update

An indoor day

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Today’s high was just a bit above zero, so it was pretty much a completely indoor day. I spent most of it working on a crochet experiment that, in the end, I was quite happy with, even though I had to modify my plans because I was running out of the yarn I was using.

I did get outside at least a little bit, though, to get a meter reading. As I went to the pole in the outer yard, I spotted a cat toy from the isolation shelter I’d forgotten about. I’d washed it with the others on the sidewalk, but never noticed it was missing. It’s a round pink ball that lights up when it bounces. I grabbed it and tossed it back into the inner yard and Midnight, who had been following me, ran after it like a puppy playing fetch! He was quite hilarious.

I got my reading and started back to the house when I saw it in the grass and decided to toss it towards the sun room door and kibble house set up. As soon as I threw it, there was an absolute stampede of 5 cats, thundering after it! I don’t even know where they all came from. They just exploded after it! It was so funny!

On another note, I heard from my brother and SIL today. They were on their way to my mother’s with a new wheelchair for her. She has the one that was my late father’s and she wanted a new one. My brother had talked to her about what she wanted and ordered one from Amazon, and they wanted to get it to her as quickly as possible.

She hated it.

My brother, thoughtfully, took video of her trying it out and was able to send it to me after they got home – with the new wheelchair that they’ll be returning. On seeing the video, I understand why she wasn’t happy. She couldn’t use the armrests at all! It’s made for a smaller person. My mother is pretty tiny, but overweight, and it just wasn’t right for her. She needs a bariatric wheelchair. Not because of her the number on the scale – as I said, she is tiny, so “overweight” for her is still below the weight limits of non-bariatric chairs – but for the dimensions.

Then, in the video, she started talking about her current wheelchair. My late father’s wheelchair.

She is absolutely convinced it’s not the same chair. Someone “traded” it (something she accused my father of doing for as long as I can remember). She thinks someone took the chair at one of the TCUs she was in before finally getting to the nursing home and replaced it with an inferior one.

That chair had been stored here for some time. I brought it to my mother. Before I did, I cleaned it, oiled the moving parts and conditioned the vinyl. One of the foot rests had been stuck and I had to fight with it, and some WD40, to get it moving again. I recognize that chair very well. It has not been changed.

I now regret removing my late father’s name tag that had his picture on it, that the nursing home put on it while he was there.

I ended up sending a link to my brother for a bariatric chair in a style that would suit my mother better – and suggested getting anything but black (which would be hard to find), so the chances she’d believe someone switched chairs on her would be almost nil. We’ll see how it works out. He’ll have to return the chair and get his money back, and I don’t know if he’ll be able to order a bariatric one before then. Those things are not cheap!

On another note, I was rather taken aback by my mother’s appearance. Her face was quite grey, and she has dark circles around her eyes.

As I was writing this, I checked the sun room critter cam and noticed both a skunk and a raccoon in the sun room. I headed out to chase them away, and found not one, but two giant, fluffy raccoons (they have their winter fur and look massive, this time of year). As I chased them out, I noticed a cat bed had fallen off a shelf and went to put it back. Gouda and Fluffy had been snuggling in another cat bed and came out for pets. I got to give Fluffy some thorough pets.

It wasn’t fluffy. It was the one the girls call Lady Grey. She looks like Fluffy, but has a white chest. She had always been one of the more feral cats, but the girls have been working on her. She kept looking like she wanted to run away, but still let me pet her! That is just huge!

Now, we’re not 100% sure she is a she, with all that long fur hiding things, but the girls are convinced she’s female. If she is now allowing pets, even when it’s not feeding time, we should be able to finally get her spayed!

Or neutered, if Lady Grey turns out to be Lord Grey.

Anyhow…

That’s how today went. Rather quiet. We’re supposed to get a fair bit warmer over the next few days, so I hope to get more stuff down outside.

I know I’ve said this quite a few times already, but I am so appreciating this mild weather we are having this year. It’s allowing us to slowly get things done out there, as we are physically able to.

Next year, I suspect, is going to be a lot more productive in comparison!

The Re-Farmer

A nothing, day…

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Well. For me, at least.

Today was overcast and rainy all day, as predicted.

Which meant I was feeling sleepy all day.

