First April stock up shop: this is what $580 in total looks like

March 28, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

The grand total was actually higher, but I don’t have photos of everything. 😄

Today, my younger daughter and I headed into the city to do the more tiring of our stock up shops.

I’m happy to say that Damocles ran well, with no issues, though road conditions certainly didn’t help matters much! I still expect the truck to break down at any moment. 🫤

At least the roads were better than yesterday. Today turned out to be a relatively warm (hovering on either side of 0C/32F, depending on where we were at the time) and very sunny. Which meant that the last of the ice built up in the wheel wells finally came off! With a little help from my daughter bashing at some of it with her cane. 😄

Our first stop for shopping was Canadian Tire. It’s attached to a mall and my daughter treated us to breakfast (well… more like lunch, by then) in the food court, first. So nothing there came out of my own budget.

At the Canadian Tire, we got three bags of the litter pellets we needed, plus a bag of seed starting mix, a two pack of nail brushes for the bathroom and the kitchen, plus a couple of packs of marigold seeds. I was specifically looking for the French variety, which is the one that is good for repelling damaging insects. It took some digging, but my daughter finally found some French Double Dwarf marigold seeds. I’ll start some of those when we do our next round of seeds in a couple of weeks, possibly more in May, and I still plan to direct sow some, so we should have them blooming through most of the summer.

Total damage at Canadian Tire was $48.41

As we were leaving, we stopped by a gas station and put in $40 in gas – I’ll fill the tank when I do the Costco run and reset our trip mileage counter. When we drove though the town my mother is in (again), gas was $1.729/L. In the city, it was $1.529/L!!! What a difference! Usually, it’s just a few pennies cheaper in the city, if at all.

Our next stop was Walmart. This is what $301.84 looks like.

*sigh*

This is what we got for our money.

There is a case of facial tissues, four bags of dry kibble, a flat of 24 Coke Zero, a couple of packs of wet wipes, spray cleaner, compostable compost bags, incontinence pads, and a total of 9 energy drinks for my daughters and I.

For actual food, strawberries were an excellent price, so we got two packs. We also got three packs of frozen heat and eats; chicken nuggets, popcorn chicken and fish sticks, for those days when we’re all too broken to cook. I also got four more pounds of butter, as they were still at a better than Costco price.

And that’s it. That’s all I got.

My daughter picked up something for herself, but also paid for an item I’d picked up as an unplanned extra. We found ergonomic snow shovels on clearance and grabbed one. It was marked down to only $17. It wouldn’t fit in the cart, so my daughter carried it around the whole time we did the shopping, then snuck off with it to pay for it herself as a gift for me. 😄😂

Most of this was the kibble, but still… ouch. And I didn’t even pick up more XXL puppy pads or wet cat food for the beasts this time, either! We got a total of 29 items on this purchase, and that includes the 9 individual cans of Monster.

*sigh*

By this time, we were already both exhausted and hurting, but we still had one more stop to make. The international grocery store. We haven’t been there in ages, and I was thinking ahead to our Easter baskets, for ourselves and for my mother.

This is what $279.11 looks like – and that was after discounts totaling $114.56!

Yeah, that looks pretty empty, doesn’t it?

This is what we got.

For fruit, we got a bag of Mandarin oranges, red grapes and bananas that weren’t solid green, like the ones at Walmart were. We also got a package of small cremini mushrooms.

The biggest purchase – and the biggest savings – was the ahi tuna loin. It was a “buy one, get one free” deal. This is something we get for the girls only when there are huge sales like this, and this is the only place I know of that has these.

We also got some locally made, unsliced bacon, two regular smoked and two applewood smoked, on an “Any 4 for $20” sale. There is a calabrese sausage that I got specifically for my husband, for snacking on.

We got a couple of cheeses for the Easter baskets; a little Boursin Fig and Balsamic Vinegar for ours, and a roasted garlic Havarti for my mother’s. We also got stuffed olives – one with feta, the other with garlic – for the baskets, though I don’t think my mother likes olives, so maybe just for ours.

My daughter found some sauces she remembered they were out of (I don’t use these in my own cooking). A particular fish sauce, a Siracha, and some oyster sauce. The seaweed is mostly for them, too, though I sometimes like to grab a package to snack on, all by itself.

I spotted a few other things not normally on our list that I grabbed, as they are things we typically get only when they are on sale, or they are not often in stock, so we grab when we can. One of those was some dark coffee for the girls; it’s almost never under $20 anymore, so I grabbed one, even though the girls still had a “spare” at home. Squeeze bottle pizza sauce was on sale, so I grabbed one, to make mini pizzas on the naan bread I recently picked up. I got some Twinings tea because my loyalty card offers had $6.50 off of a $7.49 package, and extra tea is always good. I also grabbed some Himalayan Pink Salt that wasn’t in a grinder. We have a grinder, so we just need a refill, but finding just the coarse rock salt on its own has been surprisingly difficult. I was about ready to order in on Amazon, so I was very happy to see it in stock.

Last of all, we got food for everyone for supper. For my husband, we got a huge Lumberjack sandwich, which will feed him for a couple of days. 😄 I got their last Bento box; chicken teriyaki. My daughter chose a Poke bowl and a Chef Sampler from the sushi bar for herself and her sister. Then, for the road home, I got an energy drink for myself and my daughter got an Arizona Green Tea – plus I grabbed an extra Peaches and Cream Monster for my daughter for later, because it’s her favourite and we hardly ever see that flavour.

One of the loyalty card offers I had available was a “spend $10, get $10 off” deal. That was after the $114.56 in discounts I got with sales, for 28 items in total. I could have used loyalty points to get other discounts, but I want to save them up again. I can usually get at least a free turkey at the end of the year with them. Not too bad, considering we don’t make it into the city to shop there all that often.

Okay, I just got a phone call from my brother and had to share this.

He just left from visiting our mother. She had told him our vandal and his wife had visited today – with his wife pushing him in, in a wheelchair. They were there for the money he thought she would give him to pay for his funeral. She told him, no. He’s rich, he has land, etc. He should pay for his own funeral. Why is he coming to her?

When it became clear he wasn’t getting any money, he got up out of the wheelchair and walked away, with his wife and my mother both calling after him to come back.

My mother said she wanted to talk to his wife, but she just left, too. I assume she took the wheelchair with her.

As far as I know, they don’t have a wheelchair. His house isn’t wheelchair accessible, anyhow. Most likely, they borrowed one of the “public” wheelchairs available in the hospital the TCU is located in.

[I got a confirmation while I was going over this post, looking for typos. Yes, it was a hospital wheelchair.]

When my brother told me our vandal got up and walked away, I could only laugh. What a scammer!!

Good on my mother for actually standing up to him. I’d been trying to tell her, how he acts when he’s around her isn’t at all like how my brother and I have been seeing him, and that he’s probably putting on an act. Yes, he’s sick, but anytime we see him, he looks quite robust for someone who constantly says he’s dying. Now, he just proved me right. He fakes it when around my mother.

And his wife is part of the role play.

*sigh*

Okay, back to the topic at hand!

Adding all our stops together, including gas, this was a $669.36 day. Slightly over budget for this stock up trip (the gas comes out of a different line in the budget), but with how late we did our last stock up trip, plus what I got locally just a little while ago, hopefully we won’t need to use as much of our Costco budget.

We’ll just have to see what the prices are when we get there, next week.

The Re-Farmer

Teeth

March 27, 2026 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

I’m happy to say, things went really well today.

The plow went by last night, so I made sure to head out and clear the plow ridge before heading into town for my dental appointment.

I’m so antsy and paranoid about the truck, I ended up leaving half an hour earlier than intended – and I was already planning to leave half an hour earlier than I needed to, to get to my appointment!

It did give me time to stop for the mail and then get a bit of gas beforehand.

Of course, every time I stopped and started again, I was on edge, waiting for something to break down again.

The road to town was surprisingly bad. A lot of areas covered by blowing snow yesterday had become hard packed, icy – and melting! It may have been only about -8C/18F and windy at the time, but any dark surface was warming up in the sun quite a bit!

