State of the Everything

[mousme]

 Okay, I am going to attempt a State of the Everything kind of post for today, following (more or less) the template I created for myself so I can stay a bit more on top of not just what’s going on in my life (and in my head), but also what’s going on around me politically and just generally. Bear with me, this may get long.

1- State of the Phnee

a. Work has been uneventful of late, although the holiday season is always a busy one for travel, especially air travel. We get a much higher volume of “unruly passenger” reports at this time of year, and that means proportionally a higher volume of unruly passenger with escalation reports. The holidays combine a ton of stress with a lot more access to alcohol, especially in airports and on planes, and the results are pretty predictable. My own belief is that airports and airlines need to stop serving and selling alcohol, and that would reduce the number of incidents by about 90% (that number is an educated guess on my part, not based on actual statistics, but I don’t think I’m too far off the mark).

 

I applied to a similar job in a different government department, one that’s not part of the Core Public Service. I was sent a two-hour online evaluation without any indication of the format or what would be in it, which was more stressful than the test itself. I was reminded of Pete Anderson in The War with Mr. Wizzle by Gordon Korman: “Sir, what’s a Keat?” I should really find those books and re-read them. They were pretty great at the time and I only hope they’ve held up after all these years. Anyway, I think I did pretty well, but I submitted the evaluation right before the holiday season, so I’m not expecting a response before next week at the earliest. They could also easily just never answer me again, because of the neat little disclaimer that “only successful candidates will be contacted” at the bottom of the application page. Gotta love those. How hard is it to send a one-line email to unsuccessful candidates? You can program that shit, too. I know whereof I speak, because I have been the person in the hiring seat, and I think it’s shitty to leave people in limbo, especially in the government where hiring processes are slow as fuck.

 

If I get this new job (fingers crossed!) it would be a step up in terms of compensation from where I am now, and it looks like it would be an indeterminate position (which is as close to a “permanent” job as you can get in the government these days), so I really hope it works out. It’s the kind of job I know I’m good at, so it’s really just a question of slogging through the application process, which is very hit-or-miss these days. The physical location is also a tad closer to home, so I might save an itty bit of money on gas and wear-and-tear on the car.

 

b. I had my parents and my friends Dylan and Sarah over for Un-Christmas this year, since I was working on Christmas Day proper. It’s been a couple of years since I had to declare Un-Christmas, but it went very well. I did not at all follow through on my previous meal plan which was far too ambitious for the amount of time and energy I had. I ended up roasting the goose I had ordered and making lemon pepper buttery green beans (made with not-real butter because of various dietary restrictions), and Sarah brought roasted root vegetables. In the end, we had more than enough food even as it was, so I don’t have many regrets on that front. I always end up making way too much food, so this way there was considerably less waste.

 

I also managed to muster enough spoons to actually chuck the goose carcass into a Dutch oven and made broth, which I will try to turn into something useful this weekend. I have a bit of leftover goose meat, so it will likely be a soup of some kind.

 

c. We had a bit of a scare with KK a couple of weeks ago. She woke me up about twenty minutes after I’d gone to sleep (I’d decided to call it an early night because I was super tired) and I found her covered in blood because she’d passed out repeatedly and smashed her face on her bathroom floor. I ended up calling an ambulance for her because she couldn’t even sit up, let alone get to her feet and walk to the car. We spent the night in the ER and she spent the rest of the day there as well after I went home to get a few hours of sleep and take care of the dogs, including medicating the epileptic chihuahua. She got stitches in her nose and a tentative diagnosis of mild dehydration combined with too high of a dosage for her blood pressure meds now that she’s lost weight post-surgery. We’ve had no incidents since then, but she also fell badly and further injured one knee and hip, so she’s been having a lot of trouble getting around even just from her bedroom to the living room. It hasn’t meaningfully changed anything for me in terms of workload, though, since I’d already been doing most of the housekeeping stuff since long before we moved, let alone after her surgery and other stuff happened. I had hoped that she’d be able to help out more once she lost some weight and was able to move around better, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to be the case.

 

d. Speaking of surgery, I have almost fully recovered from mine in October apart from some lingering fatigue. I’ve lost about 45 lbs since the end of September, and although my weight fluctuates a lot from day to day, the trend is definitely downward. My main struggle is remembering to take my medications and supplements on time. Before I could just take all my meds first thing in the morning and forget about it, but now there’s a schedule, and some things have to be taken with food and other things have to be taken at least 30 minutes before food, and it all wreaks havoc with my poor ADHD brain.

