what a pain

What. A. Day.

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

… and it’s only 6pm.

What I was planning to do, after finishing my post this morning, was get a couple of hours a sleep in before my younger daughter and I headed out for errands.

Then my husband asked me if we had an extra box fan somewhere, because his just stopped working.

I remembered that we had one in the new basement that would normally be set up in the old basement window. We haven’t had to do that yet, this summer, so I was going to go get it. I was next to the door to the old basement, so I was going to go through that way to get it.

I didn’t make it all the way down the stairs, when I had to go back up and get my rubber boots.

Our septic was backing up the floor drain.

Now, on the plus side, it was just toilet paper, really. There was enough of it, however, to actually lift the floor drain cover up.

Once booted and gloved up, I opened the access pipe. It, thankfully, was not full of TP. So some water was still getting through, somewhere.

Thanks to the commercial drain auger we have, I was able to punch through the clog – right at the bottleneck, of course, – and get things draining. I didn’t even have to turn on the motor, and just used the drain snake. It’s rigid enough that I could push it through manually – and I could tell immediately when I got through, as what standing water there was, flowed away. I took the hose and ran water through the length of the pipe and into the tank, and nothing backed up. The septic pump did turn on, though, which was a good sign.

Nothing from the floor drain, though.

For that, I had to manually remove as much as I could into a garbage can. It wasn’t actually a lot, once I saw it together in one spot, but enough to be an issue for the size of pipe.

Once I got the bulk of it out, things started to flow and I could use the hose in the access pipe, flushing it back to the weeping tile under the new basement as well.

Then it was time to clean up the floor.

So that was a big, messy job though, thankfully, not as gross as it could have been!

While the water was flowing freely again, we did need to empty the tank. We normally would have done it in early spring, but too many other things messed up our budget. I was really hoping we could last until fall. When pushing the drain auger and the hose all the way through into the tank, I could feel how full it was. So, once I was done and cleaned up, I called the septic company and left a message.

He called back almost immediately.

He will be coming out tomorrow morning.

On updating the family – and assuring them that yes, we can use the toilet! – and telling them I’d have to take cash out from another budget, my older daughter came to the rescue, and transferred over enough to cover the bill. Including tip!

She was still on for getting Chinese food for my birthday, too.

What I think we need is to replace our entire toilet. We’ve already replaced the riser, but it just doesn’t hold a lot of water. The tank is lined, so there isn’t as much there, but there’s also very little in the bowl, even though I’ve set the dial on the riser to max. Meanwhile, there is some sort of leak in the overflow pipe, and we would have phantom flush, unless I allowed the refill hose to fill the tank directly, instead of through the overflow pipe. As a bonus, the tank would actually refill quickly, instead of taking forever.

There are other issues with the toilet, like no shut off valve, but I really like it. The bowl is 18 inches high, instead of the standard 16.5, so it is much better on the knees and back. My daughter and I did some searching and we found a 17″ one that has smooth sides under the bowl, so it’s easier to clean. That’s what we would replace it with, if we could. Price after taxes, though, would be heading towards $400. So that’s not going to happen any time soon!

Speaking of the price of things…

I got the estimate for replacing the door and frame in the entryway.

*sigh*

Over $4100, after labour and taxes.

The problem isn’t the pre-hung door. Even taking into account we are getting a more expensive one, with a window that can be opened. It’s the stucco. To remove the old frame, they’ll have to cut through the stucco to get it out. Then, once they’ve measured with the new frame, cut more stucco to size before installation can be done. Then they’ll hopefully be able to install the old storm door. This is not going to be a quick and easy job.

The estimate even says that, while they’ll try to be as careful as possible, there may be issues with the stucco breaking up, so if they have to repair that, it would be an additional cost.

That’s more than double what I though the cost might be. With how much it’s going to cost when the truck gets worked on through our insurance claim, plus so many other things sucking away at any emergency funds we had, we simply don’t have it. We might have to have another talk with the bank and try to come up with something.

When I told my mother that the door and frame needed replacing and why, she had asked me to let her know how much it cost. She would help.

There’s no way she’ll be doing that with the bill this high. Talking to my younger daughter about it and mentioning what my mom had said, she just laughed out loud. As she put it, that kind of money is “vandal” money, not “us” money. Our vandal would go to her for money, constantly, and she almost always gave in, and often more than the amount of this estimate. But to help us or my brother? Nope.

I don’t know what we’re doing to do, but we have 30 days to accept the estimate. After that, they have to do another estimate. Also, 1/3rd needs to be paid up front, before they start.

So that was another downer.

Things got better after that, though, as my daughter and I headed out…

Not without interruption.

Our phones started going off with emergency alerts. Due to wild wires, our province has again declared a province wide state of emergency. Evacuation orders are in effect in some of the reserves up north. Nothing in our area, though, so we are all right where we are. After pausing to check the fire maps, we continued on.

Our first stop was the post office, to get her birthday present: a new cane. My husband had ordered one, months ago, and it never arrived because the delivery company messed up. After giving on on that order, my husband and daughter went looking, and found this for her.

It is a Kommando Tactical Survival Hammer.

It’s also not a pretend novelty item. This thing is solid and functional.

Most importantly, it is a very comfortable cane for my daughter.

She thinks it’s absolutely hilarious, and she loves it! She started using it right away, and hasn’t stopped.

Cane acquired, it was off to town. First stop was the Chinese restaurant. My daughter went in to place the order, and then we were going to the grocery store while it was being made.

My daughter forgot her wallet.

We decided we could drive back to get it, giving the restaurant an estimated time it would take us, and then off we went.

Into rain with drops so big, I thought they were hail!

Sadly, no rain reached our place.

We got home, my daughter dashed in, and we were off again. Just in time for the food to be ready for pick up!

As I was catching up to my daughter in the parking lot, my phone began to ring.

It was home care.

*sigh*

Thankfully, they weren’t calling about tonight, but for tomorrow morning. Which worked out, actually, as I knew my mother would be needing a grocery shopping trip and probably laundry, etc. By the time I was off the phone, I was having to hold the doors open for my daughter, with the food!

That done, we stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things on their list – including a cake for me!

Thankfully, I remembered to go to a bank machine before we left town, so we would have cash for the septic guy tomorrow. I’ll be at my mother’s before he gets here, so I’ll be leaving the gate open, and have the cash ready for whoever is available at home to pay him, then make sure the gate is closed, afterwards. With how or vandal has been behaving, none of us feel we can leave the gate open for long.

That done, we could finally head home! Once everything was unloaded at the house, I started feeding kitties to get them away from the truck, so my daughter could park the truck.

She is fine with driving, which means I don’t have to reschedule my eye test next week.

There was still a lot of dry kibble out – the cats have not been eating as much, in this heat! – but I got the kitten soup out. As I was going to set the bowls out for the feral kittens, I spotted a pair of ears in the front window of the isolation shelter. Someone was in the hammock, but was so small, only the ear tips were visible!

It turned out to be Grommet.

Which means Grommet got the biggest bowl of kitten soup, all to himself!

That done, I left the girls to get things organized and called my mother about tomorrow. When I said I got a call from home care and that I would be coming in tomorrow morning, she started to get angry, but I distracted her by saying I could do her grocery shopping and laundry. It turns out she was already starting a grocery list, because her fridge is getting empty.

😄

We ended up talking for a while, and I did tell her about what our vandal has been doing. When repeating some of the things he said, even my mother was saying, how is that his business? Why does he care?

At one point, she brought up going to the police about it, and I told her I probably should, but we’ve had so much going on, it’s just really difficult. Out of curiosity, I brought up the septic backing up into the basement, which she didn’t even acknowledge years, and that we got an estimate about the door, reminding her about the front door and frame needing to be replaced. She just vaguely said that this was stuff to talk to my brother about.

Then she offered to call the police for me, herself. After all, this was happening at “her” place.

…

I told her, no. You aren’t directly involved. This is for me to do. So she left it at that.

Yeah. She’s already backed out of her offer to help with the door and frame replacement. I doubt she even remembers making it.

We ended up talking for quite a while before I could finally say goodbye and have supper. The rest of the family was already done by then! I hadn’t realized just how long the call turned out to be.

