In the first picture, there were three seedlings – two that I’d planted after the first pre-germinated one. All three, gone.
In the second picture, you can see that one of the cells was dug into – and the stem of a seedling. There were actually two cells that had been dug into.
The third is what’s left in the tray. The row on the bottom is the Sweet Chocolate peppers. They were doing the best. All the cells had seedlings, with the “just in case” seeds sown later also emerging. The row of seven cells had at least ten seedlings, with hints of more emerging. Now, it’s down to two.
The California Wonder row, in the middle, didn’t do as well, but I did have four seedlings. Now there is just one.
The top row is the Caspar eggplant. There were three surviving seedlings, which seem to be untouched. Whatever ate the others doesn’t seem to like eggplant, I guess.
With the evidence of digging, it must be a mouse. There are a couple of ultrasonic mouse repellents plugged in, in both basements. They’ve been there longer than we have, so I’m guessing they aren’t working anymore.
*sigh*
The celery, herbs and luffa in the other tray are untouched.
About the only thing I can be glad of is that these are all short season varieties. In theory, I could even direct sow them. Not that I would expect that to work with our growing season, so I do want to try again, but how do I keep this from happening again?
We could set traps, of course. There are several live traps that are currently stored in the sun room. They’re not really accessible right now, though.
My daughter suggested the three of us find a way to get the big aquarium into the basement to use as a greenhouse again. A mouse can’t climb the glass, and it has wire mesh covers. The original problem remains, though: how to get it down the stairs. There is so little room at the bottom turn something of its dimensions. Not that we can access it, anyhow. We’ve got so many of my mother’s things shoved into the living room, safe from the cats, that we can’t access where the aquariums are, never mind carry the big aquarium, and the shelf that supports it, out. I was planning on getting some of my mother’s stuff out and into the storage house (which is already so full of my parents’ things) so that we could use the big aquarium to house the chicks, but that won’t be until the end of May.
So frustrating.
Meanwhile, our day changed completely. My doctor’s appointment was this afternoon. If the truck behaved and the road conditions were good, I would have gone on to do the Walmart shopping, after. My younger daughter’s appointment was on Monday, but she wanted to come with me as there was something she needed to get at Walmart.
Note, I said “was”.
We were expecting snow today, but when it started coming down, it was harder than expected. If we can see the snow and wind around the house like that, we know it’s a lot worse on the roads. It was early enough in the day that I called the clinic to cancel my appointment. We’re expecting a combination of rain and snow over the weekend, so I cancelled my daughter’s appointment on Monday, too. When I explained about road conditions, the receptionist I was talking to concurred. The clinic is about a 45 minute drive away, and it sounds like conditions were worse there, than here. I’ve certainly driven in worse conditions, but we’ve had so many issues in such a short time, I just didn’t want take the chance.
They are booking new appointments at four weeks right now, so I could have rebooked for the end of March. I told her, we’ll call to rebook closer to the end of March instead, to make the appointments in April. March being the sort of month that it is, I didn’t want to book appointments only to have to cancel them again due to weather.
So, we stayed home today. I ended up going back to bed. I got up again before noon, in enough pain that I could barely walk. I can’t say the nap helped that much, because I still feel ridiculously tired.
Ah, well. It is what it is.
I’ve got to figure something out to protect my seed starts.
I had gone to bed early last night. Exhausted as I was, I didn’t get as much sleep as I should have. Partly because I decatted myself to roll over, only to get hit with a Charlie horse.
Yeah, I over did it with the shoveling and snow clearing to get the truck out.
Still, I woke up before sunrise – early enough that I expected to be able to do the outside cat feeding, only to find the girls had already done it.
Yeah. That’s -31C/-24F with a wind chill of -41C/-42F It stayed like that for hours longer, too.
I got to stay in bed, covered in cats. Even Big Rig came over and crawled under the covers with me. Big Rig never does that with me. She is usually buried under the covers in my husband’s hospital bed! That, or loafed on a heat vent in the hallway. 😄
Still, it did eventually start to warm up. I was just settling down with breakfast before I planned to head out again when I got a message that a couple from the rescue group were on their way from the city with a kibble donate. It would be another hour before they got here, so I had time to finish eating before heading out.
The first thing I had to do was shovel away the blocks of packed ice and snow I’d cleared from the truck tires to get it un-stuck. Once I got anything that looked like it might break little Spewie, I dragged it out, along with the extension cords, so start snow blowing away the rest of the path.
I’d barely made three passes when I heard a little honk behind me. I’d already opened the gate, and a gentleman came over to confirm they were in the right place. I’d cleared enough that they could get through with their car as far as the garage, so I just stuck Spewie on a snow bank and moved the extension cords aside so they could drive in.
Then the started unloading the back of their car…
… and the back on the passenger side…
… then the back on the driver’s side, too!!!
I opened the tailgate on the truck to load things on, out of the snow.
It turns out someone had given the rescue a massive donation, and this was just some of what they got that they could pass on to us! Not just try kibble, either! There were three big bags of kibble, six smaller bags of fancy kibble, eight cases of fancy canned cat food, and a case of cat milk they thought we might be able to use.
What a treasure trove!
