Today has been pretty chilly, compared to yesterday, but it was still warm enough to get stuff done in the garden. I’ll actually put together another video on how that went. Probably not today, though.
Before I headed outside, I had a rather alarming start to the day, when I tried to log into my computer.
Yes, that’s cat hair all over my monitor’s screen.
I have never seen this particular warning before. I also couldn’t really fuss with it, either, as I needed to have my breakfast, then head outside to get the winter sown beds uncovered. So I got my husband up and told him what was going on and he said he would look at it while I was outside.
He had to go into my bios to reset it.
It turns out part of the problem is all the photos and video I’ve got.
This is a new computer, which I got after my previous desktop died an ignominious death. When looking for another desktop, I was surprised to find that pretty much everything only had 500 Gigs of storage space. When I got my previous one, they all had at least 1T. I’ve been transferring files to an external hard drive as I am able, but it was already mostly full with data rescued from my old computer. Still, I needed to free up space on my computer; it’s slow going to transfer over USB, so I’d do things like one month’s worth of photos and video at a time.
In spite of that, after I uploaded the photos and video I took for my last gardening video, the files took up enough space that the computer just couldn’t process my log in.
As we were talking about it when I came in for lunch, my husband mentioned that he had a 2T hard drive on his old computer; we’ve kept both our old computers for salvage purposes. He wasn’t sure if my new computer had the ports for it, though. He got it out of his old computer to give it a try after I finished my lunch, and headed back outside.
It worked.
As soon as I was able to, I started transferring files. I was able to transfer all of our 2025 trail cam files at once, instead of one month at a time, in a very short time. Had I tried to transfer the 2025 fold to the external hard drive, it would have taken more than an hour. That one folder turned out to be what was taking up the most space.
I really need to delete more trail cam files, but I enjoy keeping files with, say, herds of deer going by, or cats – some we no longer have – running around. Of course, I also keep the files that show our vandal creeping around, too.
Moving that one folder almost doubled the available space I had.
From now on, all my photos and videos will be going straight to the 2T hard drive; something I used to do regularly, with my previous computer. I was able to transfer it all in mere moments.
My desktop is doing much better now!
Meanwhile, I was able to get a decent amount of work done in the main garden area. I focused on the garlic bed first, and found lots of garlic already emerged – and a surprising number of chard and spinach seedlings! They were trying to grow through two layers of mulch (first a leaf mulch, then the straw mulch I added later), though, so they were all very leggy. I don’t know if they’ll make it. That bed is now clear and protected by netting, though, so they at least have a chance.
The next bed I worked on has the radishes and turnips in it. This one has the two rows closer to the sides of the bed, with the middle open for what will probably be pole beans later on. There was a surprising number sprouts on one side – the radishes, if I remember correctly. This bed got covered with the 6mm poly I had order a couple of months ago.
By the time that was done, it was getting late, and my daughter was treating us to pizza at a place that opens at 4pm. We all got different 18″ jumbo size pizzas, which is enough to feed us for several days!
After the order was phoned in, I headed out to the truck but just had to stop to get this picture.
These three in particular just love the isolation shelter! With the cooler temperatures, I turned the heat lamp back on, too. That’s Furriosa, curled up in the hammock under the lamp.
On the way to town, I stopped at the general store and post office. I was able to pick up a 40 pound bag of kibble, along with getting the mail.
There was a surprise parcel waiting for me!
From there, I continued on to town, first stopping at the grocery store; my daughter had sent funds for a few things from there, to go with the pizzas, as well. Last of all, I got the pizzas, then headed home.
The truck smelled amazing.
Once everything was unloaded and put away, I opened up the package. It was from a dear friend that was a neighbour before we moved out here. Along with some things for the garden, and treats as “bait” for the outside cats, I found this, well wrapped in a tiny box.
How utterly precious! The teeniest most adorable bunny, ever!
And yes, I did scrub my hands after I was done in the garden. Honest. 😄
In between the stops I made while going to and from town, I got some messages from my husband. Out of curiosity, he looked up the price for the exact same SSD, 2T hard drive he scavenged from his old computer to install into mine.
It now costs $925.
Before taxes.
Out of curiosity, my husband looked up the invoice from when he bought it a few years ago.
Less than $250 AFTER taxes.
For the EXACT same hard drive. That’s on Amazon. No idea what the local prices would be, or if anyone even carries it anymore.
In the end, there was much to be thankful for today.
Thankful that my husband could get into my computer in the first place. Thankful he had a spare 2T hard drive, and my computer is now breathing easy again.
Thankful we didn’t need to spend almost a thousand dollars for a new one!
Thankful for the work I was able to get done in the garden today.
Thankful for my daughter treating us to pizza. Gosh, it’s been ages since we’ve ordered in pizza.
Thankful that I was able to get a 40 pound bag of kibble, right at our own hamlet’s general store and didn’t have to drive to towns to the north and south of us for one.
Thankful for a wonderful and thoughtful friend who sent us a delightful care package.
It’s a good thing I know how to touch type! 😄 I’m home from my eye appointment, and my eyes are still massively dilated.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I had quite a surprise when I did my evening checks in the basement. In the morning, everything around the well pump was almost completely dry, after pipes and fittings were replaced.
In the evening, there was a significant amount of water.
I took some pictures, emailed them to the plumber, then phoned him. It was later in the day, but this is a 24/7 plumber, and he actually answered the phone.
We talked for a while as he looked up the photos I sent him and was really surprised by how much water there was. He said he wasn’t able to come out tomorrow (meaning, today), but I told him that was fine, because I had my medical appointment. He did have a suggestion for me, though, after I described where the leak seemed to be coming from. He suggested I try tightening the screw clamps. The plumber that did the work had used an impact driver to tighten them, so I never even thought that they might be loose, but I was certainly willing to try!
He even told me what size socket I needed, which meant I didn’t need to bring the whole tool box down. 😄
I was quite surprised by how much I was able to tighten them – and I tightened all of them, on both pipes, just in case. When I’d tried it before, after the new pump was installed but it still had the old pipes, I had tried to tighten the clamps with a screwdriver after spotting one of the leaks, but couldn’t even budge them.
Once done, I swept away the water into the sump pump reservoir, then left it for the night.
Happily, this morning, everything seemed to be drying. I sent a picture to the plumber and let him know. I checked again just a little while ago, and it still looks fine.
The first picture in the slideshow above is what I found last night. The second is the one I took a little while ago, so maybe 20 hours later.
Hopefully, it will hold this time!
As for today, my daughter and I headed out after having a late breakfast. My daughter is coming down with something and her lymph nodes are all swollen, so she could barely talk, but she could still drive me home. We left early enough to stop at a grocery store right near the eye clinic to pick up a few things my husband asked for, then I popped into another store briefly, just to see if they had anything we needed. Even with all that, then taking the time to eat lunches in the truck, I was at the eye clinic early.
They were good with that, and even got me started early!
I got the pre-tests done, first, then only had a short wait before the doctor called me in. With my regular vision test, there was very little change. I could get a new prescription, but it really wouldn’t make much difference.
Then she did the drops to dilate my eyes.
Ouch.
I joined my daughter in the waiting room for the 15 minutes it took for my eyes to dilate, then I got a series of photos taken. I have the tiniest of hemorrhages in my eyes that they are monitoring with these.
After the photos were taken, I had a few more minutes to wait before the doctor called me in and we went over the images. Minor changes. Some of the hemorrhages were gone, some faded, and some tiny new ones in other places. Nothing of concern.
Then she did the direct examination, under a bright light.
Ouch.
Everything is checking out okay, though.
That done, I went to book my next appointment in 6 months – that one will include a field of vision test – and settle the bill. I wasn’t sure how it would work with the change in our insurance, and there was only so much information she could access in the system. In the end, I just paid the bill in full ($60) and got the receipt for my husband to submit to the insurance company later.
