Well, it’s done. The truck has been towed to the garage.
My BIL, sweetheart that he is, skipped the lunch my sister, who was going to work later, was making so he could come out and find me before the tow truck reached me.
Thankfully, I was able to pull over next to a very large and open company driveway, making me both easy to find, and easy to get to, while on the side of a busy highway.
The tow truck actually arrived later than expected. He had a call ahead of me that only needed a winch, but ended up pulling two people out of the ditch before getting to me.
My BIL, meanwhile, had already arrived and we were sitting in the company driveway, talking, when the tow truck arrived. The tow truck was not only from our regular garage, but the driver was the owner/our mechanic’s brother! That gave me the opportunity to describe exactly what happened, knowing our mechanic would actually get the information.
The truck had been running so well. Since I’d gone to church in town first, which is right on the highway that goes to the city my mother is in, I took that route through all the little towns along the lake again. I had the radio on when I started hearing/feeling like something was rubbing on a tire. This continued for maybe a couple of minutes before it felt like something dropped. Suddenly, the tire was shuddering, like something was caught up in it.
Of course, I pulled over right away, got out and checked.
I could see nothing. I even popped the hood and tried to look from above. Nothing.
I got back in the truck and started to move, but the shuddering was immediate. I stopped after less than 5 feet, I’m sure.
From there I contacted my family and even sent a quick message to my brother (he’s out of the country still) before contacting CAA. I phoned directly rather than using the app, because I’ve never quite managed to get the app set up and working, and I don’t know what’s wrong. The last time I tried, I was at home and ended up using my desktop, instead. Not an option this time!
So I phoned and started going through the automated system, which uses voice responses to questions. That worked fine as long as it was yes/no questions, or when I said I needed a tow, but then it asked what was wrong. I didn’t know what was wrong, so I said, I don’t know, something is wrong with my tire.
It decided I had a flat tire and asked if that was correct. I said no. It tried again and I tried to answer a different way. It still thought I had a flat tire. Finally, I pressed 0, hoping that it would get me to a human. It recognized that I wanted to talk to a person but then said the automated system would likely be faster and started over again in asking what was wrong with my vehicle.
*sigh*
After a while it gave up and sent me to a real human being.
… and put me on hold.
Thankfully, I was the “next caller” and didn’t have to wait too long.
It was a bit confusing in trying to say where I was. Thankfully, I was next to a company driveway that had all sorts of signs and their physical address number right next to me. What I wasn’t sure of was whether the highway had a different name while in town. I also wasn’t sure if I’d crossed the border from one town to the next, as these two towns are butted right up against each other. Still, we got it figured out.
The tow was arranged to take the truck to our regular garage, and I soon had a call from the towing company. I had to laugh when I saw the name of our garage on the call display. I had seen new signs at the garage showing that they did towing now, but I didn’t realize they did CAA calls, too. On confirming the company driveway I was next to, the drive knew exactly where I was.
After that, I just had to wait. When my BIL arrived, he pulled into the company driveway, and I didn’t even recognize his truck – he’s gone through at least two since I last saw what truck they had. I think the last one I saw was an F250. This one’s an F150.
He has a very nice truck – very new looking truck, even though it’s a 2008.
Since I was on the side of the highway, we sat in his truck to talk. I told him about what happened, and he was aware that we’ve had other issues, too. He started telling me about his truck and work he had done on it – including getting a new engine, because apparently it was easier and cheaper than the fix needed. So the engine has 30,000 km less on it than the rest of the truck does. I’m amazed he found a 2008 truck with only 30K on it! It’s got 170K on it now, which is about 100K less than our truck had when we bought it.
Oh, and he was planning to sell it in the summer.
!!!
I asked what he was looking to sell it for, and he said about $5000
…
We might actually be able to come up with that before the summer.
When the tow truck showed up, I went out to talk to the driver and explained what happened, as far as I could tell. He said it was good that I didn’t try to keep driving it, just in case. I told him, there was no way I was going to keep driving with what it was doing!
He also told me it was a good thing I had CAA. The tow would have cost $200, without it!
Today is Sunday, so the garage is closed, but tomorrow is a holiday. That means Tuesday will be the earliest anyone can look at it. I mentioned I was just there on Thursday! They didn’t see anything wrong while working on the differential. I’m at a complete loss. My BIL thinks it might be the transmission. If it’s something big like that, it might not be worth fixing. *sigh*
After that, the tow truck driver didn’t need anything more from me, so my BIL and I headed out. The tow truck was blocking my BIL’s truck, but that nice big commercial driveway had plenty of room for my BIL to move around and back out.
It was a very lovely ride, I must say. As we were talking, he told me about some other things he was planning to sell before selling the truck. I told him, if we can come up with the money, I’ll buy it!
We just need to keep this truck running for a few more months. Assuming whatever broke isn’t too expensive to repair in the first place.
After I got home, I mentioned to my brother that our BIL was planning to sell his truck in the summer, and my brother suggested that if we can buy that, we could possibly sell this truck on consignment. We still have lmoast 3 years to pay it off, but might be able to get a decent return on it to take care of that. At least partially.
I don’t think I’ll be getting that large greenhouse with my tax return, after all. 😄 That’s okay. I should still be able to something. Just not a hard sided one.
…
Had a break from writing this to talk to my daughters. My younger daughter was asking me about the chicken coop we got and I mentioned that’s one of the reasons I wanted to get a greenhouse or polytunnel – something to overwinter the chickens in, coop and all. We were looking at some of the designs I was finding on Amazon – risky to purchase from there, and a lot of them have very mixed reviews. They are far more affordable, though. Especially the polytunnels. It’s cheaper to buy a full kit than the materials we’d need to build one, if we could even find some of the materials needed in the first place. On seeing the prices, my daughter thought they were something that, between us, we could manage to afford.
In the end, though, a lot depends on what happens with the truck. I pray whatever broke on it will be a relatively cheap fix!
Normally, he runs away, even if I come closer while he is easing, but today I managed to skritch his shoulders and neck. Not only did he not run away, but he even leaned into my hand!
Once he was away from the food bowls, though, that was it. I couldn’t get near him anymore.
You may notice his fur is decorated in the above picture. He has hoar frost raining down on him from the rose bush above him. We had thick fog roll in last night, and it was still very much there this morning.
The first item on the outings list today was to drop the truck off at the garage to get that differential leak fixed. My daughter and I headed out early, which was good, because we had to take it pretty slow in places. The closer we got to town – and the lake beyond it – the thicker the fog got. Still, we arrived over half an hour early for the drop off time. Which was okay, since I only needed to leave the key. While doing that, I let him know that, after moving the truck, I did see signs of fluid under it – it was definitely a very small leak, but still needs fixing! I also let him know that the check engine light had turned off on its own, and that the oil pressure gauge is where it should be, thanks to the last fix done.
From there, my daughter and I walked to the hospital. My sister had visited my mother in the transitional care unit (TCU), which is very close to where she lives, yesterday and let me know that some clothing items that had gone into the laundry were forgotten. While I asked about that, I also asked about the photo of our vandal. They had to contact someone that could pull my mother’s file to find out. While waiting for that, the person that checked housekeeping came back and there was no sign of anything that was my mother’s. Housekeeping may not have been done with it. We went to where we could meet the guy about the files. Sure enough, the photos were still in the file, in the large envelope my brother brought them in.
After explaining about the photos, and mentioning that we were going to be seeing my mother today, he gave me the envelope to take with us and deliver to the nursing station at the TCU. Then we went back to the nursing station about the clothing items. They would look into it some more, and got my contact information to call me later.
Since I had the photos, my daughter and I first walked back to the garage so we could leave it in the truck. It was still parked outside, so I put it in the basket of my mother’s walker, which was in the back of the truck cab. The wheelchair had to go into the box.
