Poirot is still very nervous when I’m around, and scared to go into the sun room while I’m going in and out, so it took a while for her to discover the food bowl I set up, just for her, in front of her carrier nest, with both wet and dry cat food. Hopefully, she will pick up on the routine and learn that she can stay with her babies, and will get her very own food that doesn’t involve fighting over it with other cats!
I did have to hang out in the sun room for a while to make sure The Grink in particular didn’t eat up the other wet cat food, before the bitter kittens got to eat. The one kitten that was returned to the creche is also still new to the routine, and it took some time for it to discover a food bowl and dive in.
The second picture is of the bigger kittens in a food coma. The three white and greys are easy to stop. We’ve got Eyelet and Grommet… What should be name the third one? I’m thinking Zipper or Buckle to stay with the theme. 😄
In the middle of the three mostly white kittens is Caramel’s little grubling, who is starting to get into the solid food a lot more. She’s actually smaller than her siblings that Caramel has with her in the cat house, I think.
She needs a name. The girls have come up with something, but it’s more like me calling them grublings than a name, and I can’t remember what it is.
You can see Kale the calico in the foreground, using her brother as a pillow – you can just see his black and white hind end sticking out from under her!
We had started calling him Oofus the Brave (a play on something my husband has said), but the girls felt it didn’t suit him very well. So he is now Sir Robin the Brave. 😄
Which means that, at this moment, we have a total of 9 kittens in the sun room, plus two in the cat house, that have an excellent chance of being socialized, then spayed and neutered!! Hopefully, their moms as well. It’s really unusual to have two really feral moms that chose to have their babies at the house! They may not be socialized, but they do seem to at least understand that they are safer close to us than wherever they’ve been finding nests in the outer yard.
With today’s heat, the cats have been splayed out in the shade absolutely everywhere!
The sun room thermometer was reading 30C/86F, which was actually the same as outside. The kittens were also puddled all over the place! I got the ceiling fan going, though, so that will help.
We spotted some excellent progress with the kittens!
They have discovered, and are using, the litter box! Something most of the adult cats haven’t figured out. So far, I’ve seen three of the four bigger kittens using it, including the adorable one above.
I had started calling this one Baby Button, because it reminds me of button so much. Today, my daughter came up with a much more entertaining name.
Eyelet.
So we now have Oofus the Brave and Eyelet named.
I checked on the cat house kittens. With today’s heat, I unplugged the power to the cat house, so the heat bulb will now be off, and so is the heated water bowl. Unless we drop below freezing overnight, we probably won’t need to plug it back in again.
I so wish we could reach into there! Once we have the chance, I want to cut a section out of the back wall and turn it into a door. That way, we can reach in and give them their own food and water, without having to lift the roof. The only other way to do it is through the entrance, which is at the opposite side of the cat house, and there is a sort of “porch” over what had been the original entrance. We can’t reach in very far, and other cats would just eat it first. These kittens look like they aren’t even leaving the cat bed yet, though they’re getting close.
My brother and his wife had come out again, today. I wasn’t expecting them at all and didn’t realize they were here until I went outside, just in time to see them leave!
With the message my brother got from our vandal yesterday, he wanted to talk to my mother about how our vandal found out they’d sold their property. He was too tired to visit her after hours working on that tree that fell on the outhouse, so he stopped by today.
Surprisingly, it actually turned out to be a good visit. He brought lunch, which turned out to be a good thing. My mother had gone to church, which tired her out enough that she went to sleep after, and she hadn’t eaten since whatever crackers she had when she got her med assist in the morning. After lunch, he set up my mother’s AC, in spite of her admonishing him that it’s too early, and then was all surprised that he got it done so quickly. He asked about the remote control so he could set it up, and she didn’t know where it was. He did some digging and finally found it, and was able to reprogram the default temperature on it. My mother does prefer things a lot warmer, as she gets older!
He did play the message our vandal had left him. My mother started going on about how he was the reason she moved away from the farm, because she was tired of his abusive behaviour (leaving my dad to be abused by him instead, but that’s another issue). Then she said that he keeps coming over and bringing her soup, and she tells him not to because his behaviour makes it taste bad.
She also said that the things he said in the message are much like what he says to her, and that he doesn’t let her get a word in when he’s there.
Yet… she doesn’t tell him to stop coming by.
When my brother asked about how our vandal knew they’d sold their property, she admitted that she might have mentioned it to him, a couple of weeks ago.
…
*sigh*
Then we found out that when he comes to visit my mother, when he walks down the hall, he tells everybody he meets all the accusations against me, my daughters and my brother about the farm and what he thinks we’re doing and saying. It turns out he even wrote out some long letter describing what he thinks we’re doing and left it in the common room. My mother didn’t see it until some time later and she tore it up. *sigh* She keeps all sorts of junk, but something important like this, and she tears it up!
Finding this out did explain something for my brother. While we was at his car and getting things to go inside, he started chatting with a guy that lives in my mother’s building. Not someone he’s met before. As they were talking and the guy realized he was my mother’s son, he said, “oh, so you’re the one who took the farm…”
My brother was so stunned and confused, he couldn’t say anything in response.
Now he knows why this guy said that.
The crazy thing is, the people in my mother’s building see me and recognize me. We’ve exchanged greetings and light conversation. I’m sure some of them have seen my brother, too. They know us.
So why would they believe the rantings and ravings of our vandal? Why would they even put up with him blathering at them in the common areas?
