*sigh*

Yup. More snow.

At least the rhubarb (second picture) can handle it. The garlic seems fine, too. I think my winter sown beds are toast.

I’m skipping the dump run today.

On another note, I got the new topical painkiller, diclofenac, applied last night. Between that and regular painkillers, I actually slept, with only a couple of interruptions, for nearly 10 hours last night. I could still go back to bed for another 10 hours, if I could, but I recognize that this fatigue is my usual response to dreary days like today.

Oh, dear. I just got interrupted by a phone call from my mother.

*sigh*

She was demanding I take her to the doctor. She wants me to walk her across to the clinic in the same building (the doors to the TCU are locked to prevent residents from wandering) and she would make the appointment herself. I tried to explain – again – that I already called about making an appointment for her and they said now, because of where she is. She is under constant medical supervision. The staff there can tend to her current needs. After several times asking, she finally told me why she wanted to go to the doctor.

It’s her ears.

She got her 5 days of mineral oil treatment, but no one has flushed her ears. I pointed out, it’s not even 9am yet. Give them time. It took a while before she told me that one of the staff had said she would find someone experienced with ear flushing, and then she left. She’s gone. Maybe it’s her day off (I have no idea if this happened yesterday or this morning; my mother’s sense of time is pretty much gone). I said again, give them time. If she said she was going to find someone with experience, she needs time to do that.

My mother went back to demanding I take her to the clinic so she could make an appointment, accompanied by various insults on how I’m “afraid of the doctor” and how she’s “not allowed” to see a doctor, and “is this Russia or Canada?” The irony of that is, she’s probably be getting better care in Russia right now, than anywhere in Canada.

I kept trying to explain to her how things work, but she ended up hanging up on me.

*sigh*

What a way to start the day.

And it’s still not even 9am yet.

The Re-Farmer

First stock up shop: this is what $694 in total looks like

Today, I made it into the city for the first of our stock up shops for the month.

But first, I was greeted with this!

Yeah. April 29, and we had snow overnight.

*sigh*

It didn’t last long, of course, but still… not sure if the winter sown beds I removed the mulch from will survive the cold nights we’ve been having. I had to take the mulch off, to keep the seeds from being smothered, but weather is weather, and this is Canada, so yeah. We get snow pretty much any time of the year.

I’ve reordered some of the seeds, just in case.

The cats didn’t seem to mind the snow, though!

This little furball is on the roof of the isolation shelter, right above where the heat lamp is. I do have sheets of rigid insulation under the roof for the winter, but the cats have torn holes in it. This cat is pretty much on top of one of them, so it’s a warm spot.

I headed into the city on my own today, as my younger daughter who sometimes comes with me was still not feeling very well today. Today’s shopping was a triple shopping stop, though I did stop at a gas station on the way out to get a drink and a sandwich for breakfast, then at a Domo in the city to put in $30 in gas (fuel is from a separate budget line).

The price of gas. Oh, my goodness.

The gas station just outside of town I stopped at to get breakfast (their sandwiches are made fresh by a local bakery, and the single restaurant in our little hamlet, and are very good), the price of gas was $1.689/L

As I drove into the city, the first gas station I passed was $1.449/L ! As I continued on, I saw a Shell station at $1.889, but two other stations were at $1.449. After I was finished at Canadian Tire, I stopped at a Domo along the way and put in $30 before continuing my shopping. As I was leaving the city, that first gas station I saw had changed its price to $1.889!!! A 44¢ per litre jump happened while I was shopping!

I’m afraid to find out what the local prices will be. I took a different route home, so I never saw, one way or the other.

My first stop of the day was Canadian Tire, since there are no food items to get while there. This time, I actually got a picture, since I got a few extras.

This is what $92.02 looks like.

Yeah. Not much.

The main thing on the list was the litter pellets. I also found the small wood screws I needed, then picked up some flat right angle corner plates to further secure the extra roosts I made for the chicken coop. The angle brackets I used to assemble them are not very strong, and I don’t want to risk the weight of roosting chickens to break them loose.