Once at the clinic, I started looking in my emails for our new insurance information. My husband’s employer had an excellent insurance package that still applies as long as he’s on long term disability (which ends at age 65) that included me and the girls, until they reached the age of 19. For most prescriptions and dental, we got 90% coverage.

The company has since changed their insurance package. After much back and forth-ing, we found that if he wanted to maintain the same level of coverage for both of us, we’d have to basically pay $300 a month – on top of the 10% that isn’t covered – billed quarterly. (His employer would still pay 100% of the premium for basic coverage.) Which is wildly out of budget for us. Even if it just covered him, we would have had to pay more than our budget has room for to get the same coverage he’s getting right now.

We ended up taking the only other option that would include me on the insurance. We’ll now be covered 75% instead of 90%, and to include me works out to just under $30 a month.

They will also no longer be issuing membership cards. It’s all going to be through an app.

That kicks in on April 1st.

I had hoped to be able to give the dental clinic the new insurance information, but there was nothing in any of the emails. Not even where to download the app. We’ll be needing to give this information to our pharmacy, too.

I got nothing.

I did let them know that the insurance would be changing soon, but it would not affect today’s visit.

Then I settled in for what I expected to be a long wait.

They took me in early!

While the tech was setting me up, I explained about the broken tooth, and how I’ve had no pain in my lower jaw that they’d been trying to find the source of the last two times I was there, since the piece fell out. She told me she’d heard of how pain can sometimes be in a completely different area before, but never to the extent it did with me! She got an Xray, which was awkward because of how far back the tooth is, but she got enough of an image that the dentist could use it.

When he came in, he joked about how my broken tooth “cured” the pain I was having before! He had tried so many things to find the source of the pain, where I was feeling it! I told him, my mouth was feeling better than it had in ages – except for the sharp bits cutting my cheek and tongue.

He took a look and said that, ultimately, I would need a crown. Which is what I expected. They couldn’t do that today, though. I explained about the insurance change and he considered it, but there was no way they’d be able to get a crown booked in before the end of March. For now, though, he could put in a “temporary” filling.

The entire procedure went very well! The freezing has worn off, so I just have that “healing itch” right now, but that’s it. It is so great to not have those sharp edges!

When it was done, I asked how long I could expect this “temporary” filling to last, and he basically said, years. It’s more an issue of having new pieces of tooth breaking off than the filling itself. Unless something like that happens, or I start to feel pain, I can hold off getting the crown for quite some time.

Well, that was good news!

I felt good enough, and the truck ran well enough, that I decided I was up to visiting my mother. I just wanted to stop at the nearby pharmacy to pick up some Voltaren that she asked me for.

Which is when I started feeling some thumping and thudding at the wheels, as I turned into the parking lot.

Nothing at all like what was happening before, though. Particularly not that big kathump. I pulled into a spot as quickly as I could…

… and found a big chunk of ice had fallen off from under the truck!

The roads may have been melting, but it’s cold enough that any water froze pretty much immediately. My mud flaps were not only full of ice built up to the point of rubbing on the tire, but there were horizontal icicles formed at the bottom edges!

I knocked off as much as I could, though one flap’s build up was so large and solid, I could barely chip away parts of it with the scraper end of my snow brush.

Once I got it clear enough, I finished parking properly!

After I was done at the pharmacy, I headed to my mother’s town, cutting across to a different highway to head south until I reached the road that led straight to my mother’s town on yet a third highway.

I forgot just how bad the highway I took is. It’s not broken up or anything, but it’s a very rough ride. Today, it was also pretty badly covered with ice and packed snow, with melting edges. Which did not help with my paranoia of something breaking down on the truck again!

The cross road to my mother’s town was even worse, when it came to the ice and snow.

The noises didn’t start again until I was turning into the parking lot at the hospital. Just a rubbing noise, mostly.

After parking, I went to look, and just had to take a couple of pictures.

All the wheel wells had big teeth! So many teeth!!!

I spent the next while knocking off ice as much as I could, but there was still that one flap that was too solid and wouldn’t come off. I did park the truck with that side facing the sun, though, so I left it and just hoped the dark surface of the mud flap would warm up enough to start it melting a bit.

Then I headed in to visit with my mother.

It was a pretty good visit. She was happy to see me, though she did immediately start complaining. That included calling her radio – the high end one my brother got her years ago that worked just fine in her apartment, but can’t pick up the stations she wants from inside the hospital – garbage. Another radio had been brought in that was labeled as available for all to use, and she says it works fine, but her radio doesn’t.

Except it does. It just can’t pick up the Polish language station she’d been listening to, back at her old apartment with a special antenna set up.

Then there was the phone. It’s garbage. It’s not working. She can’t use it.

I told her, it’s not garbage. It works fine. It seems she’s been trying to make calls and hasn’t been able to figure it out, but forgets that part of the reason we got it for her is so that we could phone her directly, rather than through the nursing station.

I ended up spending some time with her phone. We’ve given up trying to show her how to use the contacts list, and have told her to just dial a number and press the green button, like she did with her previous phone.

I caught two potential problems.

One is, the phone goes to sleep after a while. Any button can be pushed to wake it up, but if you start to dial without waking it up first, it doesn’t register that first number at all. So we walked through that a bit, and I got her to call my cell phone a few times.

Which is when I discovered she hasn’t been putting the phone to her ear. She has just been staring at the screen with the “connecting…” display.

So I walked her through it a few times, including telling her to actually put the phone to her ear after hitting the green button.

Then she wanted to phone my sister, because it’s Friday, which is a day off for her.

I helped her make the call, though her contacts list, and had to tell her to put the phone to her ear again.

When my sister answered, my mother promptly started basically arguing with her about not visiting. It turns out she expects my sister to come out on both Wednesdays and Fridays. Not Saturday, because they celebrate their church’s version of the Sabbath. I could hear my sister explaining that she’s not going to be able to come out every Friday because that’s her day to get ready for the Sabbath. When my mother brought up that she hadn’t come out on Wednesday, I heard her saying that she had tried to call my mother, several times, but got no answer.

…

My mother seemed a bit confused by that. Then starting saying things about not knowing how to use the phone, and maybe she didn’t have it with her…

She got another reminder to keep the phone with her whenever she leaves her room.

Her call with my sister went on long enough that her supper pills were delivered, and it was getting to the point where I needed to head home. After a while, I had to remind my mother that she needed to take her pills, so they finished the call. I helped her take her pills (the nurse brought the pills, but my mother didn’t have any water to take them with) and we talked for a bit longer before her supper tray was brought to her. So that’s when I said my good byes and headed out.

Checking on the truck, first!

Yes, it was long enough and sunny enough that I was finally able to get that huge chunk of ice off the last mud flap!

I messaged home before I left, letting the family know I was going straight home and requesting some food be ready for me, since I hadn’t had lunch. My mouth was thawed out enough that I could safely eat and not worry about accidentally chewing a hole in a numb cheek (I’ve actually done that in the past!).

The last stretch of highway wasn’t much better, but at least it wasn’t as wet. When I got home, I didn’t have as many new teeth hanging down from my fenders!

After checking and clearing around the wheel wells, though, I spotted a surprise under the front end.

A perfect looking – but very dead – butterfly had fallen out from somewhere under the front end! It looked ready to fly away at any moment!

So very odd.

With how well the truck handled, I think it would be safe to try for our first stock up shop for April, tomorrow. Not a Costco run though. The one essential stop I need to make is a Canadian Tire, as we just ran out of litter pellets, so Costco will wait until next week. This time, we’ll be picking up stuff for our Easter basket, and I want to make a small one for my mother, too.

I’m only slightly more confident about driving the truck to the city.

If it hadn’t been so weird about sometimes working fine – usually when the mechanics were taking it for a test drive – to suddenly needing to be towed again, with so many different things seeming to go wrong all at once, I wouldn’t be this paranoid about it.

It is what it is, though. We play the hand we’re dealt with, and do the best we can!

For now, though, I can honestly say it was a really good day.

The Re-Farmer

We’ll figure it out

March 20, 2026 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Better start with the cuteness.

