visiting

Better than expected!

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First, the cuteness!

I wasn’t fast enough in getting the picture I wanted. Ghosty and Tin Whistle were snuggled cheek to cheek and looking so absolutely adorable.

They still look adorable, of course.

This morning, I got a pleasant offer from my brother. He was planning to visit our mother today, and wanted to know if I wanted to go along. Since our truck is in the shop again, that meant extra driving to pick me up, then drop me off later. Of course, I accepted, since I have no way of knowing when we’ll get the truck back and I can visit her again.

It was a bonus for him, too. He got here earlier than he’s been able to in ages, which meant he had daylight to check on a few of their things and get some stuff done before we headed out. It was so warm today, I headed out early so I could scrap the sidewalk clear and get a few other things done outside. We hit 3C/37F, and I was absolutely overheating!

An unexpected extra reason for a joint visit popped up. I had talked to my brother about the check my mother gave me, to help with truck repairs. I wanted to be sure she would be okay before I tried to deposit it. He told me that it was fine and to deposit it as soon as possible. So I went to do a mobile deposit.

It didn’t work.

It turned out that when my mother tore the check out off the check book at the perforated line, a tiny piece of the check tore off. It had a bit of the account information on it. Not even a number, but part of the lines and bars around the numbers. So I was going to return it to her, voided, and – if she were still willing – we would help her write a new one.

My brother goes over my mother’s finances with her, regularly, and he was prepared to do that with her today, but he also had her new phone.

Yes, my 94 year old mother now has her own cell phone!

He chose one of the ones we were looking at on Amazon, and it arrived about a week ago. He also ordered a SIM card, but that never showed up. He ended up going to the phone company and, thanks to a deal he could get through his employer, he was also able to get a Senior’s plan for her, at a discount. The batteries were charged, with numbers pre-programmed, and it was ready to go. While we were driving, he had me get it out to test it by calling his cell phone. Which only worked once, because we kept losing signal. There are several cell phone dead zones just like we have at our place, all along this highway, even much closer to the city. Frustrating!

When we got to the TCU, my mother was in the common room with the same guy she’d introduced me to before, working on a jigsaw puzzle again. My mother introduced my brother and I to him and he volunteered to leave for a while, so we could have some privacy. Which was very kind of him.

Once settled in, my brother asked if she remembered about getting her her own phone. She did, so the next while was spent showing her the phone, the charging port, and showing her how to use it. The phone can actually do quite a lot, but all we could focus on was for her to be able to make and receive calls. Because of her vision declining, he made sure the phone he got did things like voice the numbers as she dialed them. The buttons are large enough that she had only minor issues in hitting the right ones. He showed her how to use the contacts list and got her to call my cell phone, then to manually dial to call our landline at the farm – I made sure to message the family that they were about to get a test call! Then, as a way to give our sister my mother’s new phone number, we got her to manually call my sister, too. I thought we might not get her, as she would normally have been at work, but it turned out she had called in sick and was able to answer. My mother could barely recognize her voice, with the cold she had!

There was a fair bit of confusion for my mother, but we managed to keep it low key so that she did not get completely overwhelmed. After a while, we went back to her room so the charging cradle could be set up next to her bed. We talked about how she should keep the phone with her, then set it on the cradle at night, or if she’s napping. I suggested I could make her a phone pouch so she could wear it around her neck. My brother, the excellent planner that he is, had already picked up a lanyard long enough, so now my mother can always have her phone on her.

My mother did start to worry about “what if’s”, and being able to call out on her own. We told her that even if she has issues, we can now phone her directly, and not have to go through the nursing station and get transferred to a cordless phone. That made her very happy. Then she was worried about knowing her own phone number. My brother had it hand written down for her, on the large print instructions he’d printed out for her so she could read it more easily. She had trouble reading the number, but not because of her vision. It was because it wasn’t written out the way it was “supposed” to be. Mostly with the 7’s. Sevens must have a line across them. Without that, she couldn’t tell the difference between a 7 and a 1, she said. Which didn’t make much sense under the circumstances, but it was a simple matter to just add the marks she insisted the numbers had to have! In the end, she was quite happy with the phone, which was a huge relief.