I found some clear repair tape, and a hose repair kit I needed, plus another bag of seed starter mix; I haven’t been able to start the 4-6 weeks before frost seeds, yet, and will soon need to start the 3-4 week seeds.

I ended up getting a package of LED bulbs. We just used our last spare, and these were 53% off. On the way to the checkout, I spotted some nitrile garden gloves on sale. After making sure the size large would actually fit my hand, I picked up a pair. Most of the garden gloves I have now are wearing out.

Just that, for almost $100. *sigh*

From there, my next stop was the Walmart.

This is what $413.84 looks like.

That cart isn’t even full. It’s a lot of non-food items, though.

Going through the receipt from the top, there’s a package of paper towels that was marked down in price. Then there are four bags of dry kibble. Two for the inside cats, two for the outside cats. Feed store kibble is cheaper per kg, but this way they get variety, which is better for the cats.

The price of strawberries was very good, so I got 4 clamshells. There’s a couple of loaves of rye bread – I’ll get more bread at Costco – and a bag of 5 avocados for a very good price. I got some heat and eats – fish sticks and chicken nuggets – for those days when none of us is up to cooking. Those have gone down in prices. There’s a 2L of 3% milk and a 2L of oat milk, plus a large block of Old Cheddar cheese. For my husband, I got some pretzels, plus I got a small bag of popcorn. Normally we get the big container of popcorn at Costco, but we couldn’t find any, last time.

I found the brand of soy sauce my husband likes and picked up a bottle. I’m glad I did, because the international grocery store didn’t seem to have any again. For my husband, I got four boxes of Crystal Lite, in two different flavours.

Next is a large bottle of hair conditioner. Yes, just conditioner. We use twice as much of that as we do shampoo. Then there is the Lactaid, except I got the wrong kind. I thought I was getting chewable, which my husband asked for, but when I went for the extra strength, they turned out to not be chewable. There is a box of antihistamines for me, some *ahem* personal hygiene products for the girls and I.

The budget for this part of the shop was supposed to be under $400, but the taxes put it over.

Ouch.

After this, I had one last stop to make. I did consider going to the Dollarama next door, afterwards, but I was just too tired and just did the International grocery store.

By this time, it was coming up on 1pm, so I got lunch, first. Some Chinese food and a drink, that came out to $17.70 after taxes.

As for the rest of the shopping, this is what $188.24 looks like.

There’s … not much there at all.

You know what we didn’t get?

Beef. We did not get beef. I was looking at a “value pack” with a whole two grilling steaks in it that cost $56.65. The price per kg was $79.34. Those two steaks weighed only 0.714kg

I don’t expect the prices to be any better at Costco.

There is some instant milk tea for the pantry. Last time, we couldn’t find any, and now it’s a new brand to try. That and the instant Matcha Latte I got for the girls were on sale. I got a large bunch of banana, some Pink Lady apples, and a tiny Camembert cheese round that has a $1 off sticker on it.

The two Chef Samplers are sushi and nigiri platters I got for the girls – there was no way any of us would be up to cooking by the time I got home. For my husband, I got a Lumber Jack sandwich, and a Teriyaki Bento box for myself.

I had planned to pick up ground cinnamon at Costco, but when I saw the price here, I picked up a bag. Why pay more for a shaker container when we can just reuse the old one?

The frying chicken was a very good price. I got two whole chickens for about half the usual price.

The 10 pound bag of Russet potatoes was a good price, so I grabbed on. The sushi right for the girls was the most expensive thing on the list, but that will last time a long time (my husband and I prefer the Costco Basmati). I got two different types of smoked bacon, unsliced, that was on sale. There are two types of tea that I got on sale; tea is getting insanely expensive, but these are house brand teas, so they’re a bit less expensive even when not on sale.

Last on the list, I got two different types of fish fillets for the girls.

