I discovered the cats were not the only ones enjoying the warmer, insulated sun room, this evening!
Continue readingAuthor: Re-Farmer
Winterizing: sun room and cat shelter
It warmed up a little bit today, so we got to work on winterizing the sun room. When that was done, I was even able to modify the shelf we have outside the sun room into a cat shelter.
What a job it was, too!!
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What. A. Day.
So… things did not turn out as planned, today.
Not by a long shot!!
The plan for the day was, go into town and drop the cats off to get snipped when the vet opened at 9am, then head to the town our garage is in to start the process of getting winter tires through the insurance company’s loan program, then head home until it was time to pick the cats up at 4.
The first hitch in our plans happened before we even left.
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Winterizing: the old dog houses
Today, I finally was able to get working on the old dog houses, getting them ready for winter! :-)
The first thing on the list was to take off the tarp I’d put over them temporarily, and take down the rope I’d used to hold it up.
Since I was there anyway, I decided to do something about the fallen tree beside them. It’s too big to add to the chipping pile, so I just cut it into three and pulled the top of it out of the trees it had fallen on.
In the process, I noticed something.
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Not what I expected
After a lovely surprise, finding my dear friend had sent us a heated water bowl for the outside cats, we later opened my husband’s packages to see if the one he had ordered was in.
It was.
But it was not quite what I expected.
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I have the best friends!
My husband had some packages to pick up in today’s mail, so I made a quick trip in to pick them up.
I was expecting 2, maybe 3, boxes.
There was 5! LOL The clerk helped me carry them to my van. :-D
When I got home, I was surprised to find my name on one of them.
A dear friend had sent me a surprise!
No more trying to keep the cats’ water from freezing with a light bulb! :-D
Of course, I had to set it up right away.
The cats were quick to show their appreciation.
It took Doom Guy a minute to realize there was water in the new bowl. The warm water I had put out this morning was already starting to freeze!
My husband had actually ordered one, too – in fact, it might be in one of the other boxes I picked up! So we’ll have two. :-)
I have the best friends!
The Re-Farmer
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Must be 10 years old
I spotted this sign on a recreation centre door, in one of our neighbouring towns.
I remember my 6th grade teacher announcing to the class that a hunter’s safety course was available, should anyone want to sign up. I hadn’t bothered to even tell my parents about it, since I’d already been shooting for a few years. I’m glad they are still available. :-)
The Re-Farmer
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Blocked…
This afternoon, I found myself falling asleep at my desk and realized I needed to nap if I was going to do any driving later on.
Upon reaching my bed, however, I found my intentions blocked.
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A little secret…
I found out we had a secret space in our kitchen, today…
I was able to visit my mother this afternoon, and bring her the grabber I bought for her recently. We had a pot of tea, of course, and she brought out a sugar bowl with the tiniest of teaspoons in it. She commented that she had brought it with her from the farm, the mentioned there were more of them in the top of the cutlery drawer.
The what? Where???
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I got you covered!
Something very disorienting happened today.
There was a knock at the door.
Which is one of those things that is so unexpected, it takes a moment for my brain to clue in and say, “oh… there’s a person at the door.” :-D
Turns out, it was the guy delivering the straw bale we had ordered. He had to leave the tractor in the driveway, hop the locked gate, and come knocking.
There’s a reason I asked for a call first! :-D The guy delivering the bale was not the guy I bought it from, so he probably didn’t have my number. Not that he could have called us from his tractor, anyhow. ;-)
I was really happy to see him, that’s for sure! It’s been snowing off and on, and the temperatures are dropping, so I really wanted to get that septic tank covered!
This time, I asked him to drop it off in the old garden area. You can see that the bale has been sitting for a year! After unwrapping it, I started trying to pull the straw down near that dark area, and found it half frozen and very wet.
Which is great, because the wet straw that’s already starting to decompose went straight onto the garden area, and some of the compost, right away. I even found a worm in it. LOL
This is where our septic tank is. Our system is very different from what is usual; instead of a gravity based system, ours has a smaller tank and pumps. There are pipes leading from the basement to the left of the tank in this photo. The tank has two chambers. Everything goes into the first chamber, then when it fills with liquid, there is an overflow chamber. When that fills, the liquid is pumped to a field out by the barn. The pipe for the outflow runs under the old kitchen, which is behind the septic lid in the photo.
All of these pipes are buried deep and, theoretically, we could go without covering any of this at all, but it’s not something we want to take a chance with. An extreme winter could freeze the ground far enough that the pipes would freeze, and if that happened, it could get really nasty in our basement! It would also cost many thousands of dollars to get it fixed. So spending $25 on a bale and covering it is really cheap insurance! ;-)
Here is now it looks now! I added extra along the old kitchen foundation, just for a bit of extra insulation.
I’m leaving the tools with the bale for now, as we’ll be using it to insulate the old dog houses, probably in a couple of days.
While working on this, I had several very curious kitties checking things out. I expect the bale will also serve throughout the winter to keep little paws warm, and for burrowed nests, as well. :-) They were already quite keen on getting into it.
When I was done, I got a selfie with Susan.
She was not co-operative. LOL
Another thing off the list of things to get done before winter! :-)
The Re-Farmer
