We got some wonderful updates on how Cabbages is doing today, and I am beyond thrilled.
She has regained 2 pounds!
At her lowest, she weighed in at 1.65kg/3.63lb, and today she weighed in at 2.55kg/5.62lbs
I don’t think she ever weighed as much as 3kg/6.6lbs to being with.
She is still on medication and is not allowed out of the cat cage she’s kept in, unless she’s being held. She should soon be allowed out to wander around, though.
Next month, she will be getting spayed by a special vet, due to her neurological history. She will then spend 2 weeks with the cat lady and her family, before moving on to her forever home. She will be living with someone who has been in the animal care industry for 44 years!
Which means Cabbages will be with the cat lady and her family for at least another month. I’m just blown away that they took her – and her unexpected expenses! – on without hesitation, and fought so hard to keep her alive. The costs must be well over the $1200 she last mentioned to me, and not a penny of it is from the organization she is associated with. They would have contributed to the euthanasia cost, though. :-( Cabbages was such a very sick kitty, it’s amazing she was able to pull through!
The cat lady has never asked for anything in return, but she and her family have been so amazing. Even her 5 yr old spends time with Cabbages, every day, making sure she eats and massaging her legs.
*melt*
I do want to do something for her and her family, though. That is why we started the fundraiser, which is to be a surprise to reimburse her for most of the costs. I’m sure the final total she’ll be spending on Cabbages will be more than the $1500 goal we have set. We’ll be contributing as much as we can ourselves, too, of course.
If you would like to contribute to the fundraiser for the awesome cat lady that saved Cabbages, you can go to our Ko-fi donation page.
(There is supposed to be a donation panel under this paragraph. I see it in preview, but not when I publish. Please let me know in the comments below, if you see a donation panel. Thanks!
Update: trying a button this time. Do you see it?)
This fundraiser is intended to be a thank you surprise, so she knows nothing about it or this blog. Since it’s a surprise, I’ve carefully cropped these photos she shared with me today, to remove any identifying features.
Just look at her! She’s looking almost like she did, before she got sick!
The poor little thing has been through so much, in such a short time. It just amazes me, how quickly she is bouncing back. Care is still being taken, of course, and I do wonder what sort of permanent damage she may have sustained. Particularly since it was her brain that was affected.
She may have some company with her, soon. The cat lady mentioned she’d picked up another frozen cat today. It has lost its ears, but will be fine. Once the results of the blood work is in, and they get the all clear, it will be joining Cabbages. She will have a recovery buddy. :-)
Well, the van did start this morning, so I went ahead and did our city shop without even coming inside from doing my morning rounds, other than to grab my purse. No morning kitty pictures, because I was wearing mitts. It was viciously cold out there! I can usually get away with just wearing fingerless gloves, or using my pockets, but not this morning!
Before heading to the city, I made a side track to check the mail and found a package waiting for me.
I’d completely forgotten that we’d be getting something in from T&T Seeds!
Most of what we ordered will be shipped in the spring. We’ll be getting a lot of stuff shipped at about the same time! All the companies we ordered from ship their perishable stock based on what zones the addresses are in, timed to arrive ready to be planted almost immediately. Last frost dates can still vary quite a bit within zones, though, so there’s a possibility some might arrive and need to wait a bit before planting. We shall see.
The Forage Radish seeds are a lot bigger than I expected, but then does grow into a big… well… long, radish. As this is a cover crop, it will be planted strategically in areas we want the soil to be broken up for planting next year, or in between things that might need some “tilling” around them, this year. I don’t expect we’ll use even half of this seed, this year. Unless we decide to start sowing in the outer yard, to lure the deer away! :-D
While in the city, one of my stops was at Canadian Tire, where we pick up the wood pellets we use as kitty litter. I hadn’t been able to get through to our mechanic to reschedule our oil change, so I took a chance and asked if they could book me in at the Canadian Tire, right away. Sure enough, they could fit me in, so I had about an hour to spend in the store.
It is very dangerous for me to be in a place like Canadian Tire. Especially since the oil change was going to be under budget, which meant I had wiggle room!