It’s getting to the point where I think I’m going to have to consult with a lawyer again. I’ve still got my Legal Shield membership, so any consultations are covered. It’s one thing for our vandal to be saying his crazy stuff about us to my mother or on phone messages. While I’ve suspected as much for some time, this is the first time it’s actually been confirmed that he is slandering us to others – even complete strangers. I don’t know that there’s much in Canadian law that we can do about it, but I can at least find out!
*sigh*
For someone who claims to be dying of cancer, he apparently hasn’t slown down even a little bit when it comes to his hate towards us. All because he thinks he’s somehow entitled to the property! I do understand that it isn’t even about him wanting it for himself so much and not wanting my brother to have it, or for us to be living here. In the 10 Commandments, it says “thou shalt not covet…” This is an example of covetousness. It’s one thing to see what others have an think “I wish I had that” and resent them for it. That’s your basic envy. It’s quite another to see what others have and think, “I should have that, not them,” and try to prevent others from having what they want, or try to have it taken from them. Marxism/socialism in a nutshell, really. The covetous person would rather see a thing destroyed, then see someone else have it. Or destroy the person who has what they want, and be willing to misuse the law and those in authority to do it. That is what our vandal is like.
Which makes it so frustrating when my mother just enables him and even allows him to turn her against my brother and me. He manipulated her so easily!
Another reason to try and get my mother into long term care or assisted living as soon as possible. There will be that extra layer of protection, and hopefully, our vandal won’t know where my mother will be at all.
First, the cuteness – and something to keep an eye on.
The kitties are definitely enjoying being outside of the cat cage, though only the tiny adopted kitty wasn’t getting out of it very easily. They are often found piled up on or near the self warming mat – and all over each other!
Brussel is often found with grublings sleeping all over her!
In the second photo, you can see she is quite the creche mother, nursing any or all of the babies that want. She does have a permanently angry expression, though!
She is not, however, the only creche more anymore!
The next photo shows the mystery mother. I was able to get the picture through the bathroom window, as she avoids going into the sun room if we are around. Later on, as I was going through the sun room, I spotted her actively nursing several kittens, not just her own! I made a point of getting through the sun room as quickly as possible, so as not to scare her off, so no picture possible.
Not long ago, I noticed that the calico had developed a sore on her leg. It looked a lot like the one Ooofus The Brave had on a back leg, that is now all healed and the fur growing back. Today, however, I had my daughter check a clump of fur on her back leg. As she tried to wash it out, she discovered it was another wound. We weren’t able to do much at the time, but we’ll have to make sure to put some cat-safe antibiotic cream on both wounds, in the morning. If you watched her running around, you wouldn’t know the wounds where there at all. She is not favouring the injured legs at all. When Oofus had his on his back leg, it seemed to me it was the result of over grooming, likely because I’d accidentally dripped some squeeze treat onto him while feeding it to Brussel while he was nursing. It’s possible that same thing has happened to the calico, but it’s hard to know for sure. Hopefully, she will heal up as thoroughly as Oofus has.
On a completely different note, I have a WordPress mystery. It has to be some kind of glitch. I got a “you’re being noticed” increased traffic notification, but when I finally actually checked my stats… honestly, it has to be some kind of error. This is a small blog, with a small but steady flow of traffic – both views and visitors. As of right now, my stats are telling me I’ve had a whole 49 visitors today – and almost 5,300 views! That many views is a good month for this blog, not one day! Over 1,500 of these views are to the Home page/archives link. The next highest is a food related post that is typically at the top, with 40 views.
According to the stats, virtually all of these 5000+ views are from the US, with almost 2000 from Michigan and over 1000 from California. The Michigan views are almost all from Lansing – and almost all these views are from a desktop, not hand held device or laptop, which is also unusual these days. Even then, the devices information is odd. The browser is listed as “other”, and so is the OS.
How on earth did I get such a huge jump in views? It has to be some kind of glitch. It doesn’t even seem like it’s from a traffic inducing bot; I got hit with one of those a couple of days ago, when several dozen “like” notifications came through at a rate of almost 2 per second.
I would not be at all surprised if, a few days from now, my stats get “corrected” to something more usual!
Well, yesterday, we finally admitted it. The battle has been lost. We’ve thrown in the towel and admitted defeat – for safety reasons, really.
Despite my best efforts, Magda kept getting out of the isolation shelter. Once, I found a sliding window open, but most of the time, I could see nothing disturbed. The only way I could see how she could be getting out was through the roof, even though it was weighted down with bricks, and there is a ceiling of rigid insulation. I couldn’t see how she could be getting out the back, where it lefts, but how could she be getting out through the front, where it’s hinged?
Now, the insulation has been slowly scratched and chewed up through the winter, so there is a big gap where the two pieces meet. The gap between the insulation and the roof panels is very narrow, but Magda is so tiny. Was it possible?
Just in case, I found some boards and more pieces of scrap insulation that I slide in between the roof panels and the insulation ceiling. There were still spaces, but they were very small.
Once inside and in the kitchen, went to open the window, which is directly above the isolation shelter. I spotted Magda at one of the gaps in the insulation, scratching at the roof panel. When she heard me tell her to stop, she disappeared below.
Off and on, I would check out the window. Nothing was happening.
Then I looked out and found a very flat Magda, squeezed between the boards, the insulation and the roof panel, like a pancake. !!!
I dashed outside but, as I came closer, she slithered her way back into the shelter, flung herself into the cat bed and stretched out, looking at me as if nothing had just happened. !!!
I found some more scrap pieces of insulation and shifted the boards I’d added around, then kept checking out the window. I didn’t see anything.
