So Nosencrantz has adapted pretty much instantly to being inside.
She just could not get enough attention from my daughter!
Butterscotch was a bit harder to get inside. She kept hiding in different places in the old kitchen. We tried luring her with food, catnip, her favourite bed from the sun room… no go. We really needed to get her out of there, though, as this room has no heat source, and who knows if it has any insulation. Back in the day, it was kept warm in winter with the constantly burning wood cookstove.
Eventually, she tucked herself into the corner of a shelf, and my younger daughter was able to reach her. Some pets and ear skritches, and Butterscotch eventually came out. We managed to quickly get her into the cat carrier and brought her in to my room.
Now, we’ve tried to bring Butterscotch in before, which she hated so much. Whether it was in the sun room, when we turned it into a maternity ward, several years ago, or when we turned the new basement into a maternity ward, with the intention of turning both her and Beep Beep into indoor cats, it was a disaster. Tearing through a screen door is one thing. Killing her own kittens was a whole new level.
As an outdoor cat, she had her moods. She did allow attention, and liked to be carried, but she was not a cuddly cat. She was not above suddenly deciding to get mean, either.
So… who is this, then?
Once in my room, she started looking around, and let me pick her up and put her on the bed.
That was several hours ago. She has yet to leave it.
Not only that, but when I sat to pet her, she snuggled her head into my hand, using it as a pillow, while I pet her, purring mightily. She even rolled onto her back, giving me the best view of her surgical scar we’ve had since we got her spayed.
Once we were done petting her, she just curled up and stayed on the red blanket on my bed that is a favourite spot for most of the cats. Not even napping, really. Just lying there, content and purring.
Who is this cat?
Since she’s been inside, we have allowed Fenrir into the room. Fenrir was curious about Nosencrantz, they sniffed each other, and Fenrir growled at her. Which is typical Fenrir.
Butterscotch watched from her spot on the bed, and that was it. I suppose it’s possible they might remember each other, since Fenrir showed up as a kitten and got adopted by Beep Beep and Butterscotch, letting her nurse with their own kittens, but it was more Beep Beep that took care of her than Butterscotch. It’s been a few years since they’ve seen each other.
As I sit and write this, I can hear Nosencrantz checking out the door. She wants to go out and explore.
Butterscotch is now asleep on the red blanket.
It should be interesting to see how they do, during their first night inside. I suspect Nosencrantz will try and get into all sorts of things.
The way things are going, I might wake up to Butterscotch cuddles!
So, before we discovered issues where happening with the sump pump, our morning was pretty routine! :-D
The piebald deer was back again. Later on, I saw our usual pair coming by, and I think a singleton that’s starting to come by more often.
While puttering around the kitchen and heating up water for the outside cats, I spotted this camouflaged at, watching me through the window!
Inside cats, watching outside cat! :-D
I count fourteen in this photo.
I’m seeing Potato Beetle regularly again, and that wound on his head is looking like it really doesn’t like the cold! He won’t let me look to closely, though. :-(
With Butterscotch and Nosencrantz transitioning indoors, I’ll be able to leave the sun room doors open behind me while doing the morning rounds, again. Agnoos and Tuxedo Mask miss going into there! :-D
This is the usual pair of deer that come by every day, sometimes several times a day. Yesterday, they were coming close, even as they could see me shoveling snow. This morning, the little one was comfortable enough to actually lie down!
Unfortunately, I ran out of feed. Hopefully, my mom’s car handled the cold snap all right, and I can use it to run some errands today.
Hopefully, we’ll also get word on the status of our van!
I just had to try and get a picture of Beep Beep, who jammed herself in between her babies, Layendecker and Big Rig. She moved while I was talking the picture, so it’s not as clear, but Layendecker is at least double her size!! He’s more than double her weight. Hard to believe she grew this boy. :-D
The outside cats were out in full force this morning!
I count 15 in the picture. There was one more that ran out of camera view. With the two in the sun room, that’s 18. Rozencrantz and Ghost Baby are not in sight, which means all are accounted for. Even The Distinguished Guest, whom I was able to pet, while putting the food out. :-)
Tomorrow is supposed to get even warmer than today’s high, but we’re also supposed to get another 5-10cm of snow, so if we’re going to get any errands done, today is the day!