That dropped off, my daughter and I headed out to find somewhere we could have breakfast, and take our time about it.
Using the button to cross the highway wasn’t going to be an option! It’s only for an audible notification that the walk light was on, though.
There aren’t a lot of restaurants open that early in the day in this town, so our options were limited. The place we went to was at the other end of town (okay, that’s just 6 blocks or so. 😄). We were both quite famished by then! We both ended up ordering the largest breakfast platters they had. I’m glad we did, because that ended up having to last us until supper!
We took our time about it, but we were still waiting on a 2 hour job, so it wasn’t that long before we headed out.
[Edit: I forgot to mention. While we were having breakfast, the hospital called me about my mother’s missing clothing. They couldn’t find them, nor did they expect to find them. Most of the laundry goes to the city for washing. My mother’s items were not labelled with her name. The folks sorting through in the city wouldn’t know where they would have to go, and they would probably not even made it back to town!]
Since we were so close to the lake, we popped over to see how it looked.
The fog was still pretty heavy. What you can just barely see in the photo is an ice fishing village, and an ice road leading to it.
From there, we stopped at a general store that my daughter wanted to go to. They are the only place that carries a particular brand of imported wool yarn. She’s bought some before and used them to knit herself a pair of socks. They turned out to be the best pair of socks she’s ever had, and actually keep her feet dry. She got herself enough yarn to knit herself two more pairs!
When we were done there, we crossed the street to check out the dollar store. There wasn’t anything we actually needed there, but I like to keep an eye out for some things.
We never finished going through the store before I got a text from the garage. The truck was done! Somewhat faster than I expected, but they must have been able to get it in almost right after we dropped off the envelope from the hospital. So we quickly picked up a couple of energy drinks for the road and made the walk back.
Unfortunately, by this time, my daughter and I were both limping pretty badly! My daughter hurt her leg getting her old computer chair down the stairs not long ago, and had been caning it for the past few days. She was feeling better today, but after the walking we’d already done, to and from the hospital, then across town, she was actually having a harder time than I was with my left hip giving out. What a sight we must have been!
Once we got to the garage and saw the truck parked in the lot, my daughter went straight to it to sit down while I went in to take care of the bill. $280 and change. *sigh* Still, better to get the leak fixed than push our luck with it!
From there, we were going to the nearer city, to see my mother. Normally, I would have popped over to another highway, rather than go straight from town, so as to avoid driving through several small lakeside towns. In the end, I decided the extra miles weren’t worth it, and we headed straight out.
I’m glad we did.
We made our way through the row of towns and had just reached an area of open highway when my daughter started feeling sick. Eating does that do her. Just, general eating. She’s never been able to pin down exactly what is making her ill. It did mean we had to find a gas station urgently! If we had been on the other highway, there would have been nothing available. On this route, there actually is a single gas station along the way. Thankfully, we made it.
We didn’t need to get any gas, but I did want to “pay” for our use of the bathroom, so I went looking for some snacks. The convenience store with this particular gas station is more like a smallish grocery store, and very well stocked! They even had a large display of baked goods from a bakery in the town north of us that is really well known. People from the city go out of their way to get their bread. I ended up getting a couple of Whoopie Pies for us (not that my daughter would be up to eating anything again for some time!). I had mine while waiting for my daughter to join me in the truck again. I’ve had Whoopie Pies before, and they’re usually rather dry and fairly hard. The cake portions were so incredibly soft and fresh, I had a hard time unwrapping it without crushing or tearing it! It was absolutely awesome.
From there, we continued on to visit my mother. I knew the TCU was in the “old hospital”, and I’ve driven past it many times.
I was wrong.
When we got to the area, the first problem was finding a way to get in. There were a number of buildings but, as we read the signage, going from one area to another, we couldn’t find anything. We did find that one of the buildings is a mental health hospital. My mother actually spent some time there, years before I was born. She still speaks highly of how pleasant her stay was, and how well they took care of her.
In the end, I found a plowed out space I could pull over and tried looking up the address for this unit. I found their web page – but there was no address! My brother did send me a phone number, though – not the same one that was on the web page! – so I tried that.
It took a bit to try and describe where we were to the person who answered before she could give us directions.
We had driven right past the place. I had no idea that that complex was the old hospital, not where I had always thought it was at!
Then we had to try and find the right door to go in.
I drove around in circled and back tracked before we finally decided to park near the entrance to what turned out to be an urgent care clinic. Only then did we pass the sign for the TCU.
It had been blocked by a truck. An 18 wheeler, unloading a semi size trailer box. Completely blocking the lane to where the TCU entrance was.
We got the wheelchair and walker out (with my daughter making sure to grab a cane for herself, too), but when we got to the urgent care clinic, I left my daughter with them to ask someone inside. She was able to give me directions on how to get to the unit through the building, rather than having to go outside and find away around the truck blocking the lane. So I got my daughter, the wheelchair and walker, and we made our way through what turned out to be “authorized personnel only” areas before finally reaching the elevator she told us to look for. It was one of those elevators with doors on each side, and we were going through the staff door to use it!
Finally, we got to the second floor and found signs leading us to the TCU.
The doors, however, are locked. Visitors are to push a button for someone to come and let us in.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the door, we could hear the voice of an elderly man yelling for someone to let him out. Before a staff member opened a different door next to the entry doors, we could hear him pushing and bashing at the door, trying to get out! When the staff member came (there were more people waiting with us to get in by then), and I told her who we were coming to see, she let us in through the staff door! As we made our way around, another staff member opened up a mobile barrier for us to go through. As we came around, we saw the guy we had heard through the door. He was still at the main doors, pushing a walker, and looking very furious about not being able to get out.
There’s a reason these places have lock codes to get in and out!
Once at the nursing station, I brought out the envelope with the photos. I explained to them that my mother doesn’t know that we’re giving these photos, because that would cause issues. Notes were taken as I explained about our vandal’s past abusive behavior towards my mother. They asked if there was a protection order, and I explained that the courts required my mother do that herself, and there’s no way she can physically do that, but her cognitive decline isn’t so far that my brother can do it on her behalf, as her PoA. They completely understood that frustration! I did mention that I’d had to get one against him myself. Then I had to explain why my sister’s picture was in there. They recognized her as having visited yesterday. I explained that, in general, she’s fine, but our vandal has been able to manipulate her into doing things in the past, that she is not understanding my mother’s cognitive issues and resulting self sabotage, and just goes along with things when she shouldn’t. My mother has been able to manipulate her as well.
I so hate having to include my sister as someone that needs to be kept an eye on while visiting my mother!
The likelihood of our vandal showing up is low, but they do have cancer care in the new hospital near by and, from the signs, they have cancer care in this building, too, so it’s possible he might be coming out for treatment and go visit my mother. We’re just assuming my sister is going to tell him where my mother is, and there’s no point in asking her not to tell him that. Not after she went ahead and did it anyhow, before, because my mother convinced her to. She simply doesn’t understand – or doesn’t want to believe – how potentially harmful to my mother that was.
*sigh*
That done, we found out which room my mother was in and headed over with the wheelchair and walker, while they printed out labels to put on them to show that these belonged to my mother.
It’s definitely a step down from where my mother was, in the hospital!
She went from a large, single person room, so a smaller room she shares with someone else. My mother’s bed is by the door, though, so we didn’t have to disturb the other person. She was quite happy to see us – and her own walker and wheelchair! The wheelchair she refused to even sit in, when I brought it over to her place, months ago. 😄
All in all, we had a good visit with her. She’s not really liking the TCU. Lots of noise, she says. Her room mate apparently was walking around all night, then sleeps through the day. Hopefully, my mother won’t be there for long, but every other person in this unit is waiting to be moved somewhere more permanent!
