Month: January 2021

Morning kitties, and apparently we had a storm

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I just had to pause for a picture when I saw these guys, watching me when I came outside this morning.

These guys know well enough to stay out of the wind, even if they can see fresh food and water is about to be dispensed! :-D

Except this little Spice Boy, who has a thing for drinking out of the water jug. He prefers this over drinking from a bowl! :-D

Also, those bulk sized Orville Redenbacher popcorn containers are the handiest things. The plastic is really strong, and they are a very useful size. We’ve got some with the bottoms cut off and the lids in place, that I use to scoop and carry critter feed. I used to use a metal pitcher for their water, but this holds a lot more water, and the handle design is easier to carry with one hand and not slosh while opening and closing doors. Used to put them in recycling, but now I keep them because they’re so useful!

As I was finishing up my rounds, Butterscotch made an appearance, and even let me carry her!

Well, sort of carry her. :-D

She still moves around too much for me to get a good look at her wound, but from what I can glimpse, it’s still looking good. Understandably, she seems uncomfortable sitting in the snow, as much from the lack of fur around it as for the wound itself!

We’ve got another relatively mild day today, though winds are certainly making it chillier. We were supposed to get snow this afternoon, but a storm passed through to the south of us, last night. We got light snow and winds, in our area. Now, it’s just winds. I’m good with that. We need to make a trip to the pharmacy this afternoon, which is when the weather was originally predicted to hit us. We’ll just have to watch out for ice, high winds and deer, and not the edges of a snow storm, too! :-D

I am soooo appreciating our mild winter. The last 3 since we moved here got so brutally cold. We’ll be getting colder next week, according to the long range forecasts, but it’s more of a normal cold than what we had in previous years.

I have no doubt the wild critters are appreciating it, too! Much better chances of survival. With Butterscotch having a little of kittens so late in the season, it is a relief for them and their safety, too.

Life is good.

The Re-Farmer

They’re finally in! Also, we still have an income…

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The last of our seed orders FINALLY came in the mail today. They were shipped quite a while ago!

This was the first batch that was ordered.

I completely forgot that, on noticing how few seeds were in the packets compared to the giant sunflowers we ordered last year (which was by weight, not seed count), I had ordered two of each.

The Crespo squash, which is a type of pumpkin from the Andes, was a last minute addition. I couldn’t resist!

I love how they use adorable children for scale.

This was my second order.

This was another “I couldn’t resist” order. After placing the first order, I went looking around the site. Baker Creek then sent me an email to up-sell me, using some of the new things I’d added to my wish list. I ended up ordering all of them. With seeds selling out so quickly again, I figured it was worth it. The price was right, too.

I have no idea if we will be able to plant any of these this year. We shall see how much space we have for starting seeds indoors. I think, at the very least, I want to try and germinate 2 or 3 of each variety.

Then there are the freebies.

This is the second package of purple kohlrabi we’ve been sent. I really, really want to try growing kohlrabi again. Gotta protect them from the bugs somehow!

As for the kale… we’re not fans of kale, except as kale chips (leaves tossed in olive oil and salt, then dehydrated in a warm oven). They are supposed to be very cold hardy, though, so that’s always a bonus for our area. We’ll make that decision then the time comes. I’m certainly willing to try a new variety!

I was very relieved to have these finally come in the mail! We do still have some back ordered items, and others that will be shipped at planting time, from Veseys, but those haven’t been shipped yet. These were shipped about month ago.

Something else came in the mail today.

It was from my husband’s health insurance.

Every year, he has to fill out a form to confirm that yes, he is still disabled, still under the care of a doctor (well… as much as he could be, this past year) and still alive. He is able to fill out the form, take a picture of it, and email the image, rather than send it through snail mail. At this point, he doesn’t even need a doctor to sign anything anymore. Everything gets process very quickly, and he later gets a letter detailing how much he will be getting in disability payments per month (it changes by a few dollars every now and then).

A while back, he got letter reminding him to send in the form.

Which he had already sent in.

He phoned them up and, after some digging, discovered that there was a different email for these forms than the one he’s been using for the last 5 years. Once he had that, he sent the form in again.

Today, he got another letter, reminding him to send in the form.

!!!

Thankfully, it was still early enough that he could call the insurance company, the office of which is in a different time zone. After sitting on hold, then being transferred to several different people, he got to the right one. His filed was looked at and…

All is good. His form had been processed.

Yesterday.