This is on top of already getting tired quickly and sleeping a lot more than usual since the surgery. A double whammy of sleepy. I didn’t even make it outside to do any cat feeding, or even doing my usual walkabout.

I did get a couple of things done. We had taken one of the turkeys out of the freezer and my older daughter roasted it last night, for us to enjoy today. She set aside the neck and bag of innards for me. Last night, when I found myself awake and ended up writing a blog post, I stayed up until past 6am. Before going back to bed, I got out the meat grinder my younger daughter and I had picked up at the second hand store earlier this summer and used it to grind the set aside turkey bits. It came out to quite a decent amount, which I packed up in a take out container and set in the old kitchen (which is uninsulated and currently refrigerator cold, even in this mild fall) for my daughters to use to make cat soup with. That seemed to work out rather well.

No one has succeeded in getting close to Sweetie to treat that horrible ear of hers. It’s probably the worst case of ear mites I’ve seen – or the worst damage from scratching. Yet none of us can get close to her, even while she is eating. We used to be able to pet her! Sending her to the rescue for spay and trying to adopt her out has really set her back. It’s been months, and still no progress.

I didn’t even get any crochet done today. Instead, I’ve been trying to catch up on my desktop. I haven’t been keeping up on visiting my blogs as regularly. I don’t do it on my phone, as I find it so much harder to read anything on there, never mind constant issue with tapping on a screen. I haven’t been keeping up on my emails, either, which is mostly newsletters and subscribed stuff, including bloggers I now follow on Substack. Personal communications are more often through text or Messenger, not email, these days. It’s remarkable, how quickly those emails build up. I won’t be able to catch up on them all today, that’s for sure.

Tomorrow is supposed to be chillier, but we should be getting some sunshine. I look forward to getting outside, even if it’s just for a little while!

I got a call from my mother today. I have to say, her calls have been wildly difference since I got my cancer diagnosis and surgery. She actually sounds cheerful. When I ask how she’s doing, she just says “the usual” in referring to her long list of maladies she likes to blame on some food or other, or on the staff for trying to kill her by giving the wrong meds, but doesn’t actually talk about them with me anymore. She saves that for my brother and sometimes my sister.

She has been refusing to dress for the day, staying in one of three long, thick nightgowns she has. She has suddenly decided that she needs more of them, but my sister has not been able to find any that my mother will like. She tried going at my brother about getting her clothes, because she has soooo much money (she doesn’t), and she’s entitled to new things. My brother, meanwhile, knows nothing about her clothing. That’s my sister’s specialty. She knows my mother’s measurements and will usually tailor store purchases to fit my mother. So when she started telling me about talking to my brother about clothes, I told her he’s not the one to talk to about that! That’s when she mentioned that my sister had said she would buy fabric and sew something for her. My sister used to sew all her own clothes, for many years, including clothing of her own design, so she is definitely the right person for that. In hearing some of what my mother was saying she needed, I told her that there are places that specialize in clothes for people with mobility issues. I’m sure there’s one such place in the city where the nearest Walmart is. My sister works at that Walmart, as lives just a 15 minute or so drive away. My mother liked that idea and I promised to pass the message on to my sister.

My mother has been at the personal care home for 5 months now, and has been basically living in those thick nightgowns the whole time. From how she was talking to me, I get the impression that she is seeing how other people living there are always dressed so nicely, and she would like to do that, too. If that’s what it takes for her to stop insisting on not dressing for the day, I’m good with that!

Hopefully, my sister will find – or can sew – things that my mother will like. She is very hard to please, but also doesn’t give much information about what she actually wants!!

It’s coming up on time for me to take my evening med and supplements.

I don’t think I’m going to finish going through the tabs of things I’m trying to catch up on tonight. I might just grab some supper to go with my meds, then go to bed!

I can’t remember the last time I went to bed before midnight so often – and actually slept! Even with waking during the night, I’ve been sleeping for about 10-12 hours a day.

That is so very unusual for me.

The Re-Farmer

I forgot!

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I think this is the first time in 9 years blogging here, that I outright forgot to make my daily post!

So here I am, at past 2am, making up for it. 😄

Actually, it’s past 3am.