The staff there seem really nice, though, and were already telling me how sweet they found my mother to be. Nice to know she’s on good behaviour! She’ll have her moments, of course, but in a unit like this, that’s something they deal with – and worse – pretty regularly.
I did remind my mother that we are now the ones living the furthest from her, and we don’t go to this city very often, comparatively speaking, so we won’t be visiting as often. She mentioned that my sister lives nearby. I don’t know if that means she’ll visit more often, but we’ll see. Still, if the staff need anything from us, my brother is the first they would call, as PoA, I would be the second, as the one that’s been my mother’s advocate at her medical appointments for the past 7 years. If they can’t reach either of us, then they would call my sister. She asked about when my brother might visit, but he’s out of the country right now. He still manages to keep on top of everything, though!
[Edit: Something else I forgot to mention. I started to tell my mother about her missing clothing, and the hospital not being able to find them. She told me that someone actually delivered them to her, yesterday! It had to have happened after my sister was no longer there. When I was at the hospital this morning, they knew nothing about this!]
After our visit with her was done, we headed out – this time being able to go out the proper entrance and seeing where we can drive in to the right parking lot! The truck that was blocking the lane was gone, too, so that helped.
From there, we stopped at the Canadian Tire, then the Walmart, to do the shopping we would normally have done at the end of January, in the larger city. That will get its own separate post.
While we were at the Walmart, I started getting notifications from the garage security camera, and got to watch as Fed Ex delivered our chicken coop kit!
The shopping was really rough on both my daughter and I, as far as our pain levels went. The store is being renovated, and things we needed were moved to completely different areas we had to hunt for. When it came time to pay, we normally would have gone to the self check out, but they are now a 20 item limit, and we had well over 20 items. There were only two cash desks open.
Of course, we found ourselves at the one where a customer had some sort of issue, and the line just stopped while they waited for someone to come fix it. I ended up having to go over to the McDonalds across from the checkout, just so I could sit down!
The shopping done, we loaded the truck in bright sunshine and melting snow before heading home. We took the same route as before, because we wanted to stop to get gas at the same station we’d stopped at on the way out.
Driving right into a wall of fog!!!
It was heavy fog for most of the drive out, but by the time we reached town and our turn off to home, it was sunny again. Looking at the weather right now, we are still under a heavy fog advisory, with near zero visibility.
Once at home, we backed up to the house to unload the truck. Before moving it to the garage, though, I went to move the chicken coop boxes to the far end of the garage, well away from the door. We won’t be able to park the truck all the way in with them there, but it’s staying warm enough that that’s okay.
All the parts and pieces fit into two large boxes. You can see the design on the packages. The coop has nesting boxes, three at each end, with external doors that drop down for access. Above those doors are smaller doors that can be opened for ventilation, with more doors for ventilation in the front as well. The ramp to the nesting boxes is in the middle, and it has a full size door to access the interior.
I see on potential problem with the coop, though.
It has roosts under the nesting boxes, on either side of the ramp and door (not visible in the diagram). This means no clean up, since they’ll be pooping onto the ground below.
There are no roosts on the second level inside. Which means roosting chickens would be completely exposed to outside temperatures and wind, even though they are sheltered from above.
This is definitely not a coop made for Canadian weather!
One of the things we’re looking to build in the main garden area, though, is some sort of polytunnel type greenhouse. We could fit the entire coup inside for the winter, if necessary.
Until then, we might need to find ways to cover the wire mesh in the chicken run for the night or something like that. We’ll figure that out over the summer. We wouldn’t even be getting chicks until May.
After the boxes were moved, I went to park the truck, but there were cats, all over, under it. I went put kibble out, just to distract them away, but several kept going back under the truck. They were going on the tired, up into the undercarriage, and as soon as I got one out, another would replace it! I’ve never had so many cats so determined to get under the truck like that before!
The truck is still parked in the yard. Hopefully, when I do the morning feeding, they’ll be distracted enough that I can move it!
All in all, it made for quite a long day. Aside from my hips giving me grief, though, I’m feeling a lot better than I expected to. My poor daughter is toast, though. I won’t be surprised as all if she’s back to caning it all day, tomorrow. I’m thankful she was able to come along and help, though.
Next up, the stock up shopping post that should have been done two weeks ago!
I’m glad I didn’t decide to just wait until the post office reopened in the afternoon. I forgot today is Wednesday. The store the post office is in closes at noon, every Wednesday, for inventory.
I was expecting the chicken coop to come in several large boxes, but there was only one small box. Only one package slip in my mail box. No coop. There was no “attempted delivery” this morning at all.
Hmmm.
Something to look up when I got home, and after I checked out my new stuff.
Two new heat mats, two 4 light clamp lamps and one 5 light tripod pedestal lamp, with full spectrum lighting.
This gave me a chance to do a few things all at once.
Right now, my work table is covered with a gain self-healing cutting mat my darling husband got for me some time ago. Unfortunately, the heat mats make it warp. So I cut some pieces of half inch rigid insulation to size, to go under the heat mats.
The heat mat with the germinated plants in it got a piece of carboard between the mat and the tray as a buffer. Normally, I would stop using a heat mat as soon as the seeds germinated, but it’s so chilly in the basement, that’s not really an option. Especially since I will no longer use a light fixture that puts off a small amount of heat. The buffer will keep the seed starting mix warm, but not too warm.
The large celled tray now has a new heat mat under it. I’ve filled the last empty cells with seeds that were set to pre-germinate, even though they were not germinated yet. Then, just in case, I added a couple of fresh seeds into each cell. I did actually see a single Caspar eggplant starting to break through the surface, but nothing in any of the other cells. It’s entirely possible the seed starting mix, not being on a heat mate, but getting some heat from above, was too cold.
I also added new luffa seeds to the three Red Solo cups where nothing has shown yet, including the one where I couldn’t find the pre-germinated seed at all.
The new lights have a controller with several settings. There are five brightness settings – I put them at the highest. They can also adjust from red, blue or white light, or all three. I have it on all three. It can also be set to shut itself off after 6, 12 or 16 hours. I set it to 12 hours. Each lamp also came with an adapter, so they can be plugged in as usual, or can have USB. I have a power bar hanging above that has a couple of USB slots in it, so I decided to use that.
The only problem is that these are clamp lamps, and cannot stand on their own. Which means I had to move the tray set up to the front of the table for the lights to reach. Only at the front of the able is the surface narrow enough for the clamps. This worktable has a sheet of plywood on top of a narrower table top. The ends are too thick for the clamps.
With a full tray of cells, plus a second tray that’s only partially full, I set things up so that the full tray has five lights over it, and the other has only three.
I’ve still left the shop light above on. That light is manual, so I’ll need to shut it off and on, but that’s okay.
I am looking to pick up more seed starting mix when we are out and about tomorrow then, either on Friday or the weekend, I’ll start more seeds. Specifically, I’ll be starting herbs.
The tall light fixture will be set up in the living room. The onions in their seed snail rolls are getting plenty of light, with the shop light lowered to their level, but the other plants around them could really use better light! That room gets the morning light, and that’s it. It’s pretty dim, the rest of the day. We don’t have a lot of plants anymore, after repotting and donating most of them to the large animal rescue that took Poirot’s orphan kittens last summer. That, at least, will make it easier to give them proper lighting with this new lamp.
The lights themselves were very reasonably priced. The smaller lamps were under $25 each. It was actually cheaper for me to buy as a quantity of two separately, than to buy a single 2pk, which is weird. The larger lamp was under $40, regular price, and I got that one on a 10% off sale.
That done, I went looking to see what happened with that coop delivery.
Now, when placing the order, I was really surprised that would be delivered by Canada Post. When checking the tracking for the two packages I was expecting, they were the same. They even went through the same delivery depots at the same time, though the lights were ordered several days before the coop was.