I thought I was doing fine until I stepped outside in the the bright sunshine! I was almost completely blinded, and had to get my daughter to lead me to the truck. The first thing she did when we got there was get my sunglasses that fit over my regular glasses on me.
What a sweetheart.
(My husband submitted the claim, then we talked about his insurance changes. It turns out that we have the same policy numbers as before. Which means, even though they don’t send out a physical card anymore and want us to use an app, I still had all the information needed on the old physical card that I could have shown the receptionist!)
I’d considered things like getting gas on the way out, or stopping at my mother’s to drop of the cushion I think she was asking me about, but nope. Not today. We went straight home!
Things are a lot better, but my eyes are still burning. I did manage to feed the outside cats while my daughter put away the groceries we got, and gave my husband the receipt for the insurance company, but I think that’s about my limit for the day.
I’m happy to say that both Slick and Adam showed up at feeding time, and I was able to pet Slick a little bit. I was able to pet Adam a lot! She even let me fuss in her fur to try and get a burr out of her side a little bit.
The rest of my day is going to be really quiet, and I’ll be trying to keep my eyes closes as much as possible. Even now, in just the time it took me to write this, the burning is increasing.
… everything is drying up nicely, and there is no sign of any leaks.
The picture is out of focus because that corner is completely dark, so the camera didn’t know where to focus before the flash lit up.
There is moisture on the floor below showing, but that is normal for this time of year. There’s a low spot where any water seeping through the concrete puddles, and I sweep it into the sump pump reservoir regularly.
Then I headed outside to feed the yard cats, and was even able to do a head count.
Twenty seven. There were 27 cats this morning!
This included Slick, who made a brief appearance.
She is no longer very round.
*sigh*
Then she disappeared.
I checked all the places we set up that I hoped she would use to have her kittens, but they were all empty.
I did find Gouda in the catio, enjoying the fresh straw on the hammock.
There is a beautiful feral tuxedo I saw this morning that I think actually lives across the road from us. He likely calls two colonies “home”.
Once the morning routine was done, I headed to the town north of us to sign the form for our taxes, then take my husband’s home for him to sign, before taking it back. It’s a half hour drive to this town, so doing this meant a total of 2 hours of driving time. Happily, the truck behaved the entire time.
Which is good, because tomorrow I have my eye appointment that my daughter will need to drive me home from.
Meanwhile, I’d messaged the rescue chat group about my count this morning, and we talked about how to at least get some of the friendly males neutered. With that in mind, I did a bit of clean up in the isolation shelter. Later on, when the ground is dry and we can set up a hose, we will move the isolation shelter away from the house and give it a through spring cleaning. For now, though, I wanted to clear out the bottom level. We haven’t been able to change the two litter boxes under there for a long time, because of the box shelter we set in front of the ramp door in the winter. It is warm enough that I moved it out completely and left it set aside, so we’ll be able to access the bottom regularly now. I left the emptied litter boxes out, only one of which will make its way back into the shelter. The other will go into the cat cage in the sun room, where I hope any mamas will bring their kittens.
The straw that was put in the lower level for the winter was thoroughly pooped on. I had to use a garden hoe to reach the far corner and drag it all to the ramp door. That all went to the litter compost behind the outhouse.
It was so warm, I shut off the heat lamp in the isolation shelter as well as both of them in the sun room. With overnight temperatures looking relatively mild from now on, we shouldn’t need to turn them back on again until the fall.
By the time I was done with the isolation shelter, I was starting to hurt again. Definitely something wrong going on in my abdomen. I would not be at all surprised to learn I’ve developed another large cyst. Doctor’s appointment is in the first week of May. We’ll see how it goes from there.
With my eye appointment tomorrow, I won’t be able to work on the garden beds I meant to, but I should be able to gather the materials I’ll need later today. The days are getting so much longer, I’ll have time for that. I think I’ve figured out what I want to use to protect the dwarf peas in the wattle weave bed from the cats, once the straw mulch is removed. Once I’ve got everything I need handy, it won’t take long at all to get the beds cleaned up and protected.
The cheeky buggers! Both raccoons and skunks are now regularly seen in the sun room. While the camera didn’t catch them last night, I know they go into the isolation shelter, too.
*sigh*
The storm system that hit yesterday hasn’t been too bad, over us. Our weird climate bubble has rescued us again. We got a bit more snow, and it was still snowing this morning, but that’s it. The town my mother is in got pouring rain during the night! So did the city. The highways group I’m on had many reports of poor driving conditions on the highways.
My younger daughter came along for our errands of the day, with our first stop being the post office to pick up a parcel. The paved roads near our little hamlet were already starting to melt, even as more snow was falling. As we got closer to town, however, the road conditions slowly got worse. I found myself doing about 80-85kph/50-53mph all the way, instead of the 100kph/62mph speed limit. It was very messy and hard to see where the lanes were, the closer we got to the lake, which is pretty typical. I’d heard of one road, just before town, being washed out and we could actually see the damage as we drove by! Still, I’ve driven through much worse.
Our first stop in town was to drop off the truck at the garage. We’d left early, knowing it would be slow going, and ended up only about 15 minutes early instead of the half hour early it normally would have been, in good driving conditions. I just had to drop off the keys, and then my daughter and I – remembering to grab canes – started walking.
First thing we did was get a breakfast, since neither of us had eaten before we left. We took our time about it. My appointment was a drop off time, not a scheduled work time, and it looked like it was just the owner in today, so I knew it would likely be quite a while. We did have other errands to do, but not until after we got the truck back.
We decided to walk over to the second hand store, just to see what we could find.
Treasures. We found treasures.
Specifically, there were a couple of hand crank meat grinders. One looking very much like the one I found in the old kitchen that I remember using when I was a kid, which has missing parts now. The second hand one we were looking at even had a spare mincing plate, though both were coarse grind plates. There was a second one, much smaller, that had two spare mincing plates, and was the same price.
After hemming and hawing, I finally decided to go ahead and get the bigger one.
Then we started looking around and I got a few more things, the most expensive costing $2. My daughter admired a couple of items that I ended up getting for her, including a matcha bowl and saucer set, and a fabulously retro pitcher. For myself, I got a serving bowl, an old Mennonite cookbook, and a couple of books with plans for making things like furniture and garden structures. My daughter got herself a DVD and a couple of novels.
One thing we both spend quite a bit of time looking over was an old China cabinet, selling at only $80. The set up we have for our dishes, serving bowls, etc. was great when we first moved out here, but we now have a lot more cats. The shelves are open in the front, and that’s become a problem. That cabinet would actually solve a lot of storage space problems we have right now. What we couldn’t figure out, however, is how we would get it home. Yes, it would fit in the box of the truck, but none of us are able bodied enough to load and unload it.
We didn’t get it.
Once we paid for our stuff, we were then stuck with carrying them around! The meat grinder alone is cast iron, and weighs about 15 pounds. It got its own bag. The rest all together weighed more. Not normally a big deal, but we were both caning it and, with my right elbow still messed up, I could only carry the grinder with my left arm.
We’d already done a fair bit of walking by then and needed to sit down, so we headed over to a donut shop for drinks and a donut each. It was a place we could hang out for a while and not be taking up needed table space.
By the time we were done there, enough time had passed – about 4 hours altogether – that I figured we could head back to the garage, even though we hadn’t been texted yet. The walk was slow going. My poor daughter was in so much pain, I could see she was fighting not to cry. 😢
When we got to the garage, the truck was still up on a hoist and almost done, so we went into the office to sit down. I made sure my daughter sat in the normal sized chair by their desk. They have other chairs, but they are much lower. Hard to get in and out of when your knees or back are shot, but I was having an easier time of it than my daughter was.