Eventually, though, something about the insulation seemed… different.
I went out to check, and there was Magda, sitting on the lawn, looking at me. She had somehow managed to pull the insulation downwards enough for her to squirm through.
At that point, I gave up. She’s supposed to be recovering from surgery, and the last thing she should be doing is squeezing through tight spaces and dropping down from a height. Since we’ve finished the ear medication, and The Grink was looking fine, too, I opened the ramp door to the isolation shelter and let them out, putting the wind breaker box over the opening again.
Even so, when I came out this morning, I found that window open again!
While I was doing my rounds this morning, I had a whole lot of cats following me, including Magda! The second photo above was taken while I was checking the garlic bed. After I got the picture, she walked under Stinky to get to the other side of him.
She is so small, she didn’t have to duck at all to go under him.
Gosh, those two look alike. Given when he was neutered and how old she is, I suppose it’s possible he’s her daddy.
The garlic, meanwhile, is looking much better now!
Their finally turned nice and green and, with the netting in place, nothing it digging them up anymore.
Yesterday was such a gorgeous evening, I was able to do a few things in the garden, though I neglected to take photos. One of them was to uncover the winter sown bed in the old kitchen garden to give it a good watering. With the plastic cover, it didn’t get even what little rain we’ve had, and the sump pump that drains at the high end of the bed has yet to go off this year, so it’s not being watered from below, either. There was enough water in the rain barrel that I could give this bed a thorough watering. Once the cover was off, I could also see that there are quite a few seedlings in there, and what appears to be a couple of onions that I missed from last year!
Once the cover was back on and the plastic secured, I started watering the bed at the chain link fence that is now covered with mesh. I came back to the rain barrel to refill, and found two cats lounging on top of the raised bed cover!
I am not impressed.
The pre-sown bed at the chain link fence, plus the one among the east yard garden beds got watered, and I was still able to refill the watering cans to leave in the portable greenhouse to warm up during the day and add to the heat sink effect during the night.
Which doesn’t actually seem to be accomplishing anything. Whenever I check the thermometer in the morning, it’s reading the same temperature as outside the greenhouse. Still way to cold to be able to move our seedling trays into there!
In checking the other areas, I did some clearing around the walking onions. There are quite a few of them coming up right now. Unfortunately, so is the crab grass, only some of which could be pulled out for now. I check on the fenced off area where the tulips are and there are a lot more leaves showing now. Even the saffron crocuses look like there are more of them. While they never reached the point of blooming before they got choked out by weeds, clearly the corms have expanded.
After I finished my rounds this morning, I grabbed the turkey dinners I put together for my mother and headed out. I left early enough to swing past the grocery store to see if it was open today. It was, so I popped in to pick up a few things I knew my mother was running low on. I also picked up some instant oatmeal for her to try, since she’s having a harder time standing long enough to cook herself breakfast. I figured instant oatmeal would be better than boxed cereal. I got a package with three different flavours for her to try out. When I got to her place and was putting things away, I opened the box to read the instructions – she would have great difficulty reading them herself. Each flavour called for a different amount of water. Oops. Ah, well. I explained the instructions to her as best I could.
While today was just a day to visit, I of course did a little jobs for her, including bagging up her recycling. I noticed bean cans in there, which was something I’d got for her to try before, so I asked how she liked them. She was very enthusiastic in her response, so canned baked beans are now on the list of heat and eat things for her! 😁 Until now, she’d just been getting canned soups.
With the few things I picked up for her today, plus the dinners, plus her three days a week of Meals on Wheels, it turns out my mother isn’t going to need an actual grocery shopping trip for a while. It was, for the most part, a good visit. It wasn’t until the very end, when it was getting time for me to leave anyhow, that she started going off on a tangent. One was about how surprised she was that my brother didn’t phone her for Easter. I pointed out, he came over to visit her because they were going to be out of province this weekend, to spend time with the grandbabies. “Oh, two weeks ago”, she scoffed. Except it wasn’t; it was last weekend, and he spent a long time with her going over her financial stuff, as he regularly does, along with bringing her stuff for her basket and an Easter card.
Then she started going on about my daughters, and how terrible I am for keeping them “tied” to me (she doesn’t get that they actually chose to move out here to help maintain this place) and even back to ranting about how they “know nothing” because we homeschooled. She doesn’t know the girls at all, has made no effort to get to know them (she has only ever wanted to control them and get them to perform for her), but assumes she knows everything about them and about our life in general. Basically, making scenarios up in her mind and assuming they are true, then blaming all the bad stuff on my making parenting choices she didn’t approve of. It’s been decades, and she still does it! I swear, in her mind, the girls are still 10 yrs old or something.
It was definitely time to leave.
By the time I got home, it was getting close to when I would normally go out for my evening rounds, so I was soon back outside to enjoy the gorgeous weather we’ve been having. According to my weather app, we’ve been raining all day, but it was bright sunshine and warm temperatures. After feeding the cats – and playing with the kittens a bit – I ended up taking some April garden tour video. It’s been a month since the last ones I took, so I figured it was about time. I’ll be checking those soon and seeing if I need to do it again or not! 😄
Tomorrow is supposed to be quite a bit colder, with a mix of rain and snow starting in the afternoon. On a day when I have no outings planned and want to get work done outside, of course. 😁 We’ll see how things actually turn out. Some jobs I want to start require power tools and extension cords, so if we’ve got rain or snow, those will wait a bit longer. There is always something that can be worked on, though. I actually have a whole week ahead of me, with no scheduled outings until our first city stock up trip! What a remarkable thing! I might actually get some real work done outside! Gosh, that would be nice!
