Well, I’m happy to say that the winds died down yesterday, by the time I headed out to do my evening rounds. It felt warm enough that I actually did some shoveling, including paths to the fire pit and wood piles. We haven’t been able to use the fire pit in the summer, due to drought conditions, but I’m hoping we can use it in the winter!
This morning was technically colder, but without that wind, it wasn’t too bad at all. It’s still snowing lightly and is expected to continue, off and on, throughout the day.
When feeding the outside cats and getting to the catio shelter, I spotted a grey tabby inside the self warming cat shelter under one of the floating shelves. I’m so glad it’s being used! Unfortunately, it was one of the more feral cats – Slick, I think – so my approach scared it out. It was starting to panic inside the shelter, so I made sure the door was wide open, with plenty of room for it to run out.
Later on, I saw the feral white cat with grey tabby spots in the catio shelter, and even Sprout.
I had to zoom in from across the yard to take this picture. I didn’t want to scare her away from her warm nest in the straw. I’m happy to say that both of the most feral mamas seem to be hanging out more in the catio shelter. These two have hiding places somewhere in the outer yard – or beyond, for all I can tell – so this greatly improves our changes of socializing them, or at least trapping them for spays.
I counted 35 or 37 cats and kittens this morning. I’m not sure exactly how many kittens were mashed into their favourite cat cave, but I figured at least four. I’m not sure if I double counted any. I spotted the big tom that’s started to visit us as I was going back into the sun room. I may have already counted him as a “grey tabby in the distance”, but I’m not sure.
With today’s slightly improved weather, if there is any errand running to do, I want to get it done today. I think the only trip I need to make is to the post office. There’s a couple of packages ready to pick up now.
While checking the status on the Back to Basics book I’d ordered on Cyber Monday, I saw it hadn’t shipped yet – but I also saw that the kindle edition was on a 1 day sale. $1.99 for the digital version, instead of $24.99. So I got that last night and was able to start going through it. Much of it is exactly like the older edition I have, but there are some obvious differences, too. For example, in the section on how to build various houses, it no longer has a cordwood house, but an adobe house instead. It should be interesting when I get the physical copy (I just checked this morning, and it has finally shipped) to go through both editions at the same time, and see the changes.
I’m expecting today to be another quiet day, mostly indoors. It’s hibernation season. 😄
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 