Any time an order arrived, the trackers say “delivery attempted”. Of course, no delivery is attempted at all. The packages are just left at the post office for us to pick up with the regular mail.
Today, however, the coop’s tracking now said “undeliverable” and “location unknown”.
It also said, Fed Ex.
*sigh*
If I’d known is was going to be Fed Ex, I would have used our physical address. They have actually found us and delivered to us before.
I tried using the “contact shipper” link on Amazon, which took me to a page with a list of delivery companies.
None of them, Fed Ex.
So I went to their website and eventually found a customer service number to call.
After going through the robot sentinel, I actually got to talk to a real human being! Not only that, but he was awesome!
I gave him our physical address, including both the name and the numerical designation for our road. He put me on hold to work on it, then had to come back to ask more confirming questions. I told him, our address doesn’t exist on Google maps. He did, however, find a road with the numerical designation – but under the name of our municipality, not our little hamlet. So I had to explain that that section of road ends at a crossroad, then restarts a short distance off before continuing for several miles. It’s those several miles that are the empty void in the map, and we are in the void. In the end, he was able to take directions and instructions on how to get to us, and how to find our driveway – with the warning that if they miss our driveway, they’re not going to find the next one to turn around in for another mile. I also told him about the sign we have, with our physical address on it, and arrows pointing the way, at the turn off. Because we’ve had this problem before!
We had a lot of laughs while working this out.
I asked if they would be delivering tomorrow, and he said it was very likely. So I told him, I’ll be out for most of the day, though there will be someone home. I let him know we would leave the gate open, and the garage, and the package can be delivered into the garage. I don’t know how many boxes this is going to go into, but it’s warm enough that I don’t mind not parking the truck all the way into the garage, so make room for the boxes.
We will need to figure out where to assemble the coop. It needs to be relatively close to the house, on level ground, and in an area that doesn’t get flooded out in spring melt. Wherever we decide to set it up, we’ll probably have to level the ground. We really don’t have level ground anywhere!
On the plus side, this is a relatively small coop. It would be easy to move, if we ever need to. It could even get set up in the main garden area, where we can let the chickens help prepare the soil for us, where more raised beds are going to be built. The coops is just under 4′ wide, and just over 6′ long. The raised beds we will be building in the main garden area will all be 4′ x 18′. It could be set up where a new bed is planned and either moved 6′ every few weeks, or an extended run could be built to cover the 18′. I’ve got enough chicken wire for that. I’d just need to find the materials to frame it out. The coop design I got has the eggs boxes and roosts above and an open run below, with wire mesh walls. It would be easy to make a door to access an extended run. The only hitch is that access to the nesting boxes are at the ends, so a run on the end would make it harder to reach.
Hmmm… Things to think about.
We’ll have snow on the ground for quite a while yet, though, so there’s plenty of time to figure it out.
The outside cats are certainly running around a lot more, now that things are warming up! It’s going to get quiet pleasant for the rest of February, according to the long range forecast, though the local weather group I follow is monitoring a weather system that might push a Colorado Low into our area.
I never got a call from the hospital yesterday, so I called them before going to bed. I’m glad I did, because my mother called me this morning!
She is still in the hospital, all packed and ready for her transfer. She told me she asked the staff about when she was leaving, and that they told her they didn’t know how she would be transported. Which is strange, since they told me from the start that they are arranging her transport.
The doctor at the hospital was never able to connect with the doctor and the temporary care unit, and that’s why she didn’t get transported yesterday. I explained that to her, and assured her that the hospital would be arranging the transportation. Likely with a HandiVan, rather than an ambulance. My mother didn’t even know where she was going, other than it would be in the smaller, nearer city. I told her, she would be in the old hospital, now converted to temporary long term care, but that we still didn’t know where in the building she would be. She was satisfied with that. She sounded like she was really looking forward to the transfer!
Late this morning, I headed out to the feed store in the town my mother no longer has an apartment in. 😄 We’re heading into the middle of February already (how did that happen so quickly???), and we still had kibble, so I only got three 40 pound bags. I also ordered some lysine, which should be in on Monday. Or Tuesday. Monday is a statutory holiday (it has different names in different provinces) and I think they will be closed.
Since I ordered that chicken coop – which got shipped yesterday already! – I stopped to ask some questions about chickens. The two people that were there at the time got quite enthused in answering them! I’ll need to set up a brooder (I already have the heat lamp, currently being used in the sun room for the cats). They gave me a booklet from the hatchery they get their chicks from that has all the information needed. I know we still have feeders and whatnot in the old log building my parents used as a chicken coop when I was a kid, but I’m not about to go digging those out. They’ve been there for probably 30 or more years by now. I honestly can’t remember when my parents stopped keeping chickens.
I asked them which breed they would recommend for someone just starting out and looking for layers. They both very enthusiastically recommended Browns. They were really impressed with the number and size of the eggs this breed lays, plus they are known to be quiet, friendly and clean.
The chicken coop that’s on its way is big enough for only 10 chickens, which is a bit of a problem. The hatchery’s minimum order is 24 chicks. There is, however, someone else that’s looking for only a few chicks, so they took my name down alongside theirs. If they can find one more person, they can split a shipment, and the shipping costs, after the chicks arrive. It costs a bit more for sexed chicks, but with only 10, I don’t want to have any roosters in there. By the time everything is added together, it should cost me about $75 for 10 chicks. Meanwhile, I can slowly start picking up the other supplies I will need, like feeders and waterers. I can get pine shavings locally.
Over time, as we build bigger coops, we’ll look at getting meat birds, too. If we’re looking to fill the freezer for a year, we’d be looking at at least 100 meat hens, so that would require a much bigger coop! Or multiple smaller ones. It’s a shame the building my parents used can’t be used. We might still be able to fix it up at some point – it’s still in good enough shape for that, at least – but that is very much a long term project.
Once I was done there, I topped up the gas tank ($1.279/L *sigh*), then went to the grocery store. I was mostly looking to get more rye bread, but found a few more things, of course – including some tri-tip beef that was on sale. Beef has become something where local prices tend to be better than Costco prices. At least when the sales are on. Still high, but at least affordable enough to grab the odd package now and then.
I also got sucked in, as soon as I walked in the door.
There was a seed display. The first I’ve seen this year!
Of course, I had to look, and yes, I did get seeds.
The first are some double marigolds. These are something I want to scatter plant all over the various garden beds, wherever there is space. They can be started indoors 4-6 weeks before last frost, so around the middle of April or beginning of May. Marigolds are easy to collect seed from, so I should hopefully be able to collect some for next year.
I also got some yellow zucchini, because I just can’t have too many summer squash! These can be started 3-4 weeks before last frost, so in the beginning of May.
Both can actually be direct sown, too, so I might try a bit of both. It depends on how much room I find myself with.
I seriously had to resist buying more!
So we are set for the next while. I don’t need to head out anywhere again until it’s time to take the truck in to get the differential leak fixed – a 2 hour job. I had intended to visit my mother while the work was being done, but she shouldn’t be there anymore. Depending on when they can start working on the truck, once it’s done, I will likely to head to the city my mother will be in, to hit a Walmart and a Canadian Tire, both of which are quite close to the old hospital building she is being transferred to.
I’m actually surprised I haven’t gotten a call from the hospital yet. That means she hasn’t been transferred yet. I would have hoped the doctors had connected by now!
Ah, well. We shall see. The main thing is, she is safe and care for, either way.
Now… time to start pouring through that hatchery booklet I picked up today!
The Re-Farmer
Addendum: Oh! I just hit publish when a message from my brother came in. The hospital just called him. My mother is transferred, safe and sound!
I was originally planning to head out to the feed store today, but I completely forgot about that, because of something that happened last night.