The food was delicious, as always. We got enough to feed us for a couple of days, at least! The less cooking we have to do in this heat, the better.

It’s now coming up on 8pm as I write this, and I’ll be doing my evening rounds, soon. Looking at the weather radar, we are still under severe thunderstorm alerts. There even seems to be a system heading our way that will actually pass over us, in a couple of hours. Which means rain, for a couple of hours! Maybe. 35% chance of rain.

So… do I water the garden again tonight, or leave it for the morning? We’re still at 25C/77F, humidex at 27C/81F, and we won’t be reaching comfortable temperatures until about 3am. The humidity is at 81%.

I’ll see how things look while I’m doing my checks. To be honest, I’m ready to crawl into bed right now. The heat has sucked all the energy out of me. Which is insane, because we’ve got AC now, and it’s so much better in the house than in previous years! My heat tolerance is dropping so much, as I get older.

This day has turned out to be all over the place. Tomorrow doesn’t look like it’ll be any better. While I’m at my mother’s, I’m going to miss my brother and SIL as they come out to take their trailer to somewhere else for the next while.

I need sleep.

The Re-Farmer

From good to not so good!

/ Re-Farmer / 16 Comments

Yesterday was such a good day! I’m just so happy to have finally got the cat isolation shelter to the point that we can use it (though it still doesn’t have a latch on the ramp-door).

I didn’t over exert myself.

Honest. I didn’t.

Working on the shelter was mostly a lot of back and forth to get things cut and nailed or screwed into place. I wasn’t doing anything heavy or strenuous.

Yet, apparently, I overdid it.

I was in bed, just finishing my devotions, when I tried to roll over.

Thankfully, I still had my phone in my hand when the leg cramps hit. I was just able to get so I could sit on the side of the bed, but couldn’t go more than that. I was able tap “help” to my older daughter, and that was it.

She didn’t need more information to know what was going on. Which is good, yet not good, since it shows now often I’ve been getting these, lately.

I’ve had some bad Charlie horses before but, this time, it hit me in both thighs, on all sides and severe enough for pain to shoot down into my calves and up into my hips.

I couldn’t bend, I couldn’t straighten, I could barely use my arms to shift. Even taking the ibuprofen and magnesium my daughter brought me was difficult.

She stayed with me until the painkillers kicked in. Even that was weird. First my right leg, then my left, just suddenly relaxed, with a jolt. Even so, my daughter had to lift me legs for me so I could get back into bed, because the muscles were quivering so much.

As I slowly recovered, and I was able to talk, my daughter mentioned looking up the cause of these. She thought at first it might be lack of hydration, but she knows I stay on top of that. Her next thought was perhaps a lack of salt.

My initial reaction was no, but then I realized that yesterday, I’d eaten almost no salt all day.

It’s the only thing either of us could think of that might apply.

She ended up bringing me a few rock crystals of Himalayan pink salt for me to chew on.

I did eventually fall asleep, but it was many hours before my thigh muscles felt anywhere close to normal. It’s almost 8pm as I write this, and they still feel trembly at times.

My older daughter took care of doing the softened kibble feeding of the outside cats this morning for me, so I could try to sleep in – or at least stay in bed longer.

In the end, if was cats going bonkers, chasing the lady beetles that have gotten inside, that had me giving up on trying to get more sleep.

With the various plumbing issues we have right now, we’ve all been slowly chipping away at dishes and cooking as little as possible. The kettle has been kept going pretty much all the time. Between washing ourselves, using boiled water to soak the outside cats’ kibble, and just general clean up, we’ve taken to simply filling it and setting it to boil so there’s at least warm water available for the next person who needs it.

I did eventually make it outside. It started to rain, so I moved the shallots that were hanging on the high raised bed frame to cure, into the garage. Another couple of days, and they will be braided and brought into the root cellar.

I also got a heat lamp set up in the sun room, as the nights are going to be going below freezing soon. I was going to put the second one in the isolation shelter, ready to be plugged in as needed, but I will have to find a way to secure it better. I want it to be hanging from the centre of the roof, but I will need a little step ladder to reach. 😄 So that will wait for now. I did make sure both sliding panels were closed, though, to keep the weather out of the upper level. There is just the ramp door to get in and out.

The cats quite like going in there!

It had been my plan to clean up and put things away in the garage, now that the isolation shelter no longer needs to be in there, so we can finally park the truck in the garage again.

That didn’t happen!

Maybe tomorrow.

This is Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, and we do have a turkey thawing out. It’ll be ready to be cooked tomorrow, so that’s when we’ll do what we can for a thanksgiving dinner, even if we don’t end up eating it until much later.

My daughters emptied out the wardrobe of my husband’s things – mostly his old office clothes, which he has little occasion to wear these days. They all went into the laundry, and my daughters got the wardrobe upstairs.

Which means my husband now has access to the closet in his room.

We can also bring back his tiny medication fridge, and the table it sits on, back into his room, though that will be done tomorrow.

He’s going to need some sort of small shelf, though.

While I was outside, my mother called. After a bit of telephone tag, we finally connected.

I’m glad to say that she has been really happy with her Meals on Wheels deliveries. She is really enjoying the food, and not having to cook it herself! This is going to work out much better for her than the bulk meal prep that home care offers.

“One of the ladies” told her that the hospital in town has a new doctor, and she told me we should make an appointment with her.

My mother is STILL talking about changing doctors, while she’s in the middle of being assessed for placement in a nursing home or supportive living. If I thought it would actually help any, sure – if nothing else, it would mean her current doctor won’t have a racist AF patient. The problem is, my mother is never happy with any doctor she has. This is a female doctor, and my mother doesn’t think women can be good doctors, just nurses, so we already know she won’t be happy with any female doctor. Even with male doctors, if they don’t tell her what she wants to hear, she’ll find something about them that disqualifies them in her mind. And if there isn’t something there, she’ll invent something. Even doctors she starts out liking, she’ll turn on them in a heartbeat.

She has a very long history of doing this sort of thing.

Eventually, I was able to update my mother on the septic repairs. When I first told her about discovering there was a leak at the expeller, she offered to pay for repairs. I ran the estimates by her and that we were going with the company that was closer.

Today, I told her how this company had stopped returning my calls, so I contacted the other company and ended up talking to the owner.

As I was trying to tell her this, she kept interrupting. I should just get my brother to do fix it, she tells me.

I had to explain, an excavator is needed. It has to be dug up.

We should just have it moved.

???

Moved? That would be an even bigger job to do!

She is not at all understanding our system here. My dad took care of all this stuff, and it’s as if she’s never seen the expeller before, even though she remembers the other things in the area, like the water fountain for the cows that was set up, along with a tap in the barn and another water fountain on the other side of the barn, all piped at the same time.

Then she started telling me my brother should be doing this, not me, because this is a man’s thing to do (talking to companies to arrange repairs, etc.), and my brother is somehow dumping this on me. I told her, this is my “job”. It’s part of the deal I had with her, and that I now have with my brother.

As all this was going on, she also started saying how, oh, someone told her that the farm is not hers anymore, it’s not her responsibility…

Yup.

She started backing out of her offer to pay for the repairs.

After she made a few passive aggressive threats about that, I finally told her, stop playing games with me. Are you going to pay for it, or not? Because if you’re not, I have to call the company to cancel the job.

Thankfully, there is now at least some water running through the expeller, so it would probably last us through the winter, but still… that would not be good.

Well, my mother, being my mother, bounced from saying, yes, she would pay for it (making it sound like I asked her to, rather than being something she offered to do) and why should she pay for it? At one point, she asked me, if I were in her place, would I do it? I said yes, if I could, I would.

I don’t think she expected that.

Anyhow.

This is another old thing with her. She will offer something, then when the time comes, start to back off, and use the offer to manipulate people. I have no patience for what is basically psychological abuse. Especially at a time like this, when we have so many things breaking down at once. I did manage to mention the hot water tank issues, but she just blew right past that. I doubt she even heard me. She even tried to drag my brother into the whole thing, and why doesn’t he call her?

I finally just said, it’s because you do stuff like this, and I just can’t handle this right now.

I then said we would talk later, said goodbye and hung up.

