondering if my daughter’s irises and daffodils, planted along the edge of the old kitchen garden, will come up, too. One type did show some leaves last year, but never got to the point of sending up flowers. Another type didn’t come up at all, that we could see.
Aside from some leaf buds starting to show, this is the first major sign of spring growth we’ve had this year!
Oh, and we have more exciting growth, this time indoors. We’ve got melons sprouting! Two types; the Halona melon, plus one of the grocery store melons I lost the name for.
Flowers and food, there’s lots to look forward to in the gardens this summer!
The area is still on blizzard watch. Everything looks fine right now, and we’re only a couple of degrees below freezing. Looking at the weather radar, the system is crossing the Canada/US border, but it’ll be a while before anything reaches as far as we are now.
According to The Weather Network’s hourly forecast, we’re supposed to start getting snow around 3am, and the blizzard will reach us by 10am. What I’m seeing on the weather radar, however, doesn’t seem to match up with the alarming alerts we are still getting. My phone app’s “looking ahead” still claims we will reach an accumulation of 40-60cm/15-24in of snow in our region, but looking at the hourly forecasts on both apps, it just doesn’t at up. I added up just the hours that were under “blizzard” conditions, since the hours before and after that time slot showed under 1cm/0.4in. Using the highest amount forecast, I only got about 15cm/6in in total.
I don’t think a lot of people are looking at the hourly forecasts and adding it up, though. The alerts are telling people to expect an extreme blizzard and to stock up now. My mother called me today and told me that some of the folks in her building had gone to the grocery store, where they described standing in line outside for 20 minutes, just to get through the door – and there are no occupancy restrictions right now. Even when people were all panic buying in 2020, they didn’t have line ups like that out here. Meanwhile, in the city, my SIL told me they’d gone to Costco yesterday and described it as busier than the week before Christmas.
Well, you can’t go wrong by stocking up, as long as people aren’t panic buying. There’s a difference between prudence and ridiculousness!
When I headed outside this evening, while there was still enough light out, you would never know there’s supposed to be a storm coming. Though we only reached a high of -1C/30F today, it was still warm enough for things to keep clearing up outside.
The snow has finally receded enough that I was able to get to, and clean up, this pile of fallen dead branches that conveniently fell near piles of branches waiting for the chipper.
Before I’d gone out, I saw some deer on the garage cam’s live feed, so it was no surprise when I saw our usual three visitors, including the piebald, just past the chain link fence. I’ve no doubt the piebald was heading to the kibble house or shrine for some snacks! All the trays were empty, though, so after I startled away the three deer in the outer yard…
… and the one by the outhouse…
… then the other two at the feeding station by the house!
… I refilled the kibble trays. The cats were quite happy for it!
So was the skunk I had to persuade to leave the tray under the shrine, later on.
I took a closer look at this area in the old hay yard, near the driveway. This low spot is not as deep as it used to be, from what I remember as a kid. It was more like a small pond or dugout. I remember being able to skate on the ice. The darker areas showing where water is accumulating under the snow is larger than it was when I went by this morning, and probably the largest I’ve seen it since we moved out here.
This is where we would eventually like to have someone come in and dig it deeper for us, and have an actual pond again. Not too far away is where we plan to build our permanent fire pit area and outdoor kitchen, as well as comfortable – and sheltered! – seating areas.
I will be very happy when we can finally take out the old fencing.
That’s a few years into the future, though.
I saw deer making their way along the south side of the spruce grove again, so I headed that way to discourage them. The snow has cleared enough that I could finally check the damage to that poor little cedar we found while cleaning up the area. I could only see it from the driveway before, but it looked like the deer had eaten every bit of green on it. Which they had.
Much to my surprise, it’s still alive!
It’s sending out fresh shoots!
We’ll have to put something around it to protect it from the deer.
I even checked what was left of the mulberry tree we planted last spring, only to have that one cold night in May kill it off. I would still water the dead stem, just in case, throughout the summer, but the deer ate that, too. There’s only about 6 inches left of it sticking out of the ground. Oddly, I find myself thinking it might send out new shoots, too. It just doesn’t seem as brittle as I would expect, if it were truly dead. It’s highly unlikely, but… well, that cedar was well chewed up, and it’s surviving!!
What I really appreciated was seeing this.
This area had been almost completely under water, not long ago. Even just this morning, I was walking through a couple of inches of water. It has all been absorbed!
The lowest spot behind the garage has also receded significantly. It no longer reaches even half way up the path to the outhouse.
