Last night, I finally did it.

I turned up the thermostat, so the furnace would turn on.

We’re still stuck with a hose draining water from the washing machine, running through the storm door window. The gap in the window is covered with duct tape, to keep the insects (and tiny kitties) out, but we can’t close the inner door. Right now, there is a sheet of rigid insulation in front of the door, so we’re not losing heat quite as badly. The entryway has no heat vents in it, anyhow. Nor does the kitchen. They both have built in electric wall heaters, but the breakers for those are shut off. They haven’t been used for so many years, I’d want them checked by an electrician before I try turning them on! The kitchen one has a shelf in front of it now, so we still wouldn’t be using it.

We had covered the eggplants and two of the apple gourds last night, as the forecast had been for a low of 1C/34F, however by the time I checked my app before bed, it had changed. Our low was only 6C/43F. So covering them wasn’t necessary, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt them, either.

My pain levels have been pretty high still, and I had a rough night. I ended up sleeping in – as did everyone else in the household! – so I was later than usual for feeding the kitties outside.

They were very happy to see me!

I was happy to see Rosencrantz’s babies this morning.

Here are four of her five kittens. Later on, I was able to pet and pick up the one that’s fully inside the food bowl, though it wasn’t too sure about the whole thing. The other three still run off.

And where is the fifth one, you may ask?

Why, right here!

Yes, the kitten with the orange head was at the kibble house! In fact, we saw it running around by the house yesterday afternoon, too.

I’ve even started seeing some of the kittens from the pump shack, creeping around under the spirea to the kibble tray we have out there. I do still have a tray at the pump shack door for them, too.

It won’t be much longer before we have to set up the extension cord to plug in the cat house, with its light sensor on the timer set to turn on the heater between dusk and dawn. We’ll need to test the battery on the smoke detector, too. There are a lot of very small kitties this year, that will need all the help they can get to stay warm!

The Re-Farmer