Misty using Ghosty as a pillow, who is using Cheddar as a pillow.

There were actually 6 cats mashed together in this particular cuddle puddle.

So… update on the truck.

I got a call back from the garage. He had called the parts supplier and was assured the replacement differential will arrive at their city location today (Friday).

Which means it will get to the local location and the truck will be repaired on Monday.

There’s nothing they can do until they have the part. It is what it is. However, it means no vehicle for another weekend.

I asked about the possibility of a courtesy vehicle and he was very apologetic. They simply don’t have anything available.

Fair enough.

We do have my brother’s truck, but I really don’t dare drive it any further than I already have. Particularly right now. We’re under a fog advisory at the moment – visibility down to zero in places. Temperatures are supposed to stay above freezing all through to tomorrow and, with it, we’ll be getting a mix of rain and snow. Road conditions are going to be very dangerous. I simply don’t trust myself to drive a much larger, strange vehicle in the conditions we are expecting. I don’t want to risk wrecking my brother’s truck, just because I’m not used to driving a beast. If it were summer, it would be a different story. I still wouldn’t want to do it, but at least the chances of my ending up in the ditch or something would be far lower!

The only problem is, I wasn’t able to get a lot of kibble at the general store, yesterday. We’ll have to make what we have, stretch through the weekend. We might be able to do our outside cat version of cat soup, which would help and they love. It might be warm enough that it won’t freeze before they eat it.

These issues with the truck are getting ridiculous. It’s getting closer to two months now, where the truck has been in the garage with only a few days here and there when we were able to bring it home before something else went wrong!

We’ll figure it out.

Oh, and…

Happy first day of Spring.

*Imaged created by WordPress AI – but that’s pretty much what it feels like outside right now.*

The Re-Farmer

I made it – and got garden stuff

March 19, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Well, I did it.

I had no choice.

I borrowed my brother’s truck for a trip to the post office and general store.

But first, I had to do some digging. *sigh*

We have a prescription delivery today, so I went ahead to open the gate, to be left open until after the delivery. Walking down the driveway, I was seeing a very odd shadow. It turned out to be a steeply angled drift that stretched from under one side of the gate, diagonally across the driveway for about 30 feet.

Also, the plow went by. There wasn’t much of a plow ridge, but enough that it was making the end of the driveway too narrow.

Messed up arm or not, it needed to be cleared before I could go anywhere, and before the delivery arrived.

Thankfully, the snow wasn’t too hard packed and I could mostly to it by just pushing the shovel with one hand, but it did take a lot longer for it.

My right arm is so messed up right now.

That done, I got my brother’s truck unplugged (he’s got both a block heater and a trickle charger, so I’m leaving it plugged in even though it’s warmer) and started.

First of all, I have to say, it is a good, solid truck. It has done amazing for my brother, made many trips hauling trailers and RVs, and we got an amazing amount of my mother’s furniture into it when we emptied her apartment – though the battery did die, because of the extreme cold we’d just gone through. Thankfully, my brother has a portable charger/booster for times like that.

I hope never to have to drive that truck again! 😄😄

It’s the largest vehicle I’ve ever driven and handles completely different than any other vehicle I’ve ever driven. Everything about it feels and sounds “wrong”! Even the sound of gravel getting kicked up against the undercarriage sounded wildly different. It’s an older vehicle – I don’t know the year, but I think it’s late 70’s. Maybe early 80’s. Which means the entire frame makes noises that newer vehicles just don’t, anymore. Creaks and groans, rattles, pops and snaps. Of course, it also handled very differently, too.

Still, it got me to where I was going, and I am thankful for it. I’m sure, over time, I would get used to it and it would be fine.

I don’t want to have to get used to it. 😂

I did remember to bring a couple of our hard sided grocery bags when I got to the general store. I had a bit of a shock when I pulled in. Their gas price was $1.169! The average gas price in our province right now is $1.614

I just looked it up and Costco gas prices today are $1.099 right now, while the average price for the city is $1.629

Both gas tanks on my brother’s truck were full, though.

Anyhow.

I went in and got the mail, including the two parcels I was expecting. Then I did a bit of shopping. Just a few items for us, but mostly I was looking at their kibble. We’re running low on kibble for the outside cats.

They only had small 1.5kg (about 5 pounds) bags of cat kibble, and the cheaper brand was just under $10 a bag. Lots of big bags of dog kibble, but none for cats. The store does carry feed, so I asked if their supplier carried the 40 pound bags of cat kibble. She looked it up and they do, but it’s a brand I was unfamiliar with. Still, if it’s something we could get here instead of driving to feed stores in towns to the north and south of us, that would be helpful. I didn’t think of it at the time, but I should request a bag and see if the cats will actually eat it.

I got only three of the little bags for now. The kibble bin for the inside cats was mostly full, so that went to the outside cats, and the small bags for the inside cats. We have lots of canned cat food, thanks to the very generous donation, so we can use more of that for a while.

Before heading home, I messaged and asked if someone could meet me at the garage to help me bring things in. I couldn’t carry anything with my right arm. Even with taking my bags to the truck, I couldn’t open the doors my right arm. I had to put the bag down, use my left arm, hold the door with my foot and grab the bag again. I had to make three trips to bring them to the truck, when I normally would have been able to carry all three bags at once!

When I got home, my younger daughter was waiting for me in the garage – and she was hobbling with a cane! I was glad she was there, though, as she could guide me into the garage. My brother had set a large board across as a stop so the truck wouldn’t go too far in and have the cap hit the top of the door frame, but with her there, she could let me know when to stop before I hit the board.

Then my poor daughter struggled to grab two bags with one arm, to take into the house for me! I offered to find a way to do it, but she managed. I stayed long enough to make sure the truck was plugged in and locked up (my brother is worried about our vandal) before following her.

Once settled in, I texted the garage. I let them know that the third brake light I’d ordered was in, to replace the one I stupidly broke by forgetting the garage door was not fully open before I backed out. It’s an easy fix, but requires climbing into the box, and that’s something that is increasingly difficult and dangerous for me to do. I then asked, if the truck won’t be ready by the weekend, was it possible to get a courtesy vehicle? It’s one thing to drive my brother’s truck to the post office. It’s quite another to drive it to, say, Walmart, in one of the cities, or even just to one of the other towns to go to the feed stores. The part not being in yet is not something they can control, but it has already been a ridiculously long time to be without a vehicle as we wait!

I don’t know how often they check their texts in between jobs. I figure I’ll hear from them just before they close, again.

Then I had my other parcel to open, and this one is for the garden.

One thing that I ordered was 6mm thick greenhouse plastic at 10′ x 26′ (about 3m x 8m) That is long enough to cover an entire 4′ x 18′ bed in the main garden area, with a fairly decent height. I’ve been using painters drop cloth plastic, and it’s just too thin and tears too easily. I haven’t been able to find anything thicker, anywhere, other than vinyl table protectors, which are all too small. Unless I go for clear tarps, which I might still do for other things, but those can be very expensive. I not going to open that package until spring.

Then there is the hoop kit. I’ve been making do with things like Pex pipe, which works well enough, but for the price of the pipe, I wasn’t saving anything compared to this kit. The “60 piece set” includes 50 connectors, 27 garden clips, wire, gloves and 60 fiberglass 17″ hoop rods. The second picture in the slide show above shows the instruction side of the card.

The gloves are the one thing I would consider as probably useless in the kit. They wouldn’t fit my simian hands. They might fit my younger daughter, though. Maybe.

If this works out, I might go ahead and order more of these kits in the future.

Over time, as we slowly frame all the garden beds with logs, we plan to build more 3′ x 9′ covers. The beds are 4′ wide on the outside, so with the thickness of the logs, the actual growing area is closer to 3′ wide. We have three 3′ x 9′ garden beds made with scrap lumber I found in one of the sheds, and that’s the dimensions I was able to make with them, so it’s become sort of the default when it comes to making covers that are interchangeable. In the main garden area’s 18′ beds, we’d be able to fit two covers over one bed. The plan is to be able to use greenhouse plastic or netting interchangeably over the covers, as needed. Until then, we’ll use a hoop system, like this.