Along with the wood pellets, I snagged a small folding saw horse. The saw horses we have now are home built and very old, so they’re awfully wibbly. The one I found was on clearance, so I was happy to be able to take advantage of that. I also found some vegetable grow bags on clearance. I was going to make grow bags for the sweet potatoes, using feed bags like we did with potatoes last year, but these bags were so cheap, I went ahead and bought two. It will at least give us something to compare.
I also picked up a couple more trays for seed pots, to allow watering from below, plus one that had square Jiffy Pot type cups in it, for those smaller things we want to start indoors, and will do better if they’re transplanted with their pots, to avoid root disruption. So the extra time I had to spend in the store was productive.
Once the van was ready (complete with a printout of little things they found that I’ll take to our local mechanic to check), I headed to Costco to do the main shopping.
It’s very weird to shop at Costco and buy no meat. I just picked up some fish for my daughters. I didn’t need anything else. I love having such a well stocked freezer!
While there, I picked up a couple more small, plain aluminum baking sheets. I got some last spring, and they came in very handy for moving seedlings in and out of the sun room to harden off.
They also come in very handy as kibble trays for the outside cats, so I was down a couple! :-D
When I got home, the girls made sure to put Butterscotch and Nosencrantz into the carriers while we hauled things through the sun room, into the old kitchen. They even set the carriers up, so the cats could see and watch us. :-D
Then, while the girls put away the groceries, I loaded the van back up with garage for the dump. It’s open this evening, but I was done with driving. It can stay frozen in the van until the dump is open next, two days from now. That’ll give us a chance to gather the recycling together, too.
I’m thinking that tomorrow, we should start getting the luffa, and at least some of the onion seeds, started. I’ve been researching and will try something different with the gourds this time, to help improve germination rates. Of all the gourds we have, the luffa needs the longest growing time.
From the zone 3 garden groups I’m on, we should be starting the eggplant and peppers now, too. Our last frost date is a lot later than the people posting that, though, so holding off at least a bit longer would probably be a good thing.
When it comes to planting our garden this year, we haven’t quite planned locations all out, yet. The existing beds will be easy enough to work with, but we will also be building new – mostly temporary – beds, too, as we slowly reclaim more and more of the old garden area, and work our way closer to the house.
It was a bit funny when I was telling my mother about what we’ll be doing this year. She was having a hard time picturing where we are intending to plant the sea buckthorn and silver buffalo berry, as much as a living fence as for their berries, where we will be planting the Korean Pine, as well as how we haven’t quite decided on where to plant the Highbush Cranberry. She knows we plan to plant more fruit and nut trees, and made this surprising comment about how, if we plant all these trees, we won’t have any garden left. Not just because of the trees taking up the space, but their shade, as well.
There’s two reasons her comment was a surprise. The first is that she had already said to me before that, if it were up to her, she would have filled that entire area with trees by now. She did have a habit of sticking trees in, anywhere, without much thought to whether it would be a good place for them! The other reason is that my parents planted so many trees on the south side of the garden, closest to the house, that there’s not a lot that can grow there anymore. Too much shade! I know they planted these for protection from the wind, but if they’d planted them on the north side of the garden, it would have been just as effective, and wouldn’t have taken away so much prime garden location. It’s one of the main reasons we’re going to build permanent garden beds in the outer yard, where they will get full sun.
My mother and I talked a bit about our wanting to plant a southern shelter belt, because we have a gap that needs to be filled. I told her about the renter wanting to replace the fences (he’s responsible for the fencing, as part of the rental agreement), and that I’d suggested making a new, straight fence line from the barn to the road, rather than going around the old hay yard. It’ll mean a lot less fence to put in, though they’ll loose a small amount of pasture. If they do that, we’ll be able to plant shelter belt trees near it, and not have to worry about having to protect saplings from cows. My mother suggested planting lilacs as a hedge, but I told her that we need to start with something taller, first. Not too tall, though, or we’ll just end up with more shade problems. Many of the farms in the area are completely open, with just a block of shelter belt trees around the house and outbuildings – and their gardens are outside the shelterbelt, far from their houses. There just isn’t anywhere near their houses that gets enough sunlight for the size of gardens they are growing. Whatever trees w decide to plant on the south, I don’t want anything that will get as tall as the spruces we have by the house. They’re about 65ft high, and we’ve been watching how far their shadows are cast, at different times of the year. Since we will be planting permanent garden beds out that way, the last thing we want to do is plant trees that will get so tall, they’ll end up shading the garden beds. I figure we can plant trees that grow no taller than 30 feet and still get the shelter from the wind that we need. Especially if we also plant shrubs along the line, too.