Next, my brother went over her finances with her. That is it’s own challenge, as she has trouble understanding some things, and kept asking about things he just didn’t get a chance to get to, yet. He kept having to back her up to go over things he needed to show her first. Some of it involved having to explain why her “rent” is so high – it includes her meals, medications, etc. Everything they do for her. The check she wrote to our vandal was in the list on his printouts for her, and he took the time to explain to her that she had to be very careful writing large checks like that, or she won’t have enough to pay her accommodation charges.

Which was a good time to return her check to me, for the truck repairs. We explained what happened, and made sure to void it out in front of her, and my brother kept it for her files. After seeing her numbers, I was much more comfortable accepting the money. Once she understood what the problem was, she was quick to send me to get her purse for a replacement check. I wrote it out for her, she signed it, then my brother stopped her from tearing the check out, so he could very carefully do it for her – after clearing the remaining bit of the first check she wrote to me, still attached to the checkbook!

There were a few other things we needed to talk to her about. One of them, my brother had brought up during the drive out. He had needed her photo ID in order to do some things on her behalf, and he told me she only had her citizenship card. Which made no sense to me at all! I knew that, when she turned in her driver’s license, years ago, she immediately went through the process of getting a photo ID instead. The photo IDs look almost identical to the driver’s licenses. I’ve seen it. I knew she had it. But when my brother asked for her ID to use for some of things he was doing for her, she showed him the citizenship card.

So we asked her about that, and she brought out her citizenship card again. It’s a modern, laminated plastic card, but her photo on it is many decades old! My mother made a big deal about how important this card was, but didn’t understand that it was pretty much useless as an ID, if only because her picture on it is so old.

Her photo ID, it turned out, was hidden behind the citizenship card. I got it out and my brother took pictures of it, as the bank was going to need it. It took a while before I could put it back, because my mother had the holder and kept going on about her citizenship card and how important it was, looking at it, taking it out, putting it back in. Eventually, we were able to get the photo ID back in the holder, making sure that it was visible.

Which is when a thought struck me, and I took a closer look.

It expired three years ago. She needs a new one!

This would be beyond my mother right now, but my brother is going to see what he can do to get her a new one. It’s got the wrong address on it, anyhow, but what could we use as an address now? She’s not going to be living here permanently!

My brother said he would figure it out. The main thing is, he got pictures of it and can use it for what’s needed, now.

The necessary things done with, we got to just plain visit for a while. My mother had asked me to bring a cross for her, which I did, and it’s now hanging on the wall where she can see it from her bed. There were hooks already there that I could use. Her room mate had company, one of whom brought two big, very chill, very well behaved dogs. My mother wasn’t happy about that, but she hates having dogs and cats indoors at the best of times. It wasn’t an issue, though, since we were going back to the common room. Before her guests arrived, though, my mother’s room mate was walking back and forth with her walker in the hallway. My mother was absolutely convinced that she was doing it to listen in on our conversation.

Overall, the entire visit went way better than expected. My brother was really worried Mom would lose it over the phone. That’s her typical response when he gets things for her, no matter how much she actually needs it. The last time I saw her, she would go on about how we needed to get her out of there and would start crying off and on. This time, she still had some complaints, but actually seemed to be in a good mood. She was happy that her friend from church had come to give her Communion, like he used to while she was still in her apartment. At my mother’s request, he will arrange with the priest to come and hear her confession before Easter, so she was happy about that, too.

We were able to stay for quite a while, but my brother checked the weather and realized we needed to head out. There was a storm on the way, and he still had to drive me home, first. The storm won’t hit us, though we’re expecting to get snow overnight, but it’s supposed to pass right over where my brother lives.

He messaged me to let me know when he got safely home, just as the snow was kicking in. Good timing!

As he dropped me off at the gate, he mentioned that we need a people gate. I told him, we were planning to make one, and I told him about my plans to make an arbor to make it look pretty, to have plants growing on it, and about where I was intending to set it up. It turned out we are very much on the same page about this, and he suggested it’s a project we can work on this summer.

Now that they no longer have their own acreage, and all his equipment is out here, we will finally be able to get some things done! He’s planning to set up an office in their mobile home, so he can stay out here, work from home, then work on things out here in the evenings.