Our province no longer does daylight savings time, but not all our devices are connected to services that have figured that out. I have an old tablet that’s used only to display the weather, time and date. It, and my desktop, think we’ve changed time. Our phones, however, didn’t change. In theory, we should be able to manually change the time. The old tablet was my husband’s and we both tried to change it. It didn’t stick. I haven’t even tried on my desktop.

The funny thing was when I went online to confirm the time for our province – and got two different official answers!

Too funny!

Anyhow…

It was a lovely day outside tod… er… yesterday, and today is supposed to be even warmer. It’s also started to rain in the evening and it supposed to continue all day today. Most of the prairies right now is also under a fog advisory, with near 0 visibility in places.

I had a nice surprise yesterday, in the early afternoon. I got a message from my brother letting me know he’d just visited our mother and would be coming out here. I had a chance to go out and talk to him for a while. My mother, he told me, was once again complaining about the internet radio he got for her, because it’s all just one station.

Yup. She reprogrammed the buttons again.

He went over it with her again, explaining to just push the buttons, don’t push and hold. She isn’t even holding for long. He told me he’d actually contacted the company he got the radio from (again; he’d needed to talk to them quite a bit while trying to get it to connect to her favorite radio station), recommending a firmware update. He suggested that they make it so you have to hold the button for 5 seconds to program it, rather than the 1 second or so it is now.

He’d also spent some time working on her wheelchair. She says the staff is saying that it’s hard to push her in it. This is the same folding wheelchair that was my late father’s when he spend his final months in this same nursing home. The front wheels, my brother told me, were very wobbly. He thought they had always been like this, but I remembered cleaning the wheelchair before taking it to my mother, and oiling all the moving parts because they had become stiff and, in some places, starting to rust. So there was probably some play in the wheels, but nothing like what he was finding. He ended up McGyvering it for now, but he thinks it’s the bushings that need replacing. My mother has been asking for a new wheelchair, though, so he had showed her some pictures and I think she picked one.

Of course, she gave my brother a hard time about a lot of things, and he’s very worried that she’s going to do something stupid that he’s going to have to fix. I tried to reassure him by reminding him of our conversations with doctors while she was still at the hospital, then later with the nurses at what should be an annual meeting at the personal care home. It is officially noted that my mother no longer has the cognitive ability to make legal decisions or sign any legal papers. If she does, nothing is legally binding. I think the reminder helped him relax a bit. She had already stabbed him in the back so badly a few years ago, and there is nothing he can legally do to fix it. She still doesn’t understand how badly she screwed herself up at the same time. As her PoA, all he can do is try and hold the pieces together, while she remains oblivious to how much he does for her.

One of the things he did as we were talking was clear the maple suckers that had regrown behind the pump shack. Power to their caravan is sourced through that back wall, and he wanted to make sure it was all clear. He was going to clear the stump at the other end, but I asked him not to. I had “harvested” those in the spring, so they were a lot smaller, and I told him that is my coppice and I’ll take care of it in the spring and use them. So he left them for me.

After a while, I had to head inside, though I did get out again to do my walkabout before the rain started. At one point, I started getting all sorts of gate camera notifications and discovered my brother, sweetheart that he is, added some new fence posts to replace a couple of rotted ones that wouldn’t stay up anymore. When they brought their stuff out here after selling their property, it included a whole bunch of fence posts. He has a post pounder, too, which we don’t, and that made the job a lot faster. Even with an injured arm! He told me he got an MRI recently, and I got the story behind it. He had torn his bicep – three years ago!!!! – and only now was able to get to a doctor to have it checked. Not sure what his next steps are, but he’s been using that arm in pain all this time. To see him moving around, you’d never know the arm was injured.

My family is notorious for that. It’s partly why the girls are so severe with making sure I stick to my recovery restrictions. 😄

My brother was able to finish what he’d come to do and head out before the rain started up in the evening, though we’d had light rain on and off before then. We’re not getting anything heavy, but it should be enough that we won’t need to water the haskaps and the little spruces still in pots. It also means we’ll continue to have much warmer temperatures, including overnight. As I write this, we’ve been at our high for today of 11C/52F, and it’s supposed to stay like this all day. Overnight temperatures are supposed to stay above freezing for a couple more nights, and even after that, in the 10 day forecast, we’re expected to just barely dip below freezing overnight.