I was having a late snack of brie and pimiento stuffed olives. My first thought, when I felt something hard and immediately stopped biting down, was that I’d found a broken piece of olive pit. I’d already found one earlier.
I immediately discarded that idea, because it felt wrong. In fact, it felt more like a piece of tooth.
Yeah, I’ve had that happen before, too.
After very carefully clearing my mouth, I spit out the hard thing. Sure enough, it was a chunk of tooth. The far side of a molar at the very back of my mouth. One that already had a root canal, done probably close to 35 years ago, so there was no pain.
The weird thing?
I’d been to the dentist a few months ago because I was having pain and thought I had a cavity. There was no cavity there and nothing on the Xrays. Mostly, though, I have been having trouble chewing on that side. I’d bite on something – even something soft – and there would be a sharp pain. The problem was, the tooth that seemed to be where the pain was, had a root canal and should not have been having any pain at all. Which meant it could have been one of the teeth on either side of it. All the tests the dentist did to try and recreate that pain, failed, and he could not work out which tooth was hurting me. So, nothing was done.
That was in the lower jaw. The tooth that broke is in the upper jaw on the same side.
Yet, I no longer have pain in that area of my lower jaw.
So there is no pain in that area at all, upper or lower jaw, but I do have a sharp bit my tongue is catching on where the piece of tooth is missing. There’s now a risk the filling might break off, or more of the tooth will break.
This morning, I called the dentist to see how quickly they could get me in.
After explaining what happened and confirming that I am not in any pain right now, they booked me in as early as possible.
March 27. More than a month from now!
I am, however, on their cancellation list, and they will try to fit me in as quickly as possible. If I do start having problems with the tooth, I’m to call them back and they’ll get me in on an emergency basis.
That particular call for an appointment was unplanned. I did have another planned call. This time to my doctor to book an appointment. Got some womanly stuff at issue. I’ve been happily post-menopausal for more than 20 years. I hit menopause very early, and had zero issues of any kind. Well, now I seem to have started my cycles again. Nothing big, mostly just spotting, but still, it shouldn’t be happening. I’m not overly worried. I’m at the age women typically go into menopause, so who knows. Something to check out, anyhow.
I’m not looking forward to it.
That’s the not so good news.
Now for the good news.
With the calls and appointments made, I settled in to work on my crochet for a while, when I got a call from the hospital.
They have found a temporary care unit bed for my mother! She’s being moved today.
It’s not in her top choice location, but we stressed with her to take anything that comes available. Once she’s in the system, it’ll be much easier to get her transferred to the nursing home she actually wants to be in.
The temporary care unit is in the nearer city. When they built the new hospital we’ve been going to so often, as that’s where they have the diagnostic equipment needed, the old hospital was converted to temporary long term care. Which means they’ll have more activities and such available.
They still had to go through the process of doctors talking to doctors, nurses to nurses, transferring of files, and then they will transport her over. I’m supposed to get a call once they actually move her and give me as much information as they can. Right now, we just know the building she’s going to be in. Nothing about what floor or room or anything like that. I should know that by the end of today, if all goes smoothly.
Once that is done, we will officially be the furthest away from my mother. My sister will be just 15 minutes away, and even my brother will be closer than we are! Casual visits from our end will be far less often. That will change back again when she is eventually transferred to where she wants to be, since that’s only blocks away from the hospital she’s in right now.
That self warming cat shelter is just crushed. 😄 When it’s time to clean out the catio, I’ll have to find a way to add supports inside it. Even under a shelf, that cats still jump on it.
One of the things I’ve been doing in the last few days, as things have been warming up, is removing the snow from the roof of the catio and the isolation shelter. They did their job as insulating in the winter, but now I actually want more light to get inside them.
The isolation shelter is a bit easier. There was a fair bit of ice under the snow that needed to be broken loose; heat from inside was enough to melt the snow, which then froze in sheets. Once that was clear, I just needed to lift the roof and allow the last bits of snow and ice fall off, and anything melted to drain.
The catio, however, is different. Not only does the roof not lift off, but the top under the roof is just wire mesh. There are no supports other than the frame itself. That meant things started to sag in the middle, where I found a sheet of ice almost 2 inches thick in places! I could also only work at clearing it from the front of the catio, since the other three sides are deep with snow. I did have to access the end facing the house to do some repairs. I think, when my brother used the snow blower to clear enough space in front of the storage house to back up his truck, snow was hitting the end of the catio and tore the plastic. Some snow had even gotten inside and onto the cat shelf at that end. I have clear repair tape (looks a lot like packing tape, but is much stronger, with better adhesive) and had to stand in snow above my knees to get at it!
Now that the tears are fixed and the roof is as clear as I could get it, the inside of the catio is brighter, and quite warm. I spotted Fancypants and Larence in there this morning. This afternoon, there was a fluffy kitten in there. It seems to really like the catio and hangs out where quite a bit, but is feral enough to be quite alarmed when I go to add food and water. I didn’t need to add water this afternoon, though. It was warm enough in there that the water I added this morning was still liquid!
Aside for the usual outside stuff, I’ve kept things quiet today. I’ve started working on a crochet project, using some new self-striping yarn I picked up last month. I’m a little ticked, though. I re-wrapped them from skeins into center pull balls. About 3/4 through the first one, I found a knot, with a dark colour tied off to a light colour. Then I found three more knots, within a few feet! So much for graduated colour changes. The other skein didn’t have any knots in it, so I started my project with that one. I’m planning to make a hooded cowl.
I did do something else that was more frustrating than it should have been. I’ve been trying to buy a chicken coop kit. There’s nothing local available that is affordable. My first attempts failed because the designs I found don’t ship to our location. Then I found ones that did and tried to use the “Affirm” payment plan to order one that can hold up to 10 chickens. (The best I could find locally could only house 4 chickens at most, and cost twice as much.) The problem with that is, they couldn’t verify our address. They couldn’t even verify the address for the store the post office is in! Which makes no sense.
After several attempts, I finally just ordered it without the payment plan. A larger chunk on my credit card than I wanted all at once. Well, I know where my tax return will be going… *sigh* Remarkably, it will actually ship to our post office box, and could potentially arrive before the end of the week! If so, I might be able to pick it up on the way home from taking the truck to the garage on Thursday.
Assembly required, of course, and we’ll have to figure out where to store the boxes until spring. This is something that can be placed fairly close to the house, for better shelter from the elements, and will hopefully last us until we can finally build the mobile chicken coop I’ve been wanting to build for years. Until then, little by little, we can pick up the supplies needed to feed and water them, etc., and order chicks in the spring. Or buy adult chickens. The homesteader I used to buy eggs from has been selling off her birds in batches – she went way overboard in chickens! – and she might still have some available in the spring. I’ve already been thinking ahead for growing food for the chickens in the garden, too, so we’re not using only purchased chicken feed. (Which we can buy at the store the post office is in.)
Hopefully, it will be a better growing year this year than last!
It’ll be nice to finally have our own eggs. Plus, I want to make mobile runs for them that will fit over our garden beds, so they can clean up the weeds and seeds and fertilize them, at the end of the season. Chickens are good for the garden!
In other things, I got a strange call from my mother last night. She started out by lamenting about how it’s been soooooo long since I visited her (I had visited her two days before) and no one was calling her, etc. I told her, I was just there! Oh, well, when will you visit next? I told her, the only day I know for sure I’ll be in town is Thursday, when I’m dropping the truck off at the garage for some more work. Oh, but that’s so far away (meaning in time, not distance)!
*sigh*
Then she started on the reason for her call.
She apparently asked the nursing staff and they said that yes, she can do this. She wants to start getting her prescriptions herself, instead of through the hospital.
She is still convinced they are giving her the wrong medications. On purpose.