So that was a bit of a heart attack. If something had gone wrong, we don’t just loose the income we’re living on. We lose his coverage for prescriptions. This province does have Pharmacare, but that does not cover all of the medications he’s on. The medications are actually covered by a different company. His employer switched companies after he went on disability, so while his long term disability payments stayed with the original company, prescriptions are now covered by the company they switched to. If he loses one, he loses the other.

Which means we really, really appreciate that his insurance company was willing to send not one, but two reminder letters!

One thing I can say. Even with some screw ups related to the move, the insurance companies have done very well by my husband, and even gone above and beyond.

I thank God constantly for the excellent health insurance plan my husband was on. Yes, Canada has a “safety net”, but I know people who rely on it, and it sucks. We would have been financially devastated within months, probably weeks, without private health insurance.

We have much to be grateful for!

The Re-Farmer

Trying out an overnight bread recipe

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One of the things we enjoy doing is baking bread and experimenting with bread recipes.

Unfortunately, none of us are particularly able bodied. In what way may be different for each of us, but it’s not unusual for none of us to be up to kneading dough at the same time. I would happily use a bread machine, but not only do we not have enough outlets for another kitchen appliance, but even the ones we do have trip the power bar if we use more than one at the same time (before we started using the power bar, it would trip the breaker, and we’d have to climb up a small ladder, onto a shelf, to reach the breaker box and flip it back on).

Last night, I decided to try a plain, basic, overnight bread recipe that would not require kneading. After a bit of searching, I found this one.

Of course, I didn’t follow it exactly, but I stayed close. ;-)

One of the things I changed was to add a bit of sugar to the yeast and water mixture, just to feed the yeast.

I did not transfer it to another bowl, drizzle it with oil, then put it in the fridge. The bowl I used has a lid, so I left it in the same bowl and skipped the oil and plastic wrap. We also did not have room for such a large bowl in the fridge. I suppose I could have put it in the old kitchen, which is easily as cold as a fridge, but out dining room is pretty chilly, too, and I was feeling lazy. So I left it on the dining table overnight.

The only other difference is that I used half a cup less flour than the recipe called for. It’s really dry here in the winter, and that has a very noticeable affect on how much flour we use, vs what recipes call for, this time of year. I worked that last half cup of flour in by hand, and could feel that adding more would leave me with a regular, stiffer bread dough, so I left it be.

Here is how it looked in the morning.

What bubbly heaven! It actually looks like you could pour it!

Looks, however, can be deceiving.

While it was certainly a soft and sticky dough, it did pull away from the sides very easily as I stirred it down and worked it a little bit.

Now, my plan had been to use this to make hamburger buns.

Ha! Silly me!

Not the right dough for that! I supposed I could have done it, but I was prepping this to rise before heading out to do my morning rounds, so I just didn’t have time to be fuzzy.

Instead, I made a couple of very lopsided loaves on a pan I’d prepared for buns. :-D

I then left it to rise in a warm oven, then headed out to do my morning rounds and take care of critters.

I gave the loaves about an hour to rise before preheating the oven to 450F.

This is how they looked, while the oven was preheating.

I need to sharpen my knives. :-D

Here they are, after baking for 20 minutes. They were so pale, I was concerned they might not have had enough time, but when I pulled them apart, I could see they were just fine.

The resulting bread had a lovely, spongy crumb. The texture is soft and chewy, and it had a bit of a sourdough tang!

It was definitely a hit!

I think the next time I make bread using old dough the way my Babcia did, I will try it as a variation of this overnight bread. I would just have to adjust the quantities to make sure I have extra to remove for the next batch.

Once again, if you feel like giving it a try, this is the recipe I worked from.

I definitely recommend it!

The Re-Farmer

Stubborn Kitty!

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After getting Butterscotch’s wound stitched, and keeping her in the house overnight, we’ve been keeping an eye on her to make sure she is doing okay. As much as possible, anyhow.

She is not making it easy!

I had to zoom in, just to get a picture of her NOT letting me come close, this morning. :-D You can sort of see her skinny chicken leg, where the fur has been shaved off on the inside of her right leg. Her tail hides most of it.

She did eventually come over for some pets, though.

She will take attention on her own terms, thankyouverymuch!!

With her constant moving, it was hard to get a look. I had to giggle at myself, “chasing” a cat around, trying to look under her butt.

She seems to be moving around normally, and not favoring the leg more than the other, so that’s good sign that she is not in pain and the injury is healing up.

Other cats were much more friendly.

Nosey is such a sweet cat!

