voting

Chilly

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Today is definitely working out to be a chilly day. Depending on what app I look at, we are at either 1C, 0C or -1C! (34F, 32F or 30F). We’re supposed to reach a high of 5C/41F by early evening, but that’s also when the high winds are supposed to hit us, too.

Yesterday’s high pain day did lead to a high pain night, and these fluctuating temperatures sure don’t help. Part of the problem is that a lot of my pain actually gets worse after I lie down. Particularly with my hips. Along with my prescription pain killers (which are working even less than the first ones my doctor tried me on), I had to get my husband to slather on the Tei Fu lotion before I could finally fall asleep. With the cool and overcast conditions we have now, I feel like I could crawl back into bed right now and sleep for another week.

*sigh*

While doing my morning rounds, I tried to get a picture of the littles in the cat house.

It’s through a window, zoomed in and cropped, so a pretty terrible picture, but you can at least see the two littles in there, in the cat bed under the ceramic heat bulb.

In the sun room, the little black and white kitten almost managed to climb all the way out of the cat cage! I managed to snag him for cuddles before he did, then distracted him with wet cat food pieces I’d put into their cat bed. Once he figures out he can get out on his own, it’ll be pretty hard to keep them in there! At that point, I’ll unblock the opening under the doorway, so they can get in and out freely. There is currently a stuffy in front of the opening, and the “door” is hanging down over it on the outside. I’ll set something to hold the door panel away from the opening.

With the cooler temperatures, we’ll be staying inside for the most part, but I really want to get the one garden bed with the sprouts covered. When I checked on it this morning, there were fresh signs of digging in it. Not in areas where sprouts are coming up, thankfully, but seeds are spread out pretty evenly in this bed, so any digging at all is potentially killing things off.

My goal for today is now to pot up the peppers, tomatoes and eggplant. I am thinking we may have to start using the portable greenhouse, as even with the lights, the basement set up is just not cutting it anymore. The thermometer in the greenhouse was at just below freezing when I checked it this morning.

In theory, we could put things in the portable greenhouse during the day, then bring them into the sun room overnight. We do have the platform and shelves. The problem is, it’s still set up for the cats to use. We could move things around, but I still think the cats would end up knocking things about, or even walking right over them. They don’t deliberately try to get at the pots. It’s more a matter of them getting from point A to point B, and just going through whatever is in their way at the time. We’ve got to figure something out, though.

But first, we’ve got to get the seedlings transplanted.

In other things, I remembered to book a telephone appointment for my mother with her doctor to go over the blood tests and Xrays results. I was surprised when the receptionist asked if I wanted to book the call for today, but that would have been way too short notice for my mother. So I booked it for tomorrow morning. I then called to let my mother know, but it went to machine. She might have been out voting. Today is election day, and they set a mobile poll up in her building for people like my mom, who can’t get to the regular polling station. We voted at the advance polls, already, just in case something came up today. Of course, we’re already hearing about all sorts of election shenanigans going on. Ballot boxes from the advance polls are supposed to be kept sealed at a secure location. Just this morning, I was watching a video someone took. The guy happened to go shopping at a store next to the polling station and surreptitiously recorded ballot boxes being loaded into personal vehicles. One guy had opened the ballot box and was rifling through it. The guy taking the recording ended up following the vehicle, and the boxes were taken to someone’s home. He even questioned the people doing in, but thinks they figured he might be recording. They claimed they were moving the boxes to a secure location, which was obviously not true.

Meanwhile, in BC, people working in remote locations are told they are not going to be able to vote. For these jobs, people get flown in to work for 2 weeks, then flown out for 1 week off. They come from all over the country to work these very high paying jobs in the energy sector. Normally, they would be bussed to the nearest town to vote on election day. It’s been done this way for many years. Only a couple of days ago, they were told that, because they didn’t live in that town, they wouldn’t be able to vote there.