It was past 2pm by the time we got to the garage, though. The original plan once the truck was done was to do a quick stop at the grocery store, then a gas station, then drive to the town north of us to the tax preparer. I had my form to sign, but we’d then have to take my husband’s form home for him to sign, then I would drive it back. Then we were going to go back to town again, as my older daughter wanted to treat us to take out and sent funds for it. Altogether, it would have been an extra 3 1/2 hours of driving, at least, and the tax preparer’s office closed at 5.
We were both already in too much pain, so I called them up instead and said we weren’t going to make it today. I was assured that was all right. We’ve got until April 30 to sign the forms!
I’ll do it on Monday.
It wasn’t too much longer before the truck was done and it was backed out of the garage. My daughter took our stuff to the truck while I settled the bill – just pennies over $388, in the end. Hopefully, that will solve the problem and we won’t be back again for some time!
I know where my tax return is going.
*sigh*
As we were talking about it, he told me that, if I don’t come back for anything until after June, they won’t be there anymore. They are moving locations! They are going from about 2,400 sq ft to about 35,000 sq ft, in an industrial park – and he bought the building, so no more renting! That is so awesome! They opened a second location last year, and are doing well enough to expand locally, too. I congratulated him, of course. I’m so happy that they are doing so well. There are a surprising number of garages in this town, so for him to have enough business that he can expand like this tells a lot.
That done, I went to the truck – then had to get my daughter to go behind me to guide me as I backed out, as there were a couple of vehicles making for a tight space. While we were doing that, the owner came out to get one of them, to drive it into one of the bays. He was chuckling a bit when he saw what we were doing, but it did give me a chance to quickly talk to him. The check engine light was still on. I figured it should turn off on its own in short order, now that the new sensor is installed, which he confirmed for me.
Once parked at the grocery store, my daughter stayed in the truck, as she was in too much pain for more walking. We only needed a few things, but I went through the whole store to see if there was anything I was forgetting. Of course, there was, so I’m glad I did.
From there, it was to the gas station. I put $50 in the tank, which gave me a quarter tank at $1.799 *sigh*
Next, we headed to the Dairy Queen for take out – and the check engine light was of by then. My daughter came in with me, so she could choose for her sister and herself. For treats like this, we order a combo meal each, plus an extra burger each, so it took a little while longer for it to be done! I even remembered to bring in a hard sided grocery bag to make it easier to carry the hot food. My daughter ended up with the tray of drinks on her lap for the drive home.
Unfortunately, while the road was in better condition by then, and almost completely clear of ice and snow, it’s a rough ride. The road needs resurfacing. She didn’t get splashed too badly, though! It got smoother once we were on the gravel road again.
Once at home and unloaded, it was late enough that I went straight to feeding the outside cats, making it safer for my daughter to drive out of the yard and park the truck in the garage.
During the drive home, I’m happy to say that oil pressure gauge was right were is was supposed to be, the whole way. Here’s hoping that new sensor will keep working properly! It’ll take a bit more driving before we know for sure.
Tomorrow, I should go visit my mother, at the very least.
Now that we’ve got this last bit of work done on the truck, we have quite a few things to catch up on, little by little. Plus, I’ve got my eye appointment next week, which my daughter will have to drive me home from, and FINALLY, my third attempt at a doctor’s appointment in the beginning of May. If all goes well, I won’t have to cancel any of that!
This morning was chilly. Just chilly; the incoming weather system hadn’t reached us yet. I was actually able to do extended rounds, with so much snow finally melted away after yesterday’s warmth. All of which froze overnight.
The amount of water had actually gone done quite a bit before it froze, though! This is behind our garage, this morning.
Yesterday, I needed to dump a litter bucket into the litter compost pile behind the outhouse. I neglected to wear my rubber boots, and the path we usually use was completely flooded, as was the path all the way to the outhouse. I ended up making my way through the other side to dump the bucket, skirting branch piles and snow drifts!
I had another bucket to dump this morning – and yes, I remembered to put on my rubber boots this time – and stopped to take the above photo. The path to the litter compost was almost completely clear. There was just one lower area with ice over it, but the water below was almost completely gone, so it was just a floating sheet of ice. This area in the photo is the lowest, so it takes quite a while for it to fully drain.
I was finally able to make my way around to the sign cam, only by skirting along the edge of the spruce grove, where much of the snow was gone. I just had one drift to break through at the far end. Literally. The snow was so soft in the warmth, yesterday, but this morning that was frozen to a hard crust at the top that I had to stamp and break through in order to cross. I didn’t even try to go through the garden area, where the snow it still over a foot deep. Going around did give me a chance to check out and confirm we have had two more dead trees fall.
The big spruce landed on top of another spruce that fell years ago. The other two pictures in the slideshow above are of a dead poplar that is now hung up on other trees.
I’ve already talked to my brother about clearing the deadwood out in the spring or summer. If he can get his tractor going, we can pull them out. Then we can start taking down the other dead spruces as well. We really, really want to get the ones that are closer to the house!
At this point, I would just like to have the trees all dragged into one general space in the old garden area where it’s still all wide open. Once they are there, I can process them to use. Some – the thickest trunks – will become support posts for the outdoor kitchen we are planning to build, while others will be used to build raised beds.
While walking towards the sign cam, I passed a huge poplar, and saw this lovely sign of spring.
Soft clusters of catkins, all over the branches! This tree is the only one I see them on right now.
All of this is now covered in snow.
The system is hitting other areas harder than us, but we will be getting snow, off and on, through to tomorrow. Some areas will be getting a mix of rain and snow, while other higher elevations might get as much as 15cm/6in, where most areas are looking at 4-8cm/1.5-3in
It started here in the late morning. When I headed out to meet the pharmacy delivery guy, we had about an inch of new snow. It was light enough that I could just use a broom to clear the steps and sidewalk. It has started snowing again, so I’ll probably need to do it again when it’s time to feed the outside cats for the end of the day. The delivery driver, meanwhile, said that his place is flooding! His house is not in danger, thankfully, but he’s had to contact the highways department. That tells me there would be an ice dam in a ditch between his place and the lake that needs to be cleared. This system is pushing north, and I was chatting with one of the rescue’s contacts this morning. She lives on the reserve that might have to do some evacuations because of this storm. For her, that means working out how to help animals, should that happen.
This morning, I was able to pet a very pregnant Slick while she was eating, and was able to send the group chat I have with the rescue some video. Slick is one of the few that allows contact, but only when she’s on the cat house roof and eating. Even then, it’s touch and go. They would like us to trap her and bring her in before she pops. We can try, but it would be very difficult to trap just one specific cat! Especially one that is more feral than not. We will do the best we can.
In other things, while doing my checks in the basement this morning, I found that the cold water tap in the laundry sink is dripping even faster. I contacted the plumber and talked to him about it. Both taps need to be replaced and I already have new taps. The problem is that the current ones were affixed permanently. My brother said a torch would be needed to get them off. !!! I explained this to the plumber – then mentioned we have other leaks down there to check, too. He started to look at his calendar saying he couldn’t come today, and I told him it wasn’t urgent. Next week would be better. So he will come either Monday or Tuesday, depending on his schedule, and will call us before he comes.
As for me, I am taking the truck in to the garage tomorrow morning. I got a text yesterday aftenroon, letting me know the part had arrived. So we will get the new OEM sensor, the engine flush and oil change all done as the same time. Hopefully, that will bring and end to those weird low pressure readings!
I also got a call from the tax preparers last night, just before 7pm!! They close at 5.
Our taxes are done. I will need to go in to sign my form, then bring my husband’s home for him to sign and bring back again. I will do that after getting the truck back, tomorrow. The tax preparer told me how much we’re getting back. For me, it will be zero. I thought I would get my disability tax credit the same as I had been getting the caregiver tax credit, directly to me. However, because I have 0 income and don’t “need” it, they were able to transfer it to my husband’s return – and got a larger tax return for both of us in the process, than if it had been done separately. That’s going to come in handy, that’s for sure! Especially with the extra plumber’s bills.