I definitely over did it yesterday, and was in major pain this morning, so we just took care of the cats, and then I went back to bed. Taking care of Magda’s and The Grink’s ears went much better than expected.
The first image above was taken right after treating their ears. Since they are in the isolation shelter, they get treated with wet cat food, which The Grink has been enjoying, but Magda seems to be ingnoring.
Then I went out through the sun room to go to the post office, and spotted a very scrabbly looking cat on a cat bed.
It was Magda!
Since getting spayed, she has developed the runs and is looking very messy.
On checking the isolation shelter, I found a corner of the sliding window by the foot bowl was pushed out of its track at the top. I popped it back in place, then got Magda and put her back. After closing the window up again, I noticed it was bowed outwards slightly, so I took it out completely, flipped it so it was bowing the other way, then put it back. I thought that would do the trick.
Then I went inside to change my shirt. Magda left a mess on me while I was carrying her.
By the time I changed and came back out, I checked on the isolation shelter and found the window partly open! Magda figured out how to slide it open from the inside!
The Grink was just sitting there, looking at me. She had no interest in leaving, but she did really want attention!
I don’t like that The Grink is in there alone. We’ll have to find a way to secure the window before we put Magda back, though. When I came home from the post office, I found her snuggling with Syndol. Later on, while my daughter and I were going through the garden areas, she kept following us, when she needs to be resting and recovering!
In the first photo, Caramel, in the bed she moved her kittens to, had them completely hidden. I did manage to get a picture of her babies while she was out, though. They are getting very active! With the sides of this bed being so much higher, I could just see their heads bobbing around.
Brussel’s babies are getting downright rambunctious, but they still aren’t quite climbing completely out of the cat cave. They’ll dangle a leg out, or stick their heads through the opening, but so far, that’s it.
When we noticed that Brussel was out, my daughter and I took advantage to take the babies out and snuggle them. I got some pictures, though it was really hard to get good ones. Caramel’s baby’s eyes are opening now, and it seems more active than its siblings in the cat house.
We also had a chance to look at what seemed to be a wound on the black and white kitten’s back leg. With my daughter holding him, I could get a closer look, and it does just look like missing fur. My theory remains; some wet cat food dripped onto him and mama was too aggressive in cleaning it off!
So far, all seems to be well, though I was not seeing any cats going to the food bowl inside the trap today. It may simply have been too windy, even though it’s mostly sheltered by the catio. If we’re after Slick of Adam, though, we’re unlikely to catch either of them in that location. Any female we manage to get will be good, though. We’ll have to figure something out.
I ended up using a dollar store shower curtain I’d got to potentially use around the eggplant and pepper bed last year, but ended up using the dining table protectors instead. That should help out with warming up the soil and, hopefully, kill off any Creeping Charlie and crab grass in there. I will probably use one of these two solarized beds to plant our potatoes.
I also removed most of the mulch from the wattle weave bed and had a pleasant surprise.
In the first image, you can see the wild strawberries (or whatever they are), which I was expecting. What I was NOT expecting, but hopeful for, you can see in the next image. That is thyme! It survived the winter!
In the next photo, you can see an overview of the long part of the bed. There’s a sort of lighter colour mass about half way down; those are the self seeded Chamomile. Hopefully, it dropped seeds and will come back again this year.
The very last photo is the thermometer in the covered bed. It looks cloudy because I took the photo through the plastic cover. It looks like it was about 18C/64F in there.
Looking around, I couldn’t see much of the green seedlings I uncovered while removing most of the mulch. I likely damaged them too much. There were a lot of seeds scattered in there, though, so I expect more to be coming up soon.
The temperature inside the portable greenhouse was a fair bit higher!
40C/104F! That would definitely start warming up the water in the heat sink I set up, though when I popped the cover off to check, it still seemed cold. That would be in comparison to the very warm temperatures I was standing in!
The next image, meanwhile, is a screen cap taken right after I got a photo of the thermometer, showing what the outside temperature was at. 5C/42F A 35 degree difference (Celsius)!
It should be interesting to see what the thermometer says in the morning, after the 0C/32F we’re supposed to drop to, tonight.
Oh, I also remembered to remove most of the mulch from the strawberry bed in the main garden area – and return the chicken wire over the top. It was quite frozen under there, and there’s no sign of the Albion Everbearing strawberries we have planted there.
The next time I should have time to do anything of note in the garden will be on Wednesday, and right now, the forecast for Wednesday is for a high of 14C/57F with a mix of sun and clouds. It should be a very good day to be working outside!
Meanwhile, I moved things around with the seed trays in the basement. I had the containers with pre-germinating seeds on top of the light fixture over the heat mat, but that light turns itself off, so what little heat it produces doesn’t last long. I thought I figured out how to reprogram the timer, but it seems to have not made any difference. It’s been a while, and there has been no sign of germination. They’re just too cold. So I ended up moving the trays with the chitting potatoes to the top shelf with the winter squash, under the shop light, then set up the second heat mat under aquarium light. So now the tray with the eggplants, peppers, tomatoes and luffa seeds is on one mat, and the three containers of melon seeds are on the other.
When I checked on them before shutting things down for the night, I was already seeing hints of radicals! They will be ready to be potted up by tomorrow or the day after!
Amazing how just a little bit of warmth makes such a huge difference!