A lot of people going to advance polls told of polling stations running out of ballots (which should never happen), and being given blank pieces of paper and told to write in the person they wanted to vote for. This morning, I watched an interview with a couple of seniors that had a mobile polling station, like at my mother’s building – but it came on Thursday (the advance polls closed on Monday night). They didn’t have ballots, and the “scrutineers” offered to write in the names of who they wanted to vote for, for them. The women even saw them “help” one of their neighbours vote, and this was someone with cognitive decline that they knew would not have had any idea who she was voting for. Another example of shenanigans was in the riding for Opposition and CPC leader, Pierre Poilievre. The ballots had 90 candidate names running against him! There are only 16 registered parties for the federal election, and most of those do not have enough candidates to be in all ridings. The candidates are listed in alphabetic order by surname, so Poilievre’s’ name would have been in the middle somewhere. All this is on top of the RCMP report that the CCP has been actively working to influence the election results (the guy the Libs installed as the new leader and, by default, the current PM, has borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from the CCP). The Governor General (who is supposed to be a neutral representative of the Crown, and was chosen by the Liberal party) approved millions of dollars to the Libs not long ago, even though Parliament is shut down for the election, so there was no debate to approve it and no one knows what the money was for. Etc. We’ve got the most corrupt government in Canada’s history, and now what is obviously the most corrupted federal election in our history. The only thing we can do is hope enough people get out and vote, to make it too big to rig. It’s blatantly obvious, in spite of the government paid polls saying otherwise, that the Libs can’t win. If they do, Canada will fall apart; everyone knows it would not be a legitimate win. Alberta has been ready to separate for years. Thanks to Quebec threatening to separate for so many decades, this is one thing that is relatively simple. A referendum is held, and all that’s needed is a simple majority. If AB goes, SK will soon follow. BC and MB would, too, except both currently have NDP leaders, and they are hand in glove with the Libs, so as much as the population would want to, the leadership is unlikely to actually act on behalf of their own citizens. Unlike other parties, there’s no real separation between provincial NDP and federal NDP. Even Ontario is talking referendum. Northern ON is getting very tired of being screwed over by more populous southern regions.

Personally, I am going to ignore the media for the day as much as possible, and not check in until evening. With our first past the post system, the election will be decided by the East well before the polls close in the West. Another frustration. Canada needs something like the US Electoral College. It’s one thing to vote for your local representative. Is should be something else to vote for the PM. Right now, leader of whatever party gets the most elected MPs because leader by default. No one votes for the PM in Canada. We currently have 343 ridings, so what we really have is 343 independent elections, all on the same day. I fully expect that the Conservatives will win by a landslide, but that Marx Carnage will somehow get reinstalled as PM anyhow. Lord knows, the media has been priming us for a Liberal “win” for weeks now. The psychological manipulation and behavioural modification has been out in full force. What gets me is that it’s so blatant, and so few people care. They seem quite happy to be manipulated.

Well, what happens, happens. We’ll figure it out when the time comes.

I’m going to go tend to my seedlings now.

The Re-Farmer

Voting changes, Vehicle update, and a new acquisition

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I was able to run a number of errands while out today. The predicted rain didn’t start until I was just leaving the gas station to go home. By the time I arrived and got out to open the gate, it was pouring, with plenty of thunder! It was severe enough to cause some power flickers, including one that was enough to cause our computers to shut down, which is always fun. Not.

My first stop was at the advance polling station. I had to look up the location, which turned out to be in an industrial park next to the airport, rather than in town!

Things have really changed since the last election. Our paper ballots of the past have always been a tri-fold ballot, with the only change in dimensions being due to how many candidates were running. In our riding, there was only four this time. There were a number of checks and balances, such as tearing off a strip with a number on it, matching a number on the rest of the ballot, that was kept by the scrutineers, and going through another scrutineer to make sure it was dropped into the ballot box properly, etc.

Well, we do still have paper ballots, which is good. May we never move away from paper ballots! I love my technology, but security is an illusion.