I told her that I would have to call her doctor to get her prescriptions sent to a pharmacy where she is. I had to explain to her again, they still won’t be the same. They have different suppliers than her pharmacy in the town she lived in had. It would be the same medications, but they would look a bit different. Probably exactly the same as the ones she’s getting in the hospital.
Then it got to the main point.
Her vision is getting “dimmer”. She thinks it’s because they are not giving her the vitamin she was getting in her bubble packs.
After a few more questions to figure out what happening, I had to walk her through her wet and dry macular degeneration again. The vitamins she was taking were for her dry macular degeneration – where she was seeing straight lines as wavy. The “dimming” that she is seeing is from her wet macular degeneration, and that is what she was going to the special clinic in the city to get injections into her eyeball for. A trip she can no longer handle, without proper transportation assistance. There is no where else she can go for that treatment, because no one else does it.
She still wanted to get her meds switched away from the hospital providing them (which would be covered by our province’s pharmacare insurance, either way). She is simply convinced they’re giving her the wrong medications, and nothing will dissuade her.
In the end, we talked about how she’s there temporarily, so maybe we should deal with that after she’s in a permanent location.
After our call, I called the hospital back to talk to someone at the nursing station. I told her about my mother saying her vision is getting worse, but that this would require a trip to the city for testing/treatment, etc.
What we could do is make an appointment, and the hospital would arrange a HandiVan to transport her to it. Even then, we know it would be very hard on my mother to make that trip. She suggested we try getting her an appointment at the one local eye clinic in town. It would be much easier for them to arrange transportation, and the eye doctors there could give us more information on what our next steps could be.
I also explained about my mother wanting to get her own prescriptions and what I explained to her, which was confirmed, and that she agreed to wait until she was placed somewhere more permanently. Any news on that?
Nope. Nothing. In fact, they’ve got others in the hospital that have been waiting for months to get into a personal care home.
*sigh*
Frustrating, to be sure, but my mother doesn’t understand how fortunate she is to be in the hospital right now, rather than back in her apartment. Especially with how unreliable home care has been. She has exactly what she was wanting: to be living where there is someone available, particularly at night, should she need help with things. Unfortunately, now that she’s there, she expects them to “fix” her somehow.
These issues with the truck have totally wrecked our grocery budget. Mostly with cat supplies.
Speaking of cats, here’s some cuteness for you!
I got a call from the medical devices people this morning, about picking up the commode from my mother’s. After giving directions to find us, I mentioned that I needed to go into town, so they suggested I leave the commode outside. I warned them that they might have to remove some cats!
Meanwhile, I headed into town to drop off the truck early. After leaving the keys, I had lunch at the nearby Chinese restaurant, then walked over to the hospital to visit my mother. Talking to the owner of the garage before leaving, he told me they would just replace the oil sensor and do the oil change this time. Fixing the leak on the differential is a 2 hour job, and they didn’t have time for that today. The part, at least, is cheap. It just takes a long time to replace it.
When I came got to my mother’s, she was in the wheelchair with her back to the door. I could immediately see she had something in her ears.
Cotton balls.
Because of all the noise.
*sigh*
She says the noise seems to be coming from all over. At one point, she asked me about “the thing with holes” in the wall next to where the call button cord goes into the wall. She said she asked the nurses, but they didn’t know what it was. Meanwhile, I was saying, “you mean the speaker?”
So she thought the speaker was piping in noise from other parts of the hospital, into her room. I explained to her that when she pushes the call button, they hear it at the nursing station, and they can talk to her through it from there, that’s it. It’s not connected to anywhere else.
Clearly, they don’t actually use it, if the nurses didn’t know it was a speaker!
She was also asking about magnets. Are there magnets in there? I said yes. Oh, so that’s what’s magnifying the noise!
I had to explain that magnets have nothing to do with magnifying things.
Then she asked if I knew when she would be out of there, and talked about how her “service” was so much poorer. I told her (again, but she doesn’t remember) that she is not a patient anymore. She is a long term care resident. She would be getting the same level of care now, as she would be getting in a nursing home. She was actually surprised to hear this. I think it just finally clicked.
She then started telling me about how she was feeling so poorly and had called for help. They hooked her up to “all the wires” (an EKG), but that was it. No one has said anything to her. I asked her if this happened yesterday, but she couldn’t remember. Finally, she just said yes, yesterday. I told her that someone would need to look at the results, but if there is nothing wrong, they won’t have anything to tell her.
By the time I left, I completely forgot to stop at the nursing station to ask.
It was a pretty quiet visit, overall. My mother was having one of her good days, as far as her mood and attitude goes. Of course, she complained that my brother never calls or visits, but she always does that. I told her, he has been very busy taking care of her affairs. At the very least, he’s going to have to stop by to pick up the keys my sister dropped off.
After a while, it was time to head out again. It was getting so warm (we hit 4C/39F today!), I wanted to enjoy it as much as possible, too.
On the way back to the garage, I pass a couple of gas stations. Prices went up 5¢/L since I walked past them earlier!
The truck was still in one of the bays when I came in, but I knew it wouldn’t be much longer, so I just went into the office to wait. The owner was working on our truck himself, though he was frequently interrupted by phone calls and messages! They are a very busy garage. People know a good thing when it’s there!
It was maybe 5 or 10 minutes later when he backed the truck out, then we had a chance to talk.
He had done some research, trying to figure out why our sensor, which was replaced maybe a year ago, was having issues again. Based on what he found, he told me he removed a screen from inside the sensor. It’s there to prevent blockages. However, in our make and model, it actually causes blockages. With our winter conditions, moisture eventually gets into the system. The sensor is located off to the side, instead of next to the air filter, so it ends up with ice on the screen, causing a blockage, and faulty readings.
In the end, it cost me $230.86 in total, for the sensor, the oil change and a new oil filter. The sensor cost only a dollar less than the oil change!
He did not charge me for labour.
Meanwhile, I am now booked for next week, this time with an early morning drop off. He’s got a 2 hour slot to get that differential leak fixed. That’s going to cost another $300 or so, after taxes. Only $50 of that is for the part itself.
*sigh*
I had been thinking of doing the Walmart run after getting the truck back, but I just didn’t have the energy left for it. Instead, I went across the street to the grocery store again. I had a couple of requests from my husband, and asked the family if where was anything else we needed. Of course, when I did saw some good sales, I took advantage of it.
I didn’t take a picture of the cart again, but here is the receipt for $179.20
Once again, the most painful price was the dry kibble. This time, I got a bag for the outside cats, since I haven’t been able to get to a feed store to get any 40 pound bags. We aren’t out, but getting low, and I didn’t want to take a chance of running out completely, in case I don’t make it to the feed store soon enough.
The canned cat food was on sale, so I got enough to last us for a few more days of cat soup.
My husband requested nacho fixings, without the cheese. 😄 The chips were on sale, so I got four bags for him – but forgot to get olives. Oops. I did grab some more of the sour candies for him, though. I also got a giant bag of potato chips for the girls.
There was a good sale on BBQ sauces, so I got a couple of bottles. Flats of 30 eggs were also on sale, so I got one of those instead of the 18’s I got last time, which were no longer on sale. The girls requested some oat milk.
They had bagged avocados on sale, so I got two of them. We really enjoy avocados, but they have gotten so insanely expensive. There are 5 to a bag, which worked out to 60¢ each. These days, they are usually more than $2.50 each.
They also had hoagies on sale, so I got a couple of packages, along with another locally produced sausage ring. As a treat, I also picked up some smoked Gouda.
Last of all, I could a couple of loaves of rye bread that was also on sale, plus a package of “imperfect” chocolate pieces as a treat for myself.
All of that, except for the bag of dry kibble and the flat of eggs, easily fit into only two hard sided bags. Twenty nine items in total.