Knowing him, I expect to have to struggle to keep up! I also expect we will learn a lot from him, and I really look forward to finally being able to get things done. There was so much we expected to be able to do when we moved out here, and had this whole 5 year plan. So much of it went out the window. We knew it would be a lot, but none of us realized just how bad things had gotten, and how many of the tools and equipment our vandal had taken.

This summer is going to be very, very different, that’s for sure!

Right now, though, I’m just focused on getting through this winter, and hopefully having reliable transportation soon!

Meanwhile, we were both really happy with our visit with Mom today. She seemed to be so much better today, and I think having both of us there at the same time really helped with that. She even got to talk to my sister on her new phone, and seemed quite delighted that she could do it!

All in all, it’s been a very good day.

The Re-Farmer

An unexpected (good) sabotage?

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Today, I was able to get to my mother’s apartment, then to visit her in the hospital.

I wasn’t sure how that was going to work out, after learning how things went with my brother, last night.

My brother, SIL and their grandson went to visit my mother after my brother had put in a long day at work, driving out in what turned out to be a snow storm. We got a fair bit of snow here, but the closer you get to the lake, the more humidity and the heavier the snow. When they got there, they tried the regular doors to get into the hospital, but they were locked. I don’t even try the regular doors and go through the emergency room doors, but my brother forgets to do that. In the end, they decided he and their grandson would go in, while my SIL stayed with the car. That way, when they were ready to leave, she would drive around to the emergency room doors to pick them up, so they wouldn’t have to walk around the hospital in the storm.

Well, my mother was in “fine” form when they got there. At first, she didn’t really recognize them – I’m sure they were pretty bundled up in winter wear, plus, she wasn’t expecting them. For some reason, she was expecting me, but my brother told her I was coming tomorrow (meaning, today).

Then she started complaining about how late it was (it was still early evening).

When they told her about the poor driving conditions, and that my SIL was waiting in the car, my mother took it as a personal insult, and that my SIL didn’t want to “see her face”. Which is weird, because my mother hates my SIL (while saying she loves her) and has been trying to break up their marriage for years.

Anyhow, when my brother commented on how she went straight to the negative, she doubled down and got worse, so they left.

It was white knuckled driving, all the way home.

Needless to say, I wasn’t really looking forward to my visit today.

Road conditions were… passable, but not very good. It wasn’t snowing anymore, but there was plenty of packed snow on the roads, and blowing snow was starting to create drifts. Still, I’ve driven in far worse.

I got to my mother’s apartment, where I found her mail pushed under her door – a neighbour has been bringing her mail to her door for years. My brother will be getting that redirected to his place, once we know what’s going on with my mother after she leaves the hospital. I made sure to leave the Lifeline pendant with the base, checked her answering machine, etc. There were a few items she asked me to bring, one of which I couldn’t find. Which I was actually okay with, since it was something she meant to use to “educate” the hospital staff about the “history of Canada” that she’d written down. She would be wildly inappropriate about it.

I also grabbed her one live plant to take home, as she asked me to do, then headed over to the hospital. Blowing snow was even worse on that part of the drive.

Once at the hospital, I was able to park at my usual parking lot not far from the emergency room entrance. A few spots down, I noticed and SUV that looked kinda like our vandal’s, but didn’t think too much of it. It’s not an uncommon vehicle or colour.

Once inside, I made a quick dash to use the washroom near the emergency room waiting area (the emergency room was closed) before going to my mother’s. As I was leaving, I saw someone in one of the waiting room chairs, looking away from me, slowly getting up and starting to walk down the hall towards the nursing station.

It was our vandal. He wife was a few feet ahead of him, down the hall.

Our vandal didn’t see me as I passed him, and it’s possible he would not have recognized me from behind, while bundled up in winter wear, but his wife turned and saw me as I passed her. She looked really angry, before she even saw me. I said hello, but she just asked if I was going to see my mother. I said yes, and kept on going. I heard her start talking to our vandal, but didn’t pay too much attention. I knew they wouldn’t go to see my mother while I was there.

My mother seemed surprised to see me, even though my brother had told her I would be coming today. I brought out the things she asked me to bring, then brought out the gift I’d made for her.

She had mentioned using the sleep hat I made for her, using Blanket Yarn, to warm her hands, so I got more Blanket Yarn to make her a double thick muff for her hands in solid grey, then used leftover yarn from her hat to do the edging.