After that, I sent a message to my brother, updating him about the call, telling him it looks like my mother is backing away from her offer of paying for the repairs, so I’ll probably have to call and cancel the job.

While I was writing that message, my older daughter walked in and asked me if I knew what was going on with the bathroom fan.

Yup.

Guess what else is no longer working!

We had that fan’s motor replaced just a few years ago. The previous motor was the original, installed in the mid 70’s.

On top of all this, there were just lots of other little things going wrong, all day.

I did get one good phone call, though.

My brother called.

My mother had called him not long after talking to me.

She never mentioned her call with me at all, but she did bring up that she’d “heard” he was here at the farm yesterday. Yes. Yes, he was, he told her. He’d dropped some stuff off, then checked on the hot water tank and the bathroom for us.

He had to distract her from jumping to all sorts of conclusions about that.

She brought up wanting him to come to put away her air conditioner for the winter, which he’d already said he was planning to do. He won’t be able do it until after Nov. 1, though. When he goes there, he has to plan to be there for several hours, and it’s really hard for him to carve out that much time in his schedule.

As they were talking, the topic of the roof came up and he was saying how great it was that it was done, and that it has a 25 yr warranty, and they’ll both be gone before when.

What do you mean, she wanted to know. Is he sick?

…

No… 25 years is a long time. The average life span for a male is 80 years, and lots can happen in 25 years.

That led to them talking about the message our vandal somehow managed to leave on my brother’s cell phone, and the terrible things he was saying about my brother and I. My brother even managed to even address how our vandal does and says all these terrible things, and she treats him so well, but my brother and I love her so much, and take care of her, but she treats us to cruelly. He even brought up how we are dealing with so many problems right now, and her response is to mess with us. Why is that?

She started to go into her usual justifications, on how she loves everyone equally, but he cut that off, because no. She doesn’t.

He’s not sure if he managed to get through to her, how illogical her behaviour in that respect it. Particularly when it came to her saying she would pay for the repairs, then backing off. My mother, however, is acting as though I’d asked her to pay for it, which I would never do. “Donations gratefully accepted”, as my late brother used to say, but help from my mother tends to come with a high price tag, and if there were any way we could get the repairs done without her help, we’d do it.

In the end, though, my brother assured me that my mother will keep her word about paying for the repairs. The amount isn’t all that much – for her, at least – and she’s thrown twice as much at our vandal, just because, before. More than once.

Mostly, though, he wanted to make sure I didn’t cancel the repair job!

I told him I wouldn’t.

So that, at least was a positive end to the day.

Well. Not that the day is over yet, but close enough!

Tonight, I think I’ll make sure to take some ibuprofen instead of my usual acetaminophen, and maybe make sure I’ve eaten enough salt with my meals, before going to bed!

I think an early bed time is a very good idea, today.

Tomorrow will be a better day.

The Re-Farmer

Can this day be over, please?

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

Good grief, what a day.

Right from the start, it was like everything was going wrong. Just little things, but so many of them!

Not everything was bad, though, so I’ll start with the cuteness.

Both water bowls were bone dry this morning, even though I topped the sun room one up last night.

I also chased a skunk out. The only reason I don’t think we had any racoons last night is because the water bowls were dry, but not dirty. The racoons always leave the water bowls so very dirty!

Of course, a dry water bowl is a warm spot, and the outside one was being taken advantage of by a cat I would really like to see more of. This is the one with one messed up eye, and he seemed to be warming his paws while I was putting the kibble out. He wasn’t sitting or lying in it, like I usually see other cats doing. Just standing in it. He didn’t run away while I put kibble in the tray under the water bowl house, either. When I came back with water, I watched him slowly, cautiously walk down the board we have as a ramp and move aside.

Meanwhile, I did a head count.

33! And I didn’t even see Sad Face anywhere! We’ve definitely got some strangers among us, but honestly, with some of the more feral cats that look so much alike, I really can’t tell which of them are new. Very few of them have distinctive features like one messed up eye.

After I finished with the water and went through the sun room to put away the container, I was very pleased to see One Eye in the sun room – that’s a first, that we’ve seen! He was moving slowly and cautiously, but he did not run off when I came in. Then, after I finished my rounds and came back to tie off the doors and go inside, I found him curled up on one of the cats beds, under the platform.

Before I started this, I did the evening feeding. He was still in the sun room and still moving about cautiously. I was actually able to reach out and put a hand on his back. He slunk away, but didn’t run away, which is very encouraging. The thermometer in the sun room was reading 18C/64F, so I do hope he comes back to enjoy the warmth, some cozy beds, food and water.

So that was one of the highlights of the day. I’ll take what I can get.

Among the things that went wrong today is, the toilet started acting up again. I was in the middle of doing several things at once, so the timing was frustrating! But I got it clear – I thought – cleaned up and went back to the other stuff I was doing.

One of those things was starting some pickled eggs for our Easter basket. I boiled more eggs than I was after, and only the ones that peeled the nicest got done. I ended up doing three different types; one with beet brine from our own pickled beets, one with turmeric and one with soy sauce. Those are now ready and sitting in the fridge until we put our basket together for blessing on Saturday. I won’t be taking it to church for blessing, since my mother gives me grief for having such a big basket. I should just have a tiny one, like hers. 🙄 So we will bless it ourselves.

Anyhow.

That got done little by little, with other things being chipped away at while waiting for the eggs to cool, then to cool down in cold water, etc. Finally, I was able to make myself some breakfast, which I ate in the cat free zone, aka: the living room.

Which is when my husband showed up to let me know that one of our daughters had been trying to plunge the toilet for the last 15 minutes.

I’m not sure what he expected me to do about it. He probably was just letting me know, but his timing really sucked! 😄

Once I was able to, I went into the basement to check on the septic pump. I know it’s supposed to take a long time for both tanks to fill, but between everyone’s water use, doing laundry, dishes and, of course, the phantom flush we still haven’t found the cause of, I know it’ll fill faster than typical. I turned it on only long enough to confirm I could here no water going through the pipe.

Meanwhile, my daughter used drain cleaner. We’ve got the “max gel” type that’s supposed to be able to handle the worst clogs, letting it sit for the maximum recommended time, and so on.

It didn’t work.

It will drain, eventually, but not enough for a proper flush.

Meanwhile, I still hadn’t been able to pick up more of that enzyme drain and pipe maintenance stuff that worked where the drain cleaner didn’t. The town where I knew they had some in stock is also where we went to get our taxes done last year, and we need to get those done so we can use my caregiver tax credit to pay for a plumber to clear the pipe that’s causing all these problems, and to get the pill switch replaced in the septic tank.

We just had one last thing to print out, from my husband’s medical insurance provider, which is not the same company that his disability payments come from. It used to be the same company, but his employer changed providers after he went on disability, so his disability payments still come from the original company, but his health care coverage is now with the new company.

So he logged on, found the information he needed, and tried to print it out.

The printer is in my “office” corner of my room, which is on wifi.

It didn’t work.

After trying several times, my husband finally saved it to pdf, put it on a thumb drive, and I tried to print it from my computer. Then we did it again, because the first file he saved was 22 pages! The correct file was only 4 pages.

Also, without health insurance, we would have paid over $8000 for my husband’s medications. That’s actually down from last year, since at least one of his meds, Ozempic, is now covered 100% by our province’s pharmacare program. His health insurance covers that one only for “reasonable dosages”. My husband’s dosage is so high, they won’t cover it. This is expensive stuff, even at lower doses. Gotta wonder about all those people taking it for weight loss!

But I digress.

So I open the file on my computer and try to print it out.

First, I kept getting “not responding”. Then it wouldn’t print, and just said “error.” What error? Who knows.

Now, I have printed things out since getting the new computer, and had no issue connecting to the printer at all. Now, suddenly, it just wouldn’t.

My older daughter came over to help out, since this printer is actually hers. We even tried to print direct from media, but for some reason, the option to print a pdf no longer exists! Just for photos. She kept trying with the printer, while I kept trying to figure things out in the settings on my computer.

Windows 11 really sucks.

Windows 11 control panel really sucks.

