A few more steps forward.

February 26, 2018April 1, 2023 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Well, I got a couple of things accomplished to move us forward today. This morning, I had a consultation with my lawyer about the Co-op situation. I’ve been consulting with a lawyer about their actions against me for some time, but I really thought that would be over with, now that we’re no longer living there. *sigh*

The next thing was certainly more positive. I had to go in to town for a prescription refill for my husband today and FINALLY remembered to grab the information the pharmacy needed to be able to transfer my prescriptions from our old pharmacy over. I could have done it by phone, but just never remembered during business hours. I haven’t been taking my meds since I ran out before Christmas. Reduction in stress meant I was already reducing my doses, anyhow. My goal is to get off them completely, but with the Co-op BS still hanging over my, that’s going to be a bit more difficult. Still, any progress is better than no progress!

Today was baking day for the girls, and this time they made “piggies in a blanket” by wrapping ropes of our usual sourdough bread around hot dog wieners and baking them. It works well for a treat every now and then. :-)

With how warm it’s going to be for the next while, the girls and I are planning on getting things moved out to the shed again soon. Which means back to packing up more of my mother’s things that we’ve been ignoring until we could actually get them out. If all goes well, we’ll finally get 3 more dressers out of the way (my parents seemed to collect dressers!), and once a weird little nook beside the old kitchen is clear, we can FINALLY move the cat litter out of the corner of the dining room and into its permanent spot! We’ll be able to clear out some stuff that got shoved into the sunroom, too – it’ll be nice to be able to open the door all the way again, when we go in for the cat kibble and deer feed. Once spring has reached a point that everything is dry outside – at least near the house – we will empty the entire room, clean it out and set it up to suit our own uses. I have a few ideas the room can be used for, along with just enjoying the room itself. My dad used to love sitting in there. His walker is still there. I’ll be hanging on to that, just in case. There have been more than a few times when I’ve wished I’d had one handy for my own use, given how my knees and metatarsals tend to dislocate unexpectedly. That’s always fun. Not.

The Re-Farmer

Sometimes, it’s the “bad” photos that are my favourites. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Out Our Window this Morning

February 23, 2018February 23, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Things got busy quite early this morning. :-)

After putting out more feed, the grosbeaks, redpolls and chickadees were in in full force.

Then they all disappeared, en masse.

Why?

Hmmm. Could be the big orange Rolando Moon that came sauntering by.

Followed by Nasty Crime Boy.

Then Beep Beep.

Beep Beep was kind enough to pose for a picture.

Butterscotch came by, too. For a while, we had at least 3 or 4 cats, just hanging around.

It didn’t take much for the birds to come back.

Including this beauty.

Male Downy Woodpecker

I finally got some good shots of the male downy woodpecker. Look at those bright red spots! And those fuzzy little bits at its beak. So pretty.

He would be on the tree trunk (that tree is dead and among the ones we need to clear out out our spruce grove), drilling away, then he’d go down to the seeds, pick up a few, fly back to the tree trunk to peck away some more, then back to the seeds.

He was soon joined by the other birds.

Male pine grosbeak

It wasn’t long before the birds were chased away again, this time by Hungry Girl and Barbecue.

They are still really skittish, but have calmed down enough that I got a few good photos before they dashed off.

I think they have opinions about that.

Hungry Girl, sticking her tongue out at me again!

*giggle*

Barbecue, licking his chops

E tu, Barbecue?

*giggle*

I’m such a child.

The Re-Farmer

Daily Deer, and marking an achievement

February 22, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Getting any photos of Hungry Girl and Barbecue this morning was more difficult than usual. They were extremely nervous today, but I couldn’t see why.

White Tail Deer

There was also the issue of glare on the window, which you can see some of in the picture.

Partly, I’m sure there must have been some cats going along the house. Something was certainly there to catch their hoof stomping attention.

I also think the light hitting the window meant they could see us, and our movements, more, too. I could barely get to the camera, take off the lens cap and turn it out before they’d dash off. Even my husband raising his arm to reach for something seemed to startle them more than usual.

Very high strung and nervous. It wasn’t long before they simply took off and, from the looks of the feed outside, they have not come back.