Yes, a lot of them are near their “best before” dates, but they are all well sealed, so they will be fine.
After the stuff was unloaded, I invited them to check out our shelters. As we were walking around, the lady noticed the collapsing log building by the fire pit and got all excited. Barn wood!
They want to come back in the spring or summer, so she can buy some. 😄😄 I’m quite happy with that offer, since we really need to clean out and clean up the collapsed buildings. If someone can make use of the antique wood, all the better!
After they left, I let my daughter know about the cat food in the truck, and she took it inside while I finished clearing the driveway.
You can see where the truck got stuck by the piles of shoveled snow and ice on either side. 😄
It wasn’t a large area that was left to do, but it was really rough. I had to be careful not to twist an ankle or fall because of the mix of hard packed snow and much softer snow. I was able to also clear the second side of the path to the trail cam. I started off with the snow blower, but the hard packed foot path was quite narrow. In the end, I got the shovel and cleared the non-packed side to make a safer path to the trail cam. The snow there was so much lighter, I was able to clear right to the grass!
I was also able to clear space to back into when leaving the garage, and widen the path towards the small gate on the chain link fence. That also cleared a decent chunk of the driving lane leading to the large gate into the yard.
Then I stopped for the day. I did not want to push myself too far. This would be the third day in a row of shoveling, second day with snow blowing as well. I have to remind myself not to do too much, or my body is just going to give out.
So I will work on the inner yard, tomorrow. That will be mostly the snow blower, at least. I didn’t even bother putting little Spewie and the extension cords completely away. They’re just set in beside the truck for the night. Tomorrow, I’ll run the extension cords through the back door of the garage to better reach the inner yard.
After that, it’s supposed to warm right up, even to above freezing, over the next couple of weeks. Not that I’m holding much stock on those predictions. Long term forecasts had predicted a mild February, until we started getting hit with Alberta Clippers and Colorado Lows. It certainly wouldn’t be unusual for us to get a couple of blizzards between now and the end of April.
As I was putting everything away, I was entertained by finding adorableness all over the place.
The smaller cats are really liking that collapsed cat cave! It’s right near the bigger heat bulb, so even though they’ve managed to flatten it, they’d still be getting some warmth from the lamp. Blot using Colby as a bed is just adorable. I’m glad Colby’s sister, Sprig, didn’t run away when I stopped to take a picture. That’s actually progress. I’m not sure if that tabby is Flopsy, the one we recently got neutered, or if it’s the female tabby that looks just like him that we weren’t able to snag.
By the time I got in, it was well past noon, and I’d been out there for at least two hours. Thankfully, we did warm up to a relatively balmy -21C/-6F, with almost no windchill. We’re under an extreme cold warning for tonight, though, when we are expected to hit -31C/-24F again. Wind chills are expected to hit anywhere from -40C/F to -45C/-49F
I was already stiffening up and made sure to take some pain killers, but my daughter had to make a lunch for me. I’m going to have to be really pro-active on the pain killers and anti-inflammatories tonight, so that I’m still mobile tomorrow.
In other things, I still haven’t heard back from the garage about the console display on the truck no longer working. I would really like to get that fixed before I go into the city for our stock up shopping, just in case it’s not just a fuse. There are just so many weird things happening with the truck, it has made me paranoid.
Ah, well.
For now, I’m going to make sure I get enough rest so that I’m good to go for finishing up tomorrow. If I haven’t heard from the garage by Monday morning, I think I’ll just go into town after picking up our packages at the post office and talking to them in person.
Exhausted and cold! The high winds we got today were from the north, and my bedroom is north facing. It’s usually one of the coldest rooms in the house, but now I feel freezing. Meanwhile the rest of the house is warm enough to not trigger the furnace to turn on. I’m actually having a hard time typing!
I’ll be warm soon enough. I plan to go to bed as soon as I’m done this, even though it has just turned 6pm.
The yard cats managed to somehow flatten the cat cave, in spite of the wire supports I put on the inside. That hasn’t stopped them from using it, though! The first picture was taken when I did the morning feeding. The next two, after I did the evening feeding.
A bit early, because I did not want to go outside again.
The cab was booked to arrive at our place at around 11. I planned to meet him at the gate, since I wasn’t expecting a car to make it down our driveway though, at the time, the truck would have made it.
Yeah, some foreshadowing there!
I headed out a bit early, knowing I could wait out of the wind in the garage. The main door was open, but it faces south, so there was no wind at all coming in.
Thankfully, my brother installed a wifi booster in the garage where the lawnmowers are stores, so I was able to get a call on my cell phone. It was the taxi driver. He apparently didn’t read my directions all the way through and was at the highway, asking which side I was on. I gave him the rest of the directions and he soon arrived.
The drive into town was downright scary!
Portions of the gravel road were completely hidden by blowing snow, with hidden drifts beginning to form. It was worse on the highway. Even in town, with building to cut the wind.
Just as scary was realizing this guy was not a particularly good driver, and wasn’t driving to the conditions. Not the worst driver I’ve been a passenger with, but with the roads the way they were, it wasn’t long before I was seriously concerned he’d slide off the road! Especially as he was speeding through our little hamlet, where things are always way more slippery. We were talking about the conditions and I told him I was in no hurry, and to feel free to take his time. Thankfully, he did slow down.