This is so encouraging. All that wonderful moisture being absorbed into the ground, instead of washing away. This will be much benefit to the water table.
Any snow we get from the oncoming storm would be just as helpful. While I certainly don’t want to see the sort of destructive blizzard that is being predicted, and God knows we’re all pretty tired of the snow, the area has been low in precipitation since before we moved out here, and it takes a lot for the water table to recover.
We’re still on the chilly side these days, and will continue to be for a while longer. As I write these, we are just below freezing, and our predicted highs aren’t going to be much warmer. It’s like that mild weather we had, and my being able to do some clean up in the spruce grove, was just a tease!
I think the cats are still appreciating the kibble house, and not having to be on the frozen ground to eat. Their water is freezing solid overnight again (except for the heated water bowl, of course), and they’re enjoying the warm water they’re still getting every morning.
I look forward to when we can take that tarp off the kibble house and give it a good paint job! It’s still too cold for paint.
At least the snow is mostly gone, so I can extend my rounds, checking the fence lines, etc. Which is where I found this poor little pussy willow, desperately trying to develop its catkins! :-D At least since we cleared this fence line, it is finally getting morning sun and warmth.
One of the things we will need to do today is go into town and retrieve my mother’s car. A bit late to help my mother, though! Yesterday, shortly after noon, I got a call from my mother. When I asked how she was doing, she told me she was “dressed”. Meaning, she was dressed up and all ready to head out. !!
We had been talking about me helping her with errands when I got her car back, and I was suggesting Wednesday or Thursday, hoping it would be done by then. Somehow, my mother thought it had been settled for Wednesday! So she was all ready to go for her errands, and for me to show up at the usual time. Of course, I didn’t show up because I didn’t know this! :-D I told her I didn’t have her car, but she had quite a few errands to run, and didn’t want to delay them. So I headed out right away and, just in case, brought our little step stool for her to use to get in and out of the van. She has one just like it, but I wasn’t sure if she’d grab it or not. I’m glad I did, because she had forgotten hers. She realized this while waiting for me, outside the door where I usually meet her, sitting in her walker. She was going to give me her keys so I could run in and get hers, but it wasn’t necessary. It turns out she doesn’t need it so much to get out of the van, but getting in is much harder for her.
One of the stops she needed to make was at the Senior’s centre which, unfortunately, has stairs, so she has to leave her walker outside and hobble in. :-( I helped her with the door and saw there was quite a few people inside, so I told her I’d wait for her outside. One of the social workers that I’ve been talking to about the horrible caretakers in my mother’s building came out to chat. She asked how my mother was doing, since my mother has a habit of saying she’s having troubles when she’s actually doing pretty well, but saying she’s doing well when she’s having troubles. Which isn’t all that unusual, I’ve found! ;-) One of the things I mentioned was that my mother was getting some serious cabin fever.
Which is when I found out something interesting. Not a good interesting, either.
When our province locked down even harder (which, as I predicted a year ago, actually caused an increase in deaths and illnesses; the first uptick of excess deaths our province had was during the annual winter increase, since the pandemic bypassed our province entirely until then, and no one in either of our municipalities has ever tested positive), buildings such as my mother’s locked their doors and only “authorized” personnel were allowed in, while residents were told to stay in their own apartments as much as possible, though they were “graciously” allowed to not wear masks within their own homes. :-/ “Authorized” personnel included the social workers, and people making deliveries. Because of the caretakers, my mother would sneak me or my siblings in through a side door, as we brought her groceries in. Yes, technically we were allowed in the building to do this, but the caretakers look for any excuse to harass people. Especially my mother, who is one of the few people to stand up to them.
Well, it turns out that my mother’s building is the only one that’s still locked up. All the other buildings run by the province are open. The social worker speculated on just who was responsible for keeping the residents locked up, and I half-joked that it made it easier to “control the inmates”. Unfortunately, the joke was too close to reality. She told me that one of my mother’s neighbours is considering putting a sign on her door to turn her apartment number to “Cell ##”, because she feels like she is in a prison. To be honest, in a real prison, they’d have more freedoms than the people living in my mother’s building, it seems. The frustrating thing is, there’s nothing we can do about it. The people living there are too afraid of the caretakers to complain, and since it’s a government run building, instead of a privately run building, getting abusive employees fired is pretty much impossible. The social workers have been trying to get the problem addressed for years – long before my mother has lived there – and had their own jobs threatened, instead.