When she saw it, she immediately start making snarky comments about how we keep bringing things for her. I told her, this was so she could keep her hands and her head warm at the same time. She did not approve, though she did make a comment about how, in her younger days, these were very popular, and she had one that was all furry.

She then commented on how this was the same yarn I used to make a “scarf”. I’ve never used this yarn to make a scarf, but it turned out she meant the wheelchair shawl I’d crocheted for her late sister. I told her that no, I used Bamboo Silk to make that shawl, but my mother insisted it was the same yarn.

Then she started happily talking about how, after her sister passed away and my cousin gave the shawl to my mother, my mother had washed it, then “drrrrrrrr drrrrrrr drrrrrrr”, she said, as she mimed undoing the crochet. She said she had such fun doing that! Then she told me she balled the yarn up and gave it to me, then told me again that she made sure to wash it, first, so it was clean. Like somehow that was the most important thing? Or, she thought her sister was really dirty while wearing it?

My tongue was practically bleeding from my trying not to say anything. My mother still can’t understand the problem with her destroying something I’d made as a gift for her sister. No more than she can understand how much she hurt my daughter when we discovered she’d done the same thing with a shawl my then-early-teenaged daughter had made for her, after carefully selecting the yarn and colour, paid for out of her own allowance, and lovingly spending weeks crocheting it.

She mentioned my brother had come to visit, and I said I knew about it. Oh, you talked to him? Yes. Yes I did. She brought up how my SIL stayed in the car rather than come in to see her. I told her, they drove out in a storm, after my brother finished work, and reminded her of why my SIL stayed in the car, and how is it that she couldn’t appreciate that they were able to visit at all? She never even mentioned her great grandson. He may as well not have been there. She brought up how it “wasn’t the first time” my SIL stayed in the car rather than visit my mother. I was biting my tongue on that one, too. When I defended my brother and SIL, she just started crossing herself and changed the subject.

I did mentioned to her about seeing our vandal and his wife on the way over, and that they were unlikely to come visit while I was there, but might come later. I also added that I wasn’t going to stay long, because the roads were bad, plus I had her plant in the truck. She scoffed and said “of course” when I said I couldn’t stay long because of road conditions. Then started talking about how “every time” we say we can’t stay long, she forgets all the things she meant to talk about while we were there. One of the things she asked me to bring was her notebook and writing implements, so I told her that she can now write these things down as she thinks of them, so she won’t forget next time.

We talked a bit about what to do with her things in her apartment. When I told her I couldn’t find her notes and didn’t want to dig through her papers (she has bins and boxes of papers everywhere, most of it junk) to look for it, she was perplexed. Apparently, it should have been in the open and easy to find. That got her to saying how my sister is to take all her papers and pictures, and her clothes. I suggested she could give my sister her key, so she could do that when she’s able, and we don’t have to try coordinating with each other’s schedules. Not until we know officially know what’s going to happen with my mother next, though. She did make a big deal – again – about how we shouldn’t throw anything away, and not to leave things in the common room because the staff throws it out. She is really fixated on that, even though we’ve told her, many times now, that we won’t be leaving anything of hers in the common room for her neighbours.

Then there was a knock at the door and a nurse came in to take her lunch tray. It was the male nurse again. My mother did thank him for taking her tray, but you could tell, she was not happy to see him. After he left, she snarked about “red pants”. My reaction was along the lines of “so??” “On a man!” was her response. Yes, Mom. Men are allowed to wear colours.

She started crossing herself again.

*sigh*

So the entire visit was… okay, but not really a good visit. We quickly ran out of things to talk about – it hasn’t been that long since I’ve visited her last. Then, for someone who complained because I said I couldn’t stay long, she basically said, okay, we’re done. You can leave now.

🙄

Which was fine by me.

My mother is very good at driving people away from her, and making them not want to be around her. She is also oblivious to the fact that her actions are having this effect. The irony of this is, as negative as she gets with my brother and I, if our vandal have visited, I know she would be fawning over him. It’s like, the more abusive she is, the more she tries to cater to him, while being absolutely horrible to my brother, the person who has been helping her the most and has never been anything but kind to her for decades.

*sigh*

As I was leaving, there was no signs of our vandal and his wife, and the vehicle I’m now sure was his was gone, so it looks like they headed home after seeing that I was going to visit my mother. If this was something they were meaning to do after a chemo session, then that makes sense.

