Well, we are on track to warm up quite a bit, by this afternoon. Depending on which weather app I use, we’re either supposed to reach -7C/19F, or -5C/23F.
The problem is the wind. There is a “Blowing Snow Advisory” out right now. As I write this, we are at -14C/7F with a wind chill of -25C/-13F
Or -13C/9F with a wind chill of -28C/-18F, if I go by my phone’s app.
The wind is from the south-southwest, which means it was a bit brutal when I did my morning rounds. Not as bad as yesterday, thankfully.
The wind swirls around the cat area so much, I actually had to empty all the kibble trays of snow. You can see some of the snow that drifted in front of the kibble house. It completely covered even the heated water bowl, forming a layer of ice and snow across the top, about an inch above the liquid water!
Our winter sowing experiment is getting buried!
I checked the driveway – especially the end of the driveway – and we can still get out. I even started the van and let it run for a while, just to make sure it would start. We need to go into town this afternoon – a trip we’ve already put off too many times.
I’m keeping an eye on a local highway status group, and this morning there were a lot of people saying to stay home if you can, because of the drifting, and there are even sections of highways that are closed, but it all seems to be happening closer to the city, and they were posted hours ago. Others that are farther north, and closer to us, have said the highways are completely clear. However, none have said anything about the road we need to take.
It should be fine, but it would be nice to know in advance, one way or the other! I’m just glad we can get out. Not everyone has been able to dig out of the storm, yet.
Last night, I actually saw Cabbages eating some kibble! It was just a few pieces, but this is the first time I’ve seen her eating in days.
I’m pretty sure she would have eaten earlier, but when I saw her by the food and water bowls, I topped them up, and every other cat in the room came running. I made sure there was some kibble right in front of her, but any Turmeric kept trying to groom her, and she finally left. :-D
We’re still feeding her food goo with the syringe, of course. Which is why she’s looking so dishevelled in the above photo. :-D I had just finished feeding her, and she was most displeased with me!
She still looks like crap, does not seem to be regaining weight yet (still not enough calories getting into her. :-( ), but she is drinking more often, is more active, and has even been trying to get out of my office/bedroom. If we didn’t have to worry about her hiding in some crevice where we can’t find her or reach her, we wouldn’t be keeping her in.
We’re also still steaming her when we shower, if there’s even the slightest hint of wheezing when she breathes. She seems to like it. The fact that the house is so dry and chilly, and she’s so skinny, she’s probably quite enjoying her saunas.
We like it when we have happy, steamed Cabbages. ;-)
This afternoon, I headed into the roots cellar and grabbed the last of our yellow onions that we had hanging down there. These are the Norstar we grew from seed. We finished the ones we grew from sets a while ago.
And these are the last of the Red Karmen onions we grew. There’s one more, hidden from view.
All the onions we grew and harvested back in August have lasted us more than half way through January. Adjusting for the time then needed to cure, that’s about 5 1/2 months.
Not too bad, considering they didn’t get very big. We did try to be a bit frugal with them, though.
They also stored really well in the root cellar. We had the fewest shallots (what are not in the photos above), and they were gone in less than two months, so we never found out how well they stored. ;-D
We will be growing a lot more onions this year, all from seed. The goal is to not have to buy onions from a store at all, anymore.
I am just itching to start the onions indoors, but I have decided to wait until the middle of February to start them, at about 15 weeks before last frost. The only other thing we would start that early are the luffa gourds.
I’m actually sad that we’ll have to start buying onions again. The ones we grew were so much better! I don’t know what varieties the stores carry. They usually have labels like “yellow” or “medium cooking onion”. LOL They’re good, but the varieties we grew were tastier. That’s the main benefit, in my view, about growing onions from seed. Buying sets is easier, but there are a lot more varieties to choose from with seeds.
A bit of an update on how Cabbages is doing this morning.
I don’t know that I can say that she’s getting better, but I can say that she’s not getting worse.
We had some issues with feeding her the food goo last night. Not issues with her, really. Since we’re using a syringe, I’ve been basically making baby food for her, from canned cat food. Since we’re doing such tiny amounts, I’ve been using a mortar and pestle to make it into as smooth a past as I can. Still, the syringe would get blocked while trying to fill it. Then the tip of the plunger would come off, and I’d have to find something thin enough to go through the tip, so I could push it back and get it out.
Well, it turns out the problem was not with the food. It was the syringe. The rubber? laytex? tip of the plunger was simply getting stuck from too much friction. I used a bit of vegetable oil, and it worked beautifully.
