Well, I made it into town today to do a small grocery shopping trip.

I forgot about daylight savings. Most of our clocks automatically shift, but not the truck. I got there, thinking they were already open for a while, but I was 15 minutes early.

The truck now has the correct time! 😄

I was not the only one waiting.

As for the truck, it did run fine in general, though I was still feeling some shuddering that I couldn’t attribute to the wind. On the way home, I was headlong into the wind and actually had a hard time getting up to speed! I think it’ll run smoother after the oil change, though. Once I get the all clear from our mechanic, I’ll do the Costco stock up trip in the city.

For now, I did what is a more typical local shop. Getting a few things we needed, plus taking advantage of sales.

This is what $183.20 looks like.

I did end up getting a fair bit more than planned, but still… that’s not a lot for almost $200!

This is what I got.

I got a 4 pack of Monsters, mostly for my daughters. I did get one more from one of the store fridges for the drive home. We’ll pick up a case at Costco (which I get reimbursed for by my daughter). I also picked up some Coke Zero and Fresca. Those are for all 4 of us. I can’t stand Fresca, and my daughters don’t like Coke Zero. My husband likes both.

The Mafalda Corta is a pasta. I was actually looking for broad egg noodles, but the only ones I found were skinny ones from a specialty brand and cost over $13 for a bag! Nope. I got the pasta that was on sale. I want to make haluski, so I’ll try it with the Mafalda Corta pasta, instead. The radiatori pasta is something fun I like to get when it’s on sale.

The rice crackers were for my husband. I also got four packages of pudding mix because they were on an excellent sale.

I got two 18s of eggs instead of a flat of 30, because the cartons of 18 fit in my hard sided insulated bags.

There’s a couple of pounds of butter, because we ran out completely. I also got a 2L each of milk and oat milk.

Then there was the box of mandarins that were on sale, and a cabbage and onion for the haluski.

I wasn’t planning on getting meat, but took advantage of sales to get a pork roast, a couple of packages of breakfast sausages and hot dog wieners. I also picked up a garlic sausage, made by a local company, and dried salami sausage for my husband to snack on. The sushi was my breakf… er… lunch for the drive home.

While my daughter did do some bread baking, I picked up more bread products. A couple of packages of mini garlic Naan, a loaf of sourdough, a couple of loaves of marble rye, and some hot dog buns.

Between the sales and my points card, I saved $44.71, or 20%. I could have used my points to get $10 off, too, but I decided to save that for another time.

So, there we have it. A total of 36 items, almost all on sale.

It was enough to pull up to the house to unload. After everything was in the house and I headed out to park the truck in the garage, I spotted the adorableness.

This kitten, unfortunately, is completely feral. We can’t get close to it. However, it is quite comfortable using the isolation shelter!

It had company.

Midnight has practically moved into that cat bed!

The little tuxedo staring out the other side window is also feral. There is another tuxedo, even smaller, that is less feral and I’ve even been able to pick it up and snuggle it a bit. I have suspicions about that, though. I think it might be at least partially deaf, and possibly have vision issues. Maybe I’m just paranoid, after what happened with Button over time, but it seems the tiny tuxedo’s eyes are dilated more than they should be, all the time. If it’s at all like Button, that would mean it can see shadows and movement, but not much else.

Or, it could just be that it was very scared when I picked it up.

We still have an ongoing Canada Post strike right now, but they have moved from a full strike to rotating strikes, so mail is starting to get through. With that in mind, I placed an order with Amazon last night. One of the things I picked up was an outdoor cat shelter (not an affiliate link).

This is something I’ve looked at in the past and rejected, as there is no way they’d handle our winters. However, we now have the catio and it’s winterized. I am thinking of setting it up inside there, along with the box nests that are already in there. I will just have to find something to put under it, so it’s not directly on the ground, just in case water pools inside again in the spring. It is waterproof, insulated and self heating. Between that and being inside the winterized catio, it should provide better shelter – and a private hiding place – for the most feral cats. Who knows. Adam, Sprout and Sprout’s clone baby might actually start using it, instead of disappearing into the outer yard until feeding time.

Oh!! I just thought of a name for Sprout’s clone baby.

Sprig.

Both are still completely feral. Sprout’s fluffy orange and white is also feral, but is at least willing to come closer and I’ve even managed to sneak a pet or two as he runs by.

Speaking of the more feral cats, as I was driving into the yard, I spotted a cat running across by the driveway by the pump shack, disappearing into the tall grass. I didn’t recognize it.

If this works out, we might get a second one for the garage. Pinky does use the isolation shelter, but at night, I think she is once again retreating to the rafters in the garage, above the truck. If we had some sort of self heating shelter in there that would be better or her.

Best of all, of course, would be for her to get spayed and adopted out, but that might take a while longer. The rescue is still working with the six they took from us not long ago.

Meanwhile, we need to work on socializing the littles! At least they have the shelters. Right now, we’re supposedly 7C/45F, but with the wind chill, it feels like -5C/23F. We are under an ongoing wind warning, with some areas expecting gusts up to 90kph/56mph.

I’m glad I was able to make the small shop today, at least, even if it did mean fighting the wind the whole way home! We’re good for a while, even if the truck ends up needing work and the Costco trip gets delayed.

The Re-Farmer