But I’ll get to why, in a bit.
Today – the second day of Christmas – has turned out to be a lovely day, even with the wind. The last couple of days have been slowly warming up, but we have been hit with winds from the south, and they were pretty brutal at times. Today, the winds were milder, so our high of -1C/30F was feeling more like -7C/19F, instead of -17C/1F!
The outside cats are quite enjoying the milder temperatures, though there’s a crowd that prefers the isolation shelter more than anything else!
I counted a dozen cats in the upper level! Plus there was at least one, possibly two, on the ramp inside the entry shelter box. It is mostly the littles that are in the isolation shelter, I have noticed. The adults and older cats go in and out, too – you can see Stinky over in the corner on the right – but they don’t tend to stay in the cuddle puddles in the isolation shelter. I see them on the critter cam in the sun room, more often.
Judgement really wanted attention this morning! When I stopped to try and get pictures of the cats in the isolation shelter, he basically flung himself down on my feet and began rolling. 😄
Today has been a catch up day on things. Because it’s so much milder, we set up the drainage hose for the washing machine out the front door. My husband and I got our laundry done, then we did a couple of loads of cat beds and blankets, and the girls will be doing their laundry next. As long as the hose gets dragged in as soon as the last load is done, it will be fine. We don’t want it out there when we hit our low of -8C/18F tonight!
In between other things, our Christmas turkey got deboned and I made a stock for the outside cats as a treat after for after their evening feeding. They got the bits and bobs, too – we made sure to leave lots of meaty bits for them – and are very happy! When I made cat soup for the inside cats, I used some of the stock instead of hot water, to treat them as well. The inside cats were also very happy!
Then, this afternoon, I started getting some messages from the Cat Lady, with a rather alarming tale to tell! One of their motion sensor alarms went off and her husband went to check, thinking it was one of the cats setting it off. The next thing she knew, he was calling for her to call 911!
Long story short, a woman and broken into their cat garage (they checked the security footage, later), which is a separate building housing the rescues. She took some drugs, pet the cats and passed out. Then she went to the house, letting out the cats, broke into their garage and started going “shopping”, helping herself to jackets and ski pants, and a couple hockey bags she filled out of their freezers, before triggering the alarm. When the Cat Lady’s husband showed up, she was clearly high and there was a bit of an altercation. She was still there when the police arrived.
Everyone is okay, thankfully, but there was glass broken and other damage done. As you can imagine, they were pretty shaken by it all! Thank God they have security alarms and cameras.
This is not the only incident. A couple of days ago, my son from another mother, who lives in the city we moved from to come here, was involved as a bystander in what turned out to be a carjacking and kidnapping. Someone had come running to him in absolute hysterics, asking for help. This also ended as best as it could, and the girl that was kidnapped was recovered safe and sound.
The crazy thing is, the incident didn’t even make the news.
As for the Cat Lady, when the RCMP showed up (they are in a suburb, and are not covered by the city police), they basically didn’t care, it happens so often – and they are in what is considered a very good neighbourhood!
Living where we do does not exempt us from such troubles. Given that the nearest police are at least 20 minutes away, and chances are if we called 911 for the police, they might not show up for even longer, the properties out here are convenient targets. Still, even taking into account our vandal, it’s nothing like what’s happening in our cities. Even our small towns are seeing increases of crazy stuff like this. Sometimes, it feels like we were able to escape the city, just in time. We certainly had … situations, shall we say… that we had to deal with, but it all just seems to be so much worse now.
I’ll take living in the boonies, any day, even without all this, but right now, I’m just appreciating it so much more.
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 