But maybe not more lilacs. I’m thinking more along the lines of hazelnuts and berry bushes! :-D
No decisions can be made until there’s a fence, though!
According to the hourly forecast, we’re supposed to stay at -34C/-29F for a while, yet. Even as we slowly warm up, those -38C/-36F wind chills are supposed to hang in there all day.
The plan was to head into the city today, and finally do our monthly shop, before it got colder tomorrow, and started snowing again, the day after.
I was hesitant to talk about the Freedom Convoy again. I’ve tried hard to keep this blog pretty neutral, and focus on what we’re doing here on my childhood farm. Over the years, I’ve found myself pretty involved with contentious stuff, and part of moving out here has been to get away from this stuff. It’s hard to avoid, when living in the middle of a major city, and we were more than happy to get away from that. Yes, living here has had its own issues, but it’s still an improvement.
The problem is, what’s been going on over the past couple of years has long fingers, and even managed to affect us in our little corner of the world. What is happening now, with the Freedom Convoy, and all the other convoys and protests forming around the country, is going to affect us.
That, and apparently many of you following this blog are wanting to hear this, considering what traffic has been like when I do talk about it!
We are still very much on the outside of things, since we aren’t in a position to get directly involved in any way, and most of what’s going on is quite distant from us. Still, we need to keep watch on what’s happening. How things turn out in the end will affect the entire country. There are already some sudden changes; the Conservative Party of Canada just ousted their leader. He was the official leader of the opposition, but has not been leader of this party for very long. I’m not a member of any political party, but when the CPC were choosing a new leader, this one was not at the top of the list of who I would have preferred. Still, I had some hope for him. Unfortunately, he turned turned out to be about as two faced as they come. That the party turfed him after his complete failure to be an effective leader is a positive sign and, frankly, I think all our major political parties need to do the same thing. Even at the provincial level since, most of the disastrous restrictions and mandates fall under provincial jurisdiction.
The response from both our governments (at all levels) and our media has been pretty terrible, and the media, of course, continue to report lies. They just go through the list of accusations that they’ve been using on anyone they don’t approve of, to see what will stick. Racists? Nope. Misogynists? Nope. Extremists? Nope. Violent? Nope. Vandals? Nope. Stealing food from the homeless? Nope. Even “Islamophobe” has been tossed in the mix. Nope.
NEW: Truckers are providing meals for the homeless in downtown Ottawa. Zero mainstream media coverage. Organizers also have pop-up pizza ovens cooking food for everyone all over. This is who Trudeau is calling "unacceptable." pic.twitter.com/0uySAyA4iJ
Now, it turns out there has been vandalism in Ottawa, but not from the truckers. During the day, there is a heavy police presence, but not at night – and that’s when people against the convoy have been coming out, vandalizing trucks and causing other problems.
Ottawa’s mayor has already tried to say, okay, you’ve made your point, now leave. Which is hilarious. Even more hilarious is that the city tried to get tow trucks to haul the rigs away (ha!), and they refused. I’ve heard they tried to do things like remove all the garbage cans, but people just started hanging garbage bags around for others to use. Public washrooms were closed, so people brought in porta-potties. Protestors are not just singing and dancing and honking horns. They’re shoveling sidewalks and keeping the area clean.
It’s not just in Ottawa. Other convoys and protests have formed elsewhere, including at an Alberta border crossing. The province tried to get tow truck drivers to haul them away, and they refused – some of them joined the protest, instead! Farmers are coming out with their tractors, too. The RCMP tried to from their own blockage to prevent them, but… seriously. How are you going to stop a vehicle that can just go through the ditches around you?
Worse, Alberta’s premier openly lied, claiming protestors attacked the RCMP.