Then, there is the portable greenhouse.

Which has its own challenges.

High winds and cats, mostly.

It’s currently covered with a huge tarp, black on one side, grey on the other, that was generously sent to us. It’s a heavy duty tarp, but you can actually see in the photo that there are lots of tiny little holes in it already! I can see light through them, on the inside.

*sigh*

I just came back from getting the prescription delivery, and there was another cat sitting in that same spot. I’ve seen others perched on the peak, as well.

So anything we try to use to cover the frame, so we can still use it, has to be cat proof.

I’ve been sent links as inspiration to use repurposed clear plastic bottles to make a greenhouse. Aside from the 1 gallon size distilled water jugs we get for my husband’s CPAP humidifier that I use in the garden, we don’t use a lot of clear plastic bottles. We haven’t even bought cases of bottled water from Costco in ages. However, it’s something we could make a point of collecting. Theoretically, we could do something like that to create walls that the cats can’t climb. If we were to instead cover it with, say, a clear tarp or 6mm plastic, we would have to put something under it to prevent any sort of sagging, like chicken wire (we have a roll with enough left on it to do that).

Something to figure out. Honestly, though, the bigger priority this year is to create something like a polytunnel in the main garden area this summer, as we would need to use it to overwinter the chickens we are getting this spring. That coop I got is fine for three seasons, but not enough to handle our prairie winters! Still, it would be nice to be able to use that portable greenhouse for our seed starts again. We only got one spring out of it before the cover was destroyed!

Meanwhile, I’m glad I was able to pick up the hoop kit and 6mm plastic. We’ll test it out once things melt enough. The prices were good enough that, if they work, it would be worthwhile to get more. It’ll be much easier to protect the beds from cats with netting, and these rods should even fit in the channels of the dollar store netting kits we got last year. Those were good, except the wire supports couldn’t handle the weight of kittens jumping on the netting.

Lots of work to do. I am looking forward to the warmer weather to get started on it!

Now, if my body would only cooperate and stop breaking down on me.

The Re-Farmer

Some news

March 11, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

First, the cuteness.

Kinda creepy cuteness, though…

Beep Beep and Susan in a cuddle puddle.

That eye, though… it wasn’t blinking. Just… staring like that…

👁️👁️

Anyhow…

I got some news from the garage today. They think that they got a bad differential, and are now working to get me a new one, on warranty. Which makes sense, since that shaking and shuddering started right after it was installed. The weird electrical stuff is probably unrelated, but who knows, with this truck!

No time line yet, though. They are closed now, but I hope to get some info tomorrow. We need to at least a small grocery shopping trip for the fresh stuff, plus a trip to the mail.

At least my husband’s prescription refills will get delivered as usual, tomorrow!

Hopefully, we will get the truck back soon. It might be nice to stay home, but not to much when it’s not a matter of choice. Having zero transportation a real problem.

The frustrating thing is to get lectures and “advice” from my mother, and even my sister, though through conversations with my mother. With my mother, she can’t understand vehicle stuff, so I don’t bother telling her details. That doesn’t stop her from deciding she knows everything and can start telling me what I should be doing. Even just telling her, we don’t know what the problem is, and the garage is having a hard time finding it, her response was to say, “can’t they find someone who can?” or “… someone who knows what they are doing?” As if hopping from garage to garage will find someone who can magically know exactly what’s going on, instantly. Then telling me to get a new truck, buy the truck from my BIL (who isn’t planning to sell it until he can replace it, in the summer), oh, and maybe I could make payments! Uhm… Mom. I’m already making payments. We’d have to get re-financing. To which I was told, I should talk to my brother. He’ll take care of it for me.

…

I told her, I wouldn’t be talking to my brother. I’d be talking to a financing company.

“Oh…”

She also started telling me about a conversation with my sister, and how she was saying that what we need is a second vehicle.

Yeah. We do. But we can’t afford insurance on two vehicles, while also making payments. We certainly can’t afford to be making payments on two vehicles at the same time!

Then my mother told me that my sister should lend us one of their vehicles.

…

I said no, they can’t. My sister uses the car to go to work. My BIL uses the truck. I also told her, I don’t want to be getting anyone else involved in this. I’m talking to my brother about things, and I’m talking to the garage about our options, and that’s it. No one else needs to be part of it.

I don’t know if she got it or not.

Ah, well.

As an aside, I’m happy to say that my mother has been making sure to have her new phone with her at all times, wearing it on a lanyard around her neck. We’ll have to walk her through how to make calls again. She apparently tried to phone us – I think on our land line – but said there was nothing; our phone wasn’t working. Except, of course, it was. She also tried to call my brother and that didn’t work. So she manually dialed a number and got my SIL. She thought she was calling my brother’s cell phone number, but called my SILs cell phone number, instead. We didn’t even know my mother had my SIL’s cell phone number! She was just as surprised as we were. It’s not like the numbers are at all similar.

My siblings and I have been able to reach her, though, and not have to go through the nursing station, which we are all happy about. Strangely, for me, it was a long distance call, and it shouldn’t have been, so my brother will be looking into that.

So the new phone is working out for my mother, even if she’s going to need more help in how to make outgoing calls. She said she asked someone at the nursing station to help her, and they refused, which is odd. I’m sure we’ll get the rest of the story later on.

Hopefully, we’ll soon have our truck back and working properly again, and I’ll be able to visit her again and help her figure things out.

Little by little, it’ll get done.

The Re-Farmer

Here we go again… again

March 7, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Funny how things can go so wrong – yet go so right, at the same time!

First off, I am seriously glad I cancelled both my own doctor’s appointment, yesterday, and my daughter’s on Monday, because of concerns about road conditions.

Second, it’s amazing how there were the right people available at the right time, and even the right places.

The truck just got towed to the garage again.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but my first warning of a problem was while backing out of the garage, to load it for a dump run. I wasn’t going to drive up to the house, but I at least wanted to back up closer to the cleared path to the chain link fence. As I was backing up, the truck basically stopped moving. I knew there was a snow bank I needed to clear and I thought I might have backed into it. I tried to get out in 2 wheel drive at first, then switch to 4 wheel drive, but eventually was able to pull forward while in 2 wheel drive and didn’t try backing up again. As I went to the house, though, I could see by the tracks that I never got anywhere near the snow bank. It was just loose snow over ice, and no traction.

My daughter and I loaded up the truck, and then I headed out. Things were really slippery on the gravel road, but once I was on the highway, it was fine.

It was slippery on the gravel road to the dump, but not too bad. I drove up to the booth to show my access card number, but there was no one there. The guy was at the pit area, using a front end loader to clear up the driving area in front. So I went to the recycling bins first and unloaded there, before heading to the pit. I did notice, every time I tried to move, everything was very slippery and the tires were spinning more than usual before I could get traction.

At the pit, I drove further in, to where it was already cleared, then turned to one side, so that I could back up to the pit and unload.

I got stuck.

Tires spinning, no motion.

I tried a few times in 2 wheel drive, then drive both 4 wheel drive settings. I could move forward slightly, but no traction in reverse.

At one point, the guy with the front end loader passed in front of me, clearing way more snow. I hoped that would help, but it didn’t.

After a while, he came out to talk to me. He made a comment about this being a problem with 2 wheel drive. I told him, I’m in 4 wheel drive! He said that only my rear wheels were turning, not the front wheels. !!!

I tried again, setting it to 2 wheel drive, and the front tires started to spin – but now I started getting messages on my dash. Stabilizers Off. Then Service 4 Wheel Drive.

The truck was not moving.

The guy then said he would try to find some cardboard or drywall or something to put behind the tires. I got my handy garden cultivator that we keep in the truck as a grabber, and used it to scratch up the ice behind each tire.

He found some drywall pieces and set them behind the tires, then suggested something to me, assuring me that he’s done it before, and would be safe. He said that he could try standing on the tail gate and bouncing the truck up and down while I reversed, so help it gain traction. So we did that, and it worked! Once I got far enough out, the tires were no longer spinning and I could back up normally.

He then helped me unload the garbage bags. When it was done, he said he would follow me out to make sure I got out okay.