So it looks like I sabotaged a visit from them.

Which, under the circumstances, is a good thing.

Before I left, I did remind my mother that, if they came in together, our vandal would probably behave while his wife is around, but if he came in alone, I told her that she can use the help button to call someone, so that she’s not alone with him. We just can’t know, from one day to the next, what he will do.

Unfortunately, I trust my mother about as much as I trust our vandal. Especially after she manipulated my sister and they both lied about it, in regards to our vandal.

*sigh*

Anyhow.

After visiting my mother, I swung by the grocery store to get some hot dog fixings to do a cookout. There were some really good sales on, though, so I ended up getting more. I even got some beef stew meat – something that we can rarely afford to buy, these days. That done, I picked up a bit of gas and headed home. Between the groceries and the plant from my mother’s place, I drove up to the house to unload.

Once I was parked in the garage, I had something to eat, changed, then headed back outside to break out Spewie to clear the driveway. We got just enough snow to make it harder to drive around the yard, and I almost got stuck at the end of the driveway by the road.

In the end, I was physically able to only clear the area in front of the garage and a bit towards the people gate in the chain link fence. Not quite all the way, as I was using only one 100′ extension cord and didn’t want to add another. It was getting too painful after a while, so I had to call it a day before I was done. Tomorrow, I’ll have to head back out and start adding extension cords and doing the rest of the driveway to the road.

Before I went into the house, though, I did shovel the sidewalk and the cat paths, at least, before feeding the outside cats for the evening. The current forecast is now saying highs of -2C/28F over the next two days, then a high of +2C/36F on Tuesday. I want to clear as much as I can over the next couple of days, so that the paths and driveway have a chance to melt at least somewhat clear.

Somewhere in there, we should be able to get the fire pit going again and have ourselves a wiener roast! I’m quite looking forward to that.

As for today, I think the one thing that I would consider my top accomplishment was the inadvertent sabotaging of our vandal visiting my other. It still irritates me that she got him involved again, when we’ve been trying so hard to protect her from him. In her case, there’s a lot of self sabotage. She is often her own worst enemy, and I just don’t know what we can do about it.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Alarming

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Alarming and bad on the blood pressure.

After my husband and I attempted to head out yesterday, only to have an alarm start blaring on the truck, then talking to our mechanic about it, I hoped to avoid it happening again today.

So, as I did my morning rounds, I started the truck part way through and left it running until I was ready to leave. Maybe half an hour. So the engine was warming up nicely, and the cab nice and toasty, when it was time to go.

It wasn’t the only thing roasty toasty.

You can’t see in the first picture above, but there was at least ten cats in the upper level. All the windows, including the sliding doors, were frosted like that!

What you can also see in the first picture is the heated water bowl, tipped over against one of the frame pieces!

The bowl is too wide to fit through there, though, and there was even still water in it. I’m extra glad I made the pallet floor open and covered with a mesh. I was thinking any litter kicked out of the box could fall through. I never thought it would allow water to spill through, rather than freezing on the floor! There must not have been much water in it when it was tipped, though, because I couldn’t see any sign of it in the snow under the shelter.

By the time I was done giving them food and fixing/refilling the water, only a few cats were still in the shelter. The more feral ones ran off. It was nice to see Kohl and Rabi together on the warm spot. There are five cats visible in the second photo, but a sixth is at the food bowl, out of frame.

While today was warmer than yesterday, the wind made it pretty nasty. Even as I write this, less than an hour before sunset, we are at -11C/12F – which is practically shorts and t-shirt weather for winter in this part of the world – but the windchill is -24C/-11F. I don’t know what the wind chill was this morning, but we were still around -16C/3F when I left.

Everything seemed fine, at first, but as I got closer to my mother’s town, I could see the oil pressure gauge slowly dropping. Sure enough, before I got there, the warning lights came on, the warning message “oil pressure low, shut of engine” showed up in the onboard computer display, and the alarm started sounding.

I knew the oil was fine. I knew it was just the sensor.

That didn’t help my blood pressure any.

I had left early enough that I intended to stop and possibly pick up a few last things for our own celebrations. Instead, I parked at the gas station.

I checked the oil, of course, and it was just fine, even though there was the warning light for low oil.