So tomorrow is going to be a busy day of driving around. Hopefully, the roads will not be too bad after this storm passes!
After the well pump stopped working, we had to make do with a few things. Thankfully, we already buy drinking water in 5 gallon jugs, though we soon switched to our last one. We didn’t have any water to wash with, but we did have wet wipes to help keep clean. Using the toilet was out of the question, but with so many problems with our septic, we’ve used a honey pot more than a few times. What we found here when we moved in was a toilet seat that fits over a 5 gallon bucket, which is really uncomfortable and not particularly stable. We’d bought a camping toilet – a foldable base a bag could be fit into, then a cover with a toilet seat set on top. The design is slightly elongated in the front, and the seat is padded.
This was the first time we’ve had to use it, and wow, was it so much more comfortable!!!
Still, not fun to have to use.
Using stove pellets as litter has come in handy again. Whenever the honey pot was used, we’d pour a small scoop of pellets in, which would absorb moisture and keep the smell down at the same time.
All in all, we were pretty well prepared for something like this. In the sort term, at least.
Last night, of the three places I called, one plumber called back. After explaining the situation, he said he could be here around 11:30-12:00 today.
I was already planning to go into town to refill more water jugs, stop at the garage, pick up a few necessities, then meet with someone from the rescue to return our cat carriers, so I wasn’t going to be home in that time frame. I went through the basements with my younger daughter, who would meet the plumber for me, to show her what she needed to pass on to the plumber. The new well pump my brother bought a couple of years ago was still in the box, and he also had a bag of all the fittings and fixtures he thought might possibly needed. He even had Teflon tape in there.
There is a bit of an issue with the light that’s over where the pump is. The light is turned on with a pull chain, but one day the chain got stuck after being turned on, and it took a lot of fighting to be able to turn the light off again. Which is when I discovered the fixture itself is starting to come loose. So we simply don’t use it. My brother has suggested we just put in an LED light bulb, turn it on and leave it on, but I’d prefer not to do that with a fixture that is starting to fall apart!
We figured the plumber would have is own lighting, though, such as one of those head lamps.
Oh, and we’ve discovered the door to the old basement steps won’t open anymore. For a while, it would only open when the knob was turned in one direction, but not the other. Now, it just won’t. My daughter fiddled with it and says the latch isn’t moving anymore. Ah, well. We need to slowly replace all the door knobs with lever type handles, anyhow.
Meanwhile, we were all being careful about using as little water as possible, and avoiding dirtying any dishes. Which meant we were eating a lot of chicken salad sandwiches and using paper towels as plates. Thankfully, my daughter had done the dishes before we lost water, so there were no dirty dishes already in the sink to worry about.
We all tried to go to bed early but, of course, I couldn’t sleep! I finally fell asleep somewhere around 3 or 4 am. I still woke up at the usual time, which is basically once the sky starts to get light. This time of year, that’s around 6am. My older daughter was up working all night, so she came to talk for a while before going to bed for the day, then her sister came by later. She ended up doing the outside cat feeding for me, so I could try and get more sleep. She couldn’t refill the water bowls, but they didn’t need to be. With so much snow melting, the cats prefer to drink out of puddles right now, instead!
I did call the garage shortly after 8am and left a follow up message about the oil sensor issue. I mentioned I’d be in town in the late morning, so if they didn’t call back before then, I’d swing by to talk.
It was getting to around 10:30am when I gave the truck a once over, then started heading out, making sure to leave the gate open for the plumber. I was in the last mile before the highway when I saw a commercial van coming in the opposite direction. I knew right away, it had to be the plumber and, sure enough, it was. As I pulled to the side to let the van pass and realized who it was, I came to a stop and waved him down. He’s been to our place before, but I don’t think he’s ever seen the truck we have now. He did recognize me once he saw me.
This gave me a chance to tell him a few things about the situation, the new pump we already had, and past concerns we had about the foot valve, but that I’d since discovered we have fantom flush, not a leaky foot valve. The toilet was why the pump would go off, even when no one was using any water. Something that stopped when I simply moved the refill tube out of where it normally runs into, so that it just fills the tank directly. He understood what I meant. He did ask if we had water to prime the pump with and I told him, we only had one big jug of drinking water right now, and that I was on my way to town to refill our empties. He said he thought he had enough water in his van that he could use. After we parted ways, I paused to message my family to let them know he was going to arrive early, and continued to town.
Along the way, I found myself stuck behind a slow moving vehicle that I couldn’t pass for a while, so it took a bit longer to get to town. That little bit of a delay was enough for that oil pressure gauge needle to drop to the line between “low” and “normal” before I even reached town.
*sigh*
So the garage was my first stop.
When I got there, I saw the owner go outside while talking on his cell phone, so I knew it might be a while before I saw him. I went into the office and the other mechanic – one of our neighbours – came over to see what was going on. I told him about the oil pressure sensor, and he did mention that this is pretty common this time of year, with the temperature changes and moisture getting into the system. Minor fluctuations, I would expect, but I told him that the needle was dropping to the point that it would set off alarms before I could drive much further than the nearest towns. I brought up that the owner had mentioned getting a different sensor, but he wasn’t part of that conversation, so he said he would let the owner know I was waiting to talk to him, then got back to working on vehicles already in the shop. I made sure to tell him to let the owner know I wasn’t in any hurry.
When the owner came in, he was apologetic for not getting back to me. He’d gotten my message, but just didn’t have a chance to call me. We talked about what is still going on with the sensor – he mentioned he’s now got several people with the same problem! – and confirmed the truck is running fine, oil levels are fine, but I just can’t be doing normal driving if I let it drop to the point of alarms going off. He understood.
I brought up about the GM sensor he’d mentioned – an OEM sensor, he clarified – and he started looking it up. Then I heard him saying, oh, that’s why we didn’t go with it from the start! Turns out it costs $160, compared to the $80 for the off market version.
With part of the problem being seasonal, and moisture getting into the system over the winter, I mentioned that I’m less than 2000km to the next oil change. Would getting an oil change help? Yes, he said, it probably would. What he suggested is that I just keep driving it until it’s time to do the oil change, then he would do an engine flush to remove the moisture, replace the sensor and do the oil change all at the same time.
Which I agreed to. Until then, though…
He then offered to disconnect the sensor until then. I told him, yes!! I had even suggested something like that in one of my messages. The gauge would be at 0, but no alarms would go off.
So he got my keys and asked the mechanic to quickly do that for me. He was done with the truck before I was done in the office!
In the middle of all this, I got a message from my daughter, saying that the plumber was almost done, and we had water again. I mentioned to the mechanic that our well pump stopped working last night, and his reaction told me he knew exactly how big of a deal that was! I’d say, he lives with a well system himself. 😄
As I was leaving, I told him, I feel almost like I’m being a pain in the butt about this sensor, but for something like this, if it’s going off for a legitimate reason… which is when he started knodding his head enthusiastically. We’ve already gone through this, and it could have been really bad on our engine! He completely understood. How can we know for sure if it’s just the sensor, or if something is going really, really wrong?
I love my technology, but sometimes, it makes things more difficult, rather than less!
That done, I was already hearing from the cat rescue lady. She was on her way. That gave me time to head across the street with the truck, to the grocery store parking lot where we were going to meet, with time to head inside. I got my water bottles refilled, plus a couple of little things, then waited for her in the truck.
When she arrived, we commiserated. She’s having troubles with her vehicle, too – and they are a lot more expensive than mine will be! Like, 10 times more expensive! In the end, she’s going to get a new engine, because it’ll cost about the same as doing the repairs.