I tried troubleshooting it and, while it was going through that, a message popped up saying the troubleshooter has been moved and would soon not be available…

So… why was it even there as an option? And how are we supposed to troubleshoot something if we have to figure out how to find the new location for the troubleshooter it?

Not that it mattered. It “fixed” the problem, but in the control panel, it still just said “error” under the printer. Of course, we kept trying to print in between all these different things, and again, all it would do is tell us “error”.

Finally, I decided to try removing the printer, then adding it back.

Printer removed, select add device…

The computer couldn’t find it.

We went through so many different ways to try and add the printer back, but the computer just wouldn’t “see” it anywhere.

One of the options was “my computer is older. Help me find it” followed by a “next” button, but that didn’t work, either.

So we fussed with both the computer and the settings on the printers, and I kept trying again.

Then suddenly, it was there. The computer could “see” it!

I have no idea what I did that made the difference.

I didn’t care by then. I just selected it, and the computer installed and finally connected with the printer.

Then it was crunch time: would it actually print?

It did!

Sort of.

This time, I had a different problem. A problem I had the last time I tried to print something out.

The software printed on the page as if it were landscape, instead of portrait, squeezing everything to fit on one side.

It did this when I tried to print out a knit pattern for my daughter. No matter what I did to the settings, when it came time to print, it was turned the wrong way and squeezed to fit on side of the page.

After all this time fighting with it, I didn’t care anymore. The data could be read, and that was all I needed.

That done, I called the tax preparer and arranged to drop off our stuff, then finally headed out.

This town is about a half hour drive from us, so not too bad. The weather is nicer today, at least, though that wind is still brutal. At the tax place, I saw they had a drop box for all the people doing like we are; just leaving our stuff with them to work on later. We’ll get a call then they’re done. I’ll have to pick up the paperwork and bring it home for my husband to sign, but that’s the closest thing to a delay we’ll have.

Then it was off to the hardware store. I go here so rarely, I took advantage of it to just look around.

They have an excellent and well stocked canning section! 😁

When I got to the display I was looking for, I decided to get three bottles of the stuff. They had others for maintaining the tank itself, and even another brand of the drain and pipe maintenance stuff but, in the end, I stuck with what we already know works!

It’ll be so good when we can finally get a plumber to clear that pipe!

Then I kept wandering around the store. I did completely avoid the power tools section, though. Too many things there I want to buy! For me, being around power tools is a lot like going to a yarn store. I want to buy all the things! Power tools are a lot more expensive, though! 😄😂😄

It turns out it was a good thing I took my time. After I was all done and about to message my family to let them know I was about to head home, I found a message from one of my daughters. I’d used most of a flat of eggs for the pickled eggs, and she was letting me know she was about to finish the rest of them. So I made a quick stop at the grocery store for a dozen – I’ll be getting more at Costco tomorrow – and even remembered to grab some butter. I probably should have grabbed more; they house brand was on sale for $4.99, and not even Costco’s butter is that cheap. No surprise that they had a quantity limit! I decided to just get one, though.

When I got home and was pulling into the garage, I saw my younger daughter coming out. My husband had a prescription refill ordered for delivery, and they guy had just called to let us know he was close – something we requested, since our gate is usually closed and locked. So my daughter met him at the gate, and closed and locked it for me.

The girls kept fighting with the toilet while I was gone, and hadn’t had much luck. The honeypot was set up again! Since I got three bottles of the stuff, I want to use it in the drains for the tub, kitchen sink and laundry drain, too. For “slow drains”, the instructions say to use 8 oz, three days in a row. After that, daily maintenance is a couple of tablespoons, if I remember correctly.

Hopefully, it has done the job by now.

Excuse me while I go see if we are still stuck using the honeypot or not!

Well crud. Toni just puked a hairball on top of a sleeping Cheddar’s belly, on my bed. Who didn’t wake up until I cleaned the mess. At least he was on top of their big towel, and not directly on my bedding!

Ew.

I really want this day to be over!

The Re-Farmer

What a messed up, mixed up, day.

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I’m going to start this with some cuteness. I could really use some cuteness right now.

Not a very clear picture, but it was getting pretty dark and the time. This little sweetie is starting to actually enjoy being pet and even picked up, if only briefly.

Also, I’m very happy that he’s alive and unhurt.

I’ll have to explain that particular statement in a bit, but I’m rather unhappy right now.

I had called my mother last night and made arrangements to help her with her groceries today. At her request, I was going to pick up a hot lunch at the grocery store first, if they had them ready, so I left earlier and expected to be away for some hours.

They didn’t have the hot lunches, but I was still able to pick up a meal for us, and we had lunch together, then went over her grocery list. Grocery shopping by myself, with just her list, is a lot faster, and even got a bit more of a visit in before she left for a regularly scheduled social gathering some social workers arrange in her building. 

I hadn’t had much sleep the night before, having discovered a huge puddle on my bed and needing to do laundry in the wee hours! Once I was back home and settled, I tried lying down for a bit, on the half of my bed that wasn’t still air drying. Yes, I had the new waterproof mattress cover on, and yes, the puddle actually soaked through it in spots.

While I was lying down, I had my phone on the charger on my desk when it started making notification noises. I ignored them, partly because I was buried in cats. After a while, though, my husband came by, commenting on how surprised he was that no one commented on the photo he’s sent.

Before I left my mother’s, she gave me some stuff to take with me. One of them was a baggie of different types of candies and chocolates that the social workers give out to everyone in her building. The girls and I had split them up, with a few going to my husband, including some caramels.

The picture he’d sent was of a caramel.

This a crown stuck to it.

The candy had actually pulled it right off!

After talking about it briefly, my husband made a phone call to the dentist. It was shortly after 3, and they were willing to take him in right away, but with how long it takes to drive into down, it was too early. So they said to come in for 4.

I could hear his side of the conversation and, once I realized he was able to get in right away, I extricated myself from the cats and started getting ready to head out again. I drove the truck into the yard, then went to the sunroom, which had only the outer door tied off, so I could open it from the outside, to get his walker.

I reached in to untie the door, and it growled at me.

I opened the door, and there was a big white dog standing there, looking at me.

At first glance, I thought it was the dog belonging to the younger of my brothers, who lives on the quarter across from our driveway. He doesn’t come around anymore, so that was a surprise.

Then I realized, it was not my brother’s dog. First off, this dog was not as fluffy. My brother’s dog gets very fluffy in the winter. Also, this dog had very distinctive eyes; one blue, one half blue, half brown.

I stepped aside and the dog left the sunroom, but it didn’t go far. It was very nervous and wagging it’s tail, but it was the sort of “if I reach out, will he lick my hand, or bite it?” nervous behavior. I didn’t reach out to it, of course, but the dog did start barking at me.

I still had to get the walker, though, so I went into the sunroom. There, I found a few things knocked out of the shelf against the window and onto the floor under the platform. The only cat I saw was the little fluffy tortie, and she was clambering her way up the shelf to the very top. It wasn’t until I was outside with the walker, after picking some stuff back up again, that I saw there was another cat already up there. They were watching me – and the dog – out the window.

The dog was still barking as I got the walker set up. My daughters, of course, came out to see what was going on, so while I fussed with the walker, they were on the other side of the kibble and water bowl shelters, and able to see what I missed.

A cat, lying dead in one of the paths in the snow leading to the food bowls under the shrine.

It was the single calico cat among last summer’s kittens. We’ve never been able to socialize her, but she was a talkative one and would always greet me when I came out to feed them. 

I had to confirm that she was dead, of course, and she had clearly not been gone for long. I was able to move her to where she will later be cremated, and I’m sure that if I’d touched her with my bare hands, she would still have been warm. 

Needless to say, that dog was no longer welcome. 

We did some banging around and commended him to go home, but he just ran around the house. I chased him away some more, and he eventually ran out of the yard.

We were all quite unhappy with the situation.

My husband, meanwhile, had come out of the house and was in the truck. We needed to get going. We left the girls to take care of things, including locking the gate behind us, so we could get to the dentist. 

It was just 4:00 as we came through the doors!

They got my husband in quickly and, while I waited for him, I posted a message on an FB page for our community, as well as on my personal profiles (since recovering my stolen original account, I still keep both old and new accounts active), about the dog, what happened, and our general location.