We have not had an update on Cabbages recently, which means she has been doing well. The last news we had was posted here.
If you would like to contribute to our fundraiser to reimburse the cat lady for Cabbages’ vet bills, click on the button below, or click here. If you would like to read more about it, click here.
The cold temperatures are hanging in there, but the outside cats seem to be doing quite well.
I often see them running around on the security camera live feed. I do wonder, though, about the times when I see half a dozen of them, all running back and forth on the driveway at the same time! :-D
Nosencrantz and Butterscotch remain in the sun room. Technically, we can let them out now, but with these temperatures and their shaved bellies, that wouldn’t happen, even if we weren’t considering bringing them indoors permanently. With Nosencrantz up for adoption, it would be just easier that way. Butterscotch… we’ll give it a try again. She came out when I set fresh food out for them, but didn’t really want attention, and kept moving away when I came near. Unlike Nosencrantz, who will happily accept being picked up and cuddled!
We’ve talked about bringing them in and have decided to wait until after the spice girls, Saffron and Turmeric, go. They are booked for their surgeries on Feb. 23. We drop them off in the morning, then the cat lady will pick them up in the afternoon, where they will be delivered to the fosters that are ready and waiting for them, to recover then be adopted out. With Cabbages unexpectedly leaving when she did, we now have 15 cats in the house. It’s probably not a good idea to make it 17, when two more are leaving in such a short time. I’m sure Nosencrantz will handle the transition just fine. Not so sure about Butterscotch.
It does mean we will be visiting them in the sun room as often as we can, and providing them with more toys to keep them happy.
Beep Beep looks like such a kitten in this photo!! Hard to believe she’s a minimum of 7 years old. It’s also hard to believe that such a tiny cat made such big babies. Cheddar and Layendecker, who are a couple of years apart in age, didn’t start big, but both grew into such hefty boys. They totally dwarf her. Even Big Rig is bigger than she is, though they are so much alike, I often get them mixed up. Only Saffron remains smaller, while Turmeric is almost caught up in size.
Beep Beep and Fenrir have recovered so well from surgery, I forget they even had it, until Beep Beep starts rolling and I see her belly.
Fenrir doesn’t roll like that. Ever. Checking her belly is a two person job.
I wonder how well Beep Beep and Butterscotch will remember each other, when we try bringing Butterscotch indoors? For all we know, Butterscotch is her mother. They’ve shared the parenting of litters every year we’ve been here, with Butterscotch more than happy to leave her babies with Beep Beep as much as she could. I’m sure they’ll remember each other at least a little bit, even if they haven’t seen each other in almost 2 years. Whether that means they’ll be friendly with each other or not, is anyone’s guess! :-D
There is most definitely a plus to not closing our gate anymore, to avoid having it freeze shut again.
Our angel with a front end loader showed up yesterday! What a beautiful sight!
With the temperatures, no one went out while he was still here, but I did make sure to send a note to the renter to pass on our thanks. Like many others, they were pretty snowed in, too. Having that front end loader sure makes a difference, though! Their kids were home; school was cancelled, and the buses haven’t been running for days anyhow, due to icy road conditions. Plus a shortage of drivers. I don’t know if that’s because the drivers are snowed in at their homes, too, or if they just don’t have as many employed right now. Could well be both!
The driver even made the area in front of our person gate wider. I think he could see, by the tracks in the snow from the tow truck, that the area in front is used, and where space is needed for turning around.
The cats are loving it! After the front end loader was done, I could see on the security camera, cats running around and playing all over the plowed areas! They were having a blast!
This morning, after feeding the critters, I started a bit of shoveling, including clearing part of the snow ridge in front of the people gate, where we unload the van. I couldn’t stay out for too long. I hadn’t put toe warmers on this morning, and my boots that are supposed to be rated to -40C/-40F… aren’t. :-D The girls and I will head out later in the day to clear the paths. I’m just so grateful that the big job is done. Yes, we couldn’t have gotten out with my mother’s car, but this makes life so much easier!
The kitties were looking pretty miserable when they came out for kibble! As you can see by the nose in the window, they were eager to get back into shelter, once they had their fill of kibble and warm water! I do wish I’d been able to catch the death glare I was getting from Caramel, who is drinking water in the above photo. I think she is going to be a very happy camper, once we manage to catch her and she gets placed into a forever home – indoors!