So awesome!

Once I got on the gravel road, though, I could feel the truck starting to fishtail, and I kept having to slow down. The “slippery conditions” light was on continuously. By the time I got to the stop sign and started braking to stop, I started getting
“stabilizer is off” and “traction is off” messages. As slow as I was going, the truck fishtailed to a stop.

Once on the highway and starting to accelerate, it started again.

That shuddering that, until now, only happened while in 4 wheel drive or auto.

I quickly pulled over. After putting it in park, I thought I would just try again and started to move forward again, but the shuddering immediately started.

So I parked, turned on my hazards and got to work.

*This is what WordPress AI thinks my truck looks like. No rust. 😄*

First was to try and message the family but, for some reason, my phone hasn’t been able to send messages while on data only. So I phoned home and left a message (I knew no one would be close enough to get to the phone before the answering machine kicked in). Then I called CAA.

Thankfully, this time, after going through the initial answering system, it went straight to a live person. The only difficulty there was, they need a physical address. I was on the side of the highway. There was, however, a driveway a short distance away, so I walked over until I could read their driveway marker number. I knew the tow truck drive would be able to find us, but CAA needed a physical address.

That done, I tried to message my brother and his wife, but it wouldn’t send. After some searching in my phone, I found a setting that, for some reason, was off, so my phone was trying to connect to the internet through my phone’s web browser, instead of through a data signal. I’ve never seen this setting before, so this must have been part of the latest OS update.

That done, I could finally send messages, and even look at the CAA map to follow the driver. Not that I was going to use it much, since it’s all open highway. I would be able to see the tow truck from a mile or more away.

Then it was time to wait.

I even had a couple of vehicles slow down beside me to check if I was okay, which was really nice.

I did get a call from the tow truck driver as soon as he got the CAA notice. We talked about my exact location, which side of the highway I was on, etc. He then asked if I would be riding in with him. That was when I asked about the possibility of getting a ride home. He would have to go past the turn to our place anyhow, and we were only 2 miles out of the way.

Also, just one mile past his sister’s place, at the large animal rescue. So he had no problem knowing where I was, and agreed to drive me home along the way.

Which is so extra appreciated, as it turns out my brother wouldn’t have been able to come out – they were on their way to an event in another town – and my sister and her husband might not have been able to, because today is the Sabbath, and their “church” is pretty strict about that sort of thing. Helping me out might have been okay, though. Still, it would have been at least an hour for them to reach me, or they would have to meet me at the garage. Which closes at 1pm on Saturdays.

So that was something else that fell into place.

While we were driving, I told the driver about what happened and what warnings I was seeing. I had left a message on the company phone, but I was able to give him more details this way.

He asked questions about the mileage and stuff, and I told him a bit about the many very odd and unpredictable problems we’ve been having, as well as how this shuddering thing would come and go, and they could never find the cause. It would work fine while they were testing it. He laughed about that part, because he understood completely. He has that happen with his own vehicles! He even brought up that, for the potential cost, first for how much time it might take to find the problem, then the repairs themselves, it might be better to trade it in. I told him that I’ve already been talking to his brother about that, but we still have almost 3 years of payments on it. He assured me, his brother would be able to help us (he even mentioned that, for regular customers, he can do payment arrangements for work done). I brought up that we (my brother and I) have been talking about including my mother’s car as a trade in, but it was suggested we could get a better price by selling it ourselves. I said that’s not something I would feel up to doing, but my brother suggested we could sell it on consignment.

It turns out, our mechanic does sell on consignment!! Plus, we could probably do better that way, since it would be highly visible on the lot.

Something to work out. I co-own my mother’s car, as I needed at least partial ownership to be able to register and insure it. My brother was able to arrange that, as my mother’s PoA. If we do work out something to sell it, it might be easier for him to make me full owner, so he wouldn’t have to come out and sign things on my mother’s behalf.

But I’m getting ahead of myself on that.

Oh, and I did get complimented on the fact that I understood the risks of buying a high mileage vehicle. He said that he’s had quite a few people he’s towed that got high mileage vehicles, then would be really angry and upset because things were wearing out and breaking down. I told him, we knew the risks, but it was what we could afford – and his brother really went above and beyond to help us with the financing (I’m still convinced he sold it to us at a loss). I actually love the truck. It’s the vehicle we need, but all these weird break downs are just too expensive on a fixed income. I told him about some of our past experiences with the high mileage Uplander we had previously, which did remarkably well for us until we finally sold it for scrap. I then mentioned, the vehicle I liked the most was the Dodge Caravan. He perked right up on that. He said that the Caravan is one of the safest vehicles. He told me he’s rolled a bunch of them for the fire department, and has had one roll 10 times, and still not be crushed. !!!

How does one even get a job like that? 😄

As we were driving down the gravel road to our place, I suggested to him that he could drop me off in the intersection, rather than go to our driveway. With the walls of snow, the driveway is pretty tight for such a large vehicle, and he wouldn’t have room to turn around. He appreciated that! Once he got the tow truck turned around, it also gave him a chance to double check the straps securing the truck before he headed to the garage, and I walked the rest of the way home.

As much of a pain this break down is, it couldn’t have happened better.

I had been thinking of doing our Walmart and Canadian Tire run after my medical appointment, yesterday. Because I cancelled that, due to the weather, we didn’t have this happen while we were much, much further from home. Instead, it was only about 10-15 minutes from home.

We did get our Costco stock up shop done. We got the cat food donation. I got our lysine picked up from the feed store. We are good for some time. I even managed to get the dump run done before the break down. Yes, we still need to do our Walmart and Canadian Tire run, but neither of those are urgent. More importantly, I got a visit in with my mother.

I’d already cancelled my daughter’s medical appointment on Monday, just in case, so we won’t be needing to phone to cancel on the day of the appointment.

There was the guy at the dump, able to help me out.

Our regular garage now does CAA towing, and the driver is our mechanic’s brother, so not only do they know the area and could find me where I was, but I knew that anything I told him about what was going on would actually get to our mechanic. Plus, he was able to give me more information and assurances about other things, like that we might be able to get my mother’s car sold on consignment through the garage.

In the end, I have many blessings to count. For something that went wrong, it couldn’t possibly have gone more right in the process.

The Re-Farmer

Costco stock up trip: this is what $800 looks like

March 4, 2026 / Re-Farmer / 6 Comments

$799.40 to be exact. 60¢ under budget. 😄

First, though, an update on the truck.

The first thing I noticed when I started it this morning was that the clock’s time was wrong. I’d reset it yesterday. Which means, we lost power to the console during the night, and it came back.

As my daughter and I were starting the drive, we were talking about what’s been going on with the truck, and how weird it was for the tire warning message and light to not be there anymore.

Then, just shy of the highway, less than 2 miles from home, both the light and the message came on.

*sigh*

We had left earlier than usual to meet someone from the rescue to get our top loading cat carrier back, but also to stop in the town my mother is in (again). We picked up a couple of energy drinks and sandwiches for breakfast, then went to the feed store to pick up the lysine. They were still closed, though, so we kept on going to where we were arranged to meet up. We had plenty of time to eat our sandwiches and just sit and talk.

Once we had the carrier again (they even cleaned it!), it was off to the city and Costco.

I could not believe how full the parking lot was, for a Wednesday morning! It was really busy in the store, but the bigger surprise was as we left. There was a huge line to the customer service desk, running all the way to the main doors outside. I don’t usually see that kind of line except after Christmas.

Still, we got what we needed to get here; anything left on our list will be done on our next Walmart run.

There is is. $760.67, before taxes. After the cart was re-loaded, we had to stop and my daughter reorganized things. Because of the crowds and line to the Customer Service desk, we had to do it outside. As our stuff was being scanned, a guy showed up to load the cart and he basically just threw everything onto the flat cart with no attempt to be secure or even logical about it. My daughter and I are both very keen on packing and stacking things well, so it was hard to watch! 😄

This picture was taken before my daughter was done reorganizing so no, those eggs did not stay balanced on top of the pierogi at the end of the cart!! 😄

This is what we got today.