Which means we don’t need to put the hoses away yet. We just need to make sure the water is shut off and the spray nozzles are open for the night.

I am so appreciating our very mild fall, and holding out for an equally mild winter. I don’t mind the snow so much – we need that winter moisture for the spring – but I could really do without the sub-arctic temperatures!

Thank you, Super El Nińo!

The Re-Farmer

Cuddle session

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We tried something today.

Since I’ve been convelescing in the cat free zone, my bedroom has been mostly cat heaven.

Which is cat hell, for our elderly Butterscotch, since she won’t leave the room, and they often go after her when she tries to use a litter box.

When we go into the bedroom, we can tell how much she misses the pets and cuddles.   Typically, at night, she would be sleeping on my face or head.

Today, with the help of my daughter, we brought her into the living room with me.

She was so happy.  So many cuddles! 

Then she curled up against my hip and went for a nap.

We can’t leave her with me.  Partly becayse there us no place for a litter box and partly because she’s one of the cats that likes to jump on my abdomen when I’m in bed.  A big no-no right now.

I think bringing her in with me will become a daily thing, though.  She needs the break!

Beyond that, it’s been a good day.  It was gorgeous outside.  My younger daughter and I were able to do a dump run, though I was banned from handling anything.  After, we made a trip to the general store and post office.  My husband had something in he thought would fit in the mail box, but there was just a card.  We will have to come back on Monday.

My older daughter gave me her wallet to pick something up, then both my younger daughter and I got a couple more things.  I was not “allowed” to carry the bag of combined purchases but I was happy to at least go into the store.

Tonight, however, I just got hit with a wave of fatigue.  Sleepiness enough that I’m having to be careful not to drop my phone as I tap this post.

It’s not even 7pm yet.

I’m going to bed.

The Re-Farmer

Quiet

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Today has been a day of quiet rest and recovery for most of us.

The girls took care of the usual outside cat stuff.  The yard cats are unhappy with their cat soup.  We are out of the donated cat milk and canned cat food we’d been using, so it’s basically just softened kibble.  We aren’t in a position to buy more right now.

My older daughter is pushing hard on commissions with end of month deadlines.   My younger daughter has been dealing with pain issues after pushing to get things done outside, yesterday.  My husband’s pain levels have been pretty bad lately, too.

I discovered the cats had done much destruction in my bedroom during the night.  By the time I got it fixed up, I was pretty drained.  Besides getting tired fast, though, I’m doing well.  The last of the medical tape and stitches at the incisions on my abdomen have come off.  I have been taking painkillers only before bed, and it’s been for my ridiculous shoulder pain, not anything surgery related. 

My younger daughter accompanied me when I did my walkabout before things got too dark.  She was caning it and having more pain issues while walking than I was.

We are coming up on 9 years, here.  This blog just had its 9th anniversary.  My younger daughter and my husband were already here, while my older daughter and I finished getting ready for the movers before driving out. 

I have to admit, things have not panned out as expected, but then, who could gave expected all 4 of us ending up having serious health challenges?

It’s been quite a ride.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2027 garlic is done, and look who’s there…

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Today, my daughters got some progress outside.  The last 4 haskaps have been planted, and all 144 of them got a deep watering.

The garlic bed also got a deep watering, before a straw mulch was added.  If all goes well, the garlic should start growing under there, before the ground freezes.

Over time, the haskaps need to be mulched, too, but with so many, that will be done slowly, over time.

I was able to head outside for my daily walkabout, before things got dark.  Of course, I checked on things and did what little I could.  I even remembered to move the trail cam and it’s stand away from our sign at the corner of the property, since we no longer have to worry about the sign being vandalized.   I’m hoping to find a way to use the stand to hold the solar critter cam to monitor the isolation shelter, once it’s set up under the kitchen window for the winter.

While looking at where my daughter planted the last haskaps, I noticed the spade was forgotten, so I took it to the sun room.

Where I promptly startled four skunks

!!!

I left the sun room, since the cats and I were blocking the exit.  Three left.

One stayed and looked like it was settling down for the night. 😆

There’s really no way to persuade it to leave from there.  Too many things between it, and the door.  Namely me and swirling cats, wanting their evening feeding!