This is what the temperature was like shortly after I got back inside – and still is now, as I am writing this! The -28C/-18F is bang on, but I’m happy to say we weren’t getting that -36C/-33F wind chill. The wind may be coming from the south, which we normally have issues with, it’s only 9 kmh/5 1/2 mph, and what trees and outbuildings we have on the south side are enough to reduce that. Still, it wasn’t a good morning to be out there for very long, that’s for sure!
The 14 day forecast is looking pretty good, though more snow is on the way. On Sunday – tomorrow – we’re expecting less than 5cm/2in, but on Tuesday, they’re predicting another 5-10cm/2-4in, then another 2-4cm/1-2in starting late Thursday and into Friday. I know so many people who are even more snowed in than we have been. Many have the equipment to dig their way out, but they’re running out of room for all the piled up snow! It takes my old brother, who lives closer to the city, 4 hours to clear his driveway with his snow blower. My sister’s husband uses their tractor and it takes him 2 hours, though for where they are, it’s generally a longer wait for their roads to be plowed, so it only gets them so far.
I’m liking the sight of warmer temperatures in the forecast, but the warmer weather also tends to bring more moisture – and more snow!
As much as we needed that precipitation, we have enough, now. :-D
Since I posted a screencap of our weather earlier, it has actually gotten a bit colder, instead of warmer, though the wind chill has been reduced.
While heating up water for the outside cats, I spotted this, outside our dining room window.
They were staring very intently at something past the south yard, but I couldn’t see what it was.
Butterscotch and Nosencrantz are still nice and cozy in the sun room. They are getting more active and wanting more attention, too. When the time comes, we’ll see if Butterscotch will let us bring her indoors with Nosencrantz this time, and see if she’s willing to become an indoor cat. If she does, that leaves only Rolando Moon as one of the originals that my late father used to care for, and there’s no way she’ll ever come indoors. My younger brother took her and had her spayed after my husband and younger daughter came out here ahead of the move, but by the time my older daughter and I came out, she had managed to escape the garage they were keeping her in and came back here. She is not a cat suited for indoors, at all! But as snarly, growly, bitey and mean she is – in between demanding pets and skritches! – we love her anyways!
Once outside, I did the minimum amount of cleared needed. We could open the door, but not all the way, so that got cleared. The cat’s non-heated water bowls had to be dug out of the snow. My daughters had already shoveled snow off the low-angle roof last night.
Things like the path to the compost pile, however, will wait a day or two.
You can see in the foreground, where the deer made their way through the snow into the south yard! They’re not quite comfortable enough to go around the front of the house, to the sidewalk path. :-D
We are fortunate where we are. We got snow, but were not snowed in. I would rather not, but if we absolute had to, we’d be able to use my mother’s car to get out, even if the roads are not yet plowed. I know others have had a lot more snow, and are going to need a while to dig their way out.
We’re supposed to warm up a bit tomorrow, so that might be a good day to start clearing out the paths. It’ll warm up even more, the day after, and generally stay mild for the rest of the month. We’re supposed to get a bit more snow here and there, but as far as temperature goes, we should be good.
Just think; the first day of spring is March 20 this year – not very long! Granted, where we are, we can reasonably expect a blizzard in April, but still… things should be slowly warming up now! If all goes well, we will have a slow melt of all this snow. It’d be nice for it all to be absorbed right were it is, and not drain away into the lake.
And is living the high life! She’s getting a salmon fillet every day, as well as boiled chicken and high protein dry cat food. It takes her about 2 hours to eat everything, and she’s getting lots of weigh-ins. She gets tired very quickly, which the vet thinks is a side effect of the neurological infection. She also has her very own tiny human and to dote on her, and massaging her legs, every day. She also has a new name, but we will keep calling her Cabbages, here. :-)
She will be with them a while longer, until after she recovers from getting spayed, which will be later this month, I think. Then she will be moving on to her forever home.
They have done so well by her!
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The snow started falling last night, and it hasn’t stopped yet!
We are at a relatively balmy -7C/19F. According to my app, the wind chill is -13C/9F.
I’d say our wind chill is colder than that!