What I was really wanting to do what get the heater going in the basement for a while, and heaters aren’t supposed to be left unattended. I’m not one to just hand around watching videos on my phone, my hands are too messed up to do my usual things, like crochet, and my eyes are too messed up to read, so…
Tomatoes it is!
Towards the end of the video, I included pictures I took of the thermometer in the portable greenhouse today. I was really impressed!
While I was starting my morning rounds, it was about -6C/21F shortly after 8:30am outside. At that time of day, it is just starting to get out of the morning shade. The thermometer inside was about -2C/28F or so.
When I checked again before going inside, shortly before 9am, the outside temperature was much the same, but the thermometer had already warmed up 4 degrees to 2C/39F.
I came out in in the afternoon and, at roughly 1:15pm, it was about 27C/81F in there. By about 4:10pm, it had warmed up to about 38C/100F in there! At least, that’s what the thermometer read. It didn’t feel anywhere near that hot to me.
This would be a good place for a high/low thermometer!
On a completely different topic, I have potential good news.
I was able to get some photos and short video of Brussel and her babies that I sent to the cat lady, joking that if she sent them to her circle, maybe someone might be interested in adopting a kitten in 6 or 7 weeks.
Much to my shock, she responded almost right away, saying someone was interested in the little calico!
I won’t be holding my breath on that, considering how many times people have backed out at the last minute, but gosh, it would be awesome if the babies could be adopted out right away! There is some progress in socializing Brussel, too – I was actually able to sneak a pet as she was walking past me and she actually stopped and let me pet her more!
In other cat news, there’s potential good news about Button. The Cat Lady and her family have adopted him permanently and, while he started growing again and is at normal size now, after being treated for worms three times (!!!), he also became both blind and deaf. His eyes were permanently dilated. Well, they’ve taken him to a cat eye specialist, and they think it might be a hereditary type of glaucoma. He’s now getting treatment for it. She sent me a photo, and his pupils are almost normal again – you can see his electric blue irises again. It would be nice if he could regain at least some of his vision!
As a family, we’re not really dedicated to birthdays. As in, the actual date. Before my husband went on disability and he was still working, we would celebrated birthdays on the weekend before or after the actual date, depending on which was after pay day. The entire week, however, tended to be when the birthday person would get little gifts, or extra special treatment. The day itself was recognized, of course, but we liked to spread it out.
Now that my husband is on disability, his payments come in at the end of the month, so we budget accordingly. Which means we tend to have more birthday months than birthday weeks!
Image generated by WP AI
My older daughter’s birthday is this month. She is really hard to get things for! One regular thing we would do is have the birthday person choose a special celebration dinner. When our income was higher, this was a time when we might go to a specific restaurant that we normally wouldn’t, but dining out for four people hasn’t been something we could afford for a long time. Now that we are out in the boonies, we generally don’t bother and will order takeout from somewhere.
I had already done a birthday take home meal earlier this month, but my older daughter wanted Pizza Hut – and she was paying. Yeah. She insists on paying for her own birthday meal!
It’s still early, but today was when we decided to do pizza day. The birthday girl placed the order online with a pick up time late enough that other stuff could be done first. My younger daughter came along to help out. After a quick stop at the post office to pick up one more package, we headed to the town our doctor’s clinic is in. We got there about an hour early, but there’s a grocery store in the same area, so we could just park and go there, first.
The only thing I needed for general groceries was milk and eggs, plus my daughter spotted some dark coffee; they’ve been running out. The rest was birthday related. I ended up choosing two cakes; a tiramisu cake and a Pina Colada angel food cake trifle. We picked up some ranch and blue cheese dressing to use as dips for the pizza. We got drinks, some Cotton Candy Ice Cream, and their last box of mango Melona bars. As an extra, I decided to try some frozen finger foods for later on. Breaded pickle spears, Italian Mozza Bites and Tempura Yams.
I was going to treat my daughter for her birthday, no matter how much she balked! 😄
By the time we were done and the truck loaded up, we still had almost half an hour before the time set for our order. The location is take out only, but I figured they’d have seating for people waiting for their orders, so we made our way over anyhow. Which worked out, as they were almost done with our order!
Good grief, pizza has gotten expensive. Four large pizzas and three chicken bites bowls, and the total was just under $200 – before tip! A few years back, it was almost half that, and we were getting extra large sized pizzas.
Well, we only do this once a year. Plus, it will feed us for a couple of days, at least. Still… *choke*
Since it is a special occasion, I’ve taken a break from my Lenten fast of sugar and simple carbs.
In other things, I had a chance to chat with the Cat Lady earlier today. She sent me a post made by the woman who was able to provide us with so much donated cat food. It was very generous and much appreciated – we still have wet cat food left from that! The Cat Lady did warn me, though, not to share to much. As the Cat Lady put it, her heart is in the right place, but she causes problems. A few months back, she was “helping” someone caring for a colony, got the province involved, and most of the cats ended up being euthanized. Sadly, it seems to be happening again. There’s a call out for various supplies, fosters, donations for spays and neuters, and so on, for a colony that sounds about the same size as ours, though the number of cats we have showing up can change considerably from day to day, and even feeding to feeding. All great stuff being called for, except for on thing.
She got the province involved again.
The post had mentioned that the cats have winter suitable shelters, but not much else. Well, the Cat Lady knows of this colony. She says the cats are well cared for, and they have lots of excellent shelters. While help would certainly be appreciated – especially with spays and neuters – with the province involved, the person that’s been caring for them is going to get pressured a lot before the province finally steps in and simply wipes them out.