I took a picture of the dash before turning off the engine and texted it to our mechanic, but I didn’t even know if he was open today. I also messaged my brother, but he was on the road.

After a few minutes, I started the engine, and the pressure gauge was within normal range again.

I even started looking up local garages. One was closed, the other was closing soon, but the third was open later. I called them, but they couldn’t take a look. There was just one guy working (I had noticed their website had job openings listed before I called), and he was booked solid.

*sigh*

My brother recognized my truck as he was driving past, so he stopped by. We talked for a bit, he asked some questions, and basically said the same thing our mechanic did. It’s just the sensor.

We drove over to our mom’s place. For that short distance, it was fine.

My SIL had made some awesome sandwiches for our lunch. I had to chuckle, as my brother had originally intended to bring Timmies breakfast meals. The last time I was at my mother’s, while we were eating the food I brought, she told me how my brother would phone ahead to one of the restaurants in town, order a couple of meals for them, and pick them up before going to her place.

What I also know is that she would give my brother a hard time about this, mocking him for being “rich” and “fancy” by buying restaurant food all the time. My SIL got tired of it, so she now insists that she will make food for him to bring along herself, so my mother would stop basically calling him a snob (her Polish version of it, at least).

My mother cannot grasp the consequences of her own behaviour.

At least she liked the sandwiches. They were excellent. With her dentures (which she still refuses to fix, after having a tooth removed), we cut hers up for her to make it easier for her to eat. The sandwiches were made with these amazing pumpkin seed buns that only one place in the city makes. Delicious, but harder to bite through with dentures!

My SIL had also done her annual Christmas baking, and my brother brought tins of beautifully decorated cookies for both of us. My mother always complains about “it’s too sweet, it’s too sweet” (she doesn’t understand carbs, either), so he told her this was so she had something to offer people if they stopped by for tea. She actually showed appreciation for those, too, though when she did have one after lunch, she picked it apart and left behind part of the “sweet” middle. I think that had more to do with her dentures, though that’s not what she said.

*sigh*

The conversation was largely her talking about “history”, but of course only the parts that interest her. We just let her talk, as we’ve heard most of it many times before. Even my mother noticed, however, that she was losing track of her line of thought more often. The main thing was that she didn’t go off on any racist rants this time, which made it a lot more pleasant.

Eventually, she asked if anything was new with us, and my brother mentioned what my truck was doing. She wasn’t really interested in us, though, so that conversation didn’t last.

At one point, the phone rang. My brother was looking at the number while my mother was telling him to answer it. It was an unfamiliar number, so I answered with with my Hotel Receptionist greeting. Then laughed and hung up on the robot scam message. We talked about that for a bit – my brother got the same Canada Post “package held back for security reasons” scam call I did, the day the strikers had to go back to work.

Then the phone rang again.

This time, it was within our area code. My brother wasn’t going to answer, but I did, again with my Hotel Receptionist greeting.

I was answered in Polish, and recognized the voice. So I just laughed and responded “just a moment” in Polish and gave the phone to my mother. It was an old friend of hers, and they talk pretty regularly.

By then, my brother was needing to leave, and he knew I was nervous about the truck, so we got our stuff together and gave our goodbye hugs and kisses while she was on the phone, so she could have a good long talk if she wanted.

As for the drive home.

It happened again.

The pressure gauge was within normal range for about half the distance, but slowly dropping. Once it got past a certain point, it started dropping faster. By about 4 or 5 miles from home, the lights went on and the alarm started going off.

I’d messaged the family before I left, so the gate was open already and I was able to drive straight to the garage.

It’s one thing to know that the problem is just the sensor – and a new one, at that! – but quite another to be trying to drive with all those warning lights and an alarm sounding.

My plan was to go to my mother’s with Christmas dinner on Christmas day. I’ve messaged our mechanic, but if he can’t get us in on Monday, that likely won’t happen. I’ll have to call my mother and let her know. Her building is having a dinner in the common room on Christmas Eve, though, so she will not be alone for the holidays. My sister doesn’t celebrate Christmas, but I might ask her to visit.

Which means our own Christmas and New Year’s will likely be with whatever we have right now. I could drive into our little hamlet’s general store and back without setting off the alarm, but I they don’t carry the sort of stuff I was planning to get. I might still make the trip on Monday, though, for some other things I can get there, instead. Unless I end up in town and at the garage. The grocery store we usually go to is literally across the street, so I could get what’s on my list, there.