Thankfully, independent media are on the ground, doing actual reporting – and right now, anyone with a phone and an internet connection is independent media!
Even media around the world are noticing just how badly the convoy is being misrepresented within Canada.
Watching all this, I can’t help but make comparisons. Our government and media are going to extreme lengths to attack these protests, where if someone so much as sneezes in the wrong place, the entire movement – and it is a movement, now – gets slandered.
I remember, years ago, when the Occupy protests were all the rage. Groups of people set up camps at Legislative and other government buildings and public parks. Where we were living at the time, they set up camp in what turned out to be a private park, but they stayed, anyways. The media portrayed them in the most positive light, and the varying levels of government paid them lip service. Even as the camps reached states of squalor, with theft and rapes happening, there was no real condemnation. I’m the sort of person who has no problem walking down a dark alley at 2 am. Apparently, I’ve perfected the look that makes other people cross the street when they see me. Which is funny, because I also apparently have “Mom” stamped on my forehead. Yet, when I had to walk past the Occupy camp, I crossed the street and stayed well away. I remember, long after they were gone, still finding damage to art pieces and trees, cause by the signs they attached to them, as well as whatever ropes and whatnot they set up. They all left damage and garbage behind.
These camps lasted for months, and yet… they accomplished nothing. There were all these little Marxists, imagining themselves as brave revolutionaries, who deliberately removed themselves from society for months to protest and…
No one missed them.
They contributed to little to the world around them, that when they left it to protest, it made no difference.
Now let’s compare with what’s happening now. The people protesting are truckers and, increasingly, farmers. They have so much support, the GoFundMe is now over $10 million, as of this writing. Between that and the direct donations, they could stay there for years. However, without truckers and farmers, everything collapses. No country can last long, if their truckers and farmers stop working.
Which is likely why the government has been trying very hard to deny them the money people have donated. One MP in Ontario is apparently trying to have the funds seized, and used to pay for things like the cost of policing or whatever. As if the government has any right to money people donate!
As of this writing, that GoFundMe is currently “Under Review”. No one can donate, and the funds are frozen. This, even though the organizers have been working closely with GoFundMe to make sure everything is above board and in compliance with their terms of service. There are serious questions as to why it would suddenly be “under review.” People who have donated are very angry. Particularly if the government does try to seize it. Many are already saying that they’ll withdraw their donations. There are many other ways to get support to the truckers.
So what’s going to happen? I know the truckers and their supporters aren’t going to back down. I also know our Prime Dictator is going to dig his heals in as long as he can.
This is not something that can end in a stalemate.
Butterscotch finally let me take her picture this evening.
I’m still blown away by how calm she is. I don’t now how much of that I can attribute to her recovering from surgery, or how much to having something removed that was likely causing her discomfort. It could well be both.
They need to stay indoors for at least 10-14 days. We’ll see how she does over time. We were thinking of bringing Nosencrantz into the house, after she’s been isolated a few days to make sure there are no ear mite or flea issues. The problem with that is, it would leave Butterscotch without feline company, and she got along with Nosencrantz more than a lot of the other cats.
We shall see how they progress, before we make any decisions.
So the blizzard has passed, and has been replaced with extreme cold warnings. As I write this, we have warmed up to -26C/-15F with a wind chill of -34C/-29F
In our own little front yard microclimate, however, it felt a lot warmer, and the outside cats were out in full force!
A few were holding out for the warm water before coming out, though! :-D
The sun spot at that window must be very pleasant in there. :-)
As for Butterscotch and Nosencrantz, they would not let me take photos! Nosencrantz wouldn’t stop wiggling around, and Butterscotch just moves away. They are eating and drinking just fine, though unfortunately, from the smell I walked into, they are finding somewhere other than the litter box to do their business. *sigh* I’m sure we’ll find all sorts of “surprises” when the sun room gets its spring clean up. The litter box is being used … by one of them, at least.