We did have a bit of a surprise at the dentist.

They already had a file for my husband.

Neither one of us remember him going to the dentist since we moved out here, but apparently they have him on file for 2021. 

I was in the process of messaging my daughters to update them when my husband came out.

He was done.

When he made the appointment, they asked him to bring in the broken off crown. It turns out, all they needed to do was cement it back on again! 

Then it was time to pay the bill. They do direct billing with the insurance company, but when they tried to process the payment, they got a message to get the new card information. There had been some changes within the system and we got new cards, but they had the exact same information on them. In fact, they sent us new cards twice, because of some other issue. I had both older cards, plus the newest on, in my wallet, so we were able to look at all three to compare.

They all had identical information on them.

Rather than fuss with it then, the receptionist said they’d clear it up with the insurance company, then bill use the rest later.

I remembered to ask how much it was, and it came out to $190. Our coverage is 90%, so we won’t have much to pay at all, when the time comes.

Since we were in town anyhow, my husband suggested we get something to eat. Clearly, his mouth was feeling just fine!

So we went to small restaurant nearby, and I was a very rude person, frequently checking my phone. There had been a number of reactions to my posting about the dog and what happened.

Then I started getting some private messages. A friend and neighbour sent me a picture of a dog. I couldn’t tell if it was the same dog, though. It had its fluffy winter fur, for starters, but I couldn’t make out the colour of the eyes. I asked about the eyes, and my friend said it was his brother’s dog (they live on the same quarter section), but he wasn’t sure about the eyes.

Then he sent me another picture. This time, it was a summer picture, so the dog’s fur was sleek. More importantly, it was a clear shot of the dog’s face – complete with porcupine quills in its snout!

Once I saw the eyes, though, it was confirmed. This was the dog that we found at our place.

We messaged back and forth a bit, and he gave me his brother’s phone numbers.

When we were done eating, and getting some take out for the girls, we headed straight home. The light was fading fast, so as soon as I parked the truck, I wandered around the house to see what I could see. Which was nothing obvious, but it was really getting too dark by then.

While we were out, our daughters kept an eye out for the dog, and did the evening feeding of the outside cats. A few of the cats had started to come back, including some friendlies that wanted pets. 

The sunroom doors were also secured with both doors tied off, and tightly. There would be enough room for cats to squeeze into the sunroom, but no dog is getting in there!

My husband took his walker in through the main doors and is now storing it in the entry, in front of the washing machine, again. It’s more in the way, there, but we can’t get into the sunroom from outside anymore, when both doors are tied off like that.

Once things were settled indoors, I went through the old kitchen to go to the sunroom. There were only 3 cats in there; the fuzzy black one in the photo above, Syndol and one of the white and greys that’s really friendly. When I had been walking around outside, I did see a few cats around, but they were understandably very nervous and quick to run off. I did see Rolando Moon as we drove into the yard, and Brussel by the garage, plus a few more identifiable ones. It won’t be until tomorrow morning that I’ll be able to try and get a head count and take a good look around.

Meanwhile, I did phone the guy the dog belongs to. He had already been told what happened by my friend, and was in total shock. When he got home from work, the dog was at home and everything seemed normal. Plus, this is a dog that is not prone to wandering, even when chasing deer out of the yard. The dog looks like it’s part Pyrenees, and they like to guard their own territory. That he should wander to another farm a mile away, then kill a cat, is extremely odd behaviour. 

Had my husband not had to go to the dentist unexpectedly, I wouldn’t have gone out for at least another hour, to do the evening cat feeding. I would have found the sun room half trashed and almost devoid of cats, and I would have found that little calico in the path, and never known what happened – and the dog’s owner would never have known his dog had wandered off.

As we were talking, one of the things he asked me is if we had a BB gun or pellet gun. We do have a pellet gun. I have permission to use it to scare the dog off.

Which is unlikely to happen. I don’t typically carry it with me when I do my rounds! 

To be honest, though, I was thinking thoughts about having our crossbow handy.

I am seriously unhappy.

We are dog lovers in this household, but a dog that’s a killer is a different situation altogether.

Hopefully, we will never see it again.

I’m going to miss seeing that gorgeous little calico. 

Oh, and jus to top things off, I’ve wrenched my shoulder. When the dog had gone around the back of the house, and my daughter could see it through the sunroom window, in the old kitchen garden, I went around to chase him off. Right now, instead of a rain barrel at the corner, we have the diverter set up. It extends as far as the hand rail with the rose bush growing at it, near the steps for the laundry platform. With how warm things have been lately, there’s been a lot of melted snow from the roof that flowed onto the ground in the space between the handrail and the laundry platform, and towards the cat shelter.

The very space I needed to go through, to get to the old kitchen garden.

It was, of course, very slippery. I used the hand rail to keep myself upright, but still came very close to falling a couple of times. I didn’t think I’d hurt myself, but the more time goes by, the stiffer my shoulders are getting. My right shoulder, in particular, is getting so that it’s painful to move, or raise my arm at all. I’m going to have to pain killer up if I’m going to get any sleep tonight!

What a messed up day today has been.

The Re-Farmer

Good grief

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

Who knew wanting to do a fondue for New Years would be so difficult? Or that I would be doing so much running around this year!

After searching online, I decided to go to the nearest Canadian Tire, as the website said they had the gel fuel I needed in stock.

Of course, I walked right past the display and missed it, until an employee told me exactly where it was.

I was confused by the website description saying the fuel I got was a liquid gel fuel suitable for the burners we have, so when I got home, I double checked.

*sigh*

Another reason I hate using my phone as a computer. I so look forward to having my desktop again!

It turned out the three images in the listing were not three different views of the same product, as is typical. It was three different versions of the same product. The liquid fuel I bought, the liquid gel fuel, and the gel fuel.

The photo on the website for the gel fuel did not have the big blue box on the label, like in the above photo.

So I was reading a different description for products with almost identical labels.

Apparently, the one I got is suitable for cheese or chocolate fondue.

The prices were all the same, though, so it was a straight exchange. That part went smoothly.

After that, I still needed the dry white wine, but the liquor store I knew about was next to a Safeway, so I went there to look at their cheese selection.

Yes, I did find Swiss cheese.

I also had a slight heart attack over the price! The smallest block was still over $17!

Then I noticed the display above.

There was ready-made cheese fondue sauce.

For only $12.

The ingredients differ from our recipe slightly. We don’t have potato starch, but the recipe calls for either flour or cornstarch as a thickener. I have never seen kirsch in my life, so that would have been skipped, but it is an optional ingredient in our recipe. “Spices” is vague, but we would use whatever we have in our cupboard. Sodium phosphate is not in the recipe, of course, but it’s just a salt compound used as an emulsifier.

I had actually been trying to find this in all my shopping, and never did until today. If I’d found it before, I would have bought three, and we would have saved quite a bit of money!

I just got the one, though, as a back up.

I hadn’t had breakfast yet, so I also got a little thing of hot chicken strips with potato wedges, and a drink. Plus, I found some stir fry pork that I also got for the oil fondue.

My next stop was the liquor store. After going through the first set of doors, I was confused when the second set wouldn’t open. Then I realized there was a woman’s voice calling to me.

She was seated behind a plexiglass barrier. I had to slide my photo ID through a slot for her to scan before she let me in. I’ve never had to do this before, so I had to ask. Turns out, they had a major problem with theft, so now they don’t let anyone in without scanning ID first!

People really suck, sometimes.

But not here! She was really nice. Once inside, I started looking at the wine section for the Canadian wines. An employee saw me and offered to help. I told him I was looking for a dry white wine, and he asked if it was for drinking or for cooking. I told him it was for a fondue. He got quite happy and recommended a dry riesling, which is what he always uses for fondue. I was quite tickled to find someone that actually does fondue; not a lot of people do, anymore.

He then led me right to the Canadian wine section and to his preferred riesling.

The price was right, so I got two!

Of course, I looked around as I made my way to pay for it. There are so many interesting drinks I’d like to try. One display caught my attention, though. It was a beer display, and the cans had a bison on it. I half saw the name, which immediately made me think of a particular Polish vodka I haven’t seen in years, Zubrowka, that uses bison grass.

