Overnight, we got our first real snowfall. From what the live feed on the security camera showed, it looked like we had a storm, but it was just high winds blowing around a small amount of snow – just enough to cover the ground and stay.

Tomorrow, we’re supposed to reach a high around 5C/41F, so it should all by gone soon.

It made for a new adventure with the kittens! While I tried to do a head count, I found quite a few didn’t even bother coming out of the cats’ house, including the bitty baby. I do wish they wouldn’t knock the water bowl out of reach. I’d love to make it so that they could have water along with food in there.

I think I counted 29 in total, but I’m not completely sure.

When I was done my morning rounds, I checked on them again. I could see them balancing along the edges of the water bowls, and doing the cold toes dance at the food trays below. They don’t do that in the kibble house, thanks to the sheet of insulation under the floor.

The water levels were still low, so I heated up some more water to finish topping them up. I also raided the bin with scrap pieces of rigid insulation. There was one that just fit the length of the water shelter, and three water bowls could fit on that. Another piece went under the big heated water bowl that doesn’t work, next to the ramp. There’s an old crocheted blanket in the corner that used to be inside the cats’ house. I’d tossed it into there to get it out of the weather, then left it when I found the cats were using it. A couple more scrap pieces of insulation went against the walls in the corner, held in place by the blanket, for a bit more shelter. More pieces went under the kibble trays on the ground below. The trays will keep them from blowing away. I’d have added more, but at the time I didn’t have anything handy to weight them down without getting in the way of the cats.

Before I did all that, I had fixing to do. The tarp on the far side of the shed we’d covered had come completely loose from their nails, and some of the nails had even fallen out. No surprise, with the high winds we had last night. The only thing that kept the tarp from being blown off entirely was the weight from the length of PEX pipe that had been tied along the end! The only thing I had to improve the situation was a box of large cup hooks. After straightening out the tarp as best I could (it had bunched up along the pipe), I screwed in the hooks and tied the tarp down more thoroughly than before – I hope. It would be good to replace those with stronger eye hooks later but, to be honest, I don’t know how much good that would do. The cup hooks are not very strong and are likely to break if the winds are high enough, but the wood is so weakened with age that stronger hooks would get torn right out of the wood.

We really need new sheds to replace these old ones. Or one large building to replace them all, including the barn. One of those would probably cost less than multiple sheds.

Something else for the list, after we pick up our lotto winnings!

Oh. I suppose that would require buying a ticket, eh? 😉

It was about -5 or -6C (23 or 21F) at the time. Not particularly cold, but chilly to be in for as long as it took to get that tarp tied down again! Of course, I’m always fretting about the littlest kittens, so I made sure to check on them again.

Yeah… I think they’re good.

The Re-Farmer