The ballot itself was the size of a sheet of printer paper. It was in a specially shaped folder that covered all but the security info at the top. The scrutineer that gave me my ballot gave me instructions; holding the front of the ballot facing me, she dropped the folder open (the fold was on the bottom) so I could see the candidates list, and I was told to colour in the circle by the name I wanted to vote for. No X’s or check marks. Fill in the circle. Then she made sure to close up the folder again before handing it to me, without ever touching the actual ballot.

At the voting booth, they had a permanent black marker available, rather than the usual pencils. After marking for my candidate, the folder is closed back up again and I took it to the scrutineer that had checked my ID when I came in. She took the ballot by the folder, then placed the part that stuck out into a slot on what looked like a big, office sized printer. It was actually a scanner. The machine grabbed the ballot out of the folder, and she put it aside, having never touched the ballot directly. I could watch the scanning progress on a screen, which did not display the actual vote. Once scanned, the ballot was dropped into the ballot box the machine was resting on. No one had access to the ballot box itself.

Every marked ballot now has both a physical and electronic copy. The machine helps with counting the physical ballots this way, making things faster for the scrutineers.

That done, I continued into town. Since the grocery store where I was going to is across the street from our garage, I went there first, to talk to our mechanic. As I went in, I passed him talking to a couple who were looking at a really nice SUV.

We went into his office and started talking about the financing situation. I told him, I knew it would be hard to find something in that budget limit. We are actually approved for up to $25,000, apparently, but couldn’t possibly afford the payments for that. He said it was be very hard to find a van within the budget, though. He asked if we would be okay with something else. That SUV I had just walked past turned out to be well under our budget!

A vehicle like that would work for us, though would not be ideal. It’s something my husband could get in and out of without hurting himself too much, and the back bench seat folds down and would accommodate his walker, folded up. We would be able to fill it with a larger load than my mother’s car, to be sure, but not as well as a van.

Would we be good with a truck, he asked?

I told him, I’d love a truck! Though we would need on with a cap over the box. My thoughts being on how we were able to fit the riding mower and snow blower in the back of the van, but also needing to protect our large monthly shops from the elements.

He did have a truck available and we went over to take a look at it. It had the extended cab, but the back seats folded up, so we’d be able to fold up and fit my husband’s walker in the back. The short box had a flat cover on it, which I wasn’t sure about, but if the walker fits in the back, it’s not as much of an issue. We’d also be able to load up our Costco shopping (I told him how many bags of cat food we go through!) and it would be protected from the elements. If we had to load some something like the snow blower or riding mower, should we need to, we could just roll up the cover. They wouldn’t be protected, but that should be okay.

It also already has a trailer hitch installed, which is something we would want. The clearance under the truck is higher, so we’d be able to get out of our driveway after a snowfall with less concern. It could be switched from front wheel drive to four wheel drive, and it also automatically adjusts from using 8 cylinders to 4 cylinders on the highway, to save on fuel consumption.

Yeah, it had some rust on the body, but the inside was in good shape, and I really don’t care about the looks.

The price was above budget, but he was going to see how much he could drop it for us, plus we do have a bit we could use as a down payment. Not much, but enough to make a difference. He is going to send info on the truck to the finance company to see if they can work with it and keep the payments to what we can afford. Keeping in mind that whatever those work out to be, we will also have the additional cost of registration and insurance on top of it.

Depending on how things go, we might have to suspend the insurance on my mother’s car for the winter. Whatever vehicle we get that’s suitable for my husband would not be suitable for her, even if it does have a built in step to get in. However, I would really prefer not to drive that car in the winter at all.

Which brings me to the other reason I stopped at the garage. I’m bringing my mother’s car in next week. I’m getting him to check the air filter and spark plugs. Talking to my brother, neither of us remember those ever being checked, never mind replaced. They might be contributing to the mileage on my mother’s car getting so bad, though. Plus, the check engine light is on again. *sigh*

So we’ll see how that goes. Even if it doesn’t work out with this truck, he at least knows that we are open to something other than a van. Beggars can’t be choosers! At long as it meets our needs for accessibility and load requirements, while remaining in budget, we’ll take it.