Once past our hamlet, visibility kept getting worse anywhere there was open fields. We could barely see the road, nor oncoming traffic until they were quite close. As we were getting close to town, in a wide open area near the airport, I could see a dump truck just into a cross road, it’s back end leaning precariously into the ditch! Then a huge gust came up and he literally had to stop. Zero visibility. The only thing we could see was the top of the truck because he pulled over right near where it was. Thankfully, it started to clear up relatively quickly. Once he was able to start moving again, we realized he had gone off to the side by a fair bit. Thankfully, we were right in the intersection, so he was more on the gravel road instead of more into a ditch!
When we got into town, I had him stop at a bank first, where I could take out some cash to pay him, rather than try to use debit on his phone. The car was a regular car, so he was tracking the mileage and fare on his phone. As we were talking, he told me he’s been in business for just over a year. He had quite a bit more driving in these conditions to pick up other fares, too!
After I got the cash – including a well deserved tip – he drove me to the garage.
The truck was parked outside by the building. It was blocked by a car, but it was running, so I knew it wouldn’t be there for long.
I went in to talk to the owner and the mechanic that has driven the truck with me. The owner just handed me the keys. No charge!
We talked for a while, and they have concluded that the issue was never with the transfer case. It is fine. They’ve concluded it had something to do with the ABS trying to kick in. I do remember seeing the ABS light flash briefly when I was driving it. I was told what to watch out for, but in the end, there is nothing wrong with the truck. There was nothing to fix.
!!!
The owner’s wife and toddler were there as well, when I mentioned I was blocked. It turned out to be their car. I was in no hurry, though, and used the command start to warm the truck up while waiting until his wife headed out.
The truck was running fine, but… ???
There was no clock display.
The dashboard displays were fine, but not clock. I tried turning on the radio. Nothing.
This was while I got the truck out and crossed the street to the grocery store. With the road conditions, I wanted to get the shopping done as quickly as possible. My plan to stay in town and time my return for when the post office reopened at 2pm went out the window. I wanted to get home before things were drifted over too badly!
Once the shopping was done, I messaged home saying I it would be a slow drive home, and asking for someone to open the gate. I didn’t want to have to stop and lose momentum.
It was, indeed, a slow drive home, but visibility was not as bad as earlier. I did have to stop at the same intersection as on the way out, though. This time, because my side of the highway was blocked by the massive tow truck that just got the dump truck out of the ditch! So only one lane was open and I had to wait for oncoming traffic to get by. I didn’t have to wait long.
The end of the driveway and at the gate was still clear. The walls of snow were high enough to prevent drifting. The rest of the driveway had more snow on it than when I left.
Which would have been okay, if I’d managed to stay on the hard packed tire tracks. Unfortunately, I slid off, and once I was off, that was it.
Yes, I even switched to 4 wheel drive, but I just wasn’t moving.
*sigh*
With the way the truck was now diagonal across the driveway, I could only reach the driver’s side doors. I let my family know and started pulling bags on the passenger side out from the driver’s side and taking them to the house. My younger daughter booted up and came out to help as soon as she could. The green you see on the hood of the truck in the first picture is one of the grocery bags.
Then I left my daughter to put everything way and start cooking the individual flat bread pizzas I picked up, because I knew none of us would be up to cooking from scratch today. She got quite a bit done while I was gone, and was still doing the last load of my laundry for me.
Once everything was in, I got on the lovely bib overalls she got for me, because they cut the wind like nothing else, and headed back out. I was able to shovel around the truck, then had to get the ice scraper to break up the packed snow and ice that had “fenced in” the tires. I was protected from the wind enough that I actually started to overheat a bit!
That done, it was time to break out little Spewie.
There was enough drifted snow that I started out by clearing in front of the garage, so I wouldn’t get stuck again trying to pull in, then cleared the driveway up to the truck.
That took quite a long time.
Before I stopped, though, I did clear the foot path to the gate wide enough for my husband’s walker, then cleared a path to the electricity meter. That was so drifted over, you’d never know a path had already been dug out there. Several times.
I had thought to do a bit more clearing once the truck was in the garage, so I made sure the extension cord was out of the way before getting back to the truck. A bit more clearing with the ice scraper, and I gave it a go.
Thankfully, I was able to get out with little trouble and parked in the garage.
In the second picture of the slide show above, you can see the tracks where the tires had sunk on the sides of the packed tire tracks. Had I not cleared it with little Spewie, I probably would have gotten stuck again.
The last picture is where I got stuck, and the rest of the driveway that needs to be cleared.
Not today.
I realized I was done at that point. With the ice and snow I’d gotten loose with the ice scraper, it needed to be shoveled clear, first, so they wouldn’t break the blade on Spewie, and I just didn’t have the energy left to do the rest of the job.
It needs to be done, though. We’ve got someone coming out with a kibble donation tomorrow. If they can’t get through the driveway, we’ll have to haul it through the snow, and that area is now so uneven, it would be dangerous. I also want to clear the turn around area in the yard, so we can drive up to the house to unload our stock up shopping.
Plus, I still don’t have the clock display working. I texted the garage but haven’t heard back. I might need to go back for them to take a look and see what happened. Might just be a fuse.