 

I finally started incorporating a tiny bit of exercise into my day. Work has a pilot project with under-the-desk treadmills, so I’ve been using those for 1-2 hours almost every shift at a slow pace (1 mph, because for some reason the treadmills measure everything in Imperial), and my legs are mad at me for reminding them that I have muscles for stuff other than sitting on my ass. I’m making an effort to use the treadmills as 1) it’s good for me and 2) I want to encourage my employer to continue making good decisions about employee welfare (and yes, I’m aware of the irony, but we do what we can). I’m considering getting one for home, as well, as there are some available for under $200 that look decent enough. I had originally planned to get a gym membership, but I’m veeeeery cautiously optimistic that I can do some walking and use resistance bands at first to get my strength and endurance up, because I know myself, and getting to the gym when it’s a minimum 30-minute drive from my home is going to be a struggle, psychologically speaking. There’s a chance that the home equipment will gather dust, but there’s a much stronger chance that a gym membership would just drain my bank account without ever getting used, so lesser of two evils, here.

 

e. I had to take Pixie to the emergency vet on Tuesday after KK told me she had been throwing up. I had flashbacks to November when I had to take Peggy in for the same reason and came out with a bill close to $1,000, a diagnosis of acute gastroenteritis, pain meds and several cans of special food (she’s fine now, albeit on prophylactic antibiotics for her anal glands). Luckily Pixie was not nearly as sick, and I ended up paying a $50 triage fee and then took her home for observation, and she’s now back to her usual frolicky self. She is on a strict diet of rice and probiotics until tomorrow, however, until I’m completely satisfied that whatever ick this is, is out of her system.

 

The cats are still going strong so far. I’m worried about Libby, who still refuses to come out of the basement even at night. I don’t think KK has been feeding her her special kidney food, and because I don’t go to the basement much it’s hard to keep an eye on her weight. I’m considering catnapping her and taking her to the vet to be weighed and evaluated, but I should probably check with KK about that. Octavia is fully back to her old self after her dental surgery, but Juno doesn’t appear to be gaining weight back the same way, which has me a little worried as well. Libby is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15 or even 16 years old now, and Juno is around 13, while Octavia will be turning 12 this May (give or take), so none of them are spring chickens, but I’m still concerned there might be more going on with Juno since the dental surgery hasn’t had the same effect as on Octavia.

 

2- State of the smallholding

 

I’m not using the word “homestead” anymore, because of its roots in colonization. I haven’t found a good word to describe what I’m attempting, and the closest I’ve come so far is “smallholding,” so I’m going to go with that until something better comes along.

 

a. Welp, the house hasn’t improved much since I last updated here. I’ve mostly lacked the motivation and energy to do anything about it, especially after surgery in October. I did do a bit of a crisis clean for Un-Christmas, and I’m hoping to build on that in the coming weeks. I need to get over the mostly psychological barriers around cleaning and tidying that I have built in my own head and just do it. Once the main floor of the house is clear I am going to find a local cleaner/cleaning service to help me keep on top of stuff. If someone can come in once every two weeks, even, that would allow me to concentrate on more decluttering and making progress with other areas of the house. My friend Jan has also offered to come over and lend her organizing expertise to help pull the kitchen and basement into a shape that will make them more usable, and I am probably going to take her up on that.

 

b. On the “farming” front, the remaining quail are doing pretty well this winter. I have 14 survivors in total, four males and eight females. I purchased some heaters for their waterers because their water kept freezing within hours. Dylan had told me he managed by changing the chickens’ water twice a day because he could just dump out the ice and replace it with water, but the quail waterers are so much smaller that it just wasn’t practical for me. The heaters, even though they appear super flimsy and cheap, have actually been working super well to keep the water liquid, and the quail appear to appreciate it.

 

I did have a bit of a scare about a month ago when I got home on a Saturday morning after a night shift and found an alarming splotch of blood in one of the enclosures. It took me a bit to identify where it had come from, and it turned out that one of the females had a pretty gnarly prolapsed vent. I tried calling around to various vets, but even though I now live in the country, I couldn’t find anyone who dealt with poultry—it was only pets or large livestock (cows and horses, mostly), so I was left with the internet and whatever I had on hand. I took the quail inside, bathed her in saline solution (where I discovered she’d been sort-of egg-bound with an improperly formed egg), applied a bit of sugar to shrink the prolapse, and then used a lubricated q-tip to gently nudge everything back inside her. I kept her in a “hospital” box in the dark with food and water for a couple of days, and then she started spontaneously laying eggs without a new prolapse, so I returned her to her enclosure, where she’s been happily laying eggs for me ever since. I am quite proud that I managed to successfully treat her and not have to cull her.