So I took care of that and left the skunk alone.

Aside from that, I’ve spent most of my day in the cat free zone, doing little crochet projects.  I’m trying to use up two colours of mill end cotton I’ve had for quite some time.   We now have more dish cloths and coasters, and I’m working on another bowl.

I’m hoping to have a better night tonight.  Last night, I went to bed early, and promptly became wide awake.  At one point, I gave up trying to sleep, got up and made another pot holder in Tunisian stitch, because why the heck not?  I’d love to do more than drift off and wake up, over and over, all night again, though.   Not something surgery or recovery related, as far as I can tell.  In that respect, things are going quite well.

Normally, tomorrow would be our second stock up trip to Costco in the city.  That will be delayed.  If we need anything over the next week or so, we can make a short trip into town.

For now, my forced convelescence continues!

The Re-Farmer

140, plus four more

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This afternoon, when temperatures were at least a bit above freezing, I headed out to see my daughters’ hard work.

Wow.

Because these last haskap transplants are so much smaller, with tiny, over crowded root balls in tiny little pots, they are harder to see. So I marked every one of them with a garden stake, then raided our recycling bin for plastic bottles to put on top of them. Aside from improving visibility, they should rattle in the wind and potentially startle away critters.

I ran out of bottles very quickly.

The first image is the main “plot” where my daughter added three more rows of 10 haskaps.

The next two images are different views of the ones she planted around the fruit trees and the two haskaps we’d planted two summers ago.

The last image is the four that were left, because it was too dark to keep going. They will be planted where our original three haskaps are – the ones that have not been doing well at all, because the cross pollinating verities don’t bloom at the same time, and one of them just isn’t growing.

I counted a total of 140 transplanted haskaps, plus there are the four left to do.

There had been 95 already in the ground. My daughters – mostly my younger daughter, as her sister could come out only after she finished working on commissions – planted 45 haskaps last night.

That makes for a total of 144 haskaps that my brother and SIL managed to acquire, plus the 5 we already had previously.

Wow.

If they all survive – which is highly unlikely, given the state some of them were in – that makes for a grand total of 149 haskaps for our food forest.

Wow.

For the four of us, just a couple would be enough for personal use. Maybe 5, if we wanted to do really get into making preserves of some kind with them.

At least it would be, if we had any that produced. Of the original three, only the “Mr. Haskap” has been even remotely healthy, the first to bloom, and finished blooming before the “Mrs. Haskap” I got at the same time even got into full leaf, never mind bloom. The third one, a “Mrs. Haskap” purchased the following summer, remains stunted and exactly the same size as when we planted it, some 3 or 4 years ago.

The two that we got at the homesteaders event, planted in a much better location, had their second summer this year and didn’t seem to get any bigger at all. Much like our highbush cranberry, that have not gotten any bigger since we planted them at the same time as the silver buffalo berry that is doing so well.

If even a quarter of these haskaps survive and produce, we could potentially have enough to sell at markets within a couple of years.

If they survive and produce.

With how root bound they were, they have a rough start already. For now, though, we will focus on watering them often, even though none of them have any leaves left, to give the roots every chance to grow and establish themselves at least a bit, before the ground freezes.

Which, if the long range forecast is to be trusted even slightly, will be at least another 3 weeks, if not until December. As long as we still have daytime temperatures above freezing, the ground should only freeze at the surface overnight, and mostly thaw during the day.

My daughter really busted her butt last night! By the end of it, she was getting chilled and starting to cough, so she slept in today, and has been taking care not to come down with a cold or get sick, as much as she can.

In a couple of days, we will be doing our first stock up shopping trip. I am still banned from driving, and my daughters don’t want me to travel too far. For the things we need, though, we at least need to do a Walmart trip, so we are planning to go to the one in the smaller, closer city. They’ve expanded, but still don’t have the inventory the big city locations do, but we should be able to get what we need. There’s also a Canadian Tire across the street, where we can get our litter pellets.

Normally, on the last business day of the month, we would do our Costco shopping. That one will be postponed, probably by a couple of weeks. Yes, my daughter can do the driving, and we don’t have to worry about weird parking issues or insane city driving conditions, but it’s also about recovery and mobility for me. My 6 week recovery period is over at the end of November, so by December, we should be back to our normal driving and errands.