Interesting thing about him is that he wouldn’t come near us for the longest time. He sister would let us come near, which is how we were finally able to snag her and bring her inside before she could get pregnant. Once his sister was no longer around, he became much more willing to let us near, and now he’s one of the friendliest of yard cats!

There was only one problem, though. I had a crowd of cats following me as I did my rounds, which is usual when it’s wonderfully mild as it is today. Butterscotch tends to pick fights with the other cats, but this morning, after she hissed at Potato Beetle when he got too close, he actually went at her! As I moved to break it up, Butterscotch ran off, but Potato stayed, intently sniffing at the snow. Some of her kittens came by, and they started sniffing the snow, too.

When I got close enough, I could could see fresh urine in the snow, and they were very interested in it! My guess is, with the antibiotics and other medications she was given, it smells very different.

Butterscotch, meanwhile, did not go far!

There she is, with her baby. :-D

I love how the cats peek under the garage door like that!

As much as I was able to see of Butterscotch’s wound, it looks like everything is going well. Which is a relief. There is concern of her getting aggressive with the other outside cats, but that would be much more of a problem inside than outside. :-/ Ah, well. She’s a hardy cat and has probably survived far worse, before we even moved out here!

The Re-Farmer

Back outside: Butterscotch recovery update

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We ended up keeping Butterscotch indoors, overnight. After 2 hours in the carrier, she was certainly more active and alert after the anesthetic wore off, but she was totally cracked out! We did not feel it would be safe for her to be outside, yet.

She got the basement all to herself for the night. The inside cats were most upset over the closed door! :-D

This morning, my daughter got her into the carrier again (after checking her out) and I took her outside and let her go.

I could tell she was feeling better. As soon as one of her kittens came up to her, she batted him upside the head!

As you can tell, he wasn’t too bothered by that. :-D

Her wound looks good, and she did not seem to be favoring the leg as she walked around. She was soon in the kibble house, having a snack.

When I first let her out of the carrier, she was all about getting the pets, but after that, she wouldn’t let me near her!

After bringing the cat carrier back in, the inside cats were all over it, sniffing away. We’d put a small, soft crocheted mat inside for a bed, and I took it out and put it back into the box bed it’s normally in. Before long, I found Cabbages and Nicco – both Butterscotch babies – obsessed with sniffing it!

My daughters had started to talk about the possibility of trying to keep Butterscotch indoors, but she is much happier outside, and I think even the inside cats were pretty disturbed by her presence. Except Beep Beep, who simply ignored her! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Groggy Kittie

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Well, Butterscotch is home!

Just look at those pupils!!!

She is still recovering from the anesthetic, so we’ve been told to keep her in the carrier for a couple of hours. She is on a 24 hour painkiller, the sutures will dissolve on their own in 3 weeks, and she has the 14 day antibiotic. We’ve been told what to watch out for, but they did everything they could to prepare her for being outdoors as she recovers.

For now, she is in the carrier behind me. We had to ban all the cats from the room, except Beep Beep, who is sleeping and has no curiosity about her “sister” in the carrier. (For all I know, they may be sisters. Or mother and daughter. Or no relation at all! LOL) As we supervised, a parade of cats came by to sniff at the carrier, from all sides, and the top! Which was fine when they were just sniffing. Nicco came to see her mom, but Cabbages had no interest and ran away from the crowd. It was when cats started hissing at Butterscotch that we had to put a stop to it and send them away.

After a couple of hours in the carrier, if she seems alert enough, we will gently transition her back outside.

I suspect she will be quite eager to get away again!

The Re-Farmer

Cat on a … cold, snowy roof! Plus a trip to the vet

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I spotted movement in an unexpected place while doing my rounds this morning, and just had to try for some photos!

Yes, that is a cat butt.

This old shed’s roof is falling apart, and it looked like she was trying to decide if she could jump down through one of the holes.

Wise kitty (known as Thickalous, I am told) has decided not to jump into the vast empty space below!

What a funny girl (or boy. We’re not sure).

After this, however, I saw something not funny at all. Butterscotch had followed me as I did my rounds, but when I came closer, she moved away from me.

Which is when I saw blood on her fur, inside her right hind leg.

She was also favoring the leg as she walked. She did allow me to pick her up, eventually, but would not let me look at the wound. I let the girls know and they went out together. Between the two of them, they were able to find a gash in her leg, about 2 inches long and gaping about half an inch. It was clean, however, and not bleeding.