It’s warm enough for the kitties to come out for breakfast, though Caramel’s expression looks like one of supreme displeasure! :-D
I am so glad we built the kibble house. It’s made things much nicer for the babies!
Butterscotch and Nosencrantz are still doing well in the sun room, though Nosencrantz did seem almost interested in going outside with me.
Almost.
I had deer hanging around the north yard and waiting for me to be done. It was the usual pair, at first. Then this one showed up.
The piebald deer has returned!
This is at least the 3rd winter she has been visiting us. I can’t remember if she started coming during our first winter here, so it might actually be her 4th winter visiting.
She also chased off the other two! :-D
I checked on the van this morning. The charger read full, so I unhooked it, then tested the van.
It started fine, but then I watched the display screen, as the battery charge dropped before my eyes, then the “charging system failure” warning came on again.
So I hooked the charger back on again.
After making sure our mechanic was good with it, I called CAA to tow it over. As you can imagine, they’re pretty busy right now, so I made sure to let them know, there was no emergency or urgency. They couldn’t even give me an estimated time. Logging on later, they have an ETS past 5:30 this evening, but I don’t expect them that “early”. The driver will have to call me for more detailed directions, anyhow, because they just have the map pinned at the highway junction nearest us. Honestly, if they couldn’t make it out today at all, I’d be okay with that.
When it gets here, we should have enough power to start the van and back it out of the garage, but I’d the battery would be dead before they could finish loading it up, based on how fast I saw it loosing charge in the display. Chances are, they won’t be dropping off the van until after the garage is closed, so they’ll probably have to use their own charger, just to be able to park the van after unloading it.
The snow has pretty much stopped falling while I was writing this. A quick look at the weather radar, and it shows the system is just passing us now. It looks like rain is also on the radar, but it is going to miss us entirely. Previous forecast of reaching as high as 3C/37F this afternoon are now saying a high of -3C/27F. I don’t know how much snow we actually got, but the paths didn’t need to be shoveled when I was out this morning, and the driveway looks driveable. Which is good, because we can’t get the little electric snow blower out of the garage. I was able to shovel out one of the swinging doors on that side, but it still won’t open far enough to take anything out, and we’d have to take the wood chipper out before we could take out the little snow blower. At least we can get inside that part of the garage now, though.
Areas to the south of us would have gotten more snow than we did. My sister wasn’t sure she’d be able to make it in to work. Their farm is one of those “turn on the gravel road and drive until it ends” sort of locations, and their driveway drifts over quickly. I haven’t heard from my brother, yet; he’s even further south, and would be in the thick of system right now, judging by the weather radar. He should be able to work from home, though.
Things went south before I even woke up this morning. Or, should I say, things going south was what woke me up!
I still had a litter box in my office/bedroom, so our post surgical kitties wouldn’t have far to go, if they needed to.
I was awakened by the sound of Beep Beep vigorously trying to spread the litter all over my carpet.
And we still don’t have the replacement belts for our new vacuum, yet.
*sigh*
Then I went into the sun room to start my morning rounds, and found water on the floor.
Under the spare cat food bag.
Despite things cooling down, yesterday’s warmth has lead to water leaking in the sun room again, and it’s making its way through now.
And we still don’t know where the water is getting in, so we couldn’t patch it.
So I had to spend some time taking care of the bag of cat food which, thankfully, has an inner lining that kept the kibble from getting wet, and setting out a bucket to catch the drips.
Butterscotch and Nosencrantz were doing very well, and enjoyed their wet cat food treat. They are getting so spoiled these days! :-D
The kibble bowls outside had been picked clean of even the kibble from the brands they don’t like. I am pretty sure I know who ate it. Last night, on the security camera live feed, I saw a very large skunk, running back and forth on the driveway, and too and from one of the sheds. Skunks don’t fully hibernate in winter, and it can be pretty safe to assume a very hungry skunk visited the kibble house last night.
When I came outside, I “caught” a deer in the path to the compost pile, half way between the pile and the house. It froze and stared at me for a while, before walking away, then into the spruces. Even as I brought out the seeds to the feeding station, it stayed and watched me until I was almost clear of the lilac bushes. By the time I was heading to the garage, to take the van to the mechanic, two deer were at the feeding station. They watched me, but didn’t run away.