We did get cat supplies, though with the generous donation, we should only need maybe one more 40 pound bag of kibble before the end of the month for the outside cats. We didn’t need any for the inside cats, so the two 9kg and two 11.6kg bags are all for the outside cats. I think the price on the 11.6 kg bags went up. Either that, or they were on sale that last time I remember getting them.

We also got a case of canned cat food and a case of XL puppy pads. We now have enough canned cat foot that we won’t need to pick up more for the rest of the month. Usually, I get a couple smaller cases at Walmart to have enough for the month.

For non-food items, we got our toilet paper, AAA batteries, and some more Head and Shoulders that gets used as an anti-fungal body wash.

For beverages, we got a case of Coke Zero and a case of Monster. The Monster variety pack had replaced one of the flavours from before, and it’s to one I like but haven’t been seeing in stores much at all lately, so I’m happy. It was also on sale, so that was bonus. There is also a 3 pack of oat milk for the girls.

In dairy, we got a 4 pack of cream cheese, a carton of whipping cream, a block of Old Cheddar cheese, plus 5 pounds of butter.

For meat and other protein, there is a double flat of 60 eggs, a panini pack of sandwich meats, some pickerel fillets for the girls, two big packs of drumsticks that were $5 off at checkout, a pork blade, a pork loin, and a variety pack of dry sausages that was on sale. I also got two garlic coils, as the price was almost half what they are, locally. Oh, and some canned chicken. The price on that seems to be staying under $20 for six cans of late.

There is also a bag of carrots – organic, but they were on sale, and we didn’t see any non-organic ones anywhere, a 20 pound bag of Russet potatoes, frozen perogies, a case of ramen noodles, a bag of basmati rice, a case of tomato soup, large jars of mayo, peanut butter, and pickles. There is a two pack of butter chicken sauce, a shaker of powdered garlic (which, oddly, had more product for a lower price than the granulated garlic I usually get), and a large bag of granulated sugar.

For bread products, I got a 2 pack of rye bread and we got two packs of tortilla wraps. Finally, as a treat, my daughter selected from toffee and chocolate chip cookies.

Note that we did NOT get any beef. We haven’t been able to afford beef at Costco for a while, now. Lately, I’ve been picking up the odd package on sale, locally. The last couple of times I was in town because of the truck, I got some stew meat and some ground beef with sale prices much better than Costco these days.

Once the truck was loaded up, we filled the gas tank. Costco gas was at $1.239/L instead of $1.359/L everywhere else! It cost $51.69 to fill the tank.

On the way home, we stopped at the feed store and picked up the lysine. It came in adorable little 1kg buckets from a different brand this time. The price went up, so the two of them cost $67.20 after taxes. The containers I got before had been $20 each. Still better than buying it elsewhere.

When I saw the buckets, I commented on them, and that I would probably be keeping them to reuse. The woman behind the counter completely agreed with me – you can’t have too many buckets!

She also asked me if I was still wanting to get chicks.

I said yes, absolutely.

She asked if I was after a specific breed or anything like that, and I said I just want laying hens. She named several breeds, and I was fine with any of them. Then she asked about the date I’d want them, snowing the hatchery’s schedule on their white board.

There was no way we’d be ready for them in April! I told her, we need to be able to assemble the chicken coop first, which means, no snow on the ground. (Yes, I know; they’ll be in a brooder for weeks, first, but I still want to have the coop assembled and ready, before we get them.) So she put me down for the latest date they had, which is May 27. She has two other people who are interested in getting a smaller number of chicks than the 24 chick minimum the hatchery sells them for. I told her that, with our coop, we can have a maximum of 10 chickens, so we can go under, but not more than 10. So she will talk to the other two people and see what can be worked out to split an order of chicks between us, as well as splitting the shipping costs. With three people, we’ll be paying $15 each for shipping instead of $45.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to work something out with the other two people and get it all arranged and ordered. I’m flexible on the delivery date, too, as long as it’s not in April! She said, all three of us have said we are flexible on things, so this should work out quite well.

My daughter had been waiting in the truck all this time, so once we were back on the road, I updated her about the chicks discussion.

I think she is actually starting to look forward to having chickens! My daughters had been very reticent about it. Especially her sister. They have online friends who keep chickens, and my older daughter had commented about chickens getting sick, and we wouldn’t be able to take them to a vet.

Well, no, but we would be getting what we need to treat them ourselves! The feed stores carry medications and supplements for chickens, as well as feed. There’s lots of info out there on treating chickens.

Then we got to talking about where to set up the coop.

Ideally, I’d like to have it where we can easily see it, which would be in the south yards. Most of it isn’t level, and some significant portions of it floods in the spring, so that likely won’t work. I mentioned I was thinking of having it sheltered in the maple grove, or even where we currently have a pile of maple logs from the trees cleared away from the roof. The ground under that log pile is quite level, and I can see it out my bedroom window. Inside the maple grove would be more sheltered and there are fairly level spots there.

My daughter suggested we set it up against the retaining wall blocks at the end of the old kitchen garden. I had considered that area, but it would have to be at the northernmost end, as the south end is next to an area that gets deeply flooded in the spring. It’s not as sheltered from the wind, but it does get more light than if it were in the maple grove.

The other thing to consider is being able to secure the coop from being blown over in high winds. We’ve previously talked about getting panels that we can set around the mesh sides on windy days. The roosts are under the floors of the nesting boxes, rather than inside. There are three nesting boxes, with access from outside, at each end of the coop. When we assemble it, I want to find a way to attach a couple of roosts in the space in front of the nesting boxes, so they can roost for the night indoors, and not be exposed to the wind.

Ultimately, though, where we set up the coop will be temporary. I still plan to have some sort of polytunnel or greenhouse of some sort over garden beds in the main garden area. The coop and chickens would spend the winter inside that. So while we will need to secure it to make sure it doesn’t get blown over in high winds, we still need to keep it mobile.

I quite enjoyed talking it out with my daughter!

Anyhow.

Once at home, I had to drive up to the house to unload. I had some concerns on whether or not I’d cleared away enough snow before my body gave out. Especially the area I pull into behind the garage, so I can back up to the house. Sure enough, while in 2 wheel drive, I got stuck. I switched to 4 wheel drive and was able to back up. It was hard to tell, but I think that shuddering had started up again, while I was reversing in 4 wheel drive. The distance was so short, though, I really couldn’t say for sure. I just made sure to switch back to 2 wheel drive as soon as I was stopped, so I wouldn’t forget later.

Then it was the assembly line to unload the truck into the house. Last of all, my daughter and I took the kibble bags into the old kitchen. The whole time, we were constantly needing to make sure Sir Robin didn’t get into the house! He so wants to be inside!

Once the last of it was done, I left my older daughter to put things away while I grabbed some hot water and did the outside cats early. My younger daughter took over doing the kibble while I topped up the water bowls. Once all the cats were distracted, I was able to drive the truck out of the yard. I only had to scoot two of them away, first!

So there was have it. Finally. Our Costco stock up trip is done!

We will still need to do the Walmart and Canadian Tire trips, but that’s not as urgent, and there isn’t a lot we need to get there.

What I do need to do is visit my mother! I am planning to do that tomorrow afternoon, so I’ll be calling her tonight to let her know. My sister should have been able to visit her today. Maybe. During the drive home, we hit some pretty crazy blowing snow conditions, but it did clear up before we got home. As I write this, we are at our predicted high of -13C/7F, but the wind chill is -28C/-18F

Oh, my! Not only are we warming up over the next few days but, as I write this, we’ve got a high of 6C/43F forecasted for Sunday! 6C!!!! Wouldn’t THAT be nice!!

So, tomorrow (Thursday), I visit my mother. The day after, I have my doctor’s appointment. Saturday, I want to make a trip to the dump. Just a regular garbage and recycling run, though; my mother’s old mattress and box spring, and the broken office chairs, will have to wait for another day. Monday, my daughter has a doctor’s appointment. After that we don’t have anything scheduled until my dentist appointment near the end of the month, but March is also a birthday month for my older daughter. For her special birthday dinner, she usually chooses Pizza Hut pizzas. So at least one more trip there (no one delivers where we live. 😄)

Well, our mechanic has said, we need to drive the truck often. Mechanically, it’s running fine, with the possible exception of the shuddering in 4 wheel drive that comes and goes. I can just keep it in 2 wheel drive until absolutely necessary. They’ve checked and re-checked, and they can’t find anything wrong that could be causing it. The weird electrical thing has only affected the console and radio. The dashboard display has not been affected.