The beer turned out to be called Zubr, which means bison, and yes, it is from Poland. I just looked it up. Turns out it’s a lager that has been brewed, under a different name, since 1768!

As I waited in line, the guy who helped me earlier came over to open another till, so he rang me through. As we chatted, I told him I don’t care for beer, myself, but my daughters like beer, so I got it for them to try. He said it was quite good. I hope they do like it. I can’t remember if they like lagers. I do know they don’t care for IPAs, but that’s all I can remember.

So that went well enough.

I remembered that my husband needed distilled water for his CPAP humidifier. Since it was on the way, I decided to stop at the Walmart.

Out of curiosity, I also looked for the gel fuel, since I was pretty sure I saw it at this location before, but found nothing.

Nor did I find distilled water! All I could find was spring water, which can’t be used in the humidifier.

After a while, I snagged an employee with a pallet jack. I figured he might have at least seen the display, or even filled it.

He didn’t know, but after parking his pallet, he went looking for me. Then he found another employee with a phone and tried looking it up. They spoke for a while, though not in English, so I had no idea what they were saying. Their final conclusion, though, was to check the pharmacy section. I mentioned I did check there, but I may have missed it.

The guy then went with me to the pharmacy section and found another employee there to ask. This guy came over and explained why I wasn’t finding it.

The distilled water was under recall. !!! Something about the plastic. They had a whole pallet in the back they weren’t allowed to sell.

Well, now!

Of course, I’d found a couple of things we needed while looking for the water, so I paid for those. I decided to take a different route home, to hit the town near us, and try the grocery store there, which carries a different brand, then gas up and go home.

Once at the store, I went straight to where they have their distilled water and…

The shelves were empty, except for a couple jugs of spring water.

I snagged an employee. He went to check in the back and came out with a jug.

With all the trouble I’ve been having, I asked if there was more available. He asked how many I wanted, and I asked for 3 more. He went back, then returned with a case of four for me! The one he brought first went straight onto shelf. Lol

Finally! All done!

Of course, I got something extra, too. There were Christmas chocolates at half price, so I got three boxes. Most of the sales on Christmas stock has been things like only 50 cents off.

With all that driving around, I burned quite a bit of gas. I’d chosen where I went in the city so I could fill up at Costco. If I’d known then, how much trouble – and how expensive! – everything would be, I would have gone to the nearer city and found everything I needed, burned less gas, and saved money in the long run.

Ah, well.

At least we’ll know better, for the next time we do fondue!

The Re-Farmer

[Edited for autocorrect typos. I hate blogging on my phone!]

Well, it’s a good thing we cleaned up the outhouse

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Oy vey.

It’s past midnight as I write this, and it has suddenly become a rather unpleasant night!

I was returning from the bathroom when, while walking past the old basement door, I heard a splashing sound I should not have been hearing, so I went down to take a look.

The septic backed up again.

The pipe with the P trap was full to the top, and water backed up into the laundry sink to the point of overflowing. Thankfully, we don’t really use this basement much, because the water has spread pretty far. Thankfully, whatever caused it to back up happened relatively recently; the last major use of water was a load of laundry, and greywater seems to be most of what I was looking at down there.

I’ve already arranged for the septic guy to come over tomorrow morning. Getting that done was actually in the budget for next month, which means we would have had it done at the next of next week, when my husband’s disability payment came in on Thursday.

Once the tank is empty, I can see what I can do about unclogging the pipes. I am guessing it is the same sort of thing that happened last time. If that turns out to not be it, we’ll have to call in a plumber.

*sigh*

The last time this happened, we were able to set up a honey pot in the bathroom until we could use the toilet again. We don’t have it anymore; I took it over to my mother’s when we found out she was having mobility issues getting to the bathroom at night. We did, however, get the outhouse cleaned up, and made the entry safe to use. So we do have an alternative.

There’s a bit of a new issue, though.

Once we determined that we would have to use the outhouse, I grabbed the flashlight, some cleaning supplies and toilet paper to set it up. It’s been a while since I’ve gone in there, so I wanted to sanitize the seating area. When I opened the toilet lid to clean it, however, things looked… different. When I was cleaning it out before, I made a point of checking underneath, and saw the contents were composted and level from being flooded out by melting snow over the years. It needed to be emptied, but not in any urgent way.

It’s now full.

Of gravel.

After shining the flashlight around, I was able to spot a small hole.

It looks like a groundhog made a den entry leading under the floor boards, filling much of the space under the seat with gravel.

*sigh*

So that’s going to have to be all dug out. It can be accessed from the back of the outhouse, but not very easily.

*sigh*

It’s been a while since we’ve seen the groundhogs; I’ve seen one, once, a couple of weeks ago or so, and that’s it. They no longer visit the bird seed, and we no longer see them around the yard. It seems early, but they seem to have gone into hibernation already.

I suppose it’s good to find this out now, and not in the middle of winter or something.

I am not looking forward to having to clean up the mess in the basement.

Again.

The Re-Farmer

Delivery Fail, and coming unhinged

/ Re-Farmer / 10 Comments

We’ve had ourselves a chillier morning today! Light snow, and bitterly cold winds from the south is what greeted me this morning, when I went out to do my rounds.

Kitty loaf is not impressed.

It does look pretty, though!

Switching out the micro disk cards on the new trail cam has gotten somewhat easier. The micro disk itself has become easier to take in and out; it isn’t as “sticky” as it was at the start. As long as I have enough of a thumbnail to push the card in, to either latch of unlatch it, it’s not too bad. :-D

When I open up the camera, I switch it from On to Set Up, first. The screen turns on, and that’s when I can see if the cold is an issue. If the screen is mostly blank and barely lit up, the camera is too cold. I’ve found I can use my hands to warm it up enough that the screen will start working. Which, on days like today, can be rather hard on the hands! Thankfully, it only takes about half a minute. Then I can switch the memory card and see if there are any issues.

When I got the camera, I got 2 micro discs along with it. I just ordered the recommended ones, not really noticing that one of them was actually a pack of 2. Those are the ones I’ve been using. The problem is, when I switch cards, the camera wants me to format the new card, every time, after giving me a message that the card is “incompatible.” So all those days when I found nothing on the card, it was partly because I couldn’t see the screen and missed these messages. Once the card was formatted in the camera, it worked fine. It didn’t matter if I’d already formatted it on my computer.

I shouldn’t have to do that every morning.

Last night, I dug up the extra card, formatted it on my computer, and used that, this morning.

The camera had no problem with it. No messages, and no need to format the card in the camera!

The cheaper cards were the problem.

On mentioning this to my husband, he dug around and gave me one of his extra Micro SD cards to use. It’s a 64 gig card. WAY more than needed. The other cards were 32 gigs, and even at highest resolution while set to take both photo and video, I could probably leave the card for a week and still have room to spare. The main thing is that the card won’t need to be formatted every morning. It’s even the same brand as the new one I put in this morning, so it should be fine. I’ll know for sure when I switch cards tomorrow morning.

It still doesn’t solve the problem of the camera not really working when the temperatures dip. Once it gets cold enough, it simply stops recording. It does start up again on its own, when the temperatures rise. This is frustrating, because in all other respects, I really love this new camera! But all the features I love about it are useless if the camera simply stops working when it’s cold. At least we have the second camera that keeps working. With that one, the cold is only an issue for the batteries, not the camera itself. As long as it can get any juice out of the batteries, it will keep chugging along.

Ah, the things we have to put up with, because of one person we can’t trust.

A few days ago, my husband got a phone call. There were two things odd about this. First, the call went to his cell phone. Being in a dead zone, any time a cell phone rings is downright startling. Second, the call turned out to be from Fed Ex. They had a package for him, and needed our physical address.

As near as we can figure, this was something my husband ordered back in November. After all this time, he’s actually already got a refund on it. He had been expecting it in the mail, too. Fed Ex doesn’t do box numbers!

So he called the number back using the land line and, after being on hold for about 45 minutes, finally got through to someone. After giving our physical address, he gave them precise directions on how to find us. The person he talked to even looked us up on Google maps and did eventually figure out where we were. Just inputting our physical address hadn’t worked! He then let them know about the locked gate, so they said they would send an email in advance, letting us know the package was on the way from the city.