I know that in our municipality, their procedure to “help” people caring for colonies is to simply shoot the cats. It’s pretty much the main reason we don’t try to do any local fundraising drives for spays and neuters. We don’t want it to be generally known, how many cats have been showing up (I’ve seen another tabby that looks like a stranger recently. He has a distinctive Nicky the Nose face; that old tom hasn’t been around for years, but this cat looks like it could be one of his decedents). I want to adopt them out. Not kill them off.
Speaking of spays and neuters, the Cat Lady hopes to book us for three cats, as soon as she gets a chance to call the clinic we’ve been going to. She’s been spending a lot of time at another clinic in the city. The vet that saved Cabbages sold his clinic and went back to India for a while. He has since returned and opened a new clinic, and she’s happily been going to him again. She’s currently dealing with a rescue case that is quite severe. I was quite surprised when she said for three cats. The last we talked about it, she was hoping to be able to get two done. Hopefully, that means donations to her rescue have started to go back up again. Otherwise, it means she’s paying for it out of pocket, which they have done before. They are so amazing!
Meanwhile, I also got a note from my brother. He plans to come out here tomorrow morning. Along with needing to do some stuff among their stored items, he plans to set up “that bypass valve” on the septic diverter. He must have thought he had already talked to me about it, but I had no idea about this. He said that we’ll be able to test out the ejector to see if it’s frozen and, if it is, can switch back to the emergency bypass. Which is an awesome idea! I don’t think the ejector is frozen, though. I think there’s something stuck in the venturi valve. Either that, or there’s a clog somewhere in the pipe to the house. To be able to switch from the ejector to the emergency by pass through a bypass valve instead of having to attach and detach hoses is a brilliant idea! I look forward to seeing what he’s come up with to do this. With all the issues we’ve had with the septic in the 7+ years we’ve been living here, having that bypass is a godsend.
Aside from that, I’m planning to make a dump run tomorrow. Time to finally get rid of that broken microwave! I’m glad we replaced it with the multi-function toaster oven. The girls have been using it more than they’ve been using the oven! Very handy! Tomorrow we’re expecting to have a high of only -8C/18F. Not bad, but quite a drop from today, where we ended up hitting 4C/39F, which was higher than was forecast. Things were melting all over the place! It’s expected to be almost a week before we see highs above freezing again. Nothing to complain about, though.
First, the more fun stuff. I hit the post office on the way home and found more packages than I was expecting, including – finally! – the new clamp lamps I’d ordered. They were shipped by CanPar and the address we had to use was for the store the post office is in, because the system wouldn’t accept anything else. The benefit of living in such a tiny community. The postal staff knew exactly who it was for and there was a parcel slip in our mail box.
The first photo is everything outside the box. The second is assembled. These lamps are suitable for up to 250W bulbs, so we shouldn’t have the damaged bulb that we got with the heat bulb in the sun room. That lamp now has a 150W ceramic heat bulb in it.
The ceramic bulbs I’ve installed in the lamps are 200W, and they are ready to go. I can put one up somewhere in the sun room, without having to remove the one that’s already there, but I may want to move the one that’s already there and have the warmer bulb in that spot.
The lamp in the isolation shelter will take more doing, as the current lamp needs to be removed completely. We’ll need to open up the roof, remove the rigid insulation “ceiling”, then get the lamp out. The cord is wrapped around the support it’s hanging off of, to keep it out of cat reach. I’m hoping to get that done in the next couple of days, when it’s supposed to be warmer, so that it’ll be ready when it gets colder again.
In other things, today was my day to do my mother’s errands. I had asked her if she wanted me to pick up lunch and she ended up saying to just get food for myself, she would eat what she had.
Of course, I wasn’t going to do that.
I got to town early enough to pick something up before going to her place, but nothing was open until 11am, which is when she was expecting me. I was able to run another errand before parking and waiting the last few minutes before the restaurant I’d decided on, opened. While waiting, I called my mother to tell her I would be there closer to 11:30. She told me she was reheating some potatoes to go with lunch, and I told her, I’m bringing lunch. She doesn’t need to.
She was quite okay with that, and even joked about how spoiled she’s getting with not having to cook!
Soon, I was placing our orders, which were ready faster than I expected for them just opening, then made a quick stop at the grocery store for drinks.
When I got to her place and knocked at the door, there was no answer, but I knew she was home so I started walking in. She was in the bathroom and couldn’t hear me, which was pretty much what I expected.
What I didn’t expect was the strong smell of smoke.
While setting getting the food and drinks onto the table and getting plates, I found the source.
The potatoes my mother said she was cooking had burned. She’d salvaged them, and the carrots she was reheating with them, by scraping the burnt bits into the sink, and the rest were in a bowl on her counter. The burnt bitts were REALLY heavily charred. The frying pan she’d been using was also in the sink, soaking – and totally black!
When my mother came out and saw where I was in the kitchen, she told me about burning them. She said there’s something wrong with the element she was using, in that it stays on high, even when turned down to low.
…
Which may be true. However, this stove was installed brand new, after she moved into this apartment from the one she’d been in when she first moved into the building. She has never said anything about the element being like this before. She’s also never burned anything like this before!
I didn’t say much about it, though while we were eating, I was looking around for a fire extinguisher. Being a public housing building, I would have expected one and asked. She didn’t know what I was talking about at first, so I described what it would look like to her, and she said no, she had nothing like that. Granted, she wouldn’t have been able to figure out how to use one, but it would have been good to have one if an actual fire broke out, so someone else would have it available to use.