It’s still hell on my nerves, though.

The main thing is, we have transportation again, AND we finally got our first stock up shopping trip done – a week later than usual!

All is good.

I just have to keep telling myself that!

The Re-Farmer

No, I’m not crazy

March 3, 2026 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

It’s a good thing I have such a good relationship with our garage, or they would think I AM crazy!

But first, the cuteness.

This morning, my daughters told me I needed to very quietly go over to my husband’s room and check out his hospital bed.

I found Big Rig, in her natural habitat.

Burrowed under his covers and using a neck pillow for her chin.

A couple of hours later, my husband sent this photo. Cheddar and…

…

He said the paw disappeared right after he took the photo. 😄😄

On to the weirdness of the day.

Today, I had an afternoon appointment to get the truck looked at again. When I headed out – very early – I found the console display was still working, but the warning dings from the door still weren’t happening. I didn’t even try to test it out on 4 wheel drive, though. I was already stressed out. Whether the shuddering was happening or not happening, it wasn’t going to alleviate that stress.

When I got to the garage and dropped off the key, I spent time some time talking to the owner. I told him what was working and still not working, and that I hadn’t tested the 4 wheel drive (he understood why not!). We talked about the battery, and the possibility of there being something draining the battery while it’s parked. The battery is only 2 years old. He said some batteries only last that long. We got it from him, though. It wasn’t the highest end battery, but it’s far from the lowest end, either. We also talked about the cold potentially affecting it, and I remembered to tell him when we first had an issue with the battery, early in the winter.

Then I was off.

I walked across town (all 5 or 6 blocks) and had lunch, then walked the last couple of blocks to the beach. The ice fishing village is still there.

There was also heavy equipment clearing the snow to make roads and open areas on the ice. I seem to recall seeing fliers for some sort of ice event coming up.

Clearly, the ice on the lake is still incredibly thick!

Then I started walking back, stopping at a few places long the way. I even remembered to stop at the pharmacy and get our printouts to do our taxes. My husband finally got his second T4A, so we can do that now. My daughter will be able to claim prescriptions on her taxes for the first time. I couldn’t get her pharmacy records without her permission (I have a signed document so I can get my husband’s, every year), but I was able to arrange for it to be included with her prescription delivery later in the week. This will be the first year for both my daughter and I that we can claim the Disability Tax Credit.

By the time I got back to the garage, it was about 45 minutes past my appointment time. The truck was still in the garage and the mechanic was about to take it out for a test drive to see if it was still doing that shuddering thing while in 4 wheel drive. I suggested he try it in the grocery store parking lot, rather than the highway, since it seems to be triggered in slippery conditions.

The mechanic asked me about the door chime. I told him it still wasn’t working when I drove over.

It’s working now.

???!!!

They didn’t do anything. It was simply working when he drove it into the garage.

When talking to the owner, he said he could even hear it from his office when the truck was driven in, and the mechanic got out, leaving the keys in the ignition.

I told him, when I parked in their lot, it still wasn’t working.

Like I said, it’s a good thing we have a good relationship. If I say it wasn’t working, he doesn’t doubt me. It’s just so very strange!!!

He told me he tested the battery himself.

It’s fine. No sign of any problems.

We talked about that for a bit, and he told me of a possibility that had occurred to me when I was first driving the truck home and realized the console display wasn’t working. It is likely that when the battery got low enough, it started shutting off anything unnecessary that was using power. With some vehicles, once the battery drops below a certain threshold, you can’t even start them until it’s been charged again. Once I recharged the battery on Sunday, that would have allowed the console display to start working again. Why the door chime didn’t start working again until today, we don’t know, but it’s likely related.

Around then, the mechanic came back with the truck, parking it just outside the bay doors. Watching the cameras, we saw him step out, look at the camera, raise both hands and just shrug.

It was working fine.

I told him about needing to drive into the city, and various other things I need to drive to, and he said it should be fine. Driving is good. Sitting parked is not. I do know that, but I try to avoid driving in winter in particular.

I did remember to ask for a price on the light on the back of the cab that I idiotically broke because the garage door wasn’t open far enough. He started to look it up and then said, get it from Amazon. I will get a better price there. Then, once I have it, I can bring the truck back and he’ll install it for me. I asked if he had a part number and he said just to look up, third brake light.

I even got to talk to the mechanic a bit as I was going to the truck. He also assured me that it should be fine for all the driving I need to do.

From there, I drove across to the grocery store, then updated my family. There were just a few things I wanted to pick up for today because, tomorrow, my daughter and I will be finally doing the Costco run! I plan to go to the older location we’ve been going to for years, instead of the new location on the other side of the city, as the old location is right next to a Canadian Tire.

Just in case something goes wrong. Because I’m still absolutely paranoid about the truck! 😄

Right now, though, not only has all the recent weird stuff gone away on its own, but so has the tire warning stuff that’s been there for so very long.

Which means that truck is actually better now than it was before, with no one having actually done anything but do lots of testing and checking.

For that, all I can say is, Thank you, God.

When I got home, I texted the garage about the tire warnings that have been there for so long, now being gone. He said, it must be a ghost! 😄😄 They’d had trouble getting readings off the sensors the last time I brought the truck in for the front tires to be worked on. They checked all four sensors because of those warnings. I remember watching four guys going from tire to tire, looking perplexed at their device’s screen. We had originally thought it was because the batteries might have died or something, but clearly, that cannot be the case! The main thing was that the tires themselves were fine.

So that’s where we are at now. The truck is home, and we’ve got a lot of driving to get caught up on things that should have been done a while ago.

Since we are finally going to be going to the city tomorrow, I’ve contacted the person from the rescue that picked up Kohl from us, taking the carrier with her. The sun room cats have knocked one of the carriers off its shelf a few times too many and it can’t be clocked shut anymore, so we need to get the carrier back. The carrier is now with someone else, and we’ve just arranged to meet along the way tomorrow morning, before she gets to work. We’ll be leaving quite a bit earlier than usual, but that’s okay.

Now it’s stock up shopping, doctor’s appointments, dump runs, runs to the feed store and, of course, finally getting to visit my mother! Once again, we are now the closest to where she is.

Oh, and our vandal and his wife have already visited her twice since she’s been transferred to the current TCU. The staff there have been warned about him, and yet… today, my brother told me that a check just went through my mother’s account. A check for a substantial amount of money, made out to our vandal and written out by our vandal’s wife for my mother to sign (my mother can no longer write checks out herself), dated just a few days ago. This is one of the reasons why we didn’t want our vandal to be able to have access to my mother without supervision. The problem is, they can’t have a staff member just hang out in the room with them. So, they managed to somehow guilt my mother into throwing money at our vandal again. The crazy thing is, while she has been able to help out with paying for things at the farm, even things she offered to pay for in advance, she does things like try to back out, or tries to use it as a way to control us, or guilt us, and makes a big deal over the fact that she “helped”. Which she has never done, when it comes to our vandal. And there’s nothing we can do about it, as long as her cognitive decline is as relatively mild as it is now. She isn’t at the state where my brother, as PoA, becomes wholly responsible to act on her behalf in that regard. At least we were able to get the doctor at the hospital to agree, officially in her file, that my mother cannot sign legal documents, and that if she is convinced to do so, it would not be legally binding. I don’t think that quite applies to writing checks.

Meanwhile, my mother says she wants me to bring her some of her cash stash she asked me to hang on to for her. Most of which got deposited into her account, which my brother explained to her when going over her finances recently, but she still thinks I have all of. She has no need for money where she is, and we don’t know where the money she had before went to. Sure, she sometimes insisted I take some cash for gas, but almost never enough to actually cover the cost of gas. A few bucks here and there. We did learn she tried to give money to staff at the hospital to basically bribe them to pay more attention to her, but never managed to actually give them any (that probably would have gotten them fired). I guess now we know where the rest of her cash went to.