I could have had $30 taken off with my loyalty points, but I’m saving that for another time.
As I was loading things into the back of the truck, it started to rain! I’m glad I didn’t try for a Walmart trip. The roads would have been icing over by the time I was driving home.
After we unloaded the truck, I emptied the bag of kibble into the bin for the outside cats, then fed them before trying to move the truck out of the yard. They went absolutely nuts over the kibble! I think they were getting pretty tired of the feed store kibble.
We almost got an extra indoor cat again. While bringing things to the door for my daughter to grab, I stopped to tell her something and left the door open for a split second too long. Sir Robin made a run for it! We got him out quickly, but that cat wants to be an indoor cat, so badly!
Once all unloaded and the cats fed and watered, I could safely move the truck out of the yard. The cats were far more interested in the new food than going under the truck!
At this point, I will need to decide what sort of trip to the city I’ll be making at all. We still need to do a proper stock up trip of bulk items. So at least a Costco trip.
I don’t know if I’ll be doing that tomorrow, or on the weekend. It depend on whether my husband is physically up to getting to the lab tomorrow morning, for his blood work. Tomorrow is Friday. If I go on Saturday, it will be after we do a much needed dump run. We can’t even get rid of my mother’s mattress and box spring yet; there’s no room for those, plus our regular garbage and recycling, in the back of the truck. Plus, the mattress and box spring are longer than the truck box, so they’ll need to be strapped down with the tail gate open. That will need to be done on another day.
The main thing is, I no longer have to worry about the truck starting to scream at me because of a faulty oil sensor!
I did get messages back from the garage about the truck, but nothing about coming in. I’m not sure the problem is the sensor, after finding some oil on the ground in the garage yesterday. It was a while before I went out to move it today, so that I could check the oil levels, and see if there were any new oil stains under it.
There was. Just a couple of drops.
*sigh*
Oil levels were fine. I’m going to have to take a chance, though, and at least make a trip to the nearest Walmart. We’ve used the last of our canned cat food today, and the dry kibble is starting to get low, too.
It was a nice enough day that, after checking on the truck, I stayed out to clear some of the paths that got filled with drifted snow, after two days of high winds. Happily, the plows have gone by, so the roads will be clear. Things are supposed to keep warming up over the next few days, which is going to be quite a relief.
Of course, that makes me think of gardening!
The peppers and eggplant seeds that are set to pre-germinate aren’t showing any radicals yet, nor to I expect them to, this soon. Next on the list was things like tomatoes and herbs, but after watching the above video, I will just be doing the herbs, first. I sorted seeds I’ll be starting by how many weeks before last frost the packages recommend starting them. In theory, I could start the tomatoes in April.
I just really, really want to start more seeds! 😄
I realized it’s been a while since I updated about the onions. All four snail rolls now have seedlings.
They’re tall enough now that I raised the light a bit today. Should they get big enough to need “potting up”, they can be unrolled, more seed starting mix added, then rolled back up again. I made sure to leave enough excess length of the packing foam to accommodate extra width.
Just a little green growth to sooth the gardening soul, as winter drags on!
Before heading to the garage, I backed the truck up to check the oil levels. They were fine, but there was fresh oil drops in the dirt floor under where it was parked for the night. During the drive in, it was the same as yesterday. The pressure gauge started off in the normal range, then slowly dropped during the drive in.
I dropped the truck off at the garage, then walked over to the hospital to visit with my mother. She was doing better today, thankfully. She was able to move around without the screaming and yelling in pain.
The irony of this is that she complained about the noise the other patients and staff were making. Hospitals should be quiet, because sick people need quiet.
I talked to her about making sure to accept painkillers regularly, BEFORE the pain gets bad. She can ask for more and, if it’s an issue, they might schedule her for painkillers more often or something.
I think she would prefer to yell and scream, to be honest. I don’t want to make light of her pain. Lord knows, I can empathize with it a great deal. It’s more about her behaviour over it, and refusal to actually do what she should be doing for it, while expecting some doctor (not a black one) to fix what can’t be fixed.
I got there just as her lunch tray was about to be delivered. My mother was in her favourite corner chair, with the bedside table already in front of her, ready and waiting. As the woman dropped off the tray, she asked conversationally, your daughter is visiting? My mother, however, was just staring up at her, and didn’t seem to hear. I acknowledged that I was her daughter, but said I didn’t think my mother heard her. She went on to put a tea bag in the hot water for my mother, then asked if she needed help with the sugar packet. My mother was still just staring at her. Glaring, really.
The woman looked to be Vietnamese, which would be why my mother was staring and not answering.
I told her I would help if my mother needed it, and made sure to thank her as she left.
Once she was gone, my mother started behaving normally.
*sigh*
The lunch looked delicious. She had a slice of mushroom and pepperoni pizza, Caesar salad, vegetable soup with a packet of crackers and a bowl of canned fruit salad for desert, along with her tea. My mom said it was the first time she got pizza. It smelled awesome, and my mother polished it all off. The quality of the food is one thing my mother does not quite complain about, though she did say something about how they never give her bread (pizza crust doesn’t count). To my mother, bread should be part of every meal! 😁 She is happy with the food, though.
We had a pretty good talk. No really weird stuff. I got some messages from my sister, who was still at my mother’s place, it turned out. Then I got a message from my brother saying that my sister should keep the keys she has and lock up the apartment, rather than leaving them there, so I passed that message on.
That turned out to be a really good thing.
One of the things I’d left in case my sister wanted them was a set of dishes she had bought for my mother, but she said I could take them, as she won’t use them. We have so many dishes of our own, but they can join the other items we now have stored in a shelf in the root cellar, until we can figure out what to do with them.
I told my mother I planned to go to her apartment after I got the truck back, and she asked, to finish taking everything? I just had to laugh. I told her, you have no idea how much you have! I certainly can’t move her furniture by myself.
Some of the conversation was typically odd with my mother. She was wondering why I was back to visit, two days in a row, and I explained about the truck, and how our mechanic was going to get it done in between other appointments. Somehow, that got around to her talking about how garages take advantage of women (because, apparently, only women take their vehicles to a garage, and men all fix their vehicles themselves. She truly believes men are born knowing how to fix cares. She literally has said that to me!), and how it’s all moneymoneymoney.
I told her, people do need to be paid for their work! She seems to think everyone should be doing things for free – except her, of course. She wants to be paid back $10 for the extra keys she had copied, before turning them over to public housing when her rental agreement is done.
When I told her I wasn’t going to be charged for the work being done today, because it’s under warranty, she changed the subject.
I refilled the thermos travel cup I’d brought for her, and she said she was very happy to have that hot water. She isn’t even doing her half water, half milk thing. She just prefers to drink warm water, and adds it to the water from the pitcher they leave with her. As I was setting up the cup, plus a few other things for her, like refilling her crackers bowl, she started saying how I couldn’t understand the troubles she’s having, with her mobility. When I’m 90, I’ll understand!
I told her, I do understand. I have many of the same problems. She said this as I was reaching to set her bowl of crackers back on the window sill within her reach, and could barely do it because my elbow was giving out. I ended up telling her about falling and hurting myself, twice, last year, and how I still can’t put weight on my right knee, because that’s the one that landed on concrete. She asked what happened, and I told her about coming in from shoveling and my glasses frosting over while I hung the snow shovel up in the sun room, so I couldn’t see and tripped over something.
Her immediate response?
Why was I the one shoveling snow?
…
So… It’s my fault I got hurt, because the girls should have been shoveling snow, not me.
Got it.
I told her, I LIKE shoveling snow, but the girls do it, too, if I can’t. I just happened to be the one doing it that day.
The other odd thing was something I later called the nursing station back to warn them about.