That’s it. That’s all of it.

The grand total for all this is $694.10 Add in my lunch and the gas, and we’re at $721.80

This isn’t even much of a stock up.

After what we got today, we’re working out the list of what we will be getting at Costco. I’m already dreading what it’s going to cost, but my older daughter has already told me she’ll be sending funds for some things. That will certainly help. Along with the usual budget times for May, we need to cover things like the annual WordPress subscription, and the bi-annual emptying of the septic tank. Which cost about the same. 😄

Well, that’s one stock up shop done, at least. Such as it is.

The Re-Farmer

Yeah, we got snow today

The forecast was possible rain and snow during the night.

It was snowing when I head out to do my morning rounds, and kept snowing, of and on, throughout the day!

Not enough to bother the yard cats too much, though.

The first two images above are from a poplar branch. I don’t think I ever noticed before that they get catkins like pussy willows do! So we have signs of spring, even as winter is trying to hang on as long as possible!

The last photo is the covered bed in the old kitchen garden. As I was out there, it was about -1C/30F. In both the covered bed and the portable greenhouse, the thermometers were reading about 0C/32F Not much difference – even in the portable greenhouse, after adding the water filled garbage can as a heat sink. I don’t think the water has in there long enough to get completely warmed up, yet.

On the schedule for today was to head to my mother’s to take her to her doctor’s appointment in the early afternoon. I still had plenty of time, as I was sitting down with my breakfast after doing my morning rounds.

Then the phone rang.

It was home care.

No one was available to do my mother’s morning meds. She’s scheduled to get them done, along with extra time to help her get dressed, if she needs it, empty her commode or even heat something up for her breakfast, at 8:55

It was almost 8:30 when I got the call.

*sigh*

So I quickly called my mom to let her know that I would be heading over as soon as I finished breakfast. My mother kept trying to keep me on the phone as she complained about my having to come out for this and I kept having to cut her off and repeat that I needed to eat and run, and we could talk when I got there. After the third or fourth time, she finally let me go! 😄

When the home care aids do her med assist, they have a folder that’s kept in her lock box where they sign off for the day’s visit and make extra notes, if needed. So when I do the med assist instead, I write up the time and date, saying that I did her meds, and include any other notes that might be necessary. So I knew what time I got there to give her her meds. It was exactly 9:15 by her clock, so only about 20 minutes late.

What I noticed as I was getting her meds out was a bubble in her pack that should have been empty, but wasn’t. Her previous Friday morning pills were still there. So I asked her about it.

She told me that she had taken her meds herself, from one of the extra bubble packs on her fridge, that morning.

!!!!

I was sure I’d pushed them far enough back that she couldn’t reach them! I don’t know how she got them down!

I told her, that was NOT a good thing to do. Apparently, the home care aid agreed, because my mom told me she put the rest of the packs into the lock box. Between the bubble packs, their folder, the blood work requisition forms, and other items in there, having an entire month’s worth of packs in there is tight, even with a lock box as large as this one. That’s why I hadn’t put them all in there myself, when I brought her refills home.

*sigh*

After giving her her meds, I did a few other little things for her, like emptying the commode and taking care of her garbage. My brother had recently visited her and brought a few grocery items she’s always running out of, but when we spoke on the phone last night, I told her to see if she needed anything else and to make a list. She did need a few things, and we still had plenty of time, so we went over the list and then I did her grocery shopping for her.

After that was done, we still had time to visit.

If you could call it that.

She spent a whole lot of time criticizing me for not being dressed “presentable” enough (while I was there, I accidentally tore my jeans), and for having messy hair (my hair was braided and I had hat head), and I should have short hair like she does. In the past, these are criticisms that would have caused me to have all sorts of issues, but I am well past that point in my life now. I call her out on this stuff, now. She doesn’t really get it. She feels completely entitled to say stuff like to about and to, anyone and everyone. Even complete strangers! Then starts going on about how people who aren’t “presentable” are uncivilized, etc.