This morning, I was even able to feed her a syringe and a half of food goo, without a second person holding her. She’s never liked being held, and once she started to get some strength back, she started fighting the girls off more, leaving them quite scratched up. Today, however, I let her just stay on the warming mat she was enjoying, and feed her. She didn’t like it, but it went so much easier with the lubricated syringe, I was done in no time, even with refilling the syringe.
As much as she doesn’t like the feedings, she’s not throwing up or anything, even after I fed her extra. I’ll still be making the food supper mushy, and watering it down, both to make it easier to get into the syringe, and for extra hydration. We need to pick up more syringes, though. They’re awfully handy things to have around. This one was actually my daughter’s, that she originally used for some of her ink pens. It was really handy to add water to the test tubes when we were doing soil tests. Yes, it gets properly cleaned. But we really ought to have more on hand.
Anyhow. I think I’ll go make some more food goo, to be ready for her next feeding. :-)
Yesterday, I made sure to give the outside cats an extra feeding in the evening. With the cold temperatures, they need more calories. There was even a bit of kibble left in the trays when I came out this morning.
Very few cats came out when I gave them more food.
Smart kitties!
This one wouldn’t even move away from their window! Just gave me this “are you kidding me?” look through the frost and nose prints. :-D
It was viciously cold out there.
I took this screencap well after I’d come back in. -30C/-22F is bad enough, but that -41C/-42F wind chill was the killer! The wind is from the south right now, so we were feeling every bit of it. It’s not even a particularly brisk wind, but it doesn’t take much, at these temperatures!
With the driveway clear, we were thinking to go into town today but, after doing my rounds, I decided we could wait another day. Mainly, I do not want to risk our van in these temperatures. It does not do well with cold. Also…
That’s right. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to warm up to -6C/21F !!
That would be a good day for the girls to climb through their window and shovel snow off the low angled parts of the roof, too.
Ugh. Another down side to these temperatures. The sounds the pumps make in the basement change, and they worry me incessantly. If both the well pump and septic pump happen to be running at the same time, it drives my anxiety levels through the roof!! I was about to say this will be a good day to catch up on laundry, but there are times when I fear using our water.
The weather app tells me it’s -25C/-13F, with a wind chill of -36C/-33F right now, but it’s bright and sunny, and actually felt a lot warmer while we were out this morning.
While doing my rounds this morning, it was time to assess just how much the storm affected us. We got most of the snow during the day, then mostly high winds overnight.
The cats that shelter under the storage house were having issues! This path was cleared yesterday morning. One spot was mostly drifted over – you can see it further back – with a bit of space the cats could get through. The other was a steep, narrow drift they had problems jumping over!
So one of the first things I did after putting food out was shovel around the kibble house, digging out the metal water bowls in the process, and opening up their paths.
Then I went around the house with feed for the birds and deer, and startled a deer that was right next to the house, almost at the dining room window! I’ve never seen them go on the house side of where the lilacs and cherry trees are. Not even tracks.
Once the food and water was done, I made my way to the gate to unlock it.
Opening it took a fair bit of effort! Most of the driveway wasn’t bad. We could have left it and driven through the snow, just fine.
We would not have made it through the end of the driveway, though.
Once I got it open (and shovelled out the path to the gate cam), it was time to break out Spewie and start blowing some snow.
I cleared in front of the garage, first, which was a more difficult area. The wind swirls around there, so the snow was deeper, and the top more hard packed. I did eventually make it to the end of the driveway, though!
I didn’t try to go too close to the ground, though, as I didn’t want to be hitting gravel and rocks, so the snow is actually deeper than the furrow made by the snow blower by about 2 or 3 inches. More than that at the end, where the remains of a plow ridge is.
The plows had not gone by yet, but it looks like some farmer cleared a lane with their tractor. At first I thought it might have been done by a truck with a plow attachment I’ve been seeing in the trail cam files lately, but those treads are not from any pick up!
I had managed to do about 4 passes with little Spewie, all the way to the road, when it stop running. I’d tripped the power bar, where it’s plugged in, in the garage. While I was trudging to hit the switch, I could hear the reverse warning sound of heavy equipment, nearby.
It was the plow.
*sigh*
You can see how much I’d done on the left, where the snow is a bit lower. There was no way little Spewie could make it through that! So I had to shovel a lot of it away. Thankfully, being almost immediately after the plow went by, it was still loose and light. Once I got a fair bit of it shoveled, then I could redo the end with little Spewie.
It was still a bit much for that little machine, and one of my daughters widened the end of the driveway with a shovel while I continued working on the rest of the driveway. I didn’t stop to take any more photos, but I was able to clear enough that we will be able to back the van up to the little gate in the chain link fence to unload. The girls, meanwhile, finished shoveling out all the paths in the inner yard. The path to the compost pile was almost completely filled in!