What a pain.

We’ve had this truck for a year, though, which means we might be able to look into trading it in for another vehicle, and get better financing.

Not a GM, though.

The truck itself is great. I love it. But these sensor issues are things that should not be happening, and having to replace sensors telling me something is wrong, when nothing is actually wrong, is not just a waste of money, but a major stress inducer. After all… I would never know if *this time* the problem might actually be real. We have only one working vehicle now. We can’t take any chances.

*sigh*

Ah, well, it is what it is. We deal with the hand we’re given.

But why does this stuff tend to happen all at once, and at times when it’s hard to get into a garage?

The Re-Farmer

Not my garden, and sighting

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

This afternoon, I got to visit my sister and her husband on their farm.

We may be in the boonies, but they are even more in the boonies than we are! :-D

Before I left their place, we did a tour of their yard and garden, and I really appreciated being able to see how theirs is doing, in this heat.

Her row of rhubarb was a study in extremes. In the middle, she had these MASSIVE leaves and stalks – which is normal for her rhubarb – but in other areas, they were smaller and wimpy, like ours, and at one end of the row, they were basically dead. So strange!

Where I’m standing to take this photo used to be part of their garden, but they reduced its size. That area is now full of self-seeded dill. This end of the garden is where they have their annuals, with some rows already cleared and tilled. At the far end are their perennials, including onions (different from the ones they have in the rows visible at the annual end), horseradish, asparagus, sorrel, mint, and a few other things. They’ve got determinate tomatoes, and I could see some very large ones developing. No peas or corn, but they do have beans, beats and potatoes, among other things.

They usually water their garden from the nearby creek. In this photo, you can see a platform on the shore, and the end of the hose is between the two sticks in the water, with a float. This is where they pump the water from.

The creek is about 3 feet lower than usual this year, and it’s got to the point that they are watering using their well water. They only water every couple of days, though, unlike the nightly watering we are having to do. It has actually been lower than this, in the past.

After all those years… LOL

When my brother in law retired from farming (like where we are, most of the land is rented out), he took over much of the gardening. The first time a deer got into their garden, he put up the fence.

Deer are not the only issue they have. They also have to deal with black bears, raccoons and…

Yup. They have woodchucks, too. This den is under the deck of a now-empty house they share a yard with. There are dens in other areas, too. Apparently, their woodchucks have plenty of other food to eat besides their garden, because their deer fence is just touching the ground at the bottom, not buried, and they’re not trying to get it.

Which is as good a segue as any as to why I visited them today. My brother in law finally had time to help sight the scope on my crossbow.

Now, this is something we could have done ourselves, except we don’t have anything to accurately measure longer distances. My BIL is an avid hunter and has a range finder, so we figured we’d go to him and get it done right.

He never even used it. He just paced off the distance, just as he would have in sighting the scopes on his rifles! :-D

Now, he had plenty of experience with rifle scopes, but he’d never worked with a crossbow before, so the first thing he did was spend time reading the instruction manual (I brought everything! LOL). We had only finger tightened the scope, so after he checked it a few times and confirmed that it was the right distance for me, he tightened that down, and then we went to his target bale.

The instructions said to start at 10 yards, which is about where the corner of that fence is, then moving to 20 yards to fine tune the scope. He is sitting at 20 yards in the photo, which is what we need the scope to be sighted to.

Also, do you see that white blob on the creek in the background?

That is a flock of pelicans. :-D

He was expecting it to take only about half an hour to sight the scope, but we ended up out there, in the heat, for probably more than an hour before we stopped.

He did the final shots at about 30 yards, before we called it for the day.

The bolt here is the first shot done at 30 years. He was aiming for the target on the left.

If you look at the top right, there is a single hole. That was the first shot at 10 years, before he started adjusting the scope.

Above and to the right of the centre target are a series of holes. He hit the exact same spot a couple of times. The instruction manual described how many clicks equaled 1 inch at 20 yards and, according to that, with the number of adjustments he made, it should have been hitting to the left of the centre target! After hitting the same spot a couple of times, the bolt ended up so far into the target, the fletchings were squeezed into the hole, too. One of them ended up coming loose. It just needs a bit of fletching glue to fix and it’ll be fine, but that’s when he started to aim at the other target.