She totally doesn’t get the double standard and hypocrisy she’s displaying!

Then she brought up the Easter baskets; I’d picked up a paska at the grocery store for her own basket. She remembered that we do Easter baskets, too, and bless them ourselves. She suggested that I bring our basket to her place on the Saturday before Easter, then she and I could go across the street to her church to have them blessed together.

I told her, the last time I brought our Easter basket to be blessed with her, she gave me a hard time about having a bad basket.

Oh, she said. That’s because it was so huge. Would you like me to give you an Easter basket?

I told her, we have all kinds of baskets of all sizes.

She told me I should just bring a small one. Just a little one…

I told her, our basket is the right size for our family.

Now, part of the reason for the size of basket we use is that we spread everything out so nothing is completely buried, rather than jamming everything on top of everything else. We also do things like have our ham on a small plate, have oil (we’ll be having truffle infused olive oil this year) and vinegar in little jars, salt in one of the many pinch pots I collect, a bowl with olives, another with butter, etc. The containers take up a fair bit of space. Plus, of course, we like to lay it out to make a pretty display. So there is actually not a particularly huge amount in the basket. But, it’s the size of the basket that bothers my mother, and people will think bad things if they see such a big basket getting blessed in church…

Never mind that I’ve seen people bring in even bigger baskets than any of ours to be blessed!

Anyhow, when she kept going on about how we should have a small basket like hers, I told her, THAT is why we don’t bring the basket in for blessing with her. She then started saying that maybe I could have a less hard heart, just for her…

I pointed out, she is the one that has the hard heart with this! She totally does not understand that she is the biggest reason we don’t go to church right now. We’ve tried going to some of the local churches, including the RC Church I grew up going to, and I was saddened to see how … wordly… they had become. My mother’s church is the only one that seems to remain true, so even though I’m Orthodox Lutheran now, the RC church by her place is the one church I would be going to.

Just not with my mother. I did try to, and she made it quite clear that she did not think I was good enough. I don’t put up with that.

I so miss the church we went to before moving out here!

But I digress!

My mother ended up wanting us to leave even earlier than I’d planned. That did give me time to stop at a gas station, and at a post office in the town my mother’s appointment was in (she believes the staff at her local post office steals her mail. Especially her mail to Poland). We still got there an hour early.

I did have some issues with my mother trying to drive from the passenger seat! Like telling me which way I could go to leave a parking spot and not understanding why I wasn’t driving, when I hadn’t even finished putting on my seatbelt yet. The direction she was telling me I should drive would have had me popping a curb and driving over concrete. Or insisting I undo her seatbelt for her, while I was backing up into the loading zone at her place, so I could have the space to help her out of the truck. It’s been a long time since she’s done stuff like this.

As for the appointment, it did go well, overall. She did dive into something completely new – though she says it’s been an issue for at least a year (???) – before we finally got to talking about her hospital stay and the results of her last two blood tests to monitor her kidney function.

Her kidneys are fine.

My mother was written up for some X-rays, which we could do right after the appointment, and some blood work, which required fasting, so that will have to wait. Since we’ll be doing her next kidney monitoring bloodwork in the first week of May, it can actually wait until then and she can do both in one trip.

While all this was going on, I got a message from my husband. The tax preparer had called and our files were ready to pick up. So, once I got my mother home and her new lab requisition form tucked into the lock box with the monthly ones, I had to dash off. From my mother’s place, it was about a 450 minute drive to get to the tax preparer’s office in the town North of us. After signing what I had to sign and paying for the job, I had to grab the form my husband needed to sign, drive home, get him to sign it, and drive back again! We could actually have brought it back another day, but I wanted to just get it done.

On the plus side, by the time I got home, the snow had stopped (when we were driving to my mother’s appointment, we drove into much heavier snow) and was even all melted away. Which is fine. A little more moisture is not a bad thing. We’re not getting anything close to the spring flooding we’ve had in the past. The old basement floor is completely dry, and the sump pump hasn’t gone off even once. Which means we could actually do with more moisture! It’s getting into fire season.