As we were transferring the carriers over, I was greatly appreciative over the fact that they had been cleaned! We keep them in the sun room so that cats can be used to them and use them as shelters. They had been pretty much covered in muddy paw prints. She told me they were cleaned and disinfected, since all the cats we brought in were sick with something or other. Much appreciated!!
Then she brought out another carrier – a donation for us!
It’s really big, and reminds me of a space capsule or something. 😄 So we are now back up to 6 useable hard sided carriers.
Then she gave me a couple of bags of kibble, too!
They are just amazing.
The bags were both taped up on the bottom. A lot of the bags they gave us before had some sort of taped up damage, too. I think they are getting them as donations from pet stores, with bags too damaged to be sold, but still filled with perfectly good kibble.
I am just fine with taped up bags!
That done, I was soon on my way home. My daughter had let me know that the plumber had gone. The water was very cloudy and smelled of minerals, but not something she was worried about.
Once I was home and everything was unloaded, I went into the basement to check it out, and to run water in the laundry sink. There was all sorts of crud coming out of the taps!
Running the taps set off the well pump, so I went over to check it out.
It is SO much quieter!!!!
It also finished much faster. I noticed the pressure gauge was a lot more visible, and that when the tank stopped the pressure was at 50psi. With the old pump, I never saw it higher than 40. My daughter later told me that the plumber said it was supposed to be at 50, and that the pump is supposed to be triggered at 30.
My daughter told me that he had also checked the pressure tank, as that could also have been the source of trouble, and the pressure tank is fine.
As for the old pump, it turned out to be the switch. He had told her, he could just replace the switch and we could keep using it.
Then he got it running again, and they both heard just how grinding and loud it was.
My daughter told him to go ahead and replace the whole thing!
That pressure gauge on the pump, it turns out, was one he provided. The one that came with the pump faced a different direction and we would have had to twist around to be able to read it. Now, we just have to look down. The only other thing he had to provide that wasn’t in my brother’s bag of fitting was a brass fitting.
Then he’d used some bottled water he had in his van to prime the pump and get it going.
The first picture above was taking while the pump was still running.
I got some pictures and video that I sent to my brother. I got messages from him while I was in town, too. They’re in Spain now, after walking over 190km, with another 90km to go on their pilgrimage. They are averaging 15-20km/day, depending on weather conditions and access to accommodations for the night. There have been a few times when they were walking through some poor weather conditions, and even had to jump a creek at one point.
I told him about the pump and he was very happy to hear that the one he had bought earlier was used. He paid about $400 for it at the time. Just finding this sort of pipe these days is hard enough – most have the pump down in the well itself, not in a basement, like ours – but like everything else, the prices will have gone up since then.
After running water in the laundry sink in the basement, I went to do the same in the kitchen, as that sink is the furthest from the pump.
The second pictures shows what our water looked like for quite some time!
I had to remove the aerator on the faucet, as it just kept getting clogged up. We’ll need to soak it in CLR.
I kept running the water, both hot and cold, until it seemed to be clear. It’ll probably be a while longer before it’s totally clear again. Then I ran water in the bathroom sink and tub, and flushed the toilet a few extra times. I took the aerator off the bathroom sink’s faucet before running the water, and I’m glad I did. There were some pretty big pieces of grit that came through!
All this trigged the pump a few times, of course, and I’m still amazed by how quiet it is!
The last thing we need to do is run a tub clean cycle on the washing machine.
My daughter, meanwhile, had done all the clean up and putting away of things before I got home, including the honey pot.
The dump is open for short hours tomorrow morning. Now that I know I won’t be triggering any alarms on the truck, I plan to do a much needed dump run!
I am so glad this has finally been done, after all these years of stressing every time we used water, and three different plumbers worried about causing damage to the foot valve if they changed it. The foot valve seems to have handled it just fine! I’m especially relieved because we’ll probably have to use the hoses a lot to water the garden throughout the summer. I was stingy on watering things last year because I knew how much wear and tear it was causing to the pump, but with the drought and heat, it still meant quite a bit of watering.
As much of a pain it was to lose water entirely, it wasn’t for all that long, and we were well set up for it. We had drinking water, were able to keep ourselves clean, and could still use the bathroom. The outhouse wasn’t really an option. The melting snow has created a bit of a pond in front of it, as part of the moat that forms around the garage, and the pit is probably quite full of water, too.
Another reason I want to build an outdoor bathroom, without a pit, closer to the house!
In the end, things have been working about pretty much as well as they could have, and for that, I am grateful!
As soon as I opened the window to get a clear shot, she dashed onto the ramp, out of reach! (you can see her in the second picture) We’ve gone from being able to pick her up and cuddle her, to “don’t come near me!!”
*sigh*
As I was finishing my rounds and starting to head inside, I tried for a head count. I saw 18, with 8 in the isolation shelter, though I know I saw at least a couple more earlier, as I was setting the food out.
It is so very strange. There were only 5 in the sun room. When I check the critter cam in the sun room, it’s basically empty (though I did have to chase four massive raccoons out last night!). Last night, I checked the camera at the isolation shelter, and saw only one cat in there!
The raccoons definitely got in during the night, though. The food bowl was knocked down to the lower level, were it can’t be reached without moving the wind break box over the ramp.
I’ve been chatting with the rescue group and they are wanting to know how many friendlies we still have that we could get without trapping. There are quite a few – mostly male, with several already neutered. They’re asking for more photos. I’ll have to see if I can get more when I do the second feeding, later today.
Meanwhile…
While checking the forecast this morning, I saw our predicted high is now 10C/50F. There are currently flood warnings for one of the reserves to the north of us, potentially to 2022 levels. That’s the year we had roads washed out in all directions and were unable to get out for weeks, with the vehicle we had at the time. The reserve is in a low lying area along the lake and they have to do evacuations fairly often in the spring. Mostly specific buildings, like a long term care center that is not in danger itself, but the road to it gets flooded over and becomes impassable. Things like that.
We have a lot of snow right now, and we desperately need the moisture – we’re still recovering from droughts. A slow melt would be perfect! We shall see how it goes.
I needed to go into town today to pick up my husband’s insulin, and my younger daughter came along to keep me company – and, it turned out, to make sure I got fed! My first stop was at the garage. Online, it says they have short hours on Saturdays, but the doors were locked. From there, we went and parked near the pharmacy, which shares a parking lot with a Subway, so that’s where my daughter took me for brunch. Then we headed to the pharmacy. While I was in line to pay for it (first time at 75% coverage, instead of 90% coverage) I ended up giving my daughter the meds and my card so I could quickly dash to a nearby grocery store. Not one we normally go to, but my husband asked for a couple of things, so I got them there, and my daughter met up with me. From there we headed to our usual grocery store and she went in while I walked across to the garage again, just in case the last time I was there, it was closed because there was just one person who had to dash out for something.
The door was still locked.
So I did not get to talk to anyone about what the truck is doing. Yes, that pressure gauge is still dropping. I had checked the oil level before we left, and it was fine. When we first headed out, the pressure was right where it should have been. By the time we got to the garage, it was just above the line between “low” and “normal”. When we drove to the pharmacy, it wasn’t much higher. With the truck parked a bit longer before we drove to the grocery store, the needle had gone up just a little bit more. We took our time with the shopping, so it was longer before we started it to head home, and it was higher again, but never reached that zone it should be at, at those speeds.
The shopping done, including taking advantage of some sales to add to the freezer and pantry, we headed home. We stopped at the general store so my daughter could run in to get our mail. The needle was on the line by the time I parked. I shut the engine off while waiting for my daughter, and it did rise again slightly when I started it again, but not by much. By the time we got home, it was on the line again.
*sigh*
We’re less than 2000km before we need to get another oil change. Which would be about a month of normal driving, except we haven’t even broken 1000km in a month for the last two months, with the truck being in the garage so often. I find myself wondering if I got that done a bit early, would that help? I don’t know, but if we can’t figure something out, I’m going to have to cancel a couple of medical appointments, including an eye appointment. Both clinics are in a town 3/4s of the way to the city; far enough that the needle would very likely drop to the point of setting off alarms before we even turned off the highway.