My mother needed to go to the washroom, and was able to get herself there on her own, using the walker – I offered to help her with the hospital’s wheelchair, and she said no. Then she asked me to get a second garbage can set up with a bag. I was setting it under the bathroom sink, when I found out what she wanted to for.
To pee in.
There’s a commode, but it’s being stored in the washroom right now. She said, they want her to get up and walk around to use the toilet (I explained about the necessity of movement to help with her OA, which got a glare), but she didn’t want to use the commode. It had been beside her bed, but she claimed they forget about it and didn’t change it after it gets used. So instead, if she needs to go during the night, she planned to use the garbage can.
Well… at least it isn’t an ice cream pail, like she had been doing at home, until we got a commode for her!
I told her, don’t do that! Her response was, do you want me to pee on the floor?
*sigh*
Even with the odd stuff, it was a good and fairly quiet visit. When someone came for her food tray – a white person, so my mother was willing to talk to her – my mother started complaining about the noise. The nurse was good at deflecting!
My mother was soon ready to lie down for a nap – rejecting my offer to help her get into bed – and I headed out. After the wonderful smells of my mother’s lunch, I was really hungry! My husband had messaged me that he needed more needles at the pharmacy, so I headed in that direction and ended up stopping at the Dairy Queen for lunch this time. I had a store to stop in as well, but that was directly across the street from the pharmacy, which was handy. Once done at the pharmacy, I headed back to the garage, figuring they might be done by then.
When I got to the parking lot, I saw the truck in the lot, with the engine running. They had just finished it, and was running it to check on things. Outdoors, rather than the closed garage!
When the mechanic was free, he told me it was looking good. The leak was fixed with the highest quality seal available – he still doesn’t understand why it started leaking again. I got instructions to keep an eye on the gauge, check for fresh leaks under the truck, and check the oil levels. The oil level right now is fine, and everything seems to be running smoothly.
When I got in the truck, though, the needle on the gauge was even lower than before.
It obviously wasn’t something he felt was a concern, but I don’t like it!
My next stop was my mother’s apartment, but I needed to get gas, first. So I drove to a gas station that was on my usual route towards home. I figured, if I shut the engine off for a while, the gauge might reset itself.
It didn’t.
On the plus side, it wasn’t dropping, either. It was really steady. The only time the needle almost reached that first line above zero was when I decided to test things and gunned it to 110kph. As soon as I returned to the speed limit, down it dropped to the same level and stayed there.
With the route I was taking, I could drive to the highway closer to us, then decide if I’d be turning towards my mother’s apartment, or heading home.
Thanks to knowing my mother’s apartment would be safely locked up, I headed home.
As soon as I was stopped, I got the picture to send to our mechanic. I then went into the garage to brush aside the oil stains in the dirt floor, so we could tell if there were any new drips, before parking. Once inside, I sent the picture to our mechanic, describing what I was seeing (and what was different), though I don’t expect to hear from him necessarily today. He was so swamped, even with two other mechanics in today.
I also updated my siblings.
Now, I’ve driven with that oil gauge at zero for quite some time. When we were having MAF issues, the oil sensor also got replaced. So this is still a new sensor. It shouldn’t be misreading. Yet, he could find no other problem that might cause the sensor to be reading low oil pressure. For all I know, the sensor is reading “normal”, but the needle is simply stuck at the wrong spot.
My brother will be out here tomorrow to dig out his own truck, so I will follow them with my truck to my mother’s place, and help bring things here. The truck should be fine. My brain knows that – but I am so bloody paranoid about it, I don’t want to make the drive on my own in case something happens along the way. We depend on it so much!
This is where I remember my mother was promising to buy us a car back in the summer, but apparently my sister talked her out of it. Granted, my mother thought she had enough money to buy a new car, with zero understanding of how expensive new cars are right now. With my mother’s habit of promising things, then backing out at the last minute, none of us expected her to actually do it. Still, it does… frustrate.
Hopefully, all will work out with the truck tomorrow. I’ll be a lot more comfortable driving it with my brother nearby.
The thing is, with all this stuff going on, we still need to go our stock up shopping trips to the city, a trip to the dump, a trip to the feed store, etc. Thankfully, we have enough kibble to last another week, for both indoor and outdoor cats, but we’re almost out of wet cat food for the indoor cats. Even without having to get my mother’s apartment emptied, this is the time of the month when we do most of our driving.
This truck is certainly not the first vehicle we’ve own that’s been like this, but for having it for only 2 years, there has been a lot!
When I first checked, before 8am, it was still -32/-26F, with no wind chill. Almost an hour later, the temperature hadn’t changed, but the wind chill dropped to -37C/-35F
I waited until later than usual to head outside, partly so the yard cats wouldn’t be disturbed and start running around in this cold. I worry about the littles! I also wanted to text the garage. I mentioned how cold it was, and that I was okay with coming in, in the afternoon, and that I would see if the truck would start.
Then I headed out. After topping up the kibble bowls in the sun room, I stepped outside and immediately saw something wrong.
Across the yard, where I’d shoveled the turn around area for the truck, there was something dark that wasn’t there before.
Yes, it turned out to be a frozen cat. A large adult tabby. I could tell it was male, but there was too much frost to identify it. I think it might be Larence, though. Either that, or that big tom that’s been visiting.
For the rest of the time I took care of the food and water, I was watching all the cats to see who was missing. That doesn’t actually tell me much, since they don’t all show up at the same time when the food it put out.
Once the cats were fed and watered, I grabbed the snow shovel to move the remains. Normally, with the ground frozen, I would put the remains in the branch pile for later cremation, but we can’t access it right now. I had to leave it in the spruce grove, as far as I could get into it.
Damn.
All that bitter cold we had, without finding any losses until today. Last night should be last night with lows of -30C/-22F or below for this winter. One last night, and he didn’t make it.
We have so many shelters, I don’t know why he was out there, in the yard yet far from the house. I can make guesses, though. One is, it looked like he’d just taken a dump, though we have litter boxes in the sun room and isolation shelter available. The other is, we’ve been hearing more cat fights lately, and other cats may have driven him out. Still, we have so many shelters, plus the ferals have other hidden shelters somewhere in the outer yard. They can get into the pump shack, the barn, etc. So many places he could have stayed warm.
*sigh*
Once that sad duty was taken care of, I went and started the truck. It didn’t like it, but it did start and seemed to be running okay. I can’t tell if any oil has leaked under it until I move it out far enough to access the hood and check the oil levels. As I came in, I found Fluffy, pretty posing for me.
The long haired cats, at least, have lots of insulation!
When I got inside, I found a response from the garage. He laughed about my wanting to wait until things warmed up before coming in. He said he was swamped this morning, anyhow and to touch base in the afternoon.
By this time, it was already warming up. As I write this, it’s coming up on 11, and we’re at -26C/-15F.
Last night, I was messaging with my sister about how to get my mother’s keys. In the end, she suggested she go to my mother’s apartment this morning – she might have already come and gone by now – and take more things, then leave the keys there. That means leaving it unlocked, so I HAVE to go to my mother’s apartment today to get the keys and lock up, as well as take more things here to the farm.
So I messaged the garage back suggesting I drop the truck off around noon or shortly after, then go visit my mother at the hospital, adding that I needed to go to her apartment. It can be later, but I have to get there today. I don’t know if he’s seen the message, yet, if he’s so busy, but I need to get the truck fixed. I’ve got too much driving to do over the next few days.
Which means that, in a little while, I’ll be heading back outside to move the truck, check the oil levels, top it up if I have to, then head into town.
Hopefully, he’ll be able to squeeze me in fairly quickly. We shall see. At least the day is warming up fairly quickly!
I look forward to the time of year when we no longer consider anything higher than -20C/-4F as “warm”.