While talking about fire extinguishers and alarms, she pointed to the spot on the wall where her CO monitor that my brother got her, used to be. When we set up her place before taking her home from the hospital, my brother checked it and found it had no batteries. We had some issues getting fresh batteries into it and being able to close up the back. There were too many other things that needed to be done, so we took the batteries back out again, and my brother took it home with him to check on later.
My mother’s comment was that she had been “fooled” by it. It had started beeping, but she should the sound was coming from the fire detector on the ceiling, which is also a CO monitor. She’s called public housing and they send someone over. The fire detector was working fine, and the beeping was traced to the CO monitor on the wall.
Long story short, they took the batteries out so the beeping would stop.
…
So not only did my mother think this was some sort of “trick”, but apparently, she thought they were smoke detectors.
I tried to explain to her how dangerous CO poisoning could be, but she preferred to think my brother was somehow messing with her, instead.
*sigh*
I dropped it for now.
Once we were done lunch, we went over her shopping list, which included a trip to the pharmacy for some items this time, and I was soon off. When I got to the truck, though, I took the time to message my family about the things that happened at my mom’s. The burnt food is something home care had told us to watch out for, as it becomes a safety issue. While driving to the pharmacy, I remembered I had the home care coordinator’s business card in my phone case, so I called her when I parked and left a message about it.
Oh, there was another issue I’d tried asking my mother about, and that was getting a Life Line. She’d talked to the woman from the Senior’s Centre; they are the ones that arrange this. Unfortunately, she was confused about the 2 versions of it she can get and wasn’t sure which one to choose. More on that later.
The items my mother had on her list for the pharmacy were easy to find, so I was soon done there and moved on to the grocery store. I was able to get everything on her list, with no substitutions, which was nice.
Today is Tuesday, which is when the common room of her building is used for group low impact exercises, arranged with the local senior’s centre, and people from other buildings come over for it, too. When I got back, they were already starting to gather, so I went around. I had told my mother to go ahead and join them and I could put things away for her, but she was still in her apartment when I got there.
After putting things away, my mother started talking about her bubble packs. It took a while to figure out what she was getting at, and then I had to open up the lock box to be sure, but my mother’s meds were completely out. She said they were going to be delivered, but then didn’t seem sure that they would actually be delivered – and was asking me if I’d picked them up while at the pharmacy! I had no idea about, and she was starting to get so upset, I told her I would just go back to the pharmacy and get them.
It’s a good thing I did.
The prescriptions were prepared for delivery later, so the pharmacist was surprised to see me, but since I was there, she brought out the annual form they need signed to continue doing my mother’s medications in bubble packs. Since they know I have my mother’s permission with this stuff, I was able to sign it on her behalf. My mother would have been very confused by getting that form!
This time, when I got back to her building, my mother was in the common room with the others. So I took care of putting things away, then doing some light house keeping. I hadn’t tested her blood pressure earlier, and it was while I was sweeping that I’d found the box with the machine in it.
My mother had hidden it under her table.
So, no testing her BP this visit! I did put it back on the table, though.
After I finished cleaning up and putting things away, I started heading out. My mother was in behind a table with someone next to her, so I was going to skirt around the group as quietly as possible to give her a hug and a kiss goodbye, but enough people recognized me and started saying hi that I just laughed and said I was going to interrupt, when right through the circle of people to get around to my mother and gave her hugs and kisses. They got a good laugh out of that!
Later on, my mother phoned me and thanked me for that. Apparently, doing this was “good for my reputation”. ??? She explained that the group talks about all sorts of things, and one regular subject is about how many of the seniors are either largely forgotten by their adult children, or treated badly by them. I got the impression my mother hear a lot of positive comments after I left. Which made her happy, so that makes me happy.
She also told me she’s talked to the woman from the Senior’s Center again about the Life Line, and she will be coming by to my mother’s tomorrow to start the paperwork for it. I told my mother that, if necessary, I expect to be home all day, so she can call me if she feels the need.
Meanwhile, I updated my siblings about how things went, including about the CO monitor. My brother soon responded. He found out what was going on. Once he was able to get the batteries in, it started to beep. A double beep every 30 seconds. The display screen also said “end”.
On the back of the monitor, it explained that the monitor needs to be replaced every 10 years and, as a reminder, it would start to double beep every 30 seconds and display the word “end”.
You’d think the public housing guys that maintain CO monitors would have caught on to that.
Or maybe they did, but my mother didn’t understand what they were saying to her.
I feel better about that, at least!
Not so about the burned food. My mother is always super cautious about that sort of thing, so it was *really* unusual for her to not just burn food, but burn it so badly.
As alarming as that is, this may turn out to be a blessing in disguise. My mother really wants to be in long term care. She is aware of how much she is physically failing, and she at least somewhat recognizes her own cognitive decline and it, understandably, scares her. I really hope this is what gets her into the care she needs!
Total change of subject.
I got a call from the Cat Lady while I was working on this. She had sent me some security camera images. The property they moved on to about a year and a half ago, backs up against a national park, where lots of people walk their dogs. Six off leash dogs suddenly showed up on their deck, just minutes after their youngest daughter had been out there with Button. Button is completely blind and deaf now, and their youngest daughter makes a point of going out there with him in a harness to get some fresh air when she comes home from school for lunch.
Her husband had chased the dogs off and they confronted the owner, who said outright she didn’t care. Even when they told her their daughter had been on the deck with a blind and deaf cat, the response was, that cat would have been eaten. !!! When they confronted her on that, her response was, I don’t care, I hate cats. !!!! She also called the Cat Lady rude names, and her very butch partner started looking ready to be violent.