I phoned the vet and explained the situation, including that this is an outdoor cat who does NOT want to be an indoor cat. She still doesn’t trust us, since we tried to bring her indoors while she was pregnant. Because of the size of the gash, we decided that – if we could get her into a cat carrier – we would bring her in and they would squeeze her treatment in between other appointments.

Thankfully, a dear friend gifted us with a hard sided cat carrier. Aside from leaving it out for a while so the inside cats could get used to it, this is the first time we have used it. Butterscotch would have clawed her way right out of our soft sided carriers!

The first thing was to find her. My daughter eventually found her sitting on one of the rotted pallets in the junk pile. She didn’t seem to to want to be there, but also didn’t want to jump down onto the snow! My daughter was able to get close enough to scoop her and carry her for a little bit. Butterscotch ended up in the kibble house, which made it easier for my daughter to bring the carrier close and get her in.

She was not happy about it, but we quickly got her into the car and headed out. She calmed down for the drive, but as soon as my daughter picked up the carrier to bring her into the clinic, she started trying to claw her way through a corner of the door.

They were able to give her a quick examination right away. The gash is just above her femoral artery, so they will suture it. Knowing that this is an outdoor cat, they will be giving her a slow release antibiotic that will work for 14 days.

The vet will give us a call when they are done and we can come pick her up.

Poor thing. We’ll see what they tell us when we pick her up, but we’re trying to think of some way to maybe keep her in the sun room for a few days. We can make a warm little den for her in there, and even use the spare ceramic terrarium bulb for warmth, if we have to, but will it work? When we turned the sun room into a maternity ward a couple of years ago, she hated it and tore through the screen on the door to get out. We’ve replaced that door and got the inner door to close properly, so she can’t do it again, but we know how determined she can be. She may be more likely to hurt herself trying to get out, than being out in the first place.

We’ll see what the vet suggests.

The Re-Farmer

Mingling with fog

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This morning was bright and sunny while I did my outside rounds, but it was fascinating to watch the fog roll in on the security camera live feed! It was like an approaching wall!

By the time my daughter and I headed out in the late morning, the highways had visibility of about a kilometer, sometimes less.

My daughter tried to get pictures for me after we left her doctor’s appointment. The camera clears it up quite a lot from what it actually was! At some points, visibility was down to maybe 200 yards. We kept driving in and out of banks of fog until we found ourselves driving in clear sunshine again – surrounded by trees thickly covered with frost!

After a quick side trip to town, we were still early enough to hit the post office before it closed. I checked tracking before we left, but my package wasn’t supposed to arrive until tomorrow, but other packages were expected – and I’m still hoping for my last little orders of seeds to come in!

No luck on the seeds, but I had a surprise along with a package for my husband.

My Mingle Masks finally came in!

Too late to use while running errands, but that’s okay. At least they’re finally in. With 10 of them, I can keep a few in my mother’s car, a few in the van, and even have some I can give my mother. Some places won’t accept them, but those are the same places that don’t recognize medical exemptions to begin with, so that won’t change for me. :-(

We shall see if I find it any easier to breathe with these compared with the shield. At the very least, I won’t have anything bumping into my shoulders are chest as I move my head around.

While at the doctor’s for my daughter, she asked me to come in with her and he took the time to ask how I was doing, too. I’ve been using the inhaler he prescribed for only 2 days, and there’s been no change (he actually seemed surprised by that). Unfortunately, using the inhaler requires first exhaling as much as possible, then inhaling powder as quickly and deeply as possible, then holding the breath for 20 seconds.

Which is a recipe to trigger my chronic cough.

I was unable to hold my breath for 20 seconds, but I did manage almost 10 before my chest exploded into a cough. :-( My trachea still feels irritated.

I’ve got another phone appointment booked after 2 weeks of use to follow up on it. The last time an inhaler was tried on me, I didn’t last that long, but my coughing fits were much, much worse back then.

We shall see!

The Re-Farmer

It’s a fairyland out there!

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Yesterday’s fog kept getting denser and denser before finally being blown away last night. The live feed on the security camera looked like a blizzard, but it was just fog!

Now, everything outside looks like something out of a magical fairy tale!

The spruces are the tallest trees around, and their tops always get the fuzziest! :-D

However, even lower down bushes, like this Korean lilac in the foreground, were completely covered!

My mother’s “living fence” of hawthorn is just magical. Particularly when you know that none of those tracks in there were made by human feet!

The length of our driveway was lined with sparkling white trees!