As I was driving home with the form for my husband to sign, I could see smoke to the west of our place. I figured someone was doing a controlled burn, though it was a windy day for it.

When I was driving home later on, on the last few miles of gravel road, I found myself behind a fire truck with its lights flashing. Maybe half a mile from our turn off, I saw more flashing lights behind me, and pulled over for the second fire truck to go by. Both continued on past our turn off. I could no longer see smoke, but somewhere near by is a fire big enough to require at least two trucks! (There could have been more that went by before I was there to see them.) There’s nothing on the live fire maps, though, so it isn’t a forest or wild fire.

Something to be aware of, with everything drying up so quickly.

Anyhow.

Today ended up having a lot more going on than expected. For now, I’ve got some cat carriers to prep and in the morning, we need to try and snag 3 pregnant females for the vet.

Wish us luck!

The Re-Farmer

It’s baaAAAAaaccckkk…. (and a WP frustration)

Yup.

It’s white out there again.

Yesterday’s rain turned into snow overnight. At the time I was doing my rounds, it was more rain than snow, but still coming down.

It won’t last long. Areas such as the driveway are full of puddles but no snow, and we are expected to have a high of 8C/47F today, so it won’t last long. A couple more chilly days, then things are supposed to warm up again.

While giving the yard cats their food and water, I tried to do a head count. Every time I counted, the number got higher! I counted 33 at most.

A couple of the ladies are definitely looking round. With Adam and Brussel, it’s hard to tell, since they have such long fur, but I’m sure they’re getting big, too.

While checking the trial came files yesterday, I found that cats had triggered the gate cam a couple of times, with their baby making activities, as well as just rambling around the driveway.

Including one cat with distinctive patterns I’ve never seen before!

My guess is, he lives across the road from us. I know our own cats go across to two different properties on the regular, and I know other cats live there, too. One of them likely just followed ours back. The gate seems to be as far as he went, though, because we’ve never seen him in the yard.

On a completely different note, I’m not sure I solved any problems by using Google Photo to store images to post here. I tried it before but forgot what wasn’t working about it. Now I remember.

WP seems to still be storing the images in my own WP media files account. They’re still taking up space.

I think.

The image of the cats above, for example, was uploaded to my Google Photo account (which comes with my blog’s gmail address). After using the image block to select the image using Google Photo, it works fine in the post – but then shows up in my WP media files. If I look at the address for the image itself, it goes back to WP media. Which means I save nothing by saving the files externally. WP just automatically stores it locally. With some of the recent images, I hadn’t resized them first (I having worked the kinks out of using the software on my new computer yet), so that means full size files are being uploaded into my blog posts.

Except…

While adding the above photo, I notice it said “inserting” image, not “uploading” image, as it would if I were adding the image from, say, out of my phone.

It could be just a thumbnail showing up in my media files.

The main reason I have my doubts about it is because I’ve sometimes used the free images available through WP. They specifically say that if you use these images, they don’t take up storage space in your account. Yet those images also show up in my media files, and if I open the image in a new tab, I can see it tracks back to my media storage, not Pexels or Openverse. I don’t see anything in the source code that suggests the images are anywhere but in my own account’s storage.

Yet, these images are “inserted” not “uploaded”.

So…

Are the images I am storing externally taking up space in my account or not?

All I know is, my storage space just went from 98.2% full to 98.3% full.

The Re-Farmer

Snow or no snow?

My daughters were sweethearts and took care of the outside cats for me again this morning. Which was nice, because I was trapped in my bed by about half a dozen of them at the time!

When I headed out to switch the trail cam memory cards, only Rolando Moon was willing to follow me around!

She would not let me remove the burr she has stuck in her tail, though.

The driveway cam really takes a beating in this location! I need to find something to weigh down the base of the stand.