In the end, I put Spewie away in the storage side of the garage. Normally, I’d properly put away the extension cords, too (I had to use two 100′ cords to reach the truck), but this time I just pulled them in off to the side, so they are easily accessible tomorrow.
How much I can get done tomorrow, though, is questionable. I did make sure to plug in the truck. As I write this, we are at -22C/-8F, with a wind chill of -38C/-36F. We’re supposed to drop to -31C/-24F during the night, but at least the wind is going to die down. Still, tomorrow’s high of the day is supposed to be -21C/-6F Sunday’s high is supposed to be -16C/3F, so I might leave doing the inner yard for then.
By the time I got in, it was coming up on 3pm, so I ended up doing the outside cats’ evening feeding. I had no idea I had been out that long! It wasn’t even quite noon when I got home.
The next while was spent updating the family and finally sitting down to eat. When I was still thinking of heading home late enough to go to the post office when it reopened at 2, I expected to have lunch in town. That didn’t happen. All I’d eaten all day was a hunk of cheese for breakfast, and half a can of Monster during the drive home. My poor little pizza was pretty dehydrated by the time I got to it. 😄
I also found a text from my sister, letting me know she’d tried to call our mother, but would be trying again later. My mother was busy – playing bingo and having birthday cake!
That is such good news. My mother had been going stir crazy with boredom while in the hospital. She wasn’t at the first TCU for long, but if they had any activities, we never heard of them. I think most of the people there had more severe cognitive issues and dementia. That where my mother is now already has her doing activities is fantastic news.
I really should call her myself, but I’m just too tired.
I already took my anti-inflammatories with my supper/lunch/breakfast. Now is the time to take some pain killers and crawl into bed!
I was up early today, so I did the outside cat feeding – something my daughters have been doing for me in the mornings for the past while.
WOW!!! is it windy out there!
0C/32 with a wind chill of -18C/0F Maybe 2 minutes after I got that screen cap, it had already dropped to -2C/28F with a wind chill of -21C/6F
We’ve already passed our high of the day. For the rest of the day and through the night, we are supposed to slowly drop to -30C/-22F
Brutal.
We are supposed to be having a light snow. The blowing snow advisory we’re under right now has little to do with the snow actually falling, but the snow already on the ground. Even as I headed out to switch the memory card on the gate trail cam, I could see the snow being kicked up in the open areas.
I’ll be getting the truck back today and had already planned to do a smaller grocery shop locally rather than try for a Walmart. With the blowing snow conditions today, I wouldn’t be heading to either city for a proper stock up shop today anyhow!
I’ll have a talk with our mechanic when I pick up the truck. I just don’t trust the truck! For something like what we were feeling to just… disappear on its own like that. I mean, I’m glad I won’t have a massive repair bill, but will it happen again? Why did it happen in the first place?
On the bottom, from the left, there’s Ginger snuggling Beep Beep, who is snuggling her boy, Potato Beetle.
On the top, from the left, there’s Ghosty, snuggling Tin Whistle, snuggling Shadow.
Also, my blanket is always covered in fur.
Another quiet day at home. It’s still been snowing, ever so lightly but for hours, so there’s actual accumulation by the end of the day. It looks like the next week to ten days will be the last of when we’re expecting daily highs colder than -10C/14F. By the end of the first week of March, we’re supposed to start getting highs above freezing, and staying there.
Of course, we could still get hit with one last blizzard around our anniversary in the beginning of April. 😄
We’ll be staying home for a few more days, too. Late this afternoon, I got an update from the garage. The part they ordered had just arrived at their second location in the smaller, nearer city. Not far from where my mother is right now, actually! Monday is when they’ll be able to install it. When I talked to the mechanic, I did tell him I would reschedule my medical appointment anyhow, so they didn’t have to do a rush job on it. They also know I don’t have a way to pick the truck up right, either. We’ll figure it out.
So, we are stuck at home for a few more days.
After hearing about a series from Lee Duigon’s blog recently, I have been binge watching Primeval on Amazon Prime and getting some crocheting done. I’m just starting season for, and working on bowl cozies sized and shaped for some particular soup bowls we have. I got tired of burning my hands on them. 😄 Once I get the size and shape right, I want to make a few more to match.
Until this morning, I’ve only managed to sneak pet her once or twice. Today, I took advantage of her being “trapped” in the corner of the shelf shelter, in what seems to be a favorite spot for her, and was able to pet her. She didn’t have anywhere to run away, really, so I was able to give her neck and shoulders some scritches, and even pat her back a bit.
She fur is so matted and full of burrs!!!
Not only was I able to pet her as I set the food out, she stayed in the shelf shelter, rather than running away as she normally would have done, and I was able to pet her again a couple more times as I passed by. So that’s pretty huge progress with her.
Note that I am saying “her” with confidence. With that long fur and her not letting us near her, we’ve never been able to see, one way or the other. I sort of assumed she was female simply because the most feral cats all seem to be female, while the males have mostly been easier to socialize. My confirmation was seeing her yesterday, quite obviously in heat, with a crowd of males around her.
She is no longer in heat.