That done, I finally made it to the grocery store, picked up a few things along with getting the water refills, then had to fill the tank again before heading home, and into the pouring rain!

While at the gas station, I did pick up a book that I’d been eyeballing. Last month, I got a book on native edible plants. This month, I got the Canadian Outdoor Survival Guide.

It’s aimed at people who go hiking or camping, flying to remote areas, snowmobiling, boating, etc., where you might get lost or have an accident. The info is still useful in general. Things like making a small personal first aid kit, or one for your car, is useful in general. Being Canadian, there’s plenty of focus on winter conditions, as well as regional conditions, which are wildly different in different parts of the country. It’s just a handy thing to add to our library.

Which reminds me of one of the books my friend sent me in a care package not long ago. The one on safe preservation methods. I’m loving it! Even the pressure canning section is pretty much up to date. What I really liked about that section is when it talked about preserving meat. It doesn’t just talk about how to can various proteins, but actually has photos and instructions on how to butcher the animals! Very useful!

We had to leave a lot of books behind when we moved here, because the weight was just too expensive. It feels good to be slowly rebuilding our library again.

The Re-Farmer

I got to pet her!!!

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Nosencrantz has started to regularly show up when I do the morning feeding. We don’t see her in the evenings, though.

This morning, not only did she show up, but when I was putting food in the kibble bowl under the shrine, she started to go for it without waiting for me to leave.

When I reached out, she sniffed my finger – and then allowed me to pet her! Tentatively, at first, but then she actually came closer to enjoy more than my just barely touching her.

She was still nervous, though, and wanted to eat, so I let her be. When I was done my rounds and doing stuff around the house and south yards, she was nowhere to be seen.

At least she’s coming back regularly for food in the mornings.

Now, if only we start seeing Marlee and Butterscotch again!

Not only was I able to pet Nosencrantz today, I was able to catch one of the kittens from the litter of 8 that is still really small. The only reason I was able to catch it was because it was on the cat house roof and three of the bigger cats were milling around, vying for attention, preventing it from running off. It hissed a little when I picked it up, and made a half hearted attempt to bite me when my hand got close to it’s mouth, but then it settled down and stared at my face while I skritched its ears and pet it. This kitten is one of the black ones with a little white patch on its chest, but is really, really fluffy and dense. In fact, its fur feels like it’s all undercoat!

I also saw two of the “new” kittens – the ones that Broccoli brought over not long ago. There’s a black and white one that I saw, then a fluffy white and black one. There’s a tortie that I saw last night, going into the sun room, but I did not see it this morning.

Among the other kittens, some seem to have gone missing. I haven’t seen the one eyed tuxedo kitten in a long time. The other tuxedo that had a messed up eye does seem to be around; we’re only guessing, because one of the tuxedos has an eye that looks… wrong. It doesn’t let us get close enough to get a better look. I haven’t seen the smaller orange and white kitten in a long time, though one of my daughters says she has seen it. The bigger one, with grey mixed in with its orange fur, like Pinky, is not only still around, but I’ve been able to pet it a few times.

Pinky is among the adults we don’t see anymore. Likely moved on to find himself a harem somewhere. Rolando had been back for awhile, but is gone again. It’s really hard to know how many cats we actually have out there. Some mornings, I’ve counted over 30. Today, I counted 26… I think. I’m pretty sure I didn’t double count, but it’s always possible there are kittens hiding under the cat house that I just don’t see to count, too. I make sure to put a bit of kibble at the openings they use, so they can eat without having to be around so many other older, more active, sometimes aggressive, cats. There’s one mama, the white one with black spots, that tends to be aggressive. With the adults, she usually just growls at them, but with the kittens, she will actually attack them! I don’t know what’s going on with her.