The camera was fine. Only the solar panel was touching the water. It and the camera are waterproof.

We had some heavy snowfall at times, but we’re also staying mostly above freezing temperatures. Even overnight, we’re just a degree or two below freezing. We’re getting snowfall warnings of up to 20cm/8in by the end of tomorrow, but from the looks of the weather radar, our strange little climate bubble is very much there. The snow is moving through our region but, directly above our area, the clouds part and go around! The southern part of our province is getting hit harder, and a neighbouring province has gotten 30cm/12 in places already. We’re doing just fine where we are. With how warm it is, the paved roads are staying clear. Not that I have any desire to go anywhere! 😄

We have about 3 or 4 more days of temperatures hovering above freezing, and then we start warming up again. About a week from now, the overnight temperatures are supposed to stay consistently above freezing, too. We’ll see how it actually works out!

Meanwhile, I’ve got some herbs to get started in the Jiffy pellets I started hydrating yesterday. 😊

The Re-Farmer

Covered!

While the girls took care of most of the morning routine outside, as they took their walk in the snow, they didn’t have the memory cards for the trail cams, so I took care of that later.

The winds were still high while I was about and about. Especially as I got near the end of the driveway. Guess what direction last night’s snowfall was being blown in?

Too funny!

At least with weather like what we had, we can be sure our vandal wouldn’t be out and about in it, so a covered camera won’t matter. The other cameras were sheltered and clear. Only this one is completely out in the open.

We’re supposed to get more snow and “snow showers” over the next couple of days. The south end of our province is supposed to get a heavier dump of heavy, wet snow. The temperatures are still supposed to reach highs above freezing, so it’s going to be messy!

I’m not complaining. As long as we’re not flooding, the moisture is much appreciated.

Today, I’m potting up tomatoes!

The Re-Farmer

Winter is back!

While some apps predicted rain, others predicted snow.

Guess which ones where right?

My daughters decided to go for a walk and feed the outside cats for me. They are also bringing in the saw horses and old closet door we’ve been using as a table for the past year. We have so many tomatoes to pot up, we will need it inside for extra space to hold them all.

One of my daughters is wearing shorts out there. How Canadian of her! 😁😁

Some areas south of us are expected to get 20 – 35cm of snow. That’s about 8 – 14 inches.

Ah, spring. We hardly knew ye.

The Re-Farmer

The status of things

Today may be cooler, but we’re still staying above freezing, and the kitties are just loving it!

I only counted about 16, this morning. As things melt clear and my morning rounds are extending further out, I’m seeing the cats all over the place. The long haired tuxedo followed me all over the place, much like Pointy Baby did – just without actively trying to get me to pick him up and carry him!

I miss Pointy Baby.

The berry bushes we planted last year are almost completely uncovered. That old saw horse with the sticks is over the highbush cranberry the deer kept eating. I checked the other one and can almost, sorta, see leaf buds starting to form!

The main garden area is still mostly covered with snow. If all goes to plan, the area in front of where I’m standing will have at least a couple of trellis tunnels built.

The garlic bed isn’t quite clear, yet!

The standing water has receded more, so I was able to get to the storage warehouse (which I would really love to reclaim as a work shop again!!) and look around. With not being able to get to the dump as often in the winter, we’ve been storing our garbage bags in the old kitchen, where it could freeze. It’s getting too warm for that, now. We need to build a garbage bin outside that is cat and racoon proof to store the bags until we can make our dump runs. There are pieces of plywood and other random boards in the warehouse. With all my parents’ stuff jammed into there, none of it is accessible. Some of the stacks of boxes need to be moved around, anyhow, as they are starting to collapse and tip. That’s as good an excuse as any to move things around. Some of the plywood sheets, however, are behind a couch, and there are all sorts of boxes and bins that predate us on and in front of it. No matter. We’ll figure out how to get to them. I’d love to get rid of all the bags of clothes in there. They’re not even suitable for donating after all this time, but my mother still insists we don’t throw anything out! *sigh* She’s still all worried that someone might come in and steal her old underwear or something. 🤨