*sigh*
Right now, we have I think 5 or 6 confirmed adult females that need to be spayed, all of them mostly feral. The only one that isn’t as feral is Old (young, actually) Blue Eyes, Frank, and she’s managed to escape her appointment with the vet twice now. Among the “kittens” (who are coming up on a year old, but are very very small still), there is another 7, I think, confirmed female. Bug and Blot are now both friendlies, but are both still way too small to be spayed. A couple others are just friendly enough that we might be able to get them, but also probably too small. There’s a tabby that is sometimes friendly, sometimes not, plus two more that we can’t get close to, that are probably big enough, though not by much.
We now have two larger traps, including one with a “back door”, that we can use to try and get the ferals. It will still have to wait until things warm up a bit, because we have no way to monitor a trap constantly, and we don’t want to risk a critter getting caught and then getting too cold before we can check the trap. I’ve considered the possibility of setting one of them up in the catio shelter. It has been warm enough in there that the unheated water bowl hasn’t been freezing during the day, and even on some nights, it’s only partially frozen. Once overnight temperatures become milder, I could remove the box nests and crushed self warming shelter that’s in there to make room for a trap. Even then, we couldn’t do that until the rescue can make arrangements with a vet for us, because once we’ve caught a feral, we wouldn’t be able to let them out, even into the isolation shelter, until after they’ve been taken to the vet.
We’ll figure it out.
Meanwhile, I was able to talk to our mechanic about the truck. His brother, who towed the truck, had passed on what I had described to him. I went over it again with him, in more detail. I mentioned that, while I couldn’t see anything, it felt like it was the front driver’s side tire. He told me that while the truck was being winched onto the tow truck, his brother had noted that the passenger side tire seemed to be “sticking”. All I can say is that, from where I was sitting at the wheel, it felt like the driver’s side tire, but I really don’t know. There was just nothing to see to tell me, either way.
So they will check it out, and will use a hoist to get it into the garage. No one is going to try driving it until it’s been checked. We didn’t even talk time lines, though, as this is something they’ll have to find time for, in between actual appointments. Chances are, once it’s been hoisted into one of the bays, they wouldn’t want to move it again until it’s been fixed, if that’s an option. I haven’t heard anything since, which is what I expected.
In other things, I got a message from my sister. My mother had asked me to pass on that she wanted a visit from my sister, which normally would have happened tomorrow, on her day off. There’s a storm coming in tomorrow, though, and my sister’s farm is further south enough that they would be affected by it more than we are. So she visited today, before heading to work.
My mother, it seems, has been craving pickle juice. !! 😄
Looking at the forecast, it’s supposed to start snowing in our area tomorrow at about 7am, and it now says we’ll be getting snow pretty constantly through to Thursday night, with a total of about 10cm/5 or 6 in, of snow in total. The temperatures are still supposed to be relatively mild and we’re not expected to get particularly high winds, so it should just be snow accumulation we’ll need to deal with.
Thankfully, we are well stocked because, even if we still had transportation, we probably wouldn’t be going anywhere for the next couple of days, anyhow.
So that’s where we are at for now. Hopefully, we will have news on the truck tomorrow, and it won’t be anything too major!
Not much to talk about for today. Yesterday seems to have caught up with me. I’m feeling exhausted. Mentally exhausted, not physically. I’m just so tired of so many things going wrong.
So I’m giving myself a rest day. Just doing the basics and not trying to go beyond.
It’s a gorgeous day out, though, and the yard cats have been absolutely loving it. The critter cam facing the isolation shelter has been going off so often, I had to adjust it so that it was at least no longer triggered by cats jumping around in front of the main doorway.
Down side: the feral ladies have all been going into heat. Today, I saw the cat I named Fluffer, because it looks like Fluffy, except for the white chest. With the long fur, we couldn’t confirm male or female. Today, with all the males chasing after her, I suppose that’s confirmed female. *sigh* At least Fluffy is spayed, but we’ve never been able to get any more adult females in to the vet.
Yesterday morning, I found something odd in one of the paths to the catio shelter.
Odd because everything is buried under snow, so where did this mess come from?
Then I identified part of it as an old bird’s nest. Which meant the cats had to have been climbing pretty high up and far out on the closest willow tree. This tree has been trimmed a few times, to keep the branches away from the power line to the house. That means any branches above are all pretty small and thin. Given the noises we’ve been hearing, I’d guess a cat got chased pretty far out and disturbed things enough to knock down the nest.
It’s been warming enough that this morning, I gave the cats a treat and started pre-soaking their kibble with a blow full of cat soup dosed with lysine. Usually, I toss the dry kibble in lysine, but only so much sticks, and the food trays have lysine power all over the bottom. It’s not something we’ll be doing every day, yet, and only in the morning, so they have a chance to eat it before it freezes. The sun room thermometer was at about 11C/52F, even though our high for today was -2C/28F. As I write this, we are at -3C/27F, but the “real feel” is 1C/34F
And yet, we are under a weather advisory right now! A low pressure system is moving in, and the south end of our province is looking at possibly 15-25cm/6-19in of snow by tomorrow evening. Our area is on the outer edge of the system, so we wouldn’t be expecting that much. We are expected to get as much as 9cm/4in of snow on Wednesday, with another possible 2.4cm/1in through Thursday morning. The temperatures are still expected to be mild, though the highs are supposed to drop below -10C/14F by the weekend.