They called the RCMP on them. This is not an off leash park, for starters, and they are on something like 10 acres, so that’s quite a distance for the dogs to be running around away from their owners. People that irresponsible with their animals should not have any, let alone 6 big dogs! I just can’t imagine knowing your animals are prone to violence, and not caring if the kill another animal or possibly hurt a child.
They were so relieved their daughter and Button had already gone inside, that’s for sure!
Which lead to an update on Button. His sight had been going for a while now, and then it was just gone. The vet thinks it was a viral infection, in utero. Any other kittens in the litter and the mother likely died, and they really don’t know how Button survived. It has effected his development in many ways. The Cat Lady tells me, they don’t care. They adore him. Even their dog adores him. He is in almost constant contact with a human, and they even take him out for coffee and other outings. And to think, he was supposed to be adopted by someone else entirely, who ended up backing out and adopting another cat, when his vet care kept getting longer and longer!
Meanwhile, she will be looking into booking a couple more neuters for us. I mentioned we might be able to get a female, now that Adam actually comes up to us for pets, so she will see what they can arrange. I told her, whatever they can manage, we’ll happily take. Beggars can’t be choosers! We’ve got so many friendly males, but we really need to get the females done.
She will get back to us when she has more information.
What a day she had, though! I appreciate that, in the middle of all this, she still thinks of us and of how her rescue can help us.
My brain is feeling fried, so not much to say this time.
While heading to my mother’s for the meeting with home care, I noticed the trip meter on the truck was already at almost 450km. It’s only March 4, and I reset it when I filled the tank at Costco on Feb. 28. Just over 100km of that was the trip home. The rest was the first three days of March.
If I keep getting so many calls to cover med assists like in the past couple of weeks, this is going to be a very expensive month on gas!
I got to my mother’s early, in case she needed help with getting dressed or anything like that. She was already dressed and ready. She and I are alike in one thing: if we have some sort of appointment, we can’t sleep the night before.
Yeah, I’m didn’t get much sleep last night, either.
We got to talking and my mother quickly launched into an attack on my brother. She started accusing him of keeping secrets from her again, and said a few strange things. One was how he “brags” about his technology (he doesn’t brag. Even the slightest attempt to talk about his work is so far beyond her ability to understand, he avoids talking about his job at all). Then she said, she doesn’t want his technology, but his kindness.
No one has been kinder to my mother than him. No one has done more for her than him. He has covered her butt for decades. But because he doesn’t tell her all his personal stuff, and doesn’t always agree with her, doesn’t allow her to treat him like her personal slave, that means he’s not kind to her – then she suddenly started saying that it’s his wife that controls everything. !!!!
There was one thing she said that actually confirmed something we’ve suspected for some time now. A matter of phrasing, really.
She is getting my brother mixed up with my dad.
He looks more and more like my dad as he gets older. My mother and my dad were always butting heads. A very dysfunctional relationship. We’ve noted that she’s treating my brother like she used to treat my dad. Today, she actually started talking about him as if he was my dad.
Then there was a knock at the door, and the case coordinator arrived.
We talked for while about all sorts of things. They’ve not been able to find exactly what happened with the morning no-shows. The best they could come up with is that there was confusion and lack of communication because a previous shift scheduler has been away for the past month, and there is come chaos with the people filling in for her.
I tested my mother’s BP so she could see how my mother has to move around when just shifting from chair to chair, so I could access her left arm. My mother and I had already decided that, at the end of the meeting, I would take her to do her blood work, so the case coordinator could observe how my mother gets into the truck, and moves around in general.
In the end, it looks like my mother will start getting some meal assists – all they can do is things like make her a sandwich, or reheat leftovers. My mother was indeed already scheduled for longer time in the mornings, for assistance in dressing and emptying her commode, but it hasn’t been happening, so that will be looked into. I don’t think my mother is in “bad” enough condition for her to actually get considered more urgently to get her into supportive living or long term care. Which is so very frustrating.
After the meeting was done, I got my mother to the lab in the local hospital with no doctors, just a few blocks from my mother’s place, for her blood work. Only one vial was needed, and no one else was there to get done, so it was really fast. Just that outing wore her out, though, and she was glad to be home. It was just coming up on lunch time, so I got some food together for her before I left.
And that was pretty much it. I had actually intended to go for a nap, I’m so tired, but after I had my own lunch, it just didn’t make sense to try and nap, or I’d screw up my own night. So I’m basically just dragging my butt through the day until it’s a reasonable hour to go to bed.
I need sleeeeeeepppp.
Thankfully, I don’t have any appointments tomorrow, so I should be able to have a recovery day. Unless I get another call from home care to cover my mother’s meds again! Then I have the appointment at the garage for the truck to do a whole bunch of relatively small things before they become big things, along with replacing the oil sensor. Which means a few hours in town, while it’s being worked on. I should have several parcels to pick up by then. Two are already in and waiting. One is something I finally broke down and ordered; a clear acrylic guard for my keyboard, to keep the cats from walking on it and digging under it! Ghosty in particular is truly dedicated to waiting until I’m in bed, then digging under my keyboard. She’s even knocked it right off my computer table at times! That and many is the time I’ve gone back to my computer and discovered all sorts of strange things have been opened, some of which I have no idea which keys got stepped on to find!
Anyhow.
Time to move on to things that don’t require much thought processing. Like laundry!
The Re-Farmer 