Once the critters were fed, I headed out to dig us out. It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought it might be, though. We didn’t have a lot of new snow, which helped. The high winds were mostly moving around existing snow which, with our garage, meant blowing the snow off the roof and dumping it into a drift in front. The van might have been able to go through the drift, if we really had to, but we could not open the doors to the addition my mother’s car is parked in. It has swing doors that need to be replaced. One of them drags on the ground, so that area needs to be cleared a lot more thoroughly, just to open it wide enough for the car to drive through.
The other side of the garage, where the snow blower, lawn mowers and wood chipper is stored, also has swing doors.
We can’t get into there right now.
When our neighbour cleared our driveway, he pushed aside a snow ridge that was creeping in front of the middle section of the garage, where the van needs to get through. Unfortunately, he pushed it too close to the double doors to that side of the garage. There is enough space that we could clear one of the doors, which would allow us to at least get in, but not with our usual snow shovels. They are a strong plastic, but not that strong. We’ll have to tackle the pile with the ice chipper and a steel shovel before the snow can be moved and really, we don’t need to get into there that badly!
Once the front of the garage was clear, I checked out the driveway and was pleasantly surprised. The road itself remained clear enough that it won’t even need to be plowed. The main road would have drifted over, but I’m sure that’s been cleared by now.
The drifting over the end of the driveway wasn’t all that bad. In fact, I could see the tracks of a vehicle using our driveway to turn around. With the walls of snow left by the plows, our driveway is the only one nearby that’s open enough to do that. All the other driveways for about a mile in either direction are into fields, or empty properties, so no one’s keeping them clear.
I did have to dig out the gate. I’d opened it before the blizzard hit, just in case. They weren’t drifted in place too deeply, but the snow was packed so hard, I had to use the ice chipper to break it up, first.
The bottom of the gate is normally about 6-8 inches above the ground, when open.
I was mostly concerned with this side. While swinging it open and closed, we noticed it started to shudder and vibrate. When our vandal busted up the hinge pins, my brother replaced them with pairs of J pins, so that no one could simply use a jack to take the gate off anymore. My concern was that a pin had snapped in the cold. I was able to check the top ones before, but couldn’t see the bottom ones. So this morning, I used the ice chipper and shovel to clear it away to check, and they were fine.
The shudder was also gone when I swung the gate back and forth, so it looks like it was the build up of ice and snow that was causing it.
On this side, I had to dig things out a bit more, just so we could swing it open further – and dig out the little path to the mini solar panel powering some decorative lights we have on the fence. We used to have several strings of white LED Christmas lights all along that fence, but they got very weathered and I finally just took them off. At some point, we want to have lights along the fence line again, but until then, the mini string of solar powered LED lights will go. The solar panel just needs to be kept clear of snow, and it’s resting on the hub of that wagon wheel in the fence.
Interestingly, the hardest area to dig out was the path to the trail cam. Talk about hard packed! I had to use the ice chipper on almost the entire path. But I got to it, and was able to switch out the memory card – and got to see the vehicle that used our driveway to turn around it! :-D I don’t know who it is, but it’s a truck I see regularly, and I am jealous of the plow attachment. ;-)
On my “when we win the lottery” shopping list is either a RAM 1500 or an F150 (the top two highest rated trucks for winter driving, last I looked) with a plow attachment.
I should probably buy a ticket… ;-)
So we are now cleared out enough to get the van out of the garage and drive. We’re expecting a delivery from the pharmacy today, so the gates are being left open. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of our vandal in the trail cam files, so it looks like he’s actually avoiding using the roads past us entirely. Which is not something I intended as a condition, as that’s just not realistic in our area, but who knows what the judge or his lawyer managed to drum into him! Anyhow, between the court order, and the weather conditions, I think we’re okay to leave the gate open for a while, though I’d rather never have to close it at all.
The paths around the yard are pretty filled in. I’m leaving that job for my daughters to do, later!
For now, I’m going to call our mechanic back and book that oil change again!
Okay, I just had to do it. I had to include a picture of Cabbages.
The cat lady messaged me with a picture, and I’ve cropped out anything remotely identifying.
Just look at that face!!! Those eyes!!
Apparently, she is very chatty. She’s never been particularly vocal, but with so many other cats around, she probably had no reason to be.