Perhaps later.

Meanwhile, some time during the night, this blog reached an achievement. Fifty followers! So I wanted to say thank you to those of you who have decided to follow our crazy lives through this blog! It is much appreciated, and I hope you continue to enjoy visiting. :-)

And now, back to trying to figure out where to call to get a copy of my marriage certificate so I can finally get my ID.

The Re-Farmer

More Critter Pictures

February 20, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

As I write this, Butterscotch is still up in the spruce tree.

Just chillin’

For a while, Beep Beep came up and joined her. They were so adorable, snuggling up on the branch. It was too dark to get good pictures, though.

Beep Beep has since come down, but not Butterscotch.

Meanwhile, Hungry Girl and Barbecue came out today. Hungry Girl came dashing in first, and started eating right away.

Hungry Girl still looks hungry. :-(

Then Barbecue came running in.

2018-02-20.whitetail.deer.advancing

Look at him with his tail up in an aggressive stance!

What a bully!

These days, Hungry Girl doesn’t even wait for him to reach her.

“Meh.”

She just moves on over to another pile of feed.

Mmm… tasty!

Obligatory tongue shot.

These pictures make me giggle like a small child.

:-D

The Re-Farmer

Out our Window, Today

February 19, 2018February 19, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Some highlights of the activity out our living room window today – at least the ones I was there to take pictures of. :-)

2018-02-19.male.pine.grosbeak

Whenever I get photos of the male pine grosbeaks, my goal is to capture the incredible red as much as possible. This one is very close!

Mother white tail deer with her twins.

Mama and the twins came by today, and I quickly grabbed a group shot with my phone’s camera, since I would have to change the lens on the DSLR to get all three in one shot.

I was going through some of my older deer photos with my daughter, and saw some of the very first ones we took of Mama and her babies. Seeing them, it struck me how much the twins have grown in the past couple of months!

Young white tail deer.

The group was very active today, and very nervous about the cats hanging around. It was cute watching them staring down whichever cat was there, stomping their hooves at them. Which, for the most part, the cats ignored!

The above picture is one of the twins, after it had shied away from the feed because of a cat.

Bleh!

“MooOOOoomm! He’s sticking his tongue out at me again!”

I can’t help it. I love these shots!

The Re-Farmer

Critter Pictures

February 18, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I hope you have been able to take time out this first Sunday of Lent for focus and reflection.

With all the crud that accompanies a major move, I find it’s always a good thing to pause and look at WHY certain choices were made.

Unfortunately, in our case, the why of things is more a matter of “getting away from” rather than “going to.” Such is life, of course, and we take the good with the bad and focus on the important things, rather than the things that threaten to drag us down.

At least, that’s the theory. LOL Reality is much messier.

However, among the things I do appreciate with this move is our daily critter visits outside the window. As the stresses of the day begin to add up, there is something very healing about looking out our window and finding a deer looking back.

Or a cat. Whatever. :-D

With that calming influence in mind, I will first share with you an image from yesterday.

2018-02-17.whitetail.deer

Hungry Girl, checking out… something. I can never quite see what it is that they’re looking at when they stare down the length of the house. There usually isn’t anything but birds.

Especially these guys…

2018-02-18.redpoll

I love getting accidental pictures! This redpoll was flitting around among the twigs so much, I’m fortunate to have gotten any shots at all, but getting one in a fun position like this is always rewarding.

2018-02-18.chickadee

I finally had a chickadee stay still long enough to get a decent shot! :-D

2018-02-18.two.whitetail.deer

Once again, something alongside the house has their full attention!

The physical differences between Hungry Girl in the foreground, and Barbecue in the back, are still quite striking.

2018-02-18.cute.whitetail.deer

I’m thinking that this time, there must have been a cat walking along the house that they were watching, because later on I saw…

2018-02-18.cat

… Trüllbus the Crime Eater.

He was in the bushes when I first spotted him. Then he spotted me in the window, taking his picture. He was accommodating enough to move out of the bushes and pose for me in the feeding area.

I love that intent gaze!

The Re-Farmer

Noooo!!!

February 17, 2018February 17, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Well, crap.