By the time I was done, I was completely soaked from all the snow blown back onto me. My down filled coat is not as waterproof as it used to be, and my shoulders were soaked right through the layers I was wearing under it! I was wearing both a hat and cowl, which was bulky enough to hold my hood in place, so I didn’t have to close it up in front, obstructing my breathing. They were wet, all the way through, too. My glasses weren’t just frosted over. They were iced over! I was very happy to come inside and make a nice, big pot of tea to warm up with!
While all this was going on, I got some texts from the woman who will be helping us with the cats. She told me that she will be in town on Saturday, and can pass on some cat food for us. This will be much appreciated, as the store shelves have been quite empty, so we’re not as stocked up as we should be. She also expects to be able to start taking some of our cats in the next week or two, once they have finished adopting out their current batch!
She also asked about cabbages. I told her she seems to be getting a bit better, drinking water on her own again, but still not eating (at least not while I’m there to see it), so we are feeding her with a syringe. She said she should probably take Cabbages back with her when we meet on Saturday, so that they can get her to a vet right away. This is greatly appreciated, since we won’t be able to do that until the end of the month. She said she can’t make any promises, since we don’t know why she’s sick, which makes sense, of course.
So it looks like we’ll be saying goodbye to Cabbages this weekend, and she will get the vet care she needs.
I do hope this works out for her, and I am very grateful that she offered to do this.
Which makes getting ourselves dug out just that much more important!
After a brief and sunny respite, it looks like the storm has finally hit us for real. Temperatures have dropped to -21C/-6F, with a wind chill of -35C/-31F – and this time, we don’t look at all sheltered from it, from what I’m seeing on the live feed of the garage cam! It’s supposed to end overnight, and then tomorrow, we’re supposed to reach a high of -24C/-13F with a wind chill of -36C/-33F. It’s supposed to be about the same for one more day, before warming up to -8C/18F!
Which means we’re going to be digging ourselves out for a couple of very cold days.
Meanwhile, we are warm and safe indoors, and I thought it was a good time for a Cabbages update.
Beep Beep keeps coming over to groom her, then Turmeric comes over and tries to force her way in between them! Jealous of the attention her adopted sister is getting, it seems. :-D
Cabbages is slowly getting better. I see her drinking water on her own more often, so we’re not as concerned about using the syringe to get her hydrated. She has little interest in eating, though. It looks like she can’t smell food right now! Her breathing is fine, so she’s not stuffed up. She’s also more active, and fights us off more when we try to feed her. She stomach seems stable enough that we’re using the syringe to feed her a little more often, and we’ll keep increasing the feedings as much as we are able.
I get to do the feeding part while my daughters have been taking turns, holding her. Both of them have bloody scratches to show for it! She may be almost skin and bones right now, but she’s still remarkably strong.
She still spends most of the day sitting like a little bony loaf in different spots in my office/bedroom all day. As I write this, she is back on the warming mat. :-) The main thing, though, is that she is improving!
So the snow that was originally supposed to start this evening and continue on through tomorrow, arrived last night.
The snow was pretty much stopped when I went out to feed the critters. I had to dig out the non-heated water bowls.
Then I had to shovel the path to the feeding station so I could put seeds out for the birds and deer.
Then I kept shoveling.
I am so glad I cleared the paths of the hard packed snow, yesterday. The snow we’ve been having is all light and fluffy, so it made clearing the paths again very easy work!
By the time I reached the garage, the snow was coming down in big, fluffy flakes. We are at a lovely -13C/9F right now. The wind chill is -24C/-11F, but it’s coming from the north, so most of the inner yard is well sheltered. It only got a bit blustery when I reached the bird feeder.
I did most of the paths, but not all of them. Later on, we might break out little Spewie and see what we can do about the driveway. Mostly, we’ll need to clear the end of the driveway, and that will likely need shovels. I don’t think Spewie can handle that! Not only will we have a plow ridge to deal with, but there’s no shelter from the winds there, so it’ll be drifted over and harder packed.
At some point, we’ll be able to set up the snow fencing that we’ve got, rolled up behind the old garden shed. I don’t know where it was used before we moved here, but it would be good to set some up on both sides of the driveway, for both the north and the south winds.
When I came inside and hung my coat on a chair to dry, I discovered this…
I somehow got snow in my hood! :-D I didn’t use it because the only way to keep it on is to close up the flaps in front. They go in front of my mouth and I can’t breath, so I keep having to jam it under my chin, which pulls the hood over my eyes. So I wore a cowl, instead. I guess that left my hood to be catch snow! :-D
I put it in a water bowl we keep near the kitchen for the cats, that happened to be empty. Within minutes, there were three cats checking it out, and a fourth watching because he couldn’t squeeze in. All of them orange. It was funny, except for having to step over them to get into the kitchen! LOL Within minutes, the snow was all gone!