Hopefully, tomorrow, the garage will be able to take a look at the truck and see what on earth happened to it. Messaging with my brother, he suggested the differential, but that got a leak repaired on it just a few days go, so that’s unlikely. His other thought was the CV joint. At which point we’re looking at possibly over $300 for the part, and another $200-$300 in labour, from what I can find online.
Well, we’ll find out soon enough, I guess.
*sigh*
Yeah, definitely feeling mentally – and emotionally – exhausted at this point.
It’s been a cozy day today, and I got to stay home for it.
Our high of the day was -5C/23F, but it’s almost 8:30pm as I start this, and the temperatures are supposed to keep warming up all night. It’s already -4C/25F, and we’re supposed to reach a high of 1C/34F tomorrow.
Then we’re supposed to drop to -18C/0F as our high, the day after! Which isn’t too bad, but that’s quite the drop!
One of the things staying home allowed me to do was go through and unpack a few more boxes of my mother’s stuff. Most of it will be stored in the root cellar for now. We’ll need to figure out what to do with it, though! We already store our Christmas trees and decorations in there, but they don’t take up much of the shelf space that I would be using to store garden produce. We’ll have the summer to figure that out and make space again, at least, but some items, I just don’t know what to do with. They’re not things I want to shove into a box to be disappeared into the many other boxes of stuff from my parents we’ve got all over the place, for a variety of reasons, but we just don’t have the space for them. We could literally furnish and supply another house or two at this point!
Still, there are more boxes that need to be dealt with, and some things will need to be organized and re-packed to go into storage elsewhere. It has to be done before things start to melt, and the basements start getting wet.
My mother keeps suggesting we have a garage sale, but who would bother to drive this far out for a garage sale? We had a hard enough time when we tried having garage sales while living in the city. I’ve considered selling things online (which I’ve talked to her about), but that would be totally on our household; my siblings have no interest in that sort of things at all. There actually is quite a bit of vintage and collectable stuff in there. Lots more, however, we’d probably have a hard time giving them away for free.
Ah, but don’t throw anything out, my mother insists! Especially not her papers!
🫤🫤
The papers are the worst of it. There is SO much, and I don’t think she even knows what all is in there!
When I was packing up the embroidery and crocheted items, I found an object wrapped in a plastic grocery bag, hidden in the drawer. That turned out to be a cattle ear tagger. Today, I unpacked what looked like the foot pedal for a sewing machine.
My mother didn’t have a sewing machine.
I sent a picture to my brother, in case he recognized what it was part of. Maybe they saw something while they were packing other boxes.
If I remember, I can ask her tomorrow. After I drop the truck off at the garage, I’ll walk over to the hospital to visit my mother. My sister was able to visit her today.
My mother is already starting to ask me to bring her things from her stuff – this from the person who complains when we bring her things she actually needs, because she doesn’t want too many things in her hospital room! The most recent one was to bring her fan, so she can “have air”. That would need to be cleared with the hospital, but I reminded her, we don’t know how long she will be there. The hospital needs that bed, so they would be motivated to get her into a personal care home as quickly as possible.
Which would be so much better for her. A personal care home would have activities available and she really misses that, and really needs something to occupy her mind, and can also not be stuck in one room all the time.
Until she’s settled somewhere permanent, we need to keep some of her stuff set aside and available until we know what she can have with her, besides things like clothing and pictures.
All in good time, I guess.
Meanwhile, I’m really hoping things go well with the truck. Depending on how quickly they get it done, I might make that Walmart trip we never made it to after picking it up. Or the next day, though I also need to get my husband to the lab for some blood work. He needs to fast for it, so we have to get him in pretty much as soon as the lab opens.
Then there’s all the other trips I haven’t been able to make because of either the truck acting up, or because we were dealing with getting my mother’s apartment empty.
*sigh*
I’m really hoping we can manage getting a replacement vehicle. I hate to give up the truck. It really is the ideal vehicle for us, but it’s had so many problems, mostly sensor related!
After all the driving I did yesterday – including some white knuckle driving in near zero visibility, the last thing I wanted to do was head out again.
Unfortunately, between having to focus on getting my mother’s apartment emptied, plus concerns about the truck, we haven’t been able to do our usual city stock up shopping. I’m glad I had been able to do the top ups earlier but, until I can finally get to the city, we had to do another smaller shop. Plus, with all the driving I’d done yesterday, I normally would have gotten more gas before heading home on that last trip, but there was no way we were stopping to get gas at that point.
I really wish I’d been able to stay home today. The roads sucked. Yesterday’s high winds came from the south-southeast. Today, we had winds coming from the north-northwest. Since the roads I was traveling ran east-west, that meant there was drifting from yesterday/last night’s winds on one side, and new drifting on the other! Not to mention the open areas, where I was being broadsided by winds and had to fight them to stay on the road. Thankfully, it wasn’t particularly slippery. Temperatures were actually pretty mild today – not as mild as yesterday, but close. The winds, however, negated that completely.
I don’t want to have to do this again, so I made a larger than usual shop.