The van started well enough, and no warning light or message from the onboard computer about the brakes. I left it running to warm up while I went to unlock the gate.
The lock was frozen.
We don’t have lock de-icer.
It took me about 10 minutes to finally be able to get the key in and open the lock.
Which is when I discovered the slide bar that holds the two sides of the gate together, was also frozen.
This thing is about 2 feet long, and the ice had formed between the metal of the bar, and the metal of the gate it slides on.
After fighting with it for a while, I went to the garage, shut off the van, and grabbed a tool kit. I ended up having to remove one of the bolts that holds it in place, but also stops it from sliding too far over the other half of the gate. It allowed me to pull the slider upwards, pivoting on the opposite bolt, enough to break free of the ice. Much sliding back and forth was required to scrape the ice off. The ice had filled almost the entire length where the two pieces of metal where in contact.
That took another 20 minutes or so.
The gate is being left open, now.
Then it was back to the van and off to town, with a brief stop at the post office, along the way.
We’ve got high winds from the north right now, blowing across the road the entire trip. It wasn’t too bad at first, but the closer I drove towards the lake, the more snow there was, the more drifting, and worse visibility. When I reached the stop sign to cross the next highway, it was sheer ice and hadn’t been sanded!
Which is when a new warning light came on. The battery light, while my onboard computer flashed with “charging system failure.”
Seriously???
Thankfully, I was less than 5 minutes from the garage.
When I got there, his parking lot was full, so I pulled in behind his own vehicle and went in.
But not until after I shut off the van, then restarted it. The warning light did not come back on.
Once inside, I saw that not only did he have all three lifts full, but he managed to squeeze in another car in the middle, and a utility vehicle between a vehicle on a lift, and the bay door behind it.
At least he had another mechanic with him this time!
Clearly, he wasn’t going to be able to check the van, anytime soon. I did bring in the printout to show him and we talked about what was going on, as well as the road conditions. He thought I was going to be dropping the van off and coming back later, but that wasn’t an option. My daughter still has a limited license, so someone with a full license has to be with her, and my husband no longer has a valid licence, since they wanted him to do a legal name change when he tried to switch to this province’s license. And she can’t take the road test to get her full license, because of all the restrictions and mandates against organic humans.
I would have been willing to wait, or he could have called me later in the afternoon, when he could fit the van in, but with the road conditions, I didn’t want to chance it.
I’m now booked to come back at 10am on Friday.
It’s a good thing we did that, as conditions had worsened even in the short time I was in with him. It was slow going in places, and more than a few spots were down to almost zero visibility.
About half way home, that “charging system failure” warning came back on.
I was just coming up on the turn towards our driveway when the van kicked into battery saving mode and shutting things off.
After pulling into the garage, I checked, and the battery was down to 8.4 volts. It is normally at 14 volts.
Thankfully, we have a good charger.
Unfortunately, the battery is really hard to get at. The fuse box and a piece of frame support is basically on top of it.
But, it is charging, and I should at least be able to get it to the mechanic in a couple of days.
One of the things on the list of stuff to check that I got after changing the oil, was corrosion on the battery connectors. It was something I’d noticed myself. But would that be enough to prevent the batter from charging? The mechanic suggested it might be the alternator, but until he actually gets under the hood to check, it’s just guesswork.
So, there’s something wonky with the brakes. The battery is losing its charge. We have a loose wire in our manual headlights knob, so that if I want to turn them on manually (auto still works fine), I sometimes have to wiggle it just right for it to work. The ABS needs to be fixed, and on and on.
This van has done well by us, considering the problems we had when we first bought it, but it’s mileage is right up there; I’m actually hoping to catch the odometer at 456,789.0 km, but I might have missed it on the way home. It’s old and little things are giving out, all over. We’re keeping up on them as much as we can, but the budget is just not there to get it all done.
Meanwhile, there is basic maintenance needed on my mother’s car, we have other equipment that needs to be fixed, the roof is leaking, we’re on borrowed time for our well, and the whole house needs a top to bottom renovation.
A lottery win would really come in handy right now. Not even a particularly big win. Just enough to replace and fix the things that need to be done!
Today’s forecast for our area was 1C/34F with less than 1cm/0.4in of snow.