It’s so frustrating. I was hoping my mother was serious about escaping to another building in town – one where meals are included, so she wouldn’t even need to do grocery shopping – but she chose this building because her church is right across the street. She wouldn’t be able to walk to church from the other building. That and she really doesn’t want to go through the hassle of moving again, even though this time I’d be available to help with our van. Truthfully, with the exception of the caretakers, this place is pretty ideal for her. She shouldn’t have to move, just to get away from crappy employees.
What a mess.
After my mother finished at the senior’s centres, we did the rest of my mother’s errands, finishing with some grocery shopping. After everything was brought in and put away, I was even able to stay for tea. Before I left, I gave my mother a big hug. She almost started crying. :-(
Just before I got home, I heard my phone going off, so I checked my messages before unlocking the gate. It was from the garage, letting me know my mother’s car was ready! It was too close to their closing time, though. I suppose I could have grabbed my daughter and left immediately, but since I had just finished helping my mother with her errands, there was no longer any rush.
Meanwhile…
Today, I need to focus and prepare for tomorrow. We finally have our court date for the restraining order against our vandal. I really don’t know what to expect. I think the most likely thing to happen is that they will run through the docket as quick as they can, and it’ll be rescheduled for a hearing at a later date. Of course, what I hope will happen is that the restraining order will be granted. A restraining order is just a piece of paper, but it does give the police more to work with and, more importantly, our vandal will have his guns removed, and he’ll have to stop drinking. The order is for a year, and then I would have to re-apply, if I felt it was warranted, but I would hope that a year of being dry, and having to prove it regularly, will make a difference in his mental state. It’s a faint hope, but it’s there, nonetheless. There’s still his vexatious litigation against me to deal with, but that court date is in July. If he were at all sensible, he would drop that, as he has no case. It’s basically just his way of getting back at me for applying for the restraining order after he tried to break the gate again.
What a mess.
As crazy at it is, I have no regrets for moving out here. The positives far outweigh the negatives, and it’s still better than what we left behind.
Still, it would be nice if all we needed to do was take care of this place for my family, which is why we moved out here to begin with!
Here is some video I found while checking the trail cam this morning.
Pay close attention to the background.
The young deer back there are just full of bounce and energy!!
We are also looking ahead to more bouncing babies.
Butterscotch is getting big, and it’s not just gaining weight from having a reliable food source, anymore! She’s getting quite rolly polly in the middle. Should be interesting to see how big of a litter she has!
I’m pretty sure that Beep Beep is pregnant. She, too, has put on weight just from having reliable access to food, so it may be just that, but … well … it’s that time of year!
The last while, it has been Beep Beep that has been following me when I do my rounds and wanting to be picked up. Butterscotch still wants up and attention, but I think it’s starting to get uncomfortable for her to be picked up, no matter how gentle I try to be. Beep Beep is taking advantage of this, it seems. She will just loll about in my arms, then give me chin kisses.
For the past while, we haven’t been seeing deer come to the feeding station. The changing season and daylight hours seems to be the trigger for them coming by less often.
They are coming, though. Yesterday, I could see some hoof prints in the little bit of snow that had fallen during the night. By then, most of the feed was eaten, and I could see they’d walked around, but little sign in the snow that they ate anything.
This morning, there was no snow to leave tracks in, but I did find other signs of nightly visitors.
There were little tufts of deer fur, all over the feeding station! Their winter fur much be coming out in patches right now. :-)
With heading to the hospital both morning and afternoon, I’ve been pulling into the yard after the morning visit. By the afternoon, things have warmed up, and I can really tell as I pull out of the yard.
There was a time when this area was gravel. It’s been so long, there’s no sign of it anymore!
Getting a whole lot of gravel is just another thing on the to-do list for this place!
I was at the hospital in plenty of time for the morning visit with the doctor. My husband is doing so much better. Feet and lower legs still a bit puffy, but the shortness of breath is mostly gone. The reduction in fluids in his body has meant he’s able to do stuff for himself again, that he hadn’t been able to for a while. He was even able to sit in the comfy chair in his room! It’s a low chair, making it painful for him to get in and out of, but the back support and comfort made it worth the effort.
He’s still waiting on the tests for his heart in the city. Based on his bloodwork, the doctor has written him up for an ultrasound on his liver, but that may be (and likely is) completely unrelated to the edema. That will be in another, smaller city, not where he will be going for the heart tests, so that can be done on an outpatient basis; they’re not going to keep him in the hospital for it.