While writing this post, I’ve also been chatting with the rescue group again. Sir Robin has been spending much of his time at the top of a cat tree, looking out the window and chirping. He wants out! The cat that wanted to be indoors the most, now wants out. 😄 It’s a very different world out that window; he’s in a older residential neighbourhood in the city, and he’s seeing lots of other houses around. During the night, the ladies were also at the window with him, watching everything.
The intake person still can’t approach Frank or Sweetie. 😞
With how the truck has been, plus they have all our hard sided carriers, we can’t really get any more cats for them. They would like me to get groups of photos of individual friendly cats that they can post on the online adoption list, even while the cats are still here.
Tomorrow, if all goes to plan, I’ll be meeting up with one of them to get our hard sided carriers back. We’ll work things out from there.
I am so thankful for this rescue, and all the help they’ve been able to give us. I know they have plenty of others in situations similar to ours that they are trying to help, too. The need is great, and very overwhelming at times.
We so need a Furball Farm type cat sanctuary in our region, for the strays and ferals that are too wild to go to fosters. There are just too many cats that are not “adoptable” that deserve to be kept safe and warm and fed, and to get the vet care they need.
Today has actually been a very beautiful day. It’s past 4pm as I write this, and we’re at a lovely 5C/41F, with a “real feel” of 9C/48F.
After yesterday and a very painful and sleepless night, the girls took care of the morning outdoor routine for me, so I could sleep in.
Which I mostly did.
One of the things the girls didn’t do was turn on the shop light in the basement for the seedlings. The new full spectrum lights are on a timer, but the seedlings on the higher shelf are lit only by the shop light, and that needs to be turned on manually.
Which is when I discovered the mess.
Part of my routine when turning the lights over the seedlings in the “new” basement, is to check things in the “old” basement. That is where the pumps, pipes, furnace and hot water tank is, as well as the old laundry sink where I refill the watering can.
One of the thinks I check is the floor drain. Not every day, but at least every other day. The floor drain is where I can see if there is any water flowing from the weeping tile under the new basement – or if anything is backing up again from the septic tank it drains into. Especially since I’d found the septic starting to back up, not that long ago.
With all the stuff with the cats yesterday morning, I didn’t even go into the basement until I got back, and I hadn’t gone into the old basement at all, so it had been a couple of days since I checked.
This morning, I found the floor was wet around the floor drain and the access pipe next to the septic pump.
I spent the next considerable while working to get it unclogged. We have the commercial drain auger, which I don’t even bother to turn on. I can work the auger but through without having to plug the machine in over a wet floor. I also have a hose hooked up to what used to be the cold water tap for the washing machine, before the laundry got moved upstairs, into the entry, as we were moving out here (my younger daughter helped my brother set it up, before my older daughter and I drove out weeks later).
Today was the hardest fight I’ve had yet, getting that auger bit through the clog. Once I’d punched through, I ran the hose in, but it was still clogged up enough for the water to start backing up instead of draining, so I switched back and forth between the two a few times before I could tell I’d finally cleared it. The clog wasn’t even at the bottle neck that things usually get caught up in but, from how much line I ran through, it was plugged right where it opens into the septic tank. It will need to be emptied soon, but there’s so much snow on the ground, it will probably be another month at least before we can have that done. It’s not just waiting for the snow to clear, but for the ground to not be too saturated, or the truck will just sink into the ground.
Once I did finally break through and I’d cleared from the access pipe to the tank, I had to clear the pipe through the floor drain. It was plugged all the way to the where it connected with the weeping tile!
It took quite a while to get it clear, and then I kept the hose running, as far out as it could reach, until I could see the water running past the drain was clear.
Then I did the drain from the access pipe again.
Then the floor drain again.
Part of our problem is, we don’t use enough water. We’re on borrowed time with the well pump and, while we have a “spare” my brother got a few years ago, no plumber has been willing to risk installing it, because the foot valve seems to be leaking, too. Switching it out could cause it to break up and we would lose water completely. The pipes to the well are not the same size as what is standard today, so getting what is needed to fix it would be difficult to find. We’ve actually been told we should “just” have a new well dug, as that would be easier.
Not to mention many thousands of dollars more expensive!
So we try to use as little water as possible, for less wear and tear on the well pump, which means there isn’t enough water flowing to clear the areas that clog.
Ironically, if we were able to drain the washing machine into the plumbing as normal, instead of out the window in the door, that would probably solve our problem. Unfortunately, the new washing machine drains faster than the water can flow through the first 20 or so feet of pipe, though. After having it back up and overflow onto the entry floor and down the basement steps a few times, we just run the hose out the door instead. My brother is looking at replacing that section of pile with larger pipe to solve that problem, but that is months into the future, if it gets done at all.
The plumbing here is pretty wild. Which isn’t too surprising, when you consider the original part of the house was built before there was any plumbing, or even electricity, at all.
What a fun way to start the day.
In other things, I’ve been getting updates from the intake person about how the cats are doing, and chatting with the group. Some of the cats have already gone to fosters, including Grommet. He is apparently very lonely, though! Sir Robin has discovered toys and is starting to calm down a bit. He has even allowed some mats to be brushed out.
Poor Sweetie remains terrified and has been hiding out in a cat tunnel. Frank is still incredibly angry. Blot, on the other hand, has been an absolute doll. Given her condition, I expect her to need the most vet care and will certainly need to gain more weight before she can be spayed.
They’re still talking about getting Bug and Furriosa, but they both now run away as soon as they see me.
I have already done the evening cat feeding and was able to send them a couple of videos.
In the photo above is Adam, Mochrie, Fancy Pants, Hypotenose and, in the back, a very pregnant Slick.
They’re also talking about taking Flopsy and Curtis. Flopsy was neutered at the same time as Grommet and Sir Robin, but Curtis is still intact – and insanely friendly! If we hadn’t been after the girls, he would have been very easy to get, yesterday. In one of the videos I sent, Curtis was being very, very friendly – and in another, I was able able to pet a very friendly Adam!
Friendly only when the food is there. Otherwise, we can’t approach her.
As I write this, the intake person is at Princess Auto, looking at welding gloves and possibly a helmet, as protection from Frank and Sweetie. !!!
My other goal of the day had been to go to the town north of us with our tax stuff, but that will have to wait until next week. I wasn’t up to going anywhere, and I will need to go to town to get my husband’s insulin tomorrow. I did call the garage today and left a message, but they didn’t return my call. I forgot to try again before they closed.
The problem is with the oil pressure gauge dropping at a rate that would have alarms going off before we get much further than the two nearest towns. A city trip would be out of the question. The truck might be just fine, but I can’t be driving it once those alarms and flashing warnings start going off. However, when we were dealing with the oil leaks and the sensor before, at one point it had simply stopped working. The gauge stayed at zero and didn’t move – and no alarms were going off. In my message, I bought that up and wondered if there was some way to basically turn off the sensor until they could find the replacement they’re looking for. I would just need to check my oil levels more often.
They are open for shorter hours tomorrow, so if I time it right, I can swing by and talk to someone directly before I go to the pharmacy.
Meanwhile, we are expected to continue to have lovely weather – with tomorrow night being the first night in the forecast with overnight lows that will stay above freezing!! Things are going to get very wet and messy over the next while.
The moat around the garage is already starting to form. 😄
As I was getting my coat to go feed the outside cats, I spotted movement in the distance. I had to zoom in quite a bit to get these shots, so they’re not the best.
Two white tail deer, beyond the outer yard, at the far side of the barn. Soon after, I saw one of them making its way through the outer yard to the driveway, heading for the gate. The deer are very, very active this time of year, and the population looks to be quite high this spring! I haven’t seen so many since we stopped feeding them outside the living room window.