The plan was to head into the city with one of my daughters for their own separate grocery shopping trip. We weren’t planning to leave until noon, so I had plenty of time to do the morning rounds and check the trail cam files.
The outside cats were almost completely out of water in their heated water bowl again – and that thing holds a lot of water!
Also, they have a definite preference for Costco’s Kirkland brand of kibble. :-D
The deer have really dug up our compost heap! Not sure what they’re after under there, that they haven’t already eaten.
Nosencrantz and Butterscotch are absolutely luxuriating in their convalescence. We could bring Nosencrantz indoors right now, but Butterscotch has another few days, at least, before we can let her outside.
She hasn’t shown any interest in going outside since the surgery! What a complete reversal!
Beep Beep and Fenrir, meanwhile, spent the night isolated with me and seem to be doing very well, so they are no longer being kept apart from the other cats.
Beep Beep, unlike Butterscotch, did no go through a “catonality” change, and is still a bully towards the other cats. :-D Nothing bad enough to be a concern, but she does keep herself right up there on the pecking order!
By the time I was done my rounds and heading in, it had started to snow. After a while, it got heavy enough that we were reconsidering our trip to the city.
I’ve gotten to be a wuss in my old age. If I can avoid driving in inclement conditions, I usually will. Back in the day, I had no issues driving through blizzards severe enough that highways were closed, while we were on them. Not anymore!
Meanwhile, as I watched the visibility drop on the security camera’s live feed, the weather app was telling me, “rain will continue for 104 minutes.”
Rain??
Not where we were!
We did decide to head out, and the conditions were much better than I feared. About half way to the town my mother lives in, where we stopped for gas, it switched from snow and snow covered highway, to rain and mostly clear.
The rain continued all the way to the city, and we didn’t hit snow again until we passed back though my mother’s town, though by then the snow had moved further south and was a lot heavier than when we were heading out.
The wet road conditions made for some very messy driving; especially when crossing paths with oncoming semi’s. Thankfully, it’s been warm enough that the windshield washer fluid in my mother’s car was thawed! It had frozen before I had a chance to put winter fluid in. I had still topped it up with winter fluid, so that would have helped, too.
Once home and unloading the car, I paused to top up the windshield fluid again (rated to -35C/-31F!), which is when my husband popped out to ask me to unlock the gate again. We’d just received a call that a delivery was on its way, but the driver couldn’t find our physical address. Neither the name nor the numerical designation for our road comes up on GPS. So I took care of the gate, then topped up the washer fluid before putting my mom’s car in the garage (it barely fits in the addition it’s parked in) when the delivery van pulled in. The driver was very cheerful and we chatted a bit about our issue with road names. Then he had to back his way out of the driveway, because with my mother’s car out, he didn’t have room to turn around in the snow.
Which was fine, right up until he had to stop at the end of the driveway to make sure the road was clear.
With how warm it was today, the rear tires sank right into the plow ridge and he got stuck!
Of course, we had snow shovels handy, but I ended up having to dig out the steel garden shovel again. The plastic snow shovel just couldn’t do the job there! Thankfully, he got out very quickly, though he joked about how common this actually is, with rural deliveries!
The delivery was the 14’x200′ (4.3mx30.5m) netting we ordered, to use as temporary critter fencing around our garden areas this year. We will be ordering a second one, probably next month, since we have so much area to cover. Plus, we’ll be cutting pieces to size to create covers for individual beds, too.
I’m quite happy to have our first roll in. Even if, for some reason, we can’t order a second one right away, it’s enough for us to put a perimeter around most areas we will be planting in. The only real concern is that, being just plastic netting, if the raccoons decide they want in, they can tear right through it.
I look forward to when we can build permanent protection for our garden beds!
I’m glad we did make the trip today, instead of putting it off again. Tomorrow, I’ll be dropping the van off to get the brakes tested, and to see what needs to be done next. With the rain today, it’s going to make roads slippery, but our area got snow (no matter what the weather apps said!), so the road to town should not be too bad. The day after tomorrow, we’re supposed to get even warmer, and get 10-15cm/4-6in of snow – or 5-10cm/2-4in, depending on which app I look at! Either way, it’s not a day I’d want to be driving to the city again. The less such trips, the happier I will be!
The Re-Farmer 