By the time he was done, he could get a good grouping at 30 yards, but it was still hitting to the right of the target. He’d adjusted it so far, he wasn’t sure it could go any further. The scope we have is different from any of his. In fact, it had a whole extra knob to adjust, but not even the scope’s instruction sheet (which was for rifles, not crossbows) had it labelled on their diagram.

So the crossbow is not sighted, but it is closer, and we are in a position that we can figure the rest out ourselves. Of course my husband, with his military background and marksman qualifications, knows how to do it. The main issue was measuring distance. Which my BIL just paced off, anyhow.

I think we can manage more accuracy than that, with what we have! :-D

Adjusting the scope was not the only thing that was a problem. The other was cocking it in the first place. The kit came with a rope cocker. There is a rock cocking groove at the end of the stock, just before it can be adjusted to size. The middle of the rope goes in the groove, two hooks with pulleys hook onto the string, from under the stock, and there are a pair of handles to pull on. At just shy of 6′ tall, he actually had trouble cocking it, once he straightened up past a certain point. He already had doubts that I could cock a bow with 220lb draw weight, but in the end, I’m basically too short. If he, at about 8 inches taller than me, was having a hard time, it’s pretty much assured that I don’t have the height and arm length to be able to raise the string high enough to latch in place!

He recommended we pick up a crank cocker.

Since we were never able to complete sighting the scope, I never fired the crossbow myself. That will just have to wait a bit longer.

In shooting the crossbow, he had a couple of issues with it. Obviously, the scope itself was one. I know that a lot of people who buy kits will replace the kit scope with a higher quality one right away. This wasn’t a matter of quality of materials, but adjustment. He also didn’t like the trigger, which was something else I saw some reviewers complaining about. It does, however, shoot well and shoot true. Once the scope is properly sighted, we should have no issues with it. I’ve seen reviewers complain about the adjustable stock, but he had no issues with that.

He also really didn’t like the rope cocker. He had mentioned to me that he had a friend who bought a crossbow and, the first time he tried to cock it, it slipped and he almost groined himself severely. He then immediately got rid of it. As my BIL was repeatedly cocking the bow, he said he could see just how easily that could happen. Eventually, I learned that when this person had tried to cock his bow, the stirrup slipped off his foot.

…

The instructions are EXTREMELY clear about how important foot placement in the cocking stirrup is. Which rather makes me wonder just how closely instructions were being followed. Mind you, this happened quite some time ago. The instructions may well include that now because people were hurting themselves by having just their toes in the stirrup, instead of having it under the middle of their foot.

There’s a reason the instruction manual has more safety warnings than pretty much anything else! This is not a toy.

So now we need to figure out where to set up a target practice area, mark out distances, and figure the rest out ourselves.

I did have some unexpected disappointments about the whole thing. While they are not being mean or malicious about it, it’s clear neither my BIL nor my sister are confident in me. Not just in being able to use and shoot the bow (yes, I have the physical strength pull 220lbs draw weight with the rope cocker), but they seemed to assume that this was some sort of spur of the moment thing I decided to do, without any sort of research or analysis, first. Like I was thinking of it as… well… some kinds of toy. The fact that I hope to actually use it to hunt is another area they clearly didn’t have confidence in me about, with both or them, at one point or another, making sure to mention that a deer will run off after being shot, and then it needs to be tracked. I knew that, of course. It happens even when hunting with a rifle. Why did they assume I would not know that? There were a few other… assumptions… made that had me wondering. I think part of it, for my BIL, was simply because he assumed that since he was having such a hard time with some things, I would have an even harder time, and not things where my height would make a difference. Was it because I am female, and they assume I’m weak? Or because I’m fat? Or because I’m the baby sister? I don’t know. It was off putting, even though I could tell they did not have any ill will behind their comments. More like their filter was off. :-D

Well, we shall see how things work out over time. First things first. We need to get that scope sighted properly, and then I have to practice. My husband will be able to cock the bow, no problem, and honestly, I think I might still be able to as well. Even if I can, we will be getting a silent crank. The rope cocker, it turns out, squeaks! :-D

My daughters, meanwhile, are pining for a compound bow.

I foresee a future Christmas gift…

The Re-Farmer