After I did the outside cats’ food and water, I tried for a head count. I think I counted 24 in total. Possibly 25?
Adam was on the cat house roof, where she prefers to eat, and she enthusiastically allowed me to pet her. I was able to feel around her belly. She does not feel pregnant, and I don’t feel any active nips. Given how early I saw she’d gone into heat and the boys going after her, it’s entirely possible she’s had a litter and lost it. I am seeing the other feral females – Slick, Sprout and the white and grey we haven’t named – show up just long enough to eat, and then they disappear.
I managed to get a picture of this beauty, though.
I’m glad we were able to catch her and get her spayed, because she very rarely allows me to touch her. Once I do, she stops and enjoys the pets, but otherwise, she just runs away.
Once the outside stuff was done, I headed out. My first stop was to the post office, then I planned to go to the feed store in my mother’s town, then visit her.
I had asked the owner of the general store if their feed supplier also carried cat food. She looked up their list and they did. That was a while ago, so when I came in to get the mail, I looked through their feed section and saw they had three 18kg (39.68lbs) bags of cat kibble! They were only $45, too. With the other brands we’ve been getting, they are in the $50-$55 range.
We’ve never had this brand before, so I got only one, to try it out. If the cats like it, it would make things much easier to pick them up in our own little hamlet than having to drive to the towns with feed stores. The only thing is that I would have to change how I budget it. Right now, I put the budgeted amount onto a credit card, so that when I buy them I get my cashback or Canadian Tire dollars. The general store doesn’t take credit cards, though. Just cash and debit. So if I’m going to be buying the big bags there more often, I have to make sure NOT to transfer the funds to a credit card.
So after I picked up our mail, I got the one bag of kibble – then picked up a couple of sausages for the Easter baskets. Something else that was on my list for the shopping I planned to do after visiting my mother.
Since I got the test bag of kibble, I skipped the feed store and went straight to my mother’s.
She was in her favourite armchair in the common room when I got there. She was pleasantly surprised to see me, which was nice for a change.
It was a pretty quiet visit. There wasn’t a lot new going on. My mother immediately started complaining, of course, but not as … energetically, shall we say, as usual. Her health isn’t good. She needs sleep. She needs a private room. (I don’t disagree!) Her room mate is terrible. (I’m sure her room mate thinks the same of my mother!) The regular doctor never comes to see her. The other doctors are from the city come in just for a day. I reminded her that she would need to make an appointment for the doctor to actually see her as a patient; otherwise, he’s just doing his rounds before going to his regular patient appointments at the clinic. To which she complained that it’s just about moneymoneymoney. Apparently, doctors shouldn’t get paid? I’m not quite sure what she’s getting at when she says that, but she says it quite often.
Hopefully, she won’t be here for very long, but there’s just no way to know when a bed will open up at the nursing home she wants to be in.
I remembered to ask if our vandal had shown up again, after his big act with his wife pushing him in with a borrowed wheelchair, then storming out when she refused to pay for his funeral. She said no, he hasn’t. I was not surprised. I told her, I knew there was a reason he was visiting so often. He wanted something from her. Now we know what it was. She started going on about how he’s wealthy, he has his farm. I told her, that’s not cash in the bank. He would have to sell it. Her response was, what else is he going to do with it? His wife isn’t going to farm it, and they have no kids. I told her, he doesn’t have to. He’s got so many vehicles and equipment scattered all over his property. Stuff he can’t use anymore. He could sell just a couple of things and more than cover the cost of his own funeral. That reminded her of the thousands of dollars she’d given him for the huge garage he had built to store his equipment in. All I know is, his vehicles and equipment are still all scattered all over his yard, fully visible from the road as I drive by, except for the Bobcat he stole from my mother, so who knows what all he’s got stored in there. My mother got the point, though; there is no reason for him to be going to her for money to pay for his own funeral. Which could be years from now, for all I know, based on how he appears the few times I’ve seen him since his diagnosis.
Overall, it was a good and relaxed visit. I stayed until her lunch tray was brought over – a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup and crackers, a pickled blend of legumes I recognize from Costco that is quite good, and canned fruit for desert. Her insulated tea cup was just hot water – at her request – to mix in with the glass of milk. One of her favourite things to drink. I stayed long enough to help her get set up and everything was in reach before saying my goodbyes.
From there, it was off to our regular local grocery store – and extra drive, but the difference in prices between that town and my mother’s made it worth it.
Once there, I got the last few things for the Easter baskets, including an extra flat of eggs. I’d asked my daughters to hard boil some eggs for me to start pickling after I got home. They ended up doing a flat and a half – roughly 45 eggs. The extras and the uglies would be used for egg salad. I got a paska for my mother, though it’s huge for a one person basket. Since she no longer has her own kitchen or utensils, my plan is to have everything for her basket all cut up and ready to eat without needing anything else. Plus, she could share the contents, if she finds it too much. We aren’t fans of paska ourselves, so I got a lovely fresh flax seed loaf for our own basket.
The shopping done, my only planned outing over the next while is to visit my mother and bring her the basket on either Saturday or Sunday.
I’m thinking Saturday.
There’s a reason for that.
The truck.
The truck has been running well. The stock up shopping trips have been fine. I have, of course, still been constantly checking the gauges. With the troubles we’ve been having for the past couple of years, I just can’t help myself.
Which is why I noticed something had changed.
The oil pressure gauge.
When we had the leaking seal replaced again, on warranty, and the oil sensor replaced, I got an oil change done at the same time. According to the mileage, we have a couple thousand kilometers before it needs to be changed again – which is about a month’s worth of driving, in the summer. Two months, in the winter.
After all that, the pressure gauge was right back where it was supposed to be and staying within a typical range.
As we were coming home from the Costco trip, though, it started to read on the low side of normal. Technically still okay, but at one point, it was pretty much on the line for low pressure.
It was reading normal again when I started out today, but when I got to the grocery store from my mother’s, the gauge had dropped down to the line again.
While I was on my way home, I kept checking it, and sure enough, it kept slowly dropping. As I was pulling into our driveway, it was touching the line again.
*sigh*
One thing I can say, though; the warranty differential is working fine. The 2 wheel and 4 wheel drive setting has been on auto, and it has had no problem kicking into 4 wheel drive as needed. Today got so warm, the hard packed snow under the tire tracks in our driveway started to soften and the truck starting to sink as I was driving, but I was able to get through with no problem! No getting stuck in our own driveway again!
We’ve been parking the truck in the yard for the past while, since my brother’s truck was half in our garage (as far as it could go without hitting the top of the door frame). My brother had phoned this morning and he suggested I just back it up into the lane towards the barn and leave it there, so we could park our own truck in the garage. So after the shopping was unloaded and I did an early feeding of the outside cats (they like the new kibble!), I moved his truck out.
His truck was having issues with sinking through the formerly hard packed snow, but it got through fine as well.
Driving our own truck into the garage, the oil gauge didn’t have a chance to drop like it did while driving, but it also never got to where it normally is.
The boxes for our chicken coop are still stored at the far end of the garage, so we can’t pull all the way in. Not a problem, since it means I had space to get out the step stool and check the oil levels.
It was low.
I had one last bottle of oil left, 3/4 full, and used that. The level seemed okay after that, but I’m never confident in what I’m seeing on the dip stick. The colour of the oil and the colour of the dip stick is pretty much the same, and the metal is always shiny, even after wiping it clean.
*sigh*
I made a point of checking, and there is no sign of an oil leak, but then I’ve never seen evidence of an oil leak even when it turned out to be leaking really badly, because of where the leak was. The only times I thought I did, it turned out to be from the differential, not engine oil.