She was like this, when the cat lady took her. Losing weight. Increasingly lethargic. Needing to be fed with a syringe. We had no idea how close to death she was. Thanks to the cat lady, Cabbages is still with us, doing SO much better, and has a forever home waiting for her.
What an amazing woman.
If you would like to read more about Cabbages and our fundraiser to surprise-reimburse her vet expenses, click here. Or, you can go straight to the fundraiser page here.
After doing my morning rounds, I contacted the garage to let him know I wasn’t going to make my appointment with the van today. We are under blizzard conditions right now, which are expected to continue until this evening.
There actually isn’t a lot of snow, but the winds are insane. There is a drift in front of the garage door we will have to dig out before we can go anywhere though, at the moment, the driveway is still mostly clear.
There is supposed to be a path around the back of the kibble house, and a kibble tray at the end. Under the drift. The cat path to under the storage house was also filling in.
Temperature wise, we are at only -17C/1F, but with 50km/31m per hour winds, the wind chill is at -31C/-24F. The winds are coming from the northwest, which we are normally protected from, but at these speeds, it’s just swirling around the house and all the outbuildings.
The path to the compost pile is, once again, mostly gone.
Even right up against the house, the path to the feeding station is mostly filled in.
I opened the gate to check the road, then left it open so that it would not be drifted over in the closed position. Right now, the only thing keeping the end of our driveway from drifting over completely, are the walls of snow made by the front end loader when it was being cleared. They’re acting a bit like a snow fence, for the moment. The road past our place is actually looking quite clear, but it runs from north to south, and the winds are just blowing the snow along. The main gravel road, and the highway I would be taking to get that oil change done, would be drifted over, and the winds would be hitting our van broadsided. I checked the Facebook group for local highway conditions, and some people were reporting that they were in the ditch – and the roads they were on were mostly clear! It was the winds that did them in.
Smart kitties. They came out when I put food and warm water out, ate and drank quickly, then disappeared into their various hidey holes. One is visible in the window, but I think there’s about 5 or 6 in there.
I saw Rolando Moon emerge from the junk pile. She’s a tough one, and has seen many cold winters. She knows how to handle it. She stayed out to eat longer than the other cats, then went into the insulated shelf shelter to get out of the wind. Which, as you can see, is even managing to blow snow into the opening!
We need to build more little shelters like this. Especially when we finally get that junk pile hauled away. They use it for shelter, a lot.
Before heading outside, I treated Butterscotch and Nosencrantz with some wet cat food. Nosencrantz has been staying on the top shelf of the frame the heat bulb is in, which means sitting on top of the board the fixture is attached to. That puts her under the light we’ve got, hanging under the peak. It’s got a full spectrum bulb that we were using for seed starts. It’s incandescent, so it’s also warm, so we’ve been leaving it on. She was there when I came in, and I helped her down so she wouldn’t have to jump and jar her body.
Butterscotch has been using one of the box beds we have set up, and very languidly emerged when I brought the food out. I can see some things knocked about a bit, so I know at least one of them is trying to jump onto shelves and explore a bit, but it’s not too bad.
When I was done my rounds, I paused to spend time with them before going into the house. Nosencrantz quite enjoyed being held and snuggled.
When I put her on the swing bench, she was comfortable enough to roll around and let me see her roly poly belly!
She is such a big sausage!
I was able to pick up Butterscotch and cuddle her a bit, too. She even purred at me!
After hearing from the vet, what the condition of her uterus was when they removed it, I have a suspicion that Butterscotch is going to undergo a catonality change. She’s always had a bit of a mean streak at times. I now wonder if it was due to physical discomfort. Right now, she’s moving around more slowly (or course!), but while I was holding Nosencrantz, she still came over and wound around my feet. When I picked her up, she was a lot calmer than I normally expect her to be. Even as I was going in and out of the sun room, she made no attempt to escape, though that might have more to do with having just had surgery, yesterday. Perhaps, once she’s healed up more from the surgery, she’ll go back to her more ornery self. However, I have a suspicion she’s going to be a happier and more pleasant cat to be around.
It should be interesting to see how it goes for Beep Beep, next week. We don’t know if she is older or younger than Butterscotch.
