We are getting one heck of a windstorm right now.

Thankfully, though, we are far enough north that we are not getting the brunt of it. We’re “only” getting winds of around 35-45kph. The bulk of the system is passing to the south of us, crossing across the prairies from the north west. The weather group I’m on posted a satellite image, where you can actually see a mass of brown – dust – moving across Saskatchewan in into North Dakota.

Saskatchewan is looking a lot of top soil right now.

Even here, everything is looking like there is a brownish grey fog. We did get a slight amount of rain early in the day, but not enough to make any difference.

We drove in this.

I was planning to go into the city to visit her but checked to make sure she was up to it.

She was.

There were a few things that she didn’t have with her – like her glasses, and her phone charger – that we brought along, plus a proper travel bag to put the stuff we’d quickly packed when I first took her to the local hospital into. I knew my younger daughter had been up all night, but I also knew she would want to visit her sister, so I asked if she was up to coming along as my Nav O.

She happily agreed.

As expected the drive in and the city route to the hospital was very straightforward. The problem was what to do once we got there. I’d already been forewarned against using the parkades. It may have kept the truck out of the weather, but they are so tight, we would have had trouble getting in and out.

Once we reached the Women’s Hospital, we went looking for outdoor parking, but all the lots we saw were private parking for other buildings. We drove up and down some streets, which were just as broken up as I was expecting, navigating the poorly marked one way streets, looking for street parking. All we saw where signs saying “permit required”. Block after block, it was all “permit required”.

Finally, I saw a spot that I could pull into, near one of those signs, got out and took a closer look.

They didn’t say “permit” required. They said “payment” required.

The city has taken out all the parking meters.

There were three options. One was to use an app, which I didn’t have and was not going to get. The other was to pay through a website. The third was to phone and 888 number.

That was the one I wanted to use.

I couldn’t connect. Several times, I’d try the number and it would just say “calling…” but never called. After a while, the call would get dropped.

Finally, I tried the website, which required registering, which I did not want to do, but had not choice.

It was so frustrating. Basically, the city has made it so you can’t park on the street unless you have a Smart phone (which I have been very tempted to get rid of, in favour of a dumb phone), and no cash payment allowed.

By the time we managed to connect and pay for parking, it was starting to rain a bit harder, but not too bad. The wind was still the main issue.

I had brought my walker along, just in case, and I’m really glad I did. I know I could get away without using it, and using a cane if I had to, but once I started walking along with the walker, it just hit me how much easier it was on my body to use it.

Plus, my daughter would finally get to see it.

Once in the building, we had to go through the reception/security desk, first. Did I mention this hospital is downtown? They had signs saying things “like no knives or guns allowed”.

We were directed to go to the top floor, but were not given a room number. For that, we had to find which doors to go to, and finally just decided “that looks like a reception desk through those locked glass doors” and went for it. There was a collage of signs on the wall, with one of them having an arrow pointing to a button to push to get someone to let us in. It was one of those portable door bell buttons, taped to the wall. My daughter pressed it, and we got a voice on a nearby speaker asking what we were there for. When I told them we were there to visit my daughter, she asked the age. ?? I told her, and she was “oh, and adult” Then let us know we buzzed the children’s ward. Turns out there was another button somewhere. I think on the panel next to the speaker, but I’m not actually sure.

She let us in, anynow.

We then went to the reception where we got wrist bands confirming we were processed, got the room number, and directions.

Of course, she was at the far end of the ward. 😄

We were all very impressed with the room she was in. It was a single room, plenty of space, with an arm chair and a couch with storage under it available. There was also a little round chair with a small round built in tray that my daughter was using. After unpacking and setting up the stuff we brought for her, I repacked her clothes into the travel bag; in our rush to get her to the hospital, we had just grabbed a soft sided grocery bag. I went looking through some doors to see if there was somewhere to put the bag besides a little counter and found all sorts of spare pills, a fridge and even a drawer with a combination lock on it.

We then had a good visit and bit a bit more details on what was going on. There was a possibility she might come home tomorrow, if she improved to a certain point. Happily, she did look a lot better than yesterday.

Overall, we had a very good visit until we had to leave before our parking ran out.