Once I was settled inside, I called the garage. The owner answered. I made sure to first let him know that the warranty differential replacement has been doing fine, then explained about the oil pressure and being low on oil again. I mentioned, I’ve got a lot of driving to do in the next while!
He asked me if I could come in on Tuesday afternoon, so they can check it out. They are closed tomorrow and on Easter Monday, of course, so I was very happy that he could book me in so quickly.
For now, it should be fine for me to drive to my mother’s. I’ll do it on Saturday, when things are open, so I can pick up some extra oil to keep in the truck, now that I’ve just used the last of my stash.
This is getting so insane. I’ve either got another leak somewhere, or the truck is simply burning a lot of oil. Which I would expect to see evidence of in my exhaust, and I haven’t.
I just don’t get it.
I am so tired of vehicle troubles!
I can’t even say it’s been this particular truck, since the last two vehicles we’ve owned have also had weird problems. As my daughter told me during our Costco shop, and I was commenting about my own paranoia about the truck; with all the stuff that’s been going on, I have reason to be!!
Hopefully, it’s something minor that they can find and fix easily and quickly.
Hopefully.
On a completely different note, once I had my appointment made, I got to check out what I got in the mail.
The padded envelope had been opened, and the box it was in was crushed. That would have been customs. At least the thermometer itself was not damaged!
Once things thaw out, I want to use it in various beds to see how different the soil temperature is in, say, the high raised bed compared to the low raised beds. It might help explain why I had issues with my beans, melons, tomatoes and squash last summer.
That all settled, the last goal of the day was to make three different types of brine to pickle eggs in, and start peeling the eggs that were hard boiled last night. I made beet, soy and turmeric brines, using the simplest recipes I could find online, so I had three little pots going at once. Then my younger daughter and I started peeling eggs.
It was a disaster.
The shells just did not want to separate from the eggs!
Now, it we were just making egg salad, I wouldn’t have cared, but I was after the most perfect eggs to brine and use in our Easter baskets, and we just weren’t getting any at all. After about a dozen eggs, I called a stop to trying.
Thankfully, I got a extra flat of eggs at the grocery store today.
The ugly eggs didn’t go to waste, though; they got eaten pretty much immediately. 😄
Meanwhile, I started on another batch to hard boil, using tips I’ve tried in the past, all combined.
It worked.
First, fill the pot with water and generous amount of baking soda, then bring it to a boil. The eggs were brought out of the fridge to warm up. Room temperature would have been ideal, but I at least didn’t want to have cold shells cracking on contact with boiling water.
Once the water was boiling, I used a wire basket type scoop – I don’t know the name of it – to lower the eggs into the boiling water in batched. I got 24 eggs into the pot. One did crack, but nothing leaked out of it.
I set the timer for 10 minutes, but it took a while for the water to go from a simmer to a full boil again, so it was really more like 7 minutes at a boil. When the time went off, I shut off the heat, but didn’t take them out right away, just in case. Then I transferred them to a bowl of cold water and left them there for another 10 minutes.
Every single egg peeled perfectly.
All 24 eggs.
Perfect. Including the one that cracked!
I was hoping to just have 6 eggs per jar or brine, but I was able to do 8 in each!
Gotta make sure to pass on the method to the girls. My younger daughter was pretty upset that the first batch wouldn’t peel and felt she had done something wrong. It’s not a problem, though. We’ll just have lots of eggs ready for snacking!
Tomorrow, we need to dig out a couple of baskets from storage, and I need to figure out how to do my mother’s basket, if I’m going to have everything pre-cut up for her. Normally, the baskets would get blessed on Saturday, then enjoyed on Easter morning, but I have not been able to find any times for basket blessing. I know it’s being done; just not which church or what time. For quite a few years now, we’ve just blessed them ourselves. I’ll take the chance to visit my mother on Saturday with her basket and get a bit of a visit in.
Then not go anywhere again until it’s time to take the truck in to the garage to get checked!
The plan for the day was to give the truck a test by heading into town this morning, then if all went well, to visit my mother in the afternoon.
Well, one out of three got done.
This morning, after taking care of the outside cats, I did a bit of shoveling around the house and the truck, which is parked in the yard until my brother can move his truck out of the garage into a spot I’m not even going to try and get it into, with all the snow. The snow in the yard wasn’t too bad, though.
Then I decided to check the end of the driveway.
It was drifted over.
The road didn’t need to be plowed, but there was enough snow drifted across between the gate and the road that it had to be cleared before I could go anywhere.
So did the rest of the driveway.
I could have gotten through, I’m sure, but 1) I didn’t want to push the truck when I’m not even convinced the replaced differential was the cause of all the problems I was having, 2) I would have been slip sliding the whole way and 3) our forecasts are no longer showing temperatures above freezing coming up in the 10 day forecast, but they are showing more snow before then.
I did the end of the driveway, first. The snow was still light and fluffy, so it was an easy job. It still took almost an hour. I stopped after that to head in, have breakfast, hydrate and take some painkillers.
Before coming in, though, I checked on little Spewie.
The auger still won’t turn. Which means it wasn’t just something frozen in the works somewhere. It’s actually broken. Nothing is visibly broken, though. I’d have to dismantle it to find the problem.
Not going to happen any time soon.
It did mean the driveway had to be done the old fashioned way.
I didn’t even do all of it. I did part of the turning radius to get into the garage when coming in from the road, but not where I would be turning in from the inner yard. I did clear around my brother’s truck, though.
Then I had to head in and take a rest brake. I really, really didn’t want to go anywhere, but I wanted to test the truck again before my dental appointment, tomorrow, and refill a couple of our water bottles in the process. I am also not counting on being able to get into the city on Saturday, and had some stuff I wanted to get, just in case, while at the grocery store. Things just keep happening and changing my plans!
I had just finished with the shoveling, gotten inside and was starting to take my coat off when the phone rang. I didn’t even try go get to it before the answering machine picked up.
It was the pharmacy delivery driver, letting us know he was almost at our place.
So I put my coat back on and headed out to meet him at the gate.
Oh, gosh. I just realized, as I write this. It’s still open.
*sigh*
After taking a break – and more painkillers – I grabbed the water jugs and headed out.
Happily, I did not get stuck getting out of the yard.
As for the drive in, the truck seemed to be working fine, but the road is in such bad shape, plus it now has the remains of drifts and ice along the way, that it was really hard to judge what I was feeling. Was that the truck shuddering, or was it the road making it shudder?
Along the way, I saw three back hoes, busily clearing the ditches of snow – two of them in our own municipality, including one right in our little hamlet. They’ve gotten a lot of progress in the past couple of days. It’s going to make a big difference, once the snow finally starts to melt.
I got a few things “extra” to take advantage of some sales, along with refilling the water jugs. Blocks of cheese were on sale, so I ended up getting four different kinds. I was able to get a decent amount of meat this time, including stewing beef. Rye bread, as always, plus some Naan that was on sale. Stuff like that.
I saw some 7.5kg kibble on sale and got a bag for the outside cats, just in case. In the end, even with the sale prices, it came out to $200, but I used some of my points and got $30 off.
By the time I was done, I knew there was no way I was going to visit my mother. I was in just too much pain. Instead, I headed straight home, without even stopping for more gas ($1.729/L still) or the post office. I can do that tomorrow, when I go in for my dental appointment.
I’ll call my mother later on, instead.
Once I got home, I drove up to the house and my daughter helped me unload everything but the kibble. I took that through the sun room and added it to the bin right away, then did the evening cat feeding, so no one would have to go out again, later.
I was supposed to close the gate again before going back in. I’m thinking it should be safe to leave open for the night. Our vandal doesn’t seem to do as much stupid stuff in the winter.
*sigh*
I think today is a good day to go to bed early – after I call my mother.
And take more pain killers.
*sigh*
It’s a good thing I actually enjoy shoveling so much.
The Re-Farmer 