I filled a whole three grocery bags for $181.02m plus a 12 pack of Coke Zero and a couple of bags of potatoes – and that’s with all the discounts and sales I took advantage of!
Here’s what we got, today.
There’s the Coke Zero at the top of the list, which was on sale. I remembered we were running low on ketchup, so I got a bottle. It’s mostly the girls that use it, so I tend to forget. The gingersnap cookies are a treat for my husband.
There was a sale on pasta sauce, so I got a couple of jars. I got two 18’s of eggs rather than a flat, because the flats don’t fit in the hard sided grocery bags, and I didn’t want to fuss with a larger soft sided bag, just for eggs.
Next is a couple of pounds of house brand butter. The cheapest branded butter was almost $8 a pound. The spiral fries are something my husband is able to cook himself, which he likes to do whenever his pain levels are more tolerable. Then there are a couple of bags of frozen mixed vegetables, and a couple of bags of frozen pierogi.
Potatoes were on sale, so I got one of white potatoes, one of yellow. I also got a bag of onions and some bananas.
Stew meat was on sale, so I picked up the largest package I could find. It was still smaller than what I used to be able to get for under $20. Now, without the sale price, it would have cost over $30. Insane.
They had “cook tonight” discounts on whole chicken, so I got a couple. Those went straight into the freezer. I also got a couple of sausage rings, then decided to get a treat of potato salad. Something we don’t make ourselves, so it’s a fairly rare treat.
Last of all was bread that was on sale; two loaves of marble rye and two of whole wheat Texas Toast.
With the sale prices discounted at the till, not counting the sale items that were priced by weight, I saved $34.10. I could have gotten $10 off on this shop with my loyalty points, but saved it for another time.
There’s a reason we do bulk shopping in the city.
Hopefully, I will hear back from the garage early tomorrow. I ended up sending another picture. Once again, there was fresh oil under the truck. Just another drop, really. Still, it shouldn’t be there. Especially not after just getting that seal replaced. That means it’s coming from somewhere else.
*sigh*
No change in what the oil gauge is telling me. It starts off in the normal range, then drops to the exact same level in the “low” range, and stays there.
Tomorrow is supposed to be colder, but that wind is finally supposed to be done by now, so it’ll probably feel warmer than it has for the past couple of days. Today is Sunday, and the 10 day forecast is saying we’ll reach a high above freezing on Thursday, drop significantly on Friday, then warm back up again by Saturday. If the forecast is at all accurate, that will be the last of the whiplash weather – at least for the highs we’re expecting in the long range forecast.
Which means, by the time we’ve got whatever it is figured out with the truck and we finally do our stock up shopping in the city, even if it’s just one trip, it should be much more pleasant driving!
It was white knuckle time at the end, but we did it.
My mother’s apartment is now completely empty.
At our end, things started after my brother got here and started working on their truck. Which he had to dig his way to. After clearing the barn door enough to open it to access their shovels, etc. He was able to plug in the block heater and left it to warm up before getting their snow blower out.
When I saw he was here, I went out and checked on the truck. It started fine and, at first, that oil pressure gauge was actually in the normal range, which was encouraging. After backing it out a bit, I found a single drop of fresh oil under the truck and that was it. Oil levels were fine. Yay!
Then I caught up with my brother and we worked things out. He would continue with the snow blowing and getting their truck ready, and I would go to my mother’s apartment, where my SIL was already at work packing.
There were a few little delays as he remembered to load up a cart to help carry things to the truck, and so on. In that time, I noticed…
The needle on the oil pressure gauge was dropping again.
*sigh*
It dropped to the same level it was at when I drove the truck home yesterday, then didn’t move. Not that I could focus on it much during the drive in. While today’s temperature was a lot warmer, the wind was insane. It wasn’t even snowing yet, but there was so much blowing snow on the highway that I was hitting white outs, even without snow kicked up by oncoming traffic. Once I was parked, I took a picture of the oil pressure gauge and texted it to our mechanic, as described how things had gone. Then I headed inside.
My SIL had been very busy. We were all shocked by how much was left. My sister didn’t take everything she was supposed to. I think she misunderstood and thought she was to take the things she wanted to keep, plus the stuff my mother specifically wanted her to take, not help empty the place.
There were boxes packed and ready, though, so I immediately started loading up the truck. It wasn’t long before I had as much as I could fit, so I headed back home, messaging my daughters before I left, so they would be prepared to assembly line things into the basement.
I also got a response from the garage. He found what was going on very strange. He said it could be two things: a problem with the engine, or the sensor – and the engine checked out fine when he was working on it yesterday. Which means, it is the sensor. Yet another common issue with our make and model of truck.
Definitely not going with GM again in the future.
I asked him if the sensor was still on warranty – it was replaced maybe a year ago – but whether it is or not, I asked how soon I could bring it in to be fixed. He will check on Monday and get back to me.
So, basically the truck is fine. Which is good, because I did a lot of driving today!
When I got home, I found my brother had gotten the snow blowing done, including clearing a path to the storage house that they could back their truck up to, when it was time to do the furniture.
The boxes, however, were going into the house. I unloaded the truck to the door, one daughter grabbed whatever I had, then passed it to her sister at the basement stairs. This was rather awkward because of how the doors are, and the need to make sure they got closed before any cats made a run for it.