 

I was sorely tempted to start beekeeping this summer, but upon reflection I have decided to wait another year before embarking on that journey at least. There is a lot of equipment required for bees, and I have a lot more reading and learning to do before I dive into it. There’s a good chance that my first hives will die (because beginner beekeepers are a fucking menace, apparently), so I want to improve the odds that I don’t kill my bees because of a stupid mistake. I 

 

This year I will be adding livestock that’s a little more straightforward, i.e. rabbits and maybe more poultry like chicken and ducks and maybe geese. The rabbits in particular will be good for meat, and I am curious if I can find something to do with their pelts: maybe tan them myself or just sell them to anyone who wants them. I tested out dehydrated rabbit ears on the dogs and they lost their tiny doggy minds about them, so at least I know I’ll have a steady source of dog treats if I play my cards right.

 

 

c. I have a lot of ambitious goals this year in terms of acquiring new skills around the smallholding. I wanted to practice woodworking this winter, but unfortunately the electricity went out in my shed for reasons I can’t quite figure out, so I think it will have to wait for spring when I can figure out why there’s no power out there.

 

I’ve also talked to Jan and Dylan and Sarah, and there is a tentative plan in place to cooperate with all three of our little farms to get larger projects built more quickly. We’d alternate weekends where we all gather at one farm and do a building or gardening project, followed by a celebratory barbecue in the evening once the work is done. We’ve also tentatively agreed that we should have dinner together more often, after a really fun Hallowe’en dinner in October. I want to make sure I keep fostering my local bonds and friendships, because it’s all too easy for me to crawl under a rock and just live there, especially because of the shift work.

 

3- Local and national news

 

I promised myself I’d keep my finger on the pulse of the news this year, so in spite of working an evening shift this week and next week, I’m making an effort to learn about what’s going on.
 

a. Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry: there isn’t a ton happening in my immediate area right now, but I went to my local town council meeting in late November (or was it early December?) in order to stay abreast of local happenings. The next meeting is in two weeks, before my next night shift, and I plan on attending again at that time. It’s important to me to understand what decisions are being made locally, just in case I decide that something is important enough for me to voice an opinion or whatever.
 

b. There hasn’t been much going on in Ottawa from a city news perspective over the holidays, but I’m keeping an eye out. 
 

c. Ontario politics are a bit of a shambles ever since Doug Ford’s government won a THIRD fucking majority. I am still angry about that. The provincial Liberals and NDP seem to be in shambles, and the NDP in particular appear to be struggling with who they want to be. I hope they get their shit together soon.
 

d. Federal politics have been on hiatus for the holidays as well, although I saw that Prime Minister Carney met with President Zelenskyy earlier and will be at the peace talks in Paris next week. What he’s bringing to the table is a mystery to me, but better Carney than Trump, I suppose.

 

We’re still embroiled in a horrible trade ~thing~ with the USA. It’s not a war, but it’s not NOT a war. Tariffs and jokes in poor taste and all of that. Anecdotally a lot of Canadians are still not purchasing American products when there are alternatives, and tourism to the USA has plummeted (partly due to the animosity engendered by Trump, partly because there’s a reasonable likelihood that Canadian citizens could be apprehended by ICE and disappeared for anywhere from a week to forever). I miss my US friends, but until things stop being fascist down there, I don’t plan on visiting any time soon.
 

e. Speaking of the USA, it continues to be a horrifying dumpster fire. The ICE raids continue, they are building data centres faster than anyone ever imagined, the economy is tanking, and the President is very obviously suffering from some sort of advanced dementia. Charlie Kirk was murdered, which triggered a right-wing backlash from which some parts of the US are still reeling. The Department of Education has been gutted, among others, and we still don’t have a good idea of how many people have died as a result of the dismantling of USAID. I don’t have any real good thoughts or analysis about this right now, but luckily there are plenty of people out there smarter than me who have written or spoken about this topic.

 

Okay, I think that’s enough for now. Thanks for bearing with me this far! I promise future updates won’t be nearly as lengthy, since I won’t be trying to catch up on basically six months’ worth of updates.
 

Catch you on the flip side, friends!