At one point, a woman had come in to let him know they’ve sent his file to a particular department, and someone was going to come talk to him about resources of this, that and the other thing. As she was talking, though, I brought up what I felt was being lost in the shuffle; the root cause of all of his problems. His back injury, and pain management problems. I’m glad I did bring it up, because she hadn’t know anything about it. She was just dealing with what they were dealing with while at the hospital; they’re focusing on congestive heart failure (I wonder what will happen when he goes into the city and the tests end up showing his heart is just fine, now that the edema is almost completely gone?) and the scare with his blood sugars. They’re talking about getting his sugars under control, increasing his mobility, and talking about weight loss. I brought up that, when he was first being diagnosed with his back injury, a spine specialist had said flat out, yeah, losing weight would probably help, but it’s not going to happen. The nature of his injury makes that almost impossible. Add in that one of the medications he’s on prevents weight loss, none of that is going to happen until that pain is under control. She clearly hadn’t known about the back injury, so we talked about his being on the waiting list for the pain clinic for more than a year already, and pain related issues, and she did even say, until the pain is managed, nothing else is going to get managed.
The down side of my husband working so hard to be a “good patient” is, things tend to get distracted away from the main problem, and all these peripheral issues are being focused on. Yes, they need to be treated, but as the symptoms they are, not separate, unrelated issues on their own.
On a related note, the doctor did the paperwork for the disability and caregiver tax credits, and I’m concerned we’ll have a bit of the same problem. The doctor can only answer for what he’s been working with, first hand, which even the form says is not necessarily the date of diagnosis. That’s fine. But where it talked about my husband’s condition, it only was about the most recent stuff from the past few days. There is nothing on the form that talks about the reason he’s on disability to begin with. I took the paperwork to the tax preparer, forgetting just how early in the day it still was. She wasn’t there yet, but I was able to leave the forms with the franchise owner. I asked for her to phone me, but I think I’ll just call her myself, before we head back to town this afternoon. I can find out how much we owe her, in the process.
Our budget is totally hooped for this month! We got our monthly shop in, and the bills are paid, so that’s the main thing. We’ll manage just fine. :-)
With all the driving around we’ve been doing lately, one of the things I’ve noticed is how much standing water there is this spring, compared to our first spring here, last year.
In fact, we even have a pond in the old hay yard again.
With all the snow melt and puddles forming, I quickly got tired of wet feet and soaked shoes.
So last night, I bit the bullet and braved an area of the house I tend to avoid.
The new part basement.
I remembered seeing a whole bunch of rubber boots down there, and was desperate enough to consider using a pair.
Note I said “consider”…
For those unfamiliar with the Canadianism, rubbers are footwear. I believe in other places, they are called rain boots or Wellingtons.
Rubbers are not to be confused with that other rubber Canadianism, meaning a type of eraser. Also, not to be confused with yet another type of rubber, aka a condom. There are quite a few different kinds of rubbers, now that I think about it. :-D
The warmer temperatures have created some interesting conditions, and it is a direct consequence of our lack of a snow blower during parts of the winter.
Snow traps. That trap tires. :-D
I got stuck a couple of times yesterday, in our own driveway. Here is why.
I just finished going through my photos of the feeding station today.
Mama and the twins came by nice and early, and even stood together in a lovely grouping that allowed me to get photos of all three of them, at once.
How considerate of them. :-D
“Hey! Hey, Mom! Look at me! My nose is all tickley.”
I got a couple of good ones with a blue jay. I really liked this one.
Something about that tilt of the head makes me smile.
Then the sun started shining on the feeding station, and Wow! did those feathers start to shine!
The camera just does not do justice to how must those brighter blues gleamed and glittered. It was amazing to see!
Then a squirrel posed nicely for me.
It wasn’t until I was cropping the photo that I spotted something…
Is that green grass growing in there?!?! There are so many little spruce tips on the ground, that’s what I thought it was at first, but no…
I think that really is new grass!
It’s only March. We’re nowhere near done winter yet. There’s a storm predicted for tomorrow evening, though we’re at the very northern edge of the expected path. We should get a few centimeters of snow, at least. While the long term forecasts are for warmer weather, there’s almost always at least one last blizzard in April that hits, before spring finally arrives.
Seeing that green right now is very interesting. What it likely shows is how much warmer the darker areas are, even with snow under the dust and debris. Little patches of micro-climates.
The Re-Farmer 