At the end of the driveway, you could really see the wind effect! All the frost crystals in these areas were distinctly directional. :-D

People who had to be out driving in this last night described dangerously slippery roads and almost zero visibility. I am glad we didn’t have to go anywhere last night!

I do need to go into town this afternoon, though. I have a new prescription to pick up.

I had my phone appointment with my doctor yesterday. Of course, there wasn’t much he could do over the phone. I described what happened that day I found myself gasping for breath while driving, but it hasn’t happened since. I’m back to my “baseline”, so he wants to take more of a wait and watch approach. If it happens again, I need to call him. We spent some time talking about just what my “baseline” is, and my chronic cough. He may be my doctor for over a year now, but with the restrictions, we haven’t been able to actually see him much, so I’m still very much a “new” patient for him. He wants me to try using an inhaler to see if that will help. It’s meant to be used once a day. He wants to follow up with me after 2 weeks of using it. He later faxed the prescription in to our pharmacy, and I got a call from them after they got it to arrange getting it filled and picked up for this afternoon. If that doesn’t help, I will be going for lung function tests.

I’ve had an inhaler tried on me before, when I first started trying to find out why I had developed this cough. It made my cough worse, so I stopped. Then we moved out of province, so this was over 17 years ago. After the move, I had a whole series of lung function tests done. They all came back normal, but again, that was a long time ago. Probably about 13 years or more. So we shall see how this goes.

My daughter had her phone appointment right after mine, but she will need to physically go in to the clinic for the things she is wanting to get checked out. We have an appointment for her on Monday afternoon, and she will likely need at least two other appointments at the clinic, for other things.

Thankfully, the weather will continue to be mild. In past winters, we stopped my husband’s appointments completely, because of the weather and road conditions. That is not as much of a concern this year, so my daughter can make all the appointments she needs. For my husband, though, if he can get away with just phone appointments, he will. The drive itself is just too painful for him.

Ah, well. It is what it is!

The Re-Farmer

Another foggy day, and Canada Post sucks

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My goodness, it’s even foggier today than it was yesterday!

This is how it looked in the old hay yard, beyond the barn.

It’s enough to make a collapsing old building look all pretty and artsy! :-D

From what I’ve been told, this old log building was a house. The family that owned this property before it was purchased by a relative of my fathers had built a couple of them, before they built the one that is now part of the house we’re living in.

Can you imagine being able to just up an build yourself a new house whenever the need arose? No permits, and just using what materials you had on hand?

Of course, they also had no electricity, running water, insulation or privacy. :-D

Or space. I don’t know how many kids they had, but that little log cabin probably housed at least 6 people, if they were typical of the era. Since they built slightly bigger cabins each time, I’d guess that reflected on increases in the household! :-D

Anyhow…

When I came out to do the food and water for the outside cats, I found myself being watched.

What the camera isn’t showing is that there was fog visible around her! It was dense enough this morning, that I could actually feel it on my face as I walked around the yard. I haven’t felt that since I last lived on the coast!

This kitten is a shy one, unlike her brother, Nostrildamus. This morning, however, while she was definitely nervous, she would not leave the roof while I moved around. I think it was nice and warm on the toes! :-)

Her mother, on the other hand…

… seemed to quite enjoy rolling in the snow!

:-D

In other things…

This afternoon, my daughter and I have telephone doctor appointments, and I was thinking that I might go to the post office after that. The Mingle Masks I orders were supposed to be in by late yesterday. I checked the tracking number to see if it was in.

*sigh*

They are now saying to expect it on the 12th.

This is getting ridiculous. The post office got an electronic shipping notice on the 29th. They did not physically have the package yet, but two days later – on New Year’s Eve, no less – the package physically arrived from another province to the warehouse facilities in the city.

Since then, I’ve seen it listed as in transit with arrival dates of the 5th and the 7th.

Now, according to Canada Post, the parcel got processed just this morning.

In the city.

So how were they listing the package with these earlier expected delivery dates, when apparently they never even processed it yet?

How is it that Canada Post can get a package from one province to another in a couple of days during the holiday rush, but can’t get it from a warehouse in the city, to a post office just an hour out of the city? And now it’s going to be “in transit” for another 4 days?

They can’t blame catching up on the Christmas rush at this point!

Meanwhile, I still have two small orders of seeds from Baker Creek that got shipped before Christmas that have still not arrived. These are physically small enough that they would be regular mail, not parcels.

And no, we can’t blame the increase in the number of parcels because so many more people are ordering online while trapped at home, either. Canada Post was selectively efficient and inefficient, long before this.

The Re-Farmer