Yesterday, a few more photos were taken, so this morning I uploaded the last of the pictures on the camera. As typical, I removed the old photos from the card completely, so that it would go back into the camera with maximum space on it.

As I was transferring the files, I got a pop up. Did I want to replace files?

Sure, I thought. This typically means I’ve already uploaded some photos and didn’t want duplicates, so I usually just let it override the old files, so there are no duplicates.

I forgot two things.

One, I was uploading files from the camera card, not my phone, which I copy from, not remove completely. So it’s not unusual for me to accidentally overlap and grab images I’d already uploaded.

Two, my daughter had her camera set to restart files from 001 on an empty card.

Normally, it wouldn’t have been an issue, because I organize my photos in folders by date, but these were photos from yesterday, and they went into yesterday’s folder.

I didn’t realize it until I went to review the photos, but I overwrote the first dozen or so images I’d uploaded previously.

Crud.

Now, most of those first photos were the ones where I was using the 18-55mm lens, then switching the settings around, so they weren’t good photos to begin with. The “ghost bird” photo was the very first one I took, so I do have the modified version of that one (cropped and resized for the blog). But the rest are gone.

The settings have now been changed. It won’t happen again!

*sigh*

Meanwhile…

Here are some photos from yesterday.

Downy woodpecker

My daughter got this one for me. The downy woodpecker decided to check out the seeds. :-)

White Tail Deer

You see this? THIS is why I asked to borrow my daughter’s camera. There is no way I could have gotten this shot of Hungry Girl without that 70-300mm lens! No amount of zooming in with my phone camera could have gotten this photo, even though she was so close to the house.

2018-02-16.white.tail.deer2

Barbecue, meanwhile, was even farther away, but I could still get a wonderful shot of him eating.

Even resized to 30% (my usual resizing on the DSLR photos; my phone camera photos get resized to 25%), you can see those little lips and that tongue, picking up seeds.

Details like that are why I love taking so many photos. Once they are on the computer, I can see so much more than I could, looking out the window. Those little details, frozen in time.

I love technology.

The Re-Farmer

Watching Each Other

February 13, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

We got visited by Hungry Girl and Barbecue today. Having been out all day, I was glad I got to see them at least a little bit.

The cats and Hungry Girl were very interested in each other for a while!

20180213cats.watching.deer

Thankfully, mama cat has stopped growling at the deer through the window. Instead, she joins her boy at the window, and watches them. They get watched right back!

20180213two.whitetail.deer

They are so pretty!

The Re-Famer

Today’s pictures

February 12, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I happened to be around when the deer came to visit this morning.

Hungry Girl and Barbecue showed up first.

Then Mama and the twins came by.

I do miss our DSLR. Zooming in with my phone’s camera just isn’t anywhere near as good!

It’s great for indoor shots that don’t need zoom, though!

He is such a silly boy!

I love how his little front paws are tucked into his chest.

While in town earlier, my daughter and I took advantage of the trip to swing by the grocery store. In a parking lot full of “winter parking” (where no one even tries to park in the lines, because you can’t see them!), I actually managed to park in a legitimate parking spot. I could see just enough of the lines though the snow. It was farther from the store, and there was plenty of room around me.

Or so I thought.

We came out to find this.

That’s our van to the right.

Now, being a woman of generous proportions, it’s still rare for me to not even be able to get to my door.

I also wonder how the driver of the white truck got out of their vehicle, because there is no way that door opened even half way. My mirror would have blocked it.

My daughter had to squeeze between the vehicles, open our door, and jam herself in.

So she ended up driving home. An opportunity to practice for her road test.

The sad thing is, the only reason the vehicle was so tightly parked was because they pulled forward from the other side. Which means they drove through an empty parking spot, and placed themselves right next to my door.

With our previous vehicle, a Grand Caravan, we’ve had this happen a couple of times. I was able to just go through the other door and clamber across to the driver’s seat.

With this van, the only keyhole is in the driver’s door. We don’t have one of those keys that locks/unlocks the vehicle remotely. The ONLY way into the van when it’s locked is through the door that got blocked.

Why do people do that?

Has this happened to you, too?

The Re-Farmer