So today is a day to stay indoors. We shall see if we can make the trip to the city tomorrow or not. The winds are supposed to die down, but the temperature is supposed to drop quite a bit.
Times like this are exactly why we’ve been working so hard to stay stocked up!!
Having said that, one of the things I was hoping to do while in town getting the oil change, was to come home with some Chinese take-out. Now that it’s no longer an option, I am craving Chinese food like crazy! :-D
Today has been one of those days where I haven’t been paying much attention to things outside our little cave. I’ve been using various apps to keep in the loop about the Freedom Convoy, but simply have not been able to keep on top of the hundreds of messages, posts and videos. I have had to mute most of the channels. Otherwise, my phone would be constantly singing at me with notification noises.
This evening, I finally got to sit down and try to look at some of the stuff, and figured I’d check out some of the YouTube videos that so many people have been posting.
Well, now.
First, not a lot of related videos were showing in my feed, even though quite a few channels I follow are directly involved in some way. So I did a search. I did that yesterday and found all sorts of interesting videos, some of which I shared.
Not today.
Today, about 99% of the videos that showed up in my search were from mainstream media. Since they aren’t really covering it much, most of them are also days old. After a while, I did see more independent videos show up, but they are even older than the media ones.
YouTube is messing with the search results, and keeping people from finding videos made by anyone other than our government approved media.
The mainstream media has, of course, been spreading all sorts of lies and slander about the Freedom Convoy. Our Prime Dictator came out and made a little speech, supposedly to explain why he refuses to talk to the truckers. It was a speech filled with lies, misrepresentations, and was clearly intended to create more division and hate against the truckers. The former drama teacher was over acting again, too.
One of the few politicians that has openly and unapologetically supported the Freedom Convoy from the start has been Maxime Bernier, of the PPC; the video above has his response to some of the disgusting things our Prime Dictator said. The NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh, who is Sikh, also made some really vile comments denigrating the protestors as racists. Which would be a real surprise to all the Sikh truckers and supporters of the protest. In fact, the Sikh community has been one of the staunchest supporters. There have also been a lot of immigrants, some truckers, some supporters, that talk of having escaped tyrannical regimes. They are saying they are there, supporting the truckers, because they could see the same things happening here in Canada, that lead to the destruction of human rights and freedoms in their homelands. Of course, there are also the many First Nations groups that have joined the protests. It’s gotta be the most racially and ethnically diverse group of “white supremacists”, ever!
One of the YouTube channels I follow is The Rubin Report, and I still had to go looking to find this coverage.
Other platforms, such as Rumble, aren’t censoring videos.
The Rebel, which is completely independently funded, is one of the few larger media covering the protests. This one addresses the real problem of people infiltrating the protest to deliberately mess things up.
This is something everyone knew was going to happen. It’s a standard MO, really.
If we were to listen to the mainstream media and our own federal government, we would believe that there’s just a “fringe minority” of racist hicks that can’t be taken seriously, that are also domestic terrorists bent on violently overturning our (oh-so-saintly) government and the greatest threat our nation has ever faced.
Well, I suppose you could say it is an uprising. An uprising of courage, hope, unity, and love from ordinary Canadians, standing up against division, medical apartheid an government enforced segregation.
The Re-Farmer
Update: well, this didn’t take long. I just found this story, from The Counter Signal.
“Ottawa City Councillor Mathieu Fleury wants to seize the protesting truckers’ GoFundMe support account, which has raised upwards of $9 million, to cover the costs of policing the city — among other costs.
Fleury, who represents the city’s Rideau-Vanier Ward, publicly announced on social media that he asked the city manager and city solicitor to “immediately launch court proceedings targeting the millions of dollars in funds frozen by [GoFundMe] so Ottawa taxpayers are not left holding the bag for these protests.””
We just got back from picking Nosencrantz and Butterscotch up from the vet, a couple of hours earlier than anticipated.
She looks so betrayed!