We also know why our vandal and his wife have been finding ways to visit her so often, even though he’s supposedly at death’s door right now.

*sigh*

It is so hard to protect my mother, when she works so hard to sabotage our efforts.

Anyhow.

Visiting my mother is on the list of things I need to do, now that I’ve been assured the truck has been checked and rechecked and everything is running just fine.

Time to get things done.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: West Coast Seeds are in, plus an update

March 2, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Oh, goodness. What a morning.

I heard back from the garage when they checked their messages this morning (they don’t check while the shop is closed), and the mechanic agreed that it was likely a burnt fuse. I ended up talking to him on the phone and we made an appointment for tomorrow afternoon so they can look at it.

Then, I headed to the post office to finally pick up our packages. One of them was my West Coast Seeds order that came in almost two weeks ago!

Also, I’m an idiot.

I’m also short. Have I mentioned, I’m a bit on the short side?

Well, I didn’t open the garage door quite far enough. As I backed out of the garage, I hit the door. Broke the light above the box on the back of the cab. Just cracked the plastic, but still… What a doofus!

Our driveway may be mostly clear, but there is still that mix of hard packed tire tracks and softer snow on either side. The hard packed snow was already getting slippery – we have been warming up all night and were just a few degrees below freezing. Still, I got through all right and onto the road.

Where it started again.

That strange shuddering that wasn’t there when the mechanics test drove the truck before I took it home.

I was still on 4 wheel drive, as I needed it to get the truck unstuck, so I stopped and switched to 2 wheel drive. After that, it ran fine.

Then I saw the clock.

The time was wrong, but the clock was visible. I turned on the radio, and all the display information came on, as usual.

The console display is working again so, obviously, it’s not a burnt out fuse!

When I got to the post office, though, I confirmed that the warning dings for keys still in the ignition or headlights left on, that are supposed to start when the door is opened, didn’t.

I got our mail and a few groceries in the store, then headed home. As soon as I was settled, I sent a message to the garage, along with the picture of the broken light, asking what it would cost to get it fixed. Then I asked him to call me so I could tell him what was going on with the truck. I did add that it was NOT a burnt fuse, but maybe the ignition switch?

He called me back right away. I described what was happening, both with the shuddering back while on 4 wheel drive, and with the console display being on again, but not the warning dings that should go off when the door it opened.

He doesn’t think it’s the ignition switch, as he thinks that would cause other issues as well, but he will check it out.

He also asked how much we had left to pay off the truck. He knows we just can’t have this happening all the time, and we’ve already talked about trading the truck in a bit. We’ll see what happens when I get there, tomorrow.

I would really, really like to get our stock up shopping finally done!!

Meanwhile, I got to check out my new seeds and decided to make a short video of it.

You can also see how the seedlings are doing. Not the best. I’ve added “walls” around two sides of the trays to help keep the heat from the heater from blowing right past everything, and moved the thermometer to one end, away from the heater. I’ve actually seen that thermometer at 20C/68F since moving it closer to the trays! When I was doing the video, though, it was more like 17C/63F or so. It really should be closer to 24C/75C for the seedlings, but we just have no way to give them that. Still, I’m seeing more of the extra California Wonder bell pepper seeds I added, just in case, emerging. We’ve only got 3 surviving Caspar eggplants, but at 75 days to maturity, technically I could direct sow those.

There we have it, though. My little West Coast Seeds haul

I’m looking forward to trying these.

The Re-Farmer

What the heck?

February 26, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I got two mysteries going on.

One is simpler. I found this, while doing the outside cat feeding this afternoon.

The mesh used to replace the cloth hammock that was damaged during transportation to us is completely torn up. How on earth did this happen? It looks like maybe a cat fell through it. This stuff is pretty strong – it’s meant to protect gardens from things like deer and other critters.

No chance of repairing it until spring. That gives time to find some other material to use. If I can find some that is strong enough, I should probably replace it with fabric, like what was there originally. I’ll have a few months to find a proper alternative. Until then, the original fabric hammock on the other side is still very much being used and enjoyed by the cats. It even still had straw on it. The straw that I’d put on this one got knocked away, long ago, so that cats weren’t actually using as much.

Also, that’s Frank enjoying her supper, well away from the other cats crowding the kibble trays in the sun room and isolation shelter. Smart girl.

A rather minor mystery here. Then there is a much bigger mystery.

I got a message from the garage, asking me to give them a call about the truck. I talked to the owner. He told me they’d gone over the truck and found nothing. They still replaced fluids, just in case. He’s just taking it for a test drive.

The truck was running fine.

He’d even taken it on the highway and and drove it at the 100km/h speed limit. He drove it on 2 wheel drive and both 4 wheel drive settings.

It ran fine.

He drove it with the mechanic that had driven it with me and had felt exactly what I was talking about, and how it happened only while on 4 wheel drive but not 2 wheel drive.

The heard and felt absolutely nothing wrong.

What the heck??? They are completely perplexed, but there was nothing for them to fix.

About the only thing he could think of is that something had been frozen in the wrong place. The truck had been in the garage overnight, where anything like that would have melted away and left no trace.

We talked about it for a while and I commented on how I should probably drive it on 2 wheel drive instead of auto, just in case. I would just switch it to 4 wheel drive if absolutely necessary. He said that would be good, anyhow. While the manufacturer says it is fine to keep it on auto all the time, he disagrees.

The truck is now ready and waiting to be picked up.

Given that today is Thursday, I had figured there was no way I’d get the truck back before the weekend. If they found something minor but needed parts, they could order parts today, which would arrive tomorrow – but with so many vehicles bring brought in due to the weather conditions, that doesn’t mean they’d be able to do any repairs right away. I had messaged my brother and SIL asking if it were possible to get a ride for grocery shopping, just to the nearest Walmart or something. Before they even saw that message, I changed it to asking about the possibility of getting a ride to pick up the truck.

We started going back and forth on that for a while. They weren’t available during the day, while the garage was open, but could drive me in the evening. Would the garage be okay if I picked it up while they were closed? I hadn’t thought to ask what we owed for the truck, though; I am assuming there would be a charge for the fresh fluid, but they have not charged me for stuff like that before, so I may owe nothing. So we were thinking that I might call tomorrow during the day to find out what I owed, before working out picking up the truck.

Then my brother phoned. He had had an idea and did some searching online.

It turns out our neighbouring town has a taxi.

Singular. One taxi.

He had called the company and talked to the driver to see if they went as far as where we are and apparently they do it regularly.

!!!

I had no idea. I remember seeing a taxi in town once, years ago, so it never occurred to me that they might still be around. It might not even be the same company as years ago.

After talking to my brother about it, I got the number and texted. It is now arranged for a taxi to come here for 11am to take me into town to pick up the truck.

It should cost somewhere between $40-$50, but is about what it would cost my brother in gas to come out here and drive me to town, then drive home again.

I won’t be doing any city shopping after picking up the truck. I’ll go across the street to get a few more groceries, but the drive home will be my test drive to see if everything is still okay.

I admit, I am very nervous about driving the truck at all. We don’t know what went wrong in the first place. Perhaps our mechanic was right. Perhaps it was something frozen that caused it to shudder like that. If that wasn’t it, there is no way to know whether it will happen again!

So I will do some local driving first. As it stands now, I think my first stock up shop will be Costco on the weekend.

I need to talk to our mechanic again about getting a replacement vehicle. That it’s working fine and they didn’t have to repair anything is literally the best case scenario and I want to be happy and thankful about it. However, the truck has been so weird lately, it’s really been hell on my nerves. I just don’t trust it. There was no mistaking just how bad that shuddering was by the end of the test drive I did with the mechanic. They were just as confused about why it was happening as they are now confused about why it stopped!

Hopefully, I will have the truck back tomorrow, and it will continue to behave. I just wish I was more confident that it has worked out for the best, and that it won’t happen again while I’m driving home!!!

The Re-Farmer

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