While walking back to the truck, the wind almost blew my walker away!

Since it was along the way home, we stopped at a Domo to get some gas; today is Thursday, so it was their second 4¢ off per liter day of the week, so we paid $1.809 instead of $1.849

Neither of us had had lunch and we were starting to get very hungry, so we stopped at our usual Walmart along the way and had some McRaunchies, before doing a bit of shopping before heading home.

We took a different route as we left the city, crossing over to the highway that goes straight to our little hamlet, so we could stop at a gas station just outside the city and use their washroom before the hour long drive remaining. When we parked, we found messages from my daughter. She’s not where they want her to be and was getting some more treatment, so she is definitely not coming home tomorrow.

Which I’m actually okay with. I really don’t want her coming home too soon and relapsing.

For the last leg of the trip, the sky cleared it was looking quite nice and sunny out – but the winds had not died down.

I drove to the house to unload, which didn’t take long. It was well past when the outside cats are usually fed for the end of the day, so I took care of that while my daughter took care of the rest. I made sure to mix up some cat soup for the isolation cats. They seem to be doing okay in there, though they all run out of reach if I try to pet any of them.

Once the cats were all fed, I could safely drive the truck out of the yard and park it. Then I went around to take care of various things that were blown away. The heavy crochet blanket on top of the kibble house roof had been blown off, along with the fan rake that had come apart and I’d set on top of it until I can fix it. The giant black tarp I’d pegged to the ground until I could fold it up was blown loose and into the West yard, near where the chick coop still sits.

I made sure to look for and remove the metal tent pegs that failed to hold it down, first.

Thankfully, I was able to spread out and fold up the tarp where it was.

Then I watered the pre-sown garden beds and perennials. Which was interesting, with the wind! I don’t know how much rain we got here, but with the wind, everything was already dried up.

As I sit, writing this, there is still enough light out that I can see the big maple branches swaying. Earlier, I’d walked around the spruce grove and actually heard cracking sound. I suspect we might lose one of the dead trees tonight. Thankfully, with the wind direction, any trees that fall will fall away from the house, not towards it. The only real worry is the tree in front of the kitchen window, since part of it overhangs the roof.

We are still under dust storm and high wind alerts over our area, which is expected to continue through to tomorrow morning. While I was working on this post, I went into the kitchen for something and heard a noise I didn’t like. Looking out the window, I found the wind was trying to tear off the roof panels on the isolation shelter! I went and found several bricks and pieces of bricks to weigh down the edges that were catching in the wind. !!!!

Tomorrow, I plan to visit my mother. The last couple of times, I’ve been going on Saturdays, but I want to keep that day open for working around the yard and possibly a dump visit – or possibly bringing my daughter home from the hospital over the weekend?

I will NOT be telling my mother that my daughter is in the hospital. That would just get nasty, and my daughter made it very clear she does not want her grandmother to know. From past experience, we know how my mother would be, and that is the last thing any of us need to deal with on top of everything else.

While I’m in my mother’s town, I’ll have to remember to stop at the feed store and ask about the chick order status. I know they’ve got me down as sharing a minimum order of 24 chicks with two other people. For me, I only have room for 10 chickens in our coop, so 10 or fewer chicks is good. I don’t know how many the other two people are after. We might just split it evenly with 8 chicks each. We’ll see. Meanwhile, I need to pick up supplies for their brooding period. I want to have everything ready well before we pick up the chicks at the end of the month.

Meanwhile, there is lots of garden related stuff that needs to be done, besides finishing that garden bed. As long as I get that done before the elm trees start dropping seeds, it can wait. Other things are starting to become priority.

We’re having a couple of hot days and warm overnight temperatures, but we will soon be dropping, with freezing overnight temperatures for a couple of nights, before slowly warming up again. This weekend is a long weekend and a lot of people finish putting their gardens in on this weekend.

Not us. But there are some things that prefer colder soil that can be direct sown, and I’d like to re-sow some of the winter sown items that look like they didn’t take, or very little seems to have survived. Plus there are the remaining seeds to start indoors.

For now, I think it’s about time for me to crash into bed. It’s just past 9 as I write this, and both my husband and younger daughter passed out, hours ago.

My turn.

The Re-Farmer