Sir Robin did manage to get into the house once!
My poor brother, meanwhile, was having plenty of trouble. Aside from the huge job of snow blowing vehicle-with paths to their trailer and the warehouse they are beside, just in case we needed to put stuff in there – the truck was having issues. In spite of having a solar powered trickle charger all this time, the battery was dead. He had to boost it (thankfully, he has a booster pack) and had gotten it started by the time I unloaded, then went to talk to him before heading back. He was trying to drive it out, but there wasn’t enough turning radius cleared in the snow for a truck the length of his. He ended up having to dig it out manually.
After connecting with him, I headed back to my SIL. This time, loading the truck was more awkward. I needed to get the commode in, as the medical device department of home care will be picking it up from our place some time next week. It was too tall to fit under the box cover, but I managed to get it into the back of the cab, by setting it on one end. There were more boxes to put into the box, but most of what I had to get in was odd shaped stuff, including a large framed picture that my sister had left behind. I was able to get some smaller pieces of furniture in, at least.
The truck was packed about as much as I could when my brother arrived. Neither of them had eaten since breakfast, and it was well past lunch time, so we took a break for food. My brother, out of habit, shut his engine off when he meant to leave it running, and it wouldn’t start again! Thankfully, he brought his booster pack along, just in case, so he was able to get it going again. He did leave it running the entire time we were at the restaurant, and we even sat at a table where he could keep an eye on it, through the window!
We had an excellent lunch.
Since my truck was already loaded, once we were done, I headed home to unload while they went back to the apartment to start loading some furniture. This time, I was going to stay at home until they got there. The winds were still insane, though at least this time, it was at my back, so the drive was at least a bit smoother! It was still pretty hard to see the road at times – yet I still had vehicles passing me!
It wasn’t too much longer before they arrived with the first load of furniture. By this time, it was getting quite dark, and they were unloading into the storage house, which has no power. I brought out a camping lantern we now have – thanks, M! It sure came in handy! – and my brother found a place to hang it in one room, while a second large flashlight we have was used to light up the room we had to go through at the door.
My brother pretty much picked up and carried all the different pieces of furniture in, himself! He’s amazing!
Once that was done, we headed back to the apartment one last time. I was following them, but was soon left behind. The weather had gotten worse, and it was white knuckle driving quite a few times! It was bad enough that, when I got there, I brought up the idea of renting a motel room and spending the night, once everything was packed. They were going to do that drive, though. If I’d been on my own, I would have stayed in town overnight, but I was willing to do the drive, at the same time as them.
With the cap on their truck, they could fit everything left except for the mattress and box spring, both of which will be taken to the dump. That went into my truck. Unfortunately, I have a shorter box on my truck. A whole 2 inches shorter than the mattress and box spring! I do keep rachet straps in the truck now, though, so I was able to strap them down and leave the tailgate open.
After that was loaded, we went back in for one last check in everything, while my SIL took pictures and video of the empty apartment. Then, we locked it up one last time and headed out!
The road conditions were even worse. The only saving grace was that we had the wind at our backs, so the snow kicked up by oncoming traffic wasn’t quite as bad. They followed me this time, and managed to stay in view the whole way, even when we had people passing both of us at the same time! I just don’t get it. The road was barely visible, and a few times I found I had wandered into the other lane, because the road had disappeared under the swirling snow, and people were passing in this? Good grief.
Once back here, I parked the truck in the garage, since it wasn’t going to be unload this time. We got my brother’s truck unloaded – this time, he carried an entire loveseat, up the stairs and into the storage house! I was able to help with that one a tiny bit, at least.
That storage house is so jammed with stuff. We haven’t gone in there all year, and have made no effort to trying and clear it out. So much in there just needs to go to the dump! Now, we have almost all my mother’s furniture squeezed into there.
*sigh*
The boxes the girls and I got into the basement are going to have to be gone though soon. We’ll unpack what will stay in the house, but the rest will need to be repacked and taken into the storage house, somewhere, before spring, when the basements start getting wet.
After the furniture was unloaded, my brother and SIL had to transfer a few things out of it to their car or their trailer, before the truck could finally be parked back in its spot by the barn and they could finally head home. I’m still waiting in anticipation for a message telling me they arrived home safe and sound! I’m really hoping the winds have started to die down. It had started to snow lightly before it got dark, and will continue to snow, off and on, throughout the night.
Meanwhile, I’m just glad we finally got it done. It was brutal – especially with the weather! – but it’s done.
With our not being able to get our city stock up shopping, though, I’m going to have to go into town tomorrow (Sunday) and do a smaller shop. Which means we’ll have to take that mattress and box spring out of the truck, so I can close the tailgate. The dump won’t be open again until Tuesday, so that’s the earliest we can get rid of them. Unless the garage is able to get us in to get that sensor fixed/replaced. I’ll find that out on Monday.
I am so tired of winter.
According to the long range forecast, we’ve got another week of relatively milder temperatures, but then we’re supposedt to start to get highs above freezing more often than not, for the rest of February!
I can’t believe it’s already the last day of January. Where has the month gone???
The Re-Farmer 