Still, we are making progress with the socializing. I wasn’t able to check with the black fluffy one, but so far, all the ones that have accepted attention are… Yup. Male.

It’s awfully hard to keep the population down, when we can’t get near the females to get them spayed! Yeah, we can do the males, but if we don’t do the females, it won’t make much difference.

Meanwhile…

This inside kittens are just loving the new bed! The fact that it’s so tiny seems to be a bonus for them at this stage. We have another larger cat bed that was donated to us, but none of the cats seem to like it. After washing, the stuffing got all lumpy and won’t go back, which is likely the reason. When the adult cats wouldn’t use it, I brought it into my room after washing it, and the kittens don’t use it, either. But, my goodness, do they like this one!

Today is working out to be a blustery day, and we’ve already reached our high of 18C/64F. We are supposed to get heavy rain soon, so that writes off working on the trellis bed or prepping logs, cutting them to side and bringing them over for the second bed. The down side of having only an electric chain saw! Tomorrow is supposed to be a better day, but I’ll be back in the city to do the first Costco shop.

Oh, to have a van again, and not have to make so many trips to the city!

The weekend also looks good, though, so we should be able to break out the extension cords and get cutting again.

Meanwhile, I’ll be making a trip into town soon. We have water jugs to refill, so I’ll take advantage of it to run a few errands at the same time. I’ll even time it so I can get to the post office when it reopens in the afternoon. I’m not expecting any packages but, if there are any, I don’t want to have to make a second trip.

Our province is having an election right now, and the advance polls are open. I should get that done, too! This year, I’m voting for a friend of mine that’s running in a new party. Our province has been lurching between the same two parties all my life, to the point that there’s really no difference between them anymore. Which is scary, considering one of them is trying to out communist the Communist Party (yes, we have an actual Communist Party on our ballots).

Ha! I paused while writing this to look up some stuff. The polling projections don’t even include all the parties running in them, so they’re useless. The CBC (our government owned propaganda media) has a “voting compass” survey that I just did. At the end of it, it actually did match me with the party I plan to vote for, but some of the questions – particularly the demographic questions – were definitely a problem. You could see how the intent was to frame a narrative of how “good guys” would be voting one way and “bad guys” would be voting anything else.

Well, hopefully, there will be a good turn out of legitimate votes – the level of fraud is much lower on the provincial level than at the federal level – and we’ll have a solid rejection of both of the parties that usually win.

We’re supposed to have a federal election coming up, too. I don’t see our Prime Dictator calling it anytime soon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he found a way to prevent it from happening at all, over some new “emergency”. He certainly isn’t going to call it until he’s sure the results are going to be what he bought and paid for, and he’s so hated right now, that might be a while. He tried that in the middle of lockdowns, calling an early election in 2021 to get the majority he was shooting for. So the Libs formed a defacto coalition government with the NDP until 2025. Canada has fixed election dates. Federal elections are supposed to be on the third Monday of October, every 4 years after the previous election. Since T2 called an election in 2021, that makes the deadline for the next federal election 2025, instead of this year.

T2 should have resigned long ago, but the recent honouring of a guy that turned out to be actual Nazi in Parliament while the Ukrainian president was visiting should have been the final straw. Instead, the Speaker of the House was thrown under the bus and resigned, and the Liberals actually tried to have the incident removed from Hansard – the official record of all parliamentary proceedings – to make it like it never happened. The Liberals, who were so quick to call the Trucker Convoy and their supporters Nazis – our PM even calling a Jewish MP whose parents survived the holocaust a Nazi supporter – are now trying to make excuses for their own celebration of a Nazi from a division noted for the atrocities they committed. This was in the region my parents are from, that became part of the USSR after the war and is now part of the Ukraine. My parents saw and survived some of this stuff, so it hit close to home for me. Poland has started extradition proceedings now, too.

But I am getting distracted. Needless to say, though, I’m a lot more motivated to get out an vote. While we still can.

The Re-Farmer