I am so looking forward to spring, when I can physically do the things I wasn’t able to do all this past summer!

… and to seeing how many haskaps survived the transplanting and winter conditions.

The Re-Farmer

Progress, though not by me 😆

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I mentioned yesterday, how I had felt strangely sleepy all day. 

Typically, when that happens, as soon as I lay diwn to try and sleep, I end up wide awake.

Not this time!

I lay down, planning to just rest a bit.  I woke up some 8 or so hours later, having not moved the entire time. 

It was coming up on 5am, and I figured I would just hit the heads, then lie diwn until my alarm went off for my meds.

The alarm woke me from a dead sleep.  I shut it off, then passed out for another 3 hours.

Thankfully, I’m not on any meds that are strictly timed, anymore.  Including my painkillers, which are back to “take as needed”.

Most of the day, for me, was pretty quiet.  The girls started the laundry, which is one of the things I’m banned from doing.  My younger daughter headed out when it got as warm as it would, in the afternoon, and started planting more haskaps.  Adding more rows to where the previous ones are planted.  By tye time she stopped, it was full dark.  She says there are still some left. !!! 

Meanwhile, the guy that bought a couple of scrap vehicles and dragged them out with his crane truck came back today, with a trailer.  Staying out with him was my only real accomplishment.

He got one loaded and was expecting to cime back for the second one.  When it got quite dark, I figured he would come back another day, but he still made it.  His crane truck has flood lights on the back, it turns out.

We had a lovely full moon, too.

It was about 7:30 and fully dark when my younger daughter came over.  I hadn’t realized until then that they were both out still planting haskaps!!  She stayed with me until the guy left, to help close the gate behind him.

So that is now done, though there are other vehicles he’s interested in.  He’ll be talking to my brother about those, though.  My brother knows more about them than I do.

As for me, I’m working myself up to eat something, before going to bed early again.  I’m hungry, but have no appetite. 😒 

I look forward to taking a walk outside tomorrow, and seeing what my daughters have done!

The Re-Farmer

Wind, wind and more wind – plus doctor issues again

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All day, the winds have been blowing.

Thankfully, it’s just been wind.

When my older daughter headed out to feed the outside cats this morning, she found two legs on the canopy tent had been pulled up and were walking away in it. The ties were bundled up at the corners so, after she set them back, she was able to secure the ties to the isolation shelter nearby. No wind is blowing that thing away!

Tomorrow, we’re going to need to do a walkabout to see if we’ve lost anymore trees and branches.

To the north and west of us, they got snow, and in one area, they are expecting 30-40cm/12-15inches of snow over 24 hours. !!!

My brother had come out to do winterizing around their stuff. Being an absolute sweetheart, he used his zero turn mower to oull his smaller trailer over to where the haskaps were planted. He was able to load all those heavy hoses for the drip irrigation system into it, to store in the barn for the winter. He was also able to grab all the empty pots and trays. I don’t know where he put those, but they are meant for the dump. He even repositioned all the trays with seedlings still in them, clustered together under a big crab apple tree, to protect them from the wind.

We didn’t make it to the dump today.

I don’t know what else he did. I am feeling good today but, strangely, both very sleepy and very hungry, too. I woke during the night and couldn’t get back to sleep because I was so hungry, so I made a sandwich and could finally sleep. A few hours later, I woke to take my morning meds and was feeling so hungry, I was light headed. I accomplished very little today.

I’ve been moving with a bit more care as well. Yesterday, I removed some of the dressings. The 5 little incisions had two dressings only them. A small gauze with medical tape, first, which was covered with larger gauze and a waterproof bandage on top. One of the incisions had bled a lot more and saturated the gauze. It was supposed to be replaced, but the nurses decided to just add more gauze – about an inch thick! – to cover it and taped it in place to secure it. Not with waterproof tape. So much for being able to shower with them!

Sponge baths for the win.

I had been told I could remove the top dressings in about a week, but to leave the dressings underneath to fall off on their own, with instructions on how to wash with them there. What I quickly discovered was that the waterproof tape stuck to the medical tape below and did NOT want to let go.

It didn’t want to let go of my skin, either.