We got that email, telling us delivery would be made yesterday. So when I went out to do my rounds, I unlocked the gate and left it open.

The last time we did that for the washing machine repairman, the gate was open only half an hour, and our vandal showed up and tried to break it again. So we were pretty uncomfortable having that gate open, but we also didn’t want the package to just be left in the snow in the driveway, either. We kept a close eye on the security camera’s live feed!

Then my husband let me know that we could close the gate up again. He just received an email. Apparently, FedEx couldn’t find us, so they weren’t going to deliver the package. They wanted us to call about getting it.

Which means, they would expect us to drive to wherever their warehouse is in the city, to pick up a package they’ve been paid to deliver to us.

I don’t think my husband plans to call back. There is no way we’re going to make the trip. UPS found us, no problem. FedEx can figure it out, too. Even when we were living in the city, we’ve had issues with them. They would actually leave notices on our door, saying no one answered when they knocked, but we had been home and no one knocked.

I was just happy to be able to close and lock the gate. No sign of our vandal, either!

Later in the afternoon, I did take advantage of the slightly warmer day to go get the mail and pick up some more deer feed and bird seed. We’d run out of both, that morning.

One of the things I’ve noticed when heading outside to do my rounds, is that our door has been making an increasingly horrible noise. The inner doors in the “new” part of the house are still the originals, and they are wooden, hollow core doors, not insulated steel doors, as are available today. These doors are heavier than interior doors, so I do think they have some sort of insulation inside them, but I really don’t know.

The “front” door, facing the spruce grove, almost never gets used, so aside from needing to put insulation between it and the storm door in the winter, to keep frost from building up at the bottom, inside the house, it’s fine. The door we actually use all the time is not doing so well! The house shifts with the seasons, so it’s not really a surprise that the door is scrapping the door jam now, and we can hear the wood of the door splitting and cracking at the bottom. So I’ve taken to lifting the door as I close it, to reduce the noise.

How much the door lifts was quite a surprise, so when I had the chance, I took a closer look.

*sigh*

The door is coming off its hinges.

This morning, I snagged my husband to help me tighten the hinges. This is the top one.

It’s hard to see in the picture, but the screw heads are even slightly bent!

Of course, with the top hinge being so loose, the middle one is, too.

Thankfully, the bottom one is still solid, but that won’t last long if these ones get any worse.

There is a built in closest near the door, so it can’t be opened all the way. My husband held it open as much as he could for me to be able to fit the screwdriver in place. Normally, I would just open the storm door, but between the cold and the cats, that wasn’t an option. While my husband lifted the door and held it in place, I tightened the screws.

As I did so, I could tell this wasn’t going to work. The screws were barely catching on anything. Still, I hoped to at least get it a bit tighter than before.

*sigh*

As soon as my husband released the door, not only did it drop, but some of the wood split above the top hinge.

I reached up with my phone to get this picture.

In the photos, you can see there are cracks in the wood of the door frame, too.

We knew the front door needed to be replaced, and were already thinking we would replace the entire frame, too. I just didn’t think we’d need to do it because the door is falling right off the hinges!

Theoretically, we can install hinges in different locations, and that would tide us over until we can replace the door and frame completely. Given how loose the door is, we might not have a choice. Even if we had the money for a door kit now, we wouldn’t want to install it in the winter. Because you just KNOW something will do wrong and it’ll take forever to do! :-D My brother recently replaced one of the doors of his house, and he used a door kit, with two doors and the frame, as we would be doing here. Everything was standard sized, so it should have been a simple switch. It wasn’t, and it took him days to get it installed properly! I don’t think our doors are standard sized, so I don’t expect anything to do smoothly.

This is something were I would much rather hire someone to install it, rather than doing it ourselves. It would cost more, of course, but would be worth every penny.

*sigh*

Another thing on the list that just became a higher priority.

The Re-Farmer

New toys, and this is un-flippin’ real!! :-D

/ Re-Farmer / 6 Comments

Okay, first the fun stuff.

I made a much delayed trip to the post office (using my face shield for the first time).

There were several packages waiting for me, including one that had these – being guarded by a Susan!

That gouge will allow me to carve much deeper than the curved blade of the sloyd knife in my carving kit. I have a couple of practice pieces in mind before I try carving a cup or small bowl, with some maple and apple wood pieces ready and waiting to try.

Besides the gouge, there is a sharpening kit for curved blades, including polishing compound. The other side of it has a matching recessed area, and the sandpaper can be affixed to it using 2 pieces of wood that slide out.

I look forward to using it to sharpen my sloyd knife!

Then there was the other thing in the mail.

The thing I had to sign for.

The return address was our vandal, so I knew I was being served… something. But what could he come up with?

When I opened it and figured out what it was, all I could do was laugh. What an abuse of the court’s time!!!

Our vandal is claiming a number of items around the property, in the amount of $13,000. I actually can’t tell if he’s asking for the stuff, or if he want’s the money. Probably the money. I’ve already sent a copy of it to my lawyer. (My Legal Shield membership, paying off again!)

Here’s the thing.

We don’t own the property or anything on it. When we moved here, my mother said we could use anything on it as if it were our own, but also made it VERY clear, that she was still the owner and called the shots. I’ve also gone out of my way to make that line of owner ship clear, even as we talk generically about “our house” our “our place”. It’s “ours” in that we live here, but we do not own any of it.

What’s on the farm, belongs to the farm, so now that the property belongs to my brother, it’s his. We have the same deal with him as we did with our mother. He knows this, because he contacted my brother to get written permission to go onto the property for “lumber” he says he paid for. Except there is no “lumber”. Unless you count the scrap and salvaged wood, all of which is damaged in some way. Lumber is one of the things listed. I have no idea what he believes is still in that barn!

On top of that, with a number of things listed, I don’t even know what he’s talking about. Others, it could be any of a number of things. It’s pretty vague. Still others are just laughable. Like the TV. He’s never claimed ownership of the TV before. I supposed it’s possible that he bought it for my late father, but if he did, it was a gift, and ownership went to my mother when my dad died.

So he’s demanding (most likely) $13,000 cash from me, for mostly junk, when I don’t even claim ownership of any of it in the first place. Besides, if I had that kind of money, we’d have a new roof by now.

There is, however, one final kicker. I have an email I sent to him, more than a year and a half ago, where I told him that if he wanted to take stuff he was claiming (some of which I already confirmed was never his), he could do so – after providing proof of ownership. He never responded. He couldn’t. He has no proof of ownership.

There is a court date, by teleconference, in February, but I’ve got 20 days to file a response.

What a flippin’ joke!

The Re-Farmer

The kibble house is working – and creeper is creeping again

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It started to snow last night, and continued all night. Where we live, it was still a light now – other areas got much more – but it was enough to be a test for the kibble house!

The inside is completely free of snow. :-)

Unfortunately, three of the containers were on the ground – you can see the patch of grass on the left, where one of them ended up. It is most likely the skunks doing this.

I might add a narrow board across the front to try and prevent that. As long as the floor boards can slide under it, that should work fine.

The heated water bowl was still plugged in. :-D There was almost no water left, though, so we had some thirsty, as well as hungry, kitties!

While doing my rounds and heading to the trail cams, I noticed this.

Though a light layer of snow covered the paw prints enough that I couldn’t make out what they looked like, I can be pretty sure that this trail was left by a skunk. They are low enough to the ground that their belly fur would leave that wider trail in the snow. :-D

Once I was done my rounds outside, I settled in to check the trail cam files.

I have since called the RCMP.

Our vandal was back.

Between the still shots from one camera, and the video from the other, I have about half an hour documented. While the appliance repair guy was here, the gate was left open. Our vandal showed up in the driveway, going from side to side for a while, before moving the two sides of the gate. The video picked him up stepping in to grab one side of the gates that was open to the inside, pulling it all the way to the outside, then reefing on it. Because of where the hinges are set in the post, when opened all the way to the outside, the gate can hit the post. After repairing the damage our vandal did last time, and repainting the gates, I added pieces of pool noodle to cushion the gate. This way, even if the wind blows the gates all the way open to the outside, the foam slows the swing down, and they bounce gently, rather than slamming, metal against metal. It also reduces stress on the new hinges. So when he reefed on the gate, the foam protected it, but with his pushing it so hard, there is only so much the foam can do to reduce the stress on the hinges. (At this point, there does not appear to be any damage.)