The view from the garage cam, not long after I came in. Looking at the live feed as I write this, the visibility has dropped even more, and those cat paths in the snow are almost completely gone.
I know people in the south of the province probably wouldn’t agree with me, but I am really happy will all this snow. It will be so good for the fields in the spring, and for the water table. Our municipality was among those that declared an agricultural disaster because of the drought, which allowed for farmers to get some financial assistance. So many lost entire crops – again! – and many were struggling with the the decision to cull their animals, because there was no feed to be had. Not that things are any better now. Thanks to the unnecessary, draconian government restrictions, animals aren’t getting to market. Tens of thousands of chickens are being culled. If the various government bodies don’t let up on their medical tyranny, we’re going to have major food shortages, even as farmers are having to throw away food because there’s no way to get it processed and to the stores. They’ll be blaming it on the Wu Flu, but this is the direct consequence of going against the emergency plans all levels of government already had in place.
We’ve long had the dream of being as self sufficient as possible. After moving here, I kinda hoped we would have more time to get there, though!
At least we’ve got our seeds in, and other orders processed for spring shipping. We’re going to be relying on our garden a lot more this year, if things don’t change!
Another reason to be glad for this snow. We are really going to need this moisture.
I decided to make some little beef pies in muffin tins.
This is something I’ve made before – the first time, in Home Ec class! My experiment was with the dough. We’ve been trying to find ways to use less butter in our cooking. We don’t use margarine or shortening, so when it comes to cooking and baking, it’s either liquid oil or butter. With oil, it’s easy to have a variety. Not so much with solid fats.
So for the meat pie, I wanted to make a hot water dough (which is sturdier, for heavier fillings like meat), using oil instead of butter or shortening.
This is the finished result.
As you can tell, the muffin tins didn’t happen!
The dough simply would not hold together and was very difficult to roll out. I think I added too much flour, but the oil made it so slippery! In the end, I had to put half of the dough in the pie pan and roll it as thin as I could, right in the pan. After the filling was added, with about an inch and a half of space around the edges, I rolled out the other half of the dough as best I could, then brought it over, wrapped around the rolling pin, to cover the filling. Some repairs were needed, as the top was spread over and tucked around the filling. Then the edges of the bottom crust were pulled up to seal it more.
It actually turned our really delicious. I didn’t get the hand pies I was after, but that’s okay!
The filling was ground beef, browned (in butter, of course), adding onions and garlic early on, then cubed carrots half way through. The last thing added was the cubed potatoes, along with some beef stock. It was left to cook, covered, until the potatoes were just barely done, then uncovered and stirred until the liquid was all evaporated. A touch of flour was added to absorb any remaining liquid and thicken it. I ended up with more filling than fit in the pie, but it tastes good all on its own, too.
I have some hot water dough recipes that include things like egg that I might try. Maybe that will work better.
The good thing about experimenting like this is that, even when it doesn’t work, it still tastes good!
Though today has gotten a bit colder than yesterday, at -15C/5F, it’s a lot calmer out there, and bright and sunny. We are actually reading a wind chill of -21C/-6F, but the wind is from the north, and we are well sheltered in that direction.
Which means I got more done outside!
Of course, feeding the critters was top of the list.
I counted 18 this morning. I did not see Ghost Baby, and I think Junk Pile is the other “missing” cat. I was quite happy to see both Butterscotch and Nosencrantz this morning.
Nosencrantz doesn’t look too happy to see me, though! :-D She’s all “stop petting me, and taking my picture. I’m trying to eat!”
I was able to do a burn this morning, scrape the sidewalk clear, and dig out some of the blown over paths.
Though we didn’t get much snow, the blowing winds made a big difference. I was lifting out solid chunks of snow. I actually took advantage of that while shoveling around the burn barrel, to make a higher “wall” around it. This is snow fort building snow! :-D
The path to the compost was so solid, I ended up having to bring the ice scraper to break it up before I could use the shovel. Because of the wind direction, the path from the compost ring to the back door of the garage was almost clear, and the shelter of the garage kept the path to the outhouse from getting drifted over.
We’re supposed to get snow starting tomorrow evening. I’m now seeing snowfall warnings of 20-35cm (8-14 inches), however they are mostly for the south and eastern parts of the province. We shouldn’t get anywhere near as much, where we are. Local forecast is currently for 5-10cm (2-4 inches).
So if there’s anything we need to get in town, just in case, now is the time to do it!
Well. Maybe after we’ve shoveled the end of the driveway again.
The Re-Farmer 