One incision is right above my belly button, and that came off entirely, because a gap had formed under both dressing tapes. On another incision site, both dressings came off before I realized the problem. I managed to keep the smaller tape and gauze on another, but the one that got the extra gauze on it was a problem. It had to come off, because there was a big, black, dry, stiffened layer of blood under the tape. I had to get my daughter to get that one off. There was one last one I ended up leaving, mostly because I simply couldn’t get an edge loose from my skin. I managed to get that done this morning, and not pull off the tape and gauze below. So now I have two incisions that are completely uncovered. They are looking fine, but I’m taking extra care with my movements to avoid stressing or straining anything.

Which meant spending most of my day in the cat free zone, working on some double ended crochet, and not moving much.

Aside from the sleepiness, I’m feeling really good, though my left shoulder has been getting worse. I really need a shoulder brace, but no where we’ve looked so far has them in stock. I don’t want to buy one online.

I did manage to get outside for a bit of a walk, while my older daughter did the outside cat feeding. After looking at what my brother had done, I spotted these.

Almost all the leaves have been blown off the trees, but the apples on this one are hanging on! Even with having several frost nights in the past while, the apples are still in excellent condition, with no cold damage – and they are tasty! I ended up shaking a branch and bringing a bunch inside, using several of them to cook up and with a bit of oatmeal as a sort of desert.

Aside from that, my daughter and I got emails from our doctor today.

We’re losing her.

She’s moving to a clinic in the city. We have to find a new doctor.

A new clinic was being built all summer in town. While chatting with my SIL about it today, she told me it was open – and we know the doctor that built it. He’s the same doctor that had treated my mother during several local hospital trips. So we will see if anyone there is open for new patients. I’d be happy with this doctor, but I think my daughter would prefer a female doctor. Personally, I don’t care.

Hopefully, we will find one before our doctor officially leaves on Dec. 1. We’ve gone without a doctor quite a few times since moving out here. Few doctors are willing to stay in rural communities longer than they have to.

I had a more pleasant surprise than losing our doctor today.

I got a call from my mother.

Yes, I said pleasant!

It was a very short call. She didn’t actually have anything to say. She had managed to go for a “walk” today (sitting on her walker and rolling herself with her legs). She asked a little about how things where. The last time I talked to her, she had suddenly become worried about her citizenship papers (from 70 + years ago!), and I was able to confirm that my brother had them. She then said she didn’t have any news. Neither did I, since I’m mostly house bound.

Then, oddly, she started telling me how good my “English” was. By which, it turns out, she meant she liked how clearly I spoke and enunciated my words. She said she liked to hear my voice.

???

Then she cut the call off short, herself, in a good mood.

It was so strange. I’ll take it, though. Good calls from my mother are rare things!

As I finish this, we’re coming up on 7:30pm, and it’s completely dark outside.

I’m ready to crawl back into bed now, and sleep for a week.

The Re-Farmer

Another good day

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A good day, and a quiet day.

Much of it was spent doing some crochet.  I got a walk in outside, with lovely weather to enjoy, as well.

My daughters got the one garden bed cleaned up and weeded.  As usual, the north end of the bed was filled with elm roots.  They got two rows of garlic planted, and will be adding a third row, tomorrow.   Then it will be mulched and pretty much done for the winter.

When I went over to see them, I got a few comments on the colorfulness of my bruising that they could see. 😆   I got these pictures, yesterday.

The first one is the arterial line site.  It went in and was removed while I was under anesthetic.   Being arterial, it is the “riskiest”, but looking the best.

The second is the IV port location.  The student nurse removing it had trouble with the tape and dig a fair bit of pulling and tugging.

The third one looks the worst, and should have been the mildest.  That’s were the anti- coagulant was injected, in my tricep.  It was also the only one that hurt.

Funny how it all seems backwards in severity.

Meanwhile, I finished off a crochet hanging storage bag I was working on.  Then, I whipped up a little critter, more as a reason to use some safety eyes I got, but never started a project that needed them.  I’ve always used buttons or embroidered eyes on things, previously.   It had to be tiny, because I could find only a little handful of polyfil to stuff it with.  A quick project is always satisfying.

The enforced reduced mobility should be a good time to catch up on various incomplete projects.  Something to make the time feel less wasted!

The Re-Farmer