While in the shed, I noticed an old broiler pan that will work as a kibble tray. I don’t know why we’ve been finding broiler pans all over the place – no one ever used them for what they were made for – but they make great kibble trays, so I grabbed it. With a bit of readjusting of things, I was able to reclaim two of the baking sheets I got for carrying transplants around that were being used as kibble trays over the winter. There is still one more, just inside the cat house entry, but I will leave that for now. With the two trays I reclaimed, I’ll be able to pot up the Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes now.

After I was done my rounds, I made a quick trip to the post office to see if a parcel had arrived. With so much snow gone, once I was back, I actually went to close the gate! I’m seeing our vandal walking by with his dog on the trail cam more often, so I wanted to have it at least closed. This makes it the first time that gate has been closed since the snow got too deep to keep clear, several months ago.

Well, now.

When my brother and I put the repaired gate back up, the two sides were even. That sliding bar holds the two sides closed, and I could put a pin through the pair of holes at the corner, which made sure the wind or whatever didn’t vibrate the bar off the end of the gate. Before winter, it was noticeably shifted, but we could still lift one side of the gate while pushing down on the bar and get the pin through. Now, it’s just too far off! We’ll have to come out with a level and see which gate post has shifted the most. I was thinking the north post was tipping away, but my daughters think the south post is tipping inwards. It could well be both. The gate posts were installed in such a way that they can be adjusted by adding washers to the bolts at the base. My brother had done that when he installed the new hinges that replaced the ones our vandal broke. I’d hoped it would be a few years longer before it had to be done again. It’s been about 3 1/2 years since these were repaired and replaced, so I guess that’s not too bad.

The main thing is, the gate is now closed! Without being able to put the pin in the sliding bar, the chain is extra necessary to make sure they don’t swing open on their own. We’ll also have to touch up the paint a bit. I think I still have a spray can of it around. I’ll have to think about what I can put around where the chain and bar is damaging the paint so quickly.

Things are going to stay colder over the next 10 days or so, with daytime highs just above freezing and overnight lows dipping several degrees below freezing. We’re also getting smatterings of rain. I’d say it’s a good thing we didn’t plant those carrots, even if we did have the plastic to cover them until they germinated. I don’t mind, though. It means things will continue to melt and be absorbed by the ground slowly. I rather like not having to wade through giant muddy puddles to get to the garage. It will give us time to work on other preparations.

I’m just thrilled to be able to get outside and get working again, even if it’s just a tiny bit at a time!

The Re-Farmer

Snow kitties, and that’s how far I got

The outside cats are quite enjoying the warmer temperatures.

I snagged this picture through our bathroom window. The cats have knocked everything off that shelf, except for an organizer box in the corner that’s too heavy for them to casually push around.

They love this shelf!

They are also loving the paths to the electric meter and burn ring, now clear of snow.

Now that our angel of a neighbour cleared the driveway for us, that’s going to melt clear quickly, too. I just finished going through the trail cam files and took note of the time stamps. He showed up almost exactly an hour after I started clearing the end of the driveway.

This is how far I got in that hour. About 6 feet or so. Maybe 7. Granted, a lot of that time included having to use the ice scraper to break up the plow ridge before I could shovel it away, so it would have gone faster clearing ordinary snow. Still, it would probably have taken almost 2 more hours, just to clear up to the gate, where it was slightly deeper due to drifting. My daughter working at the other end with the little electric snow blower would not have been able to go much faster. It definitely would have taken us all day to get a path just wide enough to drive through, clear.

Which means we both would have been in a world of hurt, today – and we are set to drive to the city this afternoon!

Today is Holy Saturday, After I finish this, we’ll start assembling and blessing our baskets. We’re making a second one as a gift to bring with us this afternoon.

Time to get at it!

The Re-Farmer