Nosencrantz looks absolutely miserable! Especially since whatever they used in her ears has a red tinge to it, making the inside of her ears look bloody as well as oily. :-D
I got a call from the cat lady about them, first. She still keeps calling my cell phone instead of our land line, which worked out this time, because the vet called while we were talking! I couldn’t answer a second phone, so I let it go to machine, and we both got to listen to the message being left. :-D
The cats were just waking up from surgery, and were doing well, so they were good to be picked up between 2:30 and 3 instead of between 4 and 5. The cat lady informed us that they also had fleas, which was a surprise. We’ve never seen fleas on the outside cats, but of course, that doesn’t mean much, since most of them don’t let us look too close. She asked us to keep an eye out on the other outside cats for things like bald patches, and to let her know; she would come to our place and treat them for fleas herself.
I don’t see that happening.
Before we got off the phone, I asked how Cabbages was doing. I was so happy to hear that she is starting to jump around in the kennel they are keeping her in, and that she has gained almost a pound. This morning, the dry bowl was empty, which means she’s been eating on her own – and she really loves roasted drumsticks best!
I am so thankful for the cat lady and her vet. Cabbages would not be alive right now, if not for them.
If you would like to read more about Cabbages and our fundraiser to surprise-reimburse her for vet expenses, click here. Or, you can go straight to the fundraiser page here.
When it was time to pick up Butterscotch and Nosencrantz, my daughter went in to get them and got more information.
Those fleas the cats had?
It was one flea.
On Nosencrantz.
That’s all they saw.
The tech was a bit concerned, saying she’d heard something about the cats going back outside. She was GREATLY relieved when my daughter explained we had a room set up for them to recover in. She was equally relieved to know that they did not go inside the house, either. Otherwise, we’d be having to treat the remaining 15 cats for fleas and ear mites – and treat the entire house for fleas, too!
I am so glad to have that sun room to use as a buffer zone!
Because of the ear mites and the flea, Nosencrantz needs to stay in the sun room for at least three days before we can consider bringing her indoors. That will give her time to get used to using a litter box, too. We are to keep a close eye on her for fleas and ear mites. The de-worming pill she got should also take care of those, but if it still seems to be an issue, we can come back and get another pill.
Butterscotch had a surprise for the vet during surgery. As they removed her uterus, they found it was “tattery and falling apart.” Yes, that’s an exact quote!!!
No wonder she was such an unhappy brood mother!
Apparently this is a reflection of age. We don’t know how old Butterscotch is. Just that she is more than 7 years old.
Everything else seemed to be fine, but we have been asked to keep an eye on her. In particular, on her gums. If they start looking white and anemic, we are to bring her back.
Not that she’s going to make that easy for us. As soon as we let her out of the carrier at home, she disappeared behind the swing bench. We can’t get at her without moving a lot of stuff. We’ll be coming in regularly to check on them, of course.
Butterscotch will be in the sun room for at least 7 days. Preferably 10, before going back outside.
If she stays on pattern, once she’s outside, she’s going to be avoiding us for at least a couple of months, so the longer we can keep her indoors to monitor her, the better.
It will be a while before her belly fur grows back, so if it gets cold again after she’s outside, we’re supposed to try and bring her back in again. Ha! I doubt she’d let us!
We still haven’t seen the surgical sites on either of them. Butterscotch disappeared as soon as the carrier was opened. Nosencrantz had to be poured out of the soft sided carrier; she would not leave on her own! She then immediately went under the heat bulb. She had a bandage for the IV on her leg that she was trying to shake off. We were told it could be taken off after half an hour, which had passed in the time it took to get them home, so I did manage to get that off. She didn’t make it easy, though at least she didn’t try to run away.
We will have to visit them frequently over the next while. That will be mostly on the girls, since tomorrow I’ll be going to town to finally get a much needed oil change for the van, and will most likely be heading to the city to do our Costco trip the day after.
Hopefully.
Our storm warnings have become blizzard warnings, but for the south of the province. We’ve seen no sign of the system in our area, yet. It still doesn’t look like we’ll be getting much snow, but the main concern will be high winds. From the weather radar, it looks like the most severe weather we’ll be getting won’t happen until 8 or 9pm tonight, with blowing snow tomorrow, plus several colder days.
Whatever ends up hitting us, I’m glad we were able to get the cats done first.