The files then show him going back and forth a few more times, before we can see the appliance guy leaving and me locking the gate up. There is, however, a 14 minute gap, where there is nothing to show where he was or what he was doing; all I can say is, he wasn’t in front of the cameras to trigger the motion sensors.

I remember as I walked to the gate, seeing how the two sides of the gate were positioned and thinking it was the wind again. It was odd with the one side, because I’d deliberately left it open as far as it could swing, which means it was in the fence and on the old tire I’ve got as a bumper. That side is the one that the wind blows around the most, but not so much when it’s open all the way. Now I know it wasn’t the wind at all!

So I called the RCMP as soon as I was able, and started a new file. The person I spoke to went over my options with me, and gave me the name of the constable that would be calling me back about it. I then looked up and called the nearest court where I can start the process to get a restraining order (there are several types available, one of which includes damage to property), leaving a message. This is also where I would be going to start the process for a psychiatric assessment.

While I was writing this, the constable called me back. We talked about our options again, and after going over the past files, he didn’t feel that pressing charges of mischief again would be the most productive. If I did do that, they would arrest him, file charges against them, then let him go and the whole process that happened last time would happen again. That the charges were stayed after he’d finished whatever program he went through, the constable felt that this was highly likely to happen again. Obviously, it didn’t work last time. However, as long as there were charges against him, I would effectively have a restraining order, and would not have to apply for one. I could still apply for a psychiatric assessment through the courts, but if I did, a judge would throw out the charges, since basically he would be viewed as not responsible for his actions, and I would no longer have any protections.

One main difference between the restrictions he’d be placed under if I press charges, as opposed to getting a restraining order, is that with charges, he’d still be keeping his guns. With a restraining order, there is enough documented justification for his guns to be seized, and he would be required to stop drinking alcohol, which is another big part of the problem. I could apply for a psychiatric assessment, and it would not affect the restraining order the way it could with pressing charges.

So for now, I will wait until I talk to the court clerk before making a decision, but it looks like the most effective route to take is to apply for both the restraining order and a psychiatric assessment. And I’m far more interested in our vandal getting help for his mental health issues than I am in getting him arrested.

*sigh*

While we have seen him on the cameras doing things like walking to the gate and giving the finger to the cameras, or slowing down as he drives by to peer down the driveway, etc., this is the first time we’ve seen him come to the gate while it was open like this. Which means we now cannot open the gate and leave it unattended to let people like the appliance repair guy drive in and out. We now know that, if our vandal happens by and sees the gate open, he will do things.

This is so tiresome.

At times like this, I wish we lived even more remotely than we already do!

The Re-Farmer

Unexpected

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Oh, what a day this turned out to be. I’m looking at the time and wondering why it’s not several hours later, because this day has felt much longer than normal!

But first, I share the pleasantly unexpected thing.

As I finished up my outdoor morning routine and headed for the house, I noticed something white in the window of the cat house.

Plus, something moving in the shadows behind!

Unfortunately, my coming closer startled the cats. You can just see a hind leg of mystery kitten, who dashed out as I got closer. Little Braveheart was still in the window, and I was pretty sure it was Tabby that I saw in the shadows.

Then, the Creamsicle emerged!

Creamsicle was the first cat I saw checking out the new shelter, and I’ve seen Tabby lounging in the window. I’ve seen other kittens coming out from under it, but this is the first time I’ve seen Mystery or Braveheart inside, and the first time I’ve seen more than one cat in there. This is very encouraging. I know, in past winters, even cats that didn’t get along would still join the pile on the swing bench to keep warm, but it’s still great to see some confirmation that they can use the new space peacefully together.

What I am really hoping to see if Butterscotch’s babies going in there! They are so much smaller and younger, they are the most as risk from the coming cold. Weather Canada is forecasting a long fall and late starting winter, though. I hope they are right, because I’ve also seen forecasts for an early, long and bitterly cold winter coming up.

Meanwhile, the predicted rains last night turned out to be a brief but wicked thunderstorm, complete with driving rain, thunder, lightning, high winds and – no surprise – losing our internet. Thankfully, we did not lose power. As I write this, in the early evening, we’re still at a very warm 25C/77F!

Among the things I needed to do today was head into town and pick up my husband’s prescription refills. Even with a box of insulin, thanks to his excellent private insurance plan, the grand total is rarely more than $100. Last month, his refills happened to include both his injections and needles, and for the first time since things got messed up with his restricted painkillers, his bubble packs had all of his medications in them. So it was quite a shock, but not too unexpected, for the cost to be closer to $300. This time, it should have been less.

It was more. The total was almost $400.

At this time of the month, I simply didn’t have that. The cashier started checking the slips for me and noted that not all of them had the 3rd party payment (what the insurance company pays) on them. With 16 medications, it added up fast.

So I got her to suspend the sale while I stepped aside to look through the slips and then, if necessary, transfer funds from our emergency account. I was perplexed, though. What changed?

I went back to the pharmacists and asked if anything new had been added. The pain clinic doctor was supposed to call our regular doctor and talk medications. Our doctor said that he would fax any new prescriptions directly to the pharmacy. Could that be what happened?

Nope. Nothing was changed. However, according to what was showing up on the computer, we had reached our limit with the insurance company for medications.

Our what???

This has never happened before.

In the end, the pharmacist took back the printed out slips and told me to just take the medications, and come back after we cleared it up with the insurance company. They would rebill the amount then.

Yes. The pharmacy let me walk away with hundreds of dollars of medications without paying for them! Her comment was “we know you’ll come back.” Which is true. There’s no risk to them, since we are regulars, but still… that’s a lot of money walking out the door!

The next several hours was spent alternating between my husband and myself on the phone, with him calling the insurance company first.

In a nutshell, because we now live in a province that has Pharmacare – a provincially run government insurance program – the insurance company covers the cost of the deductible, then stops paying out because the system then covers the rest – but the system didn’t kick in.

As far as I knew, when we sent in an application for Pharmacare, shortly after moving here, we didn’t get accepted. I remember getting a letter asking for my tax information from 2015, when no such information was asked for on the form (my husband and I were both on the one form). I remember getting another letter since then that was basically a giant word salad and, as far as I could make out, we didn’t qualify. So I assumed we did not have it.

The insurance company’s limit on the deductible was only $1500. I called the pharmacy and talked to someone there who looked up my husband’s file, and they’d actually paid out almost $2000, so we were well past the limit. Most confusing of all, according to what she was seeing, is that we were approved for Pharmacare. We had it. But it didn’t kick in when it should have.

She gave me the number to call and find out why.

It turned out our Pharmacare deductible was actually over $3000. Which meant we were on the hook for the rest. The guy I spoke to said we should have gotten a letter back in the spring with the deductible amount. That would have been the letter that I understood as telling us we didn’t actually qualify. He said he would mail us a new one, which our insurance company would probably want to see.

Also, two of my husband’s medications (one of which is the pain killer that comes in slow and quick release forms) are not covered by Pharmacare at all.

My husband then called the insurance company back. Sure enough, once they have the proof in hand, they will adjust the limit to match what our deductible.

I called the pharmacy back and explained it to them, and they are fine with our coming back after all this was done, so they could re-bill the insurance company, and we would be paying only whatever was left. How long that takes depends on how quickly the letter gets to us in the mail (after that, my husband can just email a copy to the insurance company), which could take more than a week.

Our pharmacy is awesome!

If we were living in a province without Pharamacare, this would never have happened. What I don’t understand is why this didn’t happen last year! I guess the new medications my husband was put on after his stay in the hospital was enough to kick it over this year, but he was put on them late enough in the year last year, that it wasn’t an issue.

By the time this was all figured out, my husband and I were both completely drained.

The rest of the day’s plans went out the window.

